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One of the reasons I think people like the bike share programs. The bikes are burly and slow, but they get the maintenance they need where they usually don't en
by ogre_codes 7y ago
One of the reasons I think people like the bike share programs. The bikes are burly and slow, but they get the maintenance they need where they usually don't end up truly horrible.
- dmoy 7y agoI guess this depends on the bike share program. I've definitely ridden my share of bike share bikes that were in very bad shape (and I have a fairly high tolerance for junkers). The bike share program in question shut down and isn't available in my area anymore, so maybe that was just because they were cutting back.
- dmurray 7y agoThe docked bikes in my city have way better build quality and maintenance standards than the undocked ones. They're both heavy but the undocked ones have chains falling off, broken shifters, etc. I expect it makes sense that these get less investment as they are easier to steal.
- loeg 7y agoIn my experience they mostly don't get maintenance; they're just built extremely cheaply and treated as disposable. Various parts that are easy to break (derailleurs) are elided by using Internally-Geared Hubs (IGH). The wheels are non-pneumatic and just a solid piece of rubber, so they never go flat.
- lostlogin 7y ago> Internally-Geared Hubs (IGH) Just so good. I wish they had more gears. My older one has 8, and I see more on newer ones but not a lot.
- akgerber 7y agoDockless bikeshare bikes are often built as you describe. Docked bikeshare (as mostly operated by Lyft in the US, formerly Motivate/Alta) generally uses bikes built similarly to high-quality Dutch city bikes and maintains them.
- loeg 7y agoDocked bikeshare is pretty useless in my experience, so despite the lower quality bikes I prefer the dockless model.