I spent some time learning the creative thinking process from an IDEO employee/teacher while in school. One of the early steps is defining your problem by interviewing consumers, which seems like where the misstep occurred. Being an avid cyclist with nearly no friends who bike, I've seen that they are not intimidated by "technology".
They are afraid of looking like an idiot. If they ride with me I look really cool with a slick bike and low profile gear, while they are riding a walmart bike in baggy shorts with a dumb helmet, while visible to hundreds of people in cars.
IMO the solution is not a new bike - its better group rides. Most people don't show up to the gym and start working out on their own, they take a class at a gym with gear and other noobs. I believe the best way to get people off the couch and biking is letting them go to a gym, with a bunch of noobs, and ride bikes together. Don't spend $400+, spend $75/mo. (A bike is maybe ~70% of the total cost of bike gear).
I have a ton of cool resources from IDEO (now quite a few years old) and the creative thinking/ideation process, I can post them here if desired.
For those misunderstanding my example: The difference is looking like you know what you're doing, and looking like you have no idea what you're doing. Regardless of the situation (biking, at work, or talking to women at bars) not knowing what you're doing and having that be publicly visible can be a huge hurdle to overcome.
Dutch person here. The thing you foreigners don't get is that cycling shouldn't be regarded as a sport. All your problems with cycling stem from that misconception.
I worked at bike shops for several years in college. We'd sometimes get the customers who would ask, how is this bike worth $X more than a bike I can get at Walmart? All you'd have to do is get them on the bike for a test ride. The difference is night and day. Given that, I feel like the goal of the Coast project wasn't necessarily to increase ridership, but to increase profits margins with a clever doo-dad.
There's always been a lot of hand wringing by cycling enthusiasts in the US about increasing ridership, and being more approachable, better group rides may be one way to do it. There are a lot of obstacles here; road conditions (potholes), hilly in a lot of areas (it does not take a steep or long grade to flummux a introductory or casual rider!), but at the end of the day, cycling is just dangerous. American car culture is not friendly to anything else being on the road (talk to motorcyclists for example!). When I think back on some of the close calls I had, and accidents my friends had simply riding around, I'm kind of amazed I was ever that fearless.
There is a large trend growing in the cycling world that is focused on the non-competitive aspect of cycling. As someone who used to be a somewhat competitive cyclist I have fully adapted to this trend because it is probably the coolest and most wholesome trend I have ever experienced. Even the big manufacturers are trying to catch up.
Bikes can get you to work, to the store, to a camp site, around the park, whatever. Cheaper, cleaner, and more fun than cars at the same time.
Increasing ridership can come from tech but I think it’s much more likely to come from better and more bike-centric infrastructure and norms. Separated bike paths, bike storage, showers at offices/work, etc would all make it much more likely for someone to decide to bike.
We could tell people: Decide to bike and save money. Decide to bike and save health. Decide to bike and save the environment.
We can tell people those reasons now but there is still a huge hurdle, and it has nothing to do with the bikes or technology. What if all bike companies (and component manufacturers like Shimano) spent all their R&D budgets on education and lobbying instead of better technology? That might work. Is any one company big enough to make a difference if it went at it alone? Probably not.
I don’t look forward to environmental catastrophe but I do think it could help move cycling into more of a mainstream solution. Then perhaps we could have the will to tackle some of the infrastructure and norm issues that keep cycling a hobby at best.
> What if all bike companies (and component manufacturers like Shimano) spent all their R&D budgets on education and lobbying instead of better technology?
The R&D budget of the entire bike industry is not going to move this needle.
What has moved this needle is the fact that automotive infrastructure has become a huge obstacle to growth in big cities. Most big cities cannot increase road infrastructure to support growth so they are more or less forced to support denser forms of transportation like cycling or stop growing.
Having to constantly switch between pushing along sidewalk and waiting ages for pedestrian lights, dealing with broken road sensors where I had to wait for a car to come behind me and "rescue" me so the light to turn green, having to go back and forth in zig zag patterns while cars got a nice direct road (not fair) -- all that made be not want to bike, especially in the heat or rain.
Seriously, get rid of ALL parking on El Camino Real. It's mind-bogglingly stupid to have parking on a major road. Turn the remaining space into a separated bike lane.
Or just mark off 1 out of the 3 lanes on El Camino Real as a wide bike lane. Our governments are just too chicken to do that.
I made a pretty concerted effort to bike (I used to bike to public transit every day at an old job and loved it).
At my current job I'd have to go through a very loud car tunnel without enough space for bikes. I've tried it a few times - just not workable. You have to ask - is this commitment worth dying over? Having your lungs filled with crap from being in an enclosed space with cars? Having your hearing killed.
So making the environment support biking would be great.
All the things you list are accurate... Also, more 20mph speed limits on urban routes useful to cyclists. Cheap and effective for creating a more cycling friendly environment.
Full agreement about how to increase ridership. I've been lucky enough to work somewhere with good storage, power for charging¹, great security and that really changes the dynamic for cycling to work.
Re: showers at work. I've been wondering what is going to happen to cycling to the office once people start going back en masse.
For example, the shower unit at our office has only been available to people who work in the clean room environment since March, and I just can't see how we go back to common use in the foreseeable future.
And frankly, if people start going back to full-time without showers I'd probably like to see cycling use drop(or at least for people like me who tend to arrive lycra'd up on a road bike).
¹ Ridiculously that seems to include lights, computers, Garmin Varia, gears, etc at this point.
Decide to bike to save time and not have to park one of the most compeling reasons to bike over driving. Luckily I was living in boulder where biking to the main street was faster and easier than driving.
Thanks, although I am hobbyist bike mechanic, I never heard of Coasting before. Frankly, doesn't sound very attractive - a complicated (proprietary) automatic gear system relying on functioning (proprietary) front hub dynamo... All that to address a practically non-existing problem: no one really has a problem learning how to use bicycle gears.
Automatic shifting on bike is not a good idea. While people are terrible at shifting at first, they can learn to get better. Automatic shifting never improves.
It's meant to be simple, but basic maintainability is a nightmare. Changing a tire requires 3 tools and about 10 steps just to pull the tire off. Thats bonkers. Pretty much eliminates any chance of roadside tire fixes.
It was very surprising to see them discuss for so long without even mentioning what it the system is. Maybe shifting gears based on speed is simply a bad idea?
I think one think urban planners [and HNers] get wrong about bike usage is bike lanes and mixing bikes with cars. That works in overcrowded coastal cities, but for the vast majority of the country, a different approach is likely optimal.
Bentonville, AR I think has cracked the puzzle. They built mountain bike trails... literally everywhere. You're hanging out with your buddies north of town and want to grab a pizza for lunch? Awesome, hit this rad piece of singeltrack and shred your way to to za and beer. They even replaced a bunch of sidewalks with singletrack. This is not only better for the environment (it's literally just tamped dirt), but easier to maintain (a tamping machine and water truck vs a fossil fuel burning asphalt paver).
Another success that's been less explosive, but worthy mention is streamway buffer trails. Rather than tossing bikes into traffic, which intimidates casual riders, and probably isn't safe where bike culture isn't a thing... municipalities put asphalt trails next to watersheds that need erosion control. The benefit is two fold, a shorcut throughway that's dedicated for pedestrian and bike traffic, plus civil engineers can use the bike pathway itself as a durable flood zone.
this sounds amazing. I love to bicycle and want to bike everywhere in my city, but it's too nerve wracking, noisy and unpleasant sharing the road with cars, even when the bike lane is separated.
Portland is supposed to be one of the most bike-friendly cities in the United States. What the city has done is paint bike outlines on streets that are supposed to be mostly for bikes.
It's supposed to be about every 10 blocks north-south and much further apart east-west. Downtown for most of the city is west. Every few streets there might be something that blocks cars (signage or physical barriers) or is supposed to slow them down (bumps, planters in the center of an intersection).
One problem is that they're not dedicated to bikes. So you're sharing the street with other cars. And it's gotten worse because the city is cutting 4-lane feeder streets down to 2 lanes. They call it "traffic calming", which is not what most people would call it. So frustrated drivers are moving over to residential streets and zooming down them as fast as they can.
It really seems like a lost opportunity to take the extra lanes and make them dedicated bike lanes. Have bollards in them that prevent cars from using them.
One of our local major surface streets went through this, but it was sold as helping make it more of a trendy shopping/market street.
4 lanes (2+2) reduced to 3 (1+1+turning).
People have been fawning over the proposal for years, and are only now realizing what a disaster it is.
And the businesses that thought they were getting a boost, end up with traffic counts cut by more than half, since people now avoid the purposely created congestion.
I had an internal geared hub (IGH) bike with a coaster brake and it was a blast to ride with almost zero maintenance. Even as an enthusiast that likes doing maintenance, it was nice to have that bike.
I’m an advocate for IGH and drum or coaster brakes for casual commuter riders. Belt drives are nice too. These things have more drag than a derailleur and disc or caliper brakes, but this is offset by the maintenance aspect. What people don’t often realize is that IGH can have very wide gearing. A 3 or 7 speed IGH can have as wide gearing as a 24 speed, just with fewer gears in between and fewer gear combinations that are virtually the same. Another nice feature is you can change gears when stopped.
On the other hand, what seems to sell in North America is crappy bikes with full suspension and maximum number of gears.
In this case, Shimano should have simply sold the public on IGH and other existing low maintenance features, and got people on test rides. The automated shifting part seems useless and annoying. The real benefit is having fewer gears and one rather than 2 places to change the gear which is much simpler to manage. Actually IGH can’t shift smoothly under load so I can only imagine this automated system would feel clunky whenever you’re trying to accelerate or ride uphill.
> On the other hand, what seems to sell in North America is crappy bikes with full suspension and maximum number of gears.
Part of that problem is there's a certain cost floor to Derailleur based drivetrains versus Internally geared hubs, and when you're an ODM mass producing you're at a whole different level of price structure.
> Actually IGH can’t shift smoothly under load
Ehhhhh..... So The Nexus 8 speed will upshift under load OK, but downshift you typically will have to pause pedaling for at least a moment for the shift to complete. I had one on a tandem at one point and even with two experienced riders it could do the upshifts fine. I think? some other IGH manufacturers have/had models that could shift in both directions fine, but they were very expensive models.
From my time slinging bikes (which was around when Shimano kicked off their 'Coasting' program,) where Shimano missed the boat was they didn't offer a 5 or 7 speed with shifting capabilities close enough to the Nexus 8. That would have been enough for everyone to be happy.
As an aside, It's fun to see all the different kinds of shifters Shimano cooked up for their IGHs over the years to sell people on them...
I'm still not sold on Drum brakes, in any case, but I'm also a Mechancial Disc zealot FWIW.
* I bought a bike during the existence of these things and never knew they existed (and I'm casual enough that my bike has a cupholder).
* I'm certainly interested in less maintenance but have no interest in losing handbrakes, and if I did, would probably prefer fixie over coaster-esque.
* Seat storage seems neat, but bike seats are very finicky person to person in terms of circulation, numb feet/toes, etc.
* In my view single shifter is great and newer style single sprocket stacks that do 5 to 15 speeds off one shifter are where it's at.
* I suspect if there were good (in same price bracket) disk brake options on very upright riding stance bikes people who tried would like.
* A better default derailleur + shifter is probably an improvement casual bikers don't realize they'd love, but have no basis for ever getting.
* Casual bikers need at least one very low gear because we find hills miserable.
* Storage options can really make a bike for a casual rider, but they're less obvious to figure out than ideal.
* It confuses me that these would win design awards.
The core thesis behind the program is exciting. The bike industry in America exists primarily serve a relatively small group of enthusiasts, but it doesn't have to.
There's no equivalent to the Dutch department store bikes that, if memory serves correctly, were cheap but simple, low-maintenance, and better outfitted for casual riding (fenders, a light, a lock).
As the article suggests, I suspect it's more a problem of distribution. If IDEO suggested a $500 bike to be sold to casual riders at their local bike shop, well, that already exists. What doesn't exist (but could?) is a $275 steel three-speed at Walmart that's less performance-oriented than a $500 Trek but more practical than a beach cruiser.
There are a number of problems for biking in the US, but first among them is we don't have separate bike paths. All the other problems like showers at work, rampant bike theft even from secure storage behind multiple keyed doors at fancy tech companies, excessive spandex are secondary.
Cycling as an activity has gone way upmarket in the last 30 years, as there aren't many new people in the sport and the main demographic is wealth older guys who spend obscene money on bikes.
The classic case is "Fat bikes", which were the unexpected success story a few years ago, and took over the industry by storm. All the sudden a ton of guys are getting another $4k bike, and people like me who always bought used aluminum or steel frames for racing (won't explode like carbon- have seen this happen multiple times, won't cost much to replace). The number of wealthy men in their 50s I know with $20+k of bikes is amazing. Sure, it's better than buying a fancy car, but it's a change from when I was a kid and most guys just had their commuter bike and road bike.
>>>>> There's no equivalent to the Dutch department store bikes that, if memory serves correctly, were cheap but simple, low-maintenance, and better outfitted for casual riding (fenders, a light, a lock).
Schwinn made such bikes for decades. Folks stopped buying them.
I agree. It almost seems like Shimano was trying to get all the benefits of a single speed (low maintenance, reliable, zero-though when riding), but with gears.
Single speeds are amazingly cheap, simple, near-zero maintenance.. but are not good for casual riders unless your city/metro is very flat.
A good approximation of the geographic similarity between the Netherlands and US is the degree to which Baghdad is considered in the Geography of the Netherlands. At least insofar as Alaska and Hawaii are ignored.
The UN member state equivalence abstraction does not shrink the practical differences in physical reality. Dutch transport infrastructure is built to a much smaller scale because that’s what’s politically warranted. It can ignore problems of the Alps, Caucuses, and Balkins.
I don't think a lot of people in the cycling industry are surprised this failed. While design is important, people with money want bikes that have good performance and are light weight. Bling is great, I take pride in my bike... but none of the components I have on my bike are heavier than their more bland looking counterparts. I'll accept half a pound for better suspension, but for a nice looking chain guard? Not a chance.
On high end bikes, bling comes in the form of Anodized aluminum (or titanium), sexy colorful carbon fiber frames, colorful paint, or other parts that are colorful or polished without adding weight.
Performance->Weight->Bling in that order. Looks like Shimano's Coasting program skipped steps 1 and 2 and skipped to Bling.
That's because they were trying to appeal to a completely different audience who doesn't see things that way. From the article, they were trying to focus on ease of use, which many current non-cyclists cited as an important factor.
I don’t get the drama. Coaster brake, shielded chain and automatic transmission are extremely common in the cycle-friendly parts of Europe. Though they are now being quickly replaced by electric.
Interesting to note this write up is from 2010. Today internal shifting is much more commonplace - nearly every single e-bike and bike rental (jump bike/etc) have internal shifters, though they aren't automatic.
I thought that was primarily a marketing campaign for ergonomic saddles. I know a lot of people who bike, and there are no lack of children, wanted or unwanted. The only men I know lacking in the swimmer department would be served by more exercising.
soared|5 years ago
They are afraid of looking like an idiot. If they ride with me I look really cool with a slick bike and low profile gear, while they are riding a walmart bike in baggy shorts with a dumb helmet, while visible to hundreds of people in cars.
IMO the solution is not a new bike - its better group rides. Most people don't show up to the gym and start working out on their own, they take a class at a gym with gear and other noobs. I believe the best way to get people off the couch and biking is letting them go to a gym, with a bunch of noobs, and ride bikes together. Don't spend $400+, spend $75/mo. (A bike is maybe ~70% of the total cost of bike gear).
I have a ton of cool resources from IDEO (now quite a few years old) and the creative thinking/ideation process, I can post them here if desired.
For those misunderstanding my example: The difference is looking like you know what you're doing, and looking like you have no idea what you're doing. Regardless of the situation (biking, at work, or talking to women at bars) not knowing what you're doing and having that be publicly visible can be a huge hurdle to overcome.
brnt|5 years ago
marktangotango|5 years ago
There's always been a lot of hand wringing by cycling enthusiasts in the US about increasing ridership, and being more approachable, better group rides may be one way to do it. There are a lot of obstacles here; road conditions (potholes), hilly in a lot of areas (it does not take a steep or long grade to flummux a introductory or casual rider!), but at the end of the day, cycling is just dangerous. American car culture is not friendly to anything else being on the road (talk to motorcyclists for example!). When I think back on some of the close calls I had, and accidents my friends had simply riding around, I'm kind of amazed I was ever that fearless.
maxerickson|5 years ago
Or rather, only people that own low profile bike clothing think it is cool.
https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2015/11/13
tjr225|5 years ago
Bikes can get you to work, to the store, to a camp site, around the park, whatever. Cheaper, cleaner, and more fun than cars at the same time.
EpicEng|5 years ago
No one aside from you and other people who wear that unnecessary gear think it looks cool. Sorry.
I don't imagine this is why your friends won't ride with you.
IfOnlyYouKnew|5 years ago
And if it's the helmet, bike, and shorts that are so embarrassing (they are not): how is going to a gym going to change that?
redelbee|5 years ago
We could tell people: Decide to bike and save money. Decide to bike and save health. Decide to bike and save the environment.
We can tell people those reasons now but there is still a huge hurdle, and it has nothing to do with the bikes or technology. What if all bike companies (and component manufacturers like Shimano) spent all their R&D budgets on education and lobbying instead of better technology? That might work. Is any one company big enough to make a difference if it went at it alone? Probably not.
I don’t look forward to environmental catastrophe but I do think it could help move cycling into more of a mainstream solution. Then perhaps we could have the will to tackle some of the infrastructure and norm issues that keep cycling a hobby at best.
ogre_codes|5 years ago
> What if all bike companies (and component manufacturers like Shimano) spent all their R&D budgets on education and lobbying instead of better technology?
The R&D budget of the entire bike industry is not going to move this needle.
What has moved this needle is the fact that automotive infrastructure has become a huge obstacle to growth in big cities. Most big cities cannot increase road infrastructure to support growth so they are more or less forced to support denser forms of transportation like cycling or stop growing.
The other big thing is eBikes.
dheera|5 years ago
My old bike commute in the Bay Area involved stupid shit like this:
https://i.imgur.com/YajWMoY.png
Having to constantly switch between pushing along sidewalk and waiting ages for pedestrian lights, dealing with broken road sensors where I had to wait for a car to come behind me and "rescue" me so the light to turn green, having to go back and forth in zig zag patterns while cars got a nice direct road (not fair) -- all that made be not want to bike, especially in the heat or rain.
Seriously, get rid of ALL parking on El Camino Real. It's mind-bogglingly stupid to have parking on a major road. Turn the remaining space into a separated bike lane.
Or just mark off 1 out of the 3 lanes on El Camino Real as a wide bike lane. Our governments are just too chicken to do that.
random5634|5 years ago
At my current job I'd have to go through a very loud car tunnel without enough space for bikes. I've tried it a few times - just not workable. You have to ask - is this commitment worth dying over? Having your lungs filled with crap from being in an enclosed space with cars? Having your hearing killed.
So making the environment support biking would be great.
sideshowb|5 years ago
JNRowe|5 years ago
Re: showers at work. I've been wondering what is going to happen to cycling to the office once people start going back en masse.
For example, the shower unit at our office has only been available to people who work in the clean room environment since March, and I just can't see how we go back to common use in the foreseeable future.
And frankly, if people start going back to full-time without showers I'd probably like to see cycling use drop(or at least for people like me who tend to arrive lycra'd up on a road bike).
¹ Ridiculously that seems to include lights, computers, Garmin Varia, gears, etc at this point.
scsilver|5 years ago
brudgers|5 years ago
jablan|5 years ago
ogre_codes|5 years ago
Automatic shifting on bike is not a good idea. While people are terrible at shifting at first, they can learn to get better. Automatic shifting never improves.
It's meant to be simple, but basic maintainability is a nightmare. Changing a tire requires 3 tools and about 10 steps just to pull the tire off. Thats bonkers. Pretty much eliminates any chance of roadside tire fixes.
im3w1l|5 years ago
exabrial|5 years ago
Bentonville, AR I think has cracked the puzzle. They built mountain bike trails... literally everywhere. You're hanging out with your buddies north of town and want to grab a pizza for lunch? Awesome, hit this rad piece of singeltrack and shred your way to to za and beer. They even replaced a bunch of sidewalks with singletrack. This is not only better for the environment (it's literally just tamped dirt), but easier to maintain (a tamping machine and water truck vs a fossil fuel burning asphalt paver).
Another success that's been less explosive, but worthy mention is streamway buffer trails. Rather than tossing bikes into traffic, which intimidates casual riders, and probably isn't safe where bike culture isn't a thing... municipalities put asphalt trails next to watersheds that need erosion control. The benefit is two fold, a shorcut throughway that's dedicated for pedestrian and bike traffic, plus civil engineers can use the bike pathway itself as a durable flood zone.
martyvis|5 years ago
saagarjha|5 years ago
fnord77|5 years ago
jdeibele|5 years ago
It's supposed to be about every 10 blocks north-south and much further apart east-west. Downtown for most of the city is west. Every few streets there might be something that blocks cars (signage or physical barriers) or is supposed to slow them down (bumps, planters in the center of an intersection).
One problem is that they're not dedicated to bikes. So you're sharing the street with other cars. And it's gotten worse because the city is cutting 4-lane feeder streets down to 2 lanes. They call it "traffic calming", which is not what most people would call it. So frustrated drivers are moving over to residential streets and zooming down them as fast as they can.
It really seems like a lost opportunity to take the extra lanes and make them dedicated bike lanes. Have bollards in them that prevent cars from using them.
beerandt|5 years ago
4 lanes (2+2) reduced to 3 (1+1+turning).
People have been fawning over the proposal for years, and are only now realizing what a disaster it is.
And the businesses that thought they were getting a boost, end up with traffic counts cut by more than half, since people now avoid the purposely created congestion.
johnwalkr|5 years ago
I’m an advocate for IGH and drum or coaster brakes for casual commuter riders. Belt drives are nice too. These things have more drag than a derailleur and disc or caliper brakes, but this is offset by the maintenance aspect. What people don’t often realize is that IGH can have very wide gearing. A 3 or 7 speed IGH can have as wide gearing as a 24 speed, just with fewer gears in between and fewer gear combinations that are virtually the same. Another nice feature is you can change gears when stopped.
On the other hand, what seems to sell in North America is crappy bikes with full suspension and maximum number of gears.
In this case, Shimano should have simply sold the public on IGH and other existing low maintenance features, and got people on test rides. The automated shifting part seems useless and annoying. The real benefit is having fewer gears and one rather than 2 places to change the gear which is much simpler to manage. Actually IGH can’t shift smoothly under load so I can only imagine this automated system would feel clunky whenever you’re trying to accelerate or ride uphill.
to11mtm|5 years ago
Part of that problem is there's a certain cost floor to Derailleur based drivetrains versus Internally geared hubs, and when you're an ODM mass producing you're at a whole different level of price structure.
> Actually IGH can’t shift smoothly under load
Ehhhhh..... So The Nexus 8 speed will upshift under load OK, but downshift you typically will have to pause pedaling for at least a moment for the shift to complete. I had one on a tandem at one point and even with two experienced riders it could do the upshifts fine. I think? some other IGH manufacturers have/had models that could shift in both directions fine, but they were very expensive models.
From my time slinging bikes (which was around when Shimano kicked off their 'Coasting' program,) where Shimano missed the boat was they didn't offer a 5 or 7 speed with shifting capabilities close enough to the Nexus 8. That would have been enough for everyone to be happy.
As an aside, It's fun to see all the different kinds of shifters Shimano cooked up for their IGHs over the years to sell people on them...
I'm still not sold on Drum brakes, in any case, but I'm also a Mechancial Disc zealot FWIW.
Glyptodon|5 years ago
* I bought a bike during the existence of these things and never knew they existed (and I'm casual enough that my bike has a cupholder).
* I'm certainly interested in less maintenance but have no interest in losing handbrakes, and if I did, would probably prefer fixie over coaster-esque.
* Seat storage seems neat, but bike seats are very finicky person to person in terms of circulation, numb feet/toes, etc.
* In my view single shifter is great and newer style single sprocket stacks that do 5 to 15 speeds off one shifter are where it's at.
* I suspect if there were good (in same price bracket) disk brake options on very upright riding stance bikes people who tried would like.
* A better default derailleur + shifter is probably an improvement casual bikers don't realize they'd love, but have no basis for ever getting.
* Casual bikers need at least one very low gear because we find hills miserable.
* Storage options can really make a bike for a casual rider, but they're less obvious to figure out than ideal.
* It confuses me that these would win design awards.
VectorLock|5 years ago
Perhaps this was largely a failure of marketing.
zachrose|5 years ago
There's no equivalent to the Dutch department store bikes that, if memory serves correctly, were cheap but simple, low-maintenance, and better outfitted for casual riding (fenders, a light, a lock).
As the article suggests, I suspect it's more a problem of distribution. If IDEO suggested a $500 bike to be sold to casual riders at their local bike shop, well, that already exists. What doesn't exist (but could?) is a $275 steel three-speed at Walmart that's less performance-oriented than a $500 Trek but more practical than a beach cruiser.
medium_burrito|5 years ago
Cycling as an activity has gone way upmarket in the last 30 years, as there aren't many new people in the sport and the main demographic is wealth older guys who spend obscene money on bikes.
The classic case is "Fat bikes", which were the unexpected success story a few years ago, and took over the industry by storm. All the sudden a ton of guys are getting another $4k bike, and people like me who always bought used aluminum or steel frames for racing (won't explode like carbon- have seen this happen multiple times, won't cost much to replace). The number of wealthy men in their 50s I know with $20+k of bikes is amazing. Sure, it's better than buying a fancy car, but it's a change from when I was a kid and most guys just had their commuter bike and road bike.
analog31|5 years ago
Schwinn made such bikes for decades. Folks stopped buying them.
soared|5 years ago
Single speeds are amazingly cheap, simple, near-zero maintenance.. but are not good for casual riders unless your city/metro is very flat.
brudgers|5 years ago
The UN member state equivalence abstraction does not shrink the practical differences in physical reality. Dutch transport infrastructure is built to a much smaller scale because that’s what’s politically warranted. It can ignore problems of the Alps, Caucuses, and Balkins.
ogre_codes|5 years ago
On high end bikes, bling comes in the form of Anodized aluminum (or titanium), sexy colorful carbon fiber frames, colorful paint, or other parts that are colorful or polished without adding weight.
Performance->Weight->Bling in that order. Looks like Shimano's Coasting program skipped steps 1 and 2 and skipped to Bling.
chromaton|5 years ago
jiofih|5 years ago
unknown|5 years ago
[deleted]
soared|5 years ago
moron4hire|5 years ago
Quite the funny typo, considering what long-term bicycling can do to male fertility.
medium_burrito|5 years ago