Dockless bicycle debacle.

[stewie griffin]

I'm in southern Spain most of the time in the Malaga area, recently local newspapers made a bit of a song & dance of the OFO dockless bike being introduced, in conjunction with local government eventually a total of 500 were to be available in the area for hire with smartphones.

I first saw one on it's stand on a pavement in a pretty unusual place, a day or two later I spotted one smashed to bit's in a hedge (which I reported to OFO via email) & the last one I saw was damaged being carried into the police station by a Policeman. I haven't seen one for the last month or more.

That lead me to have a quick look online to see if the local news sources had anything on what seems sadly like a failure of the scheme in this area, & it appears all is not what it seems with these companies globally, far from being "green" it looks as though especially in China they have been anything but.

I did search to see if a thread already existed o CC & found one titled "The Beauty of Dead Bikes", personally I find it a bit sickening, yet another example of a good idea being badly implemented by "big business".
Environmentally friendly , I don't think so!

One of a few stories in the media.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...e-graveyard-a-monument-to-industrys-arrogance

 

[stewie griffin]

Oops, sorry meant to put this in General cycling discussion............

 

[mjr]

Because there's no yards full of piles of decaying cars...? Or deserts with decaying planes parked up?

At least the bikes piles are smaller. It's great if his can be minimised, but it seems bizarre to flame the bike hire scheme for this while not mentioning any other modes of transport doing much worse.

 

[perplexed]

We've had them in Sheffield for a couple of months - there was the inevitable 'larks' to be had by some who put them in trees etc at first, but that seems to have calmed down now.

 

[LeetleGreyCells]

We've had them in Sheffield for a couple of months - there was the inevitable 'larks' to be had by some who put them in trees etc at first, but that seems to have calmed down now.

Eventually the novelty of something new wears off and becomes mundane. What once was novelty becomes part of the natural furniture. At least the ridiculous pranks end.

If, then, the bikes were to suddenly disappear, then people would notice. Only the users would be bothered, but generally people would notice after a while. But that’s people for you.

 

[trewlis]

I hope they do something about those discarded piles! Not environmental friendly to say the least....

 

[Saluki]

There are dockless bikes in Norwich. They appear to be relatively popular.

 

[mjr]

There are dockless bikes in Norwich. They appear to be relatively popular.

Discussed in https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/dockless-bike-scheme-comes-to-town.226011/

 

[Rickshaw Phil]

Oops, sorry meant to put this in General cycling discussion............

Sorted for you.

 

[mjr]

Wow. Look at These Astounding Photos of Abandoned Dockless Vehicles in America.

 

[stewie griffin]

Because there's no yards full of piles of decaying cars...? Or deserts with decaying planes parked up?

So it's justified because there are worse things? You can justify anything like that.

At least the bikes piles are smaller. It's great if his can be minimised, but it seems bizarre to flame the bike hire scheme for this while not mentioning any other modes of transport doing much worse.

Flame the bike hire scheme? You obviously ignored the bit where I called the failure of the scheme in this area as "sad" or the scheme being "a good idea"?

I'm all for schemes like this & am saddened that we have lowlifes who take some kind of delight in vandalising these bikes in this area, I bothered to report one.................

What is sickening is the image of how many (near new) bikes? 100,000? that will probably go into a land fill, or use a whole lot more energy than they have already used being recycled, & why?
I have been told (don't know if this is fact) that this heap was caused by a "battle" between different hire schemes to win the market share causing a flooding of the streets with hire bikes, ultimately ending with this huge surplus.
I stand by my "yet another example of a good idea being badly implemented by "big business" comment, & if you don't agree with that I don't know what else to say.

 

[Drago]

Or was it simp!y a bad idea for all the reasons you've just cited?

 

[confusedcyclist]

I don't know how these companies can be profitable if they are scrapping bikes in the 100,000s....

My best guess is venture capital investment firms are suckered into funding the bike fleets hoping they are on to the next big thing resulting in a boom of production which results in bikes stacked up on the pavements. Maybe they are not really scrapping that many bikes at all. From what I read about the Mobike scheme in Manchester, it has been a success, petty vandalism aside, so the issues pictured above are really localised to China where the scheme originated. Supply and demand will have been more carefully managed after those initial failures. As others have said, massive resource and energy wastage is a feature of our profit driven society, and these issues are not unique to the cycling industry. The companies offering these services are not in it for social good.