Bicycles return to Beijing ... and it gets odd!

[shadowmouse]

The article is a bit long, so here's an excerpt with one of the pics.

China's increasingly crowded bike-sharing market has a new entrant that hopes to distinguish itself with its smart technology as well as its eyecatching appearance.

Bike-sharing company Coolqi has cooperated with Haier Wireless to introduce glittering, gold-colored bikes in Beijing and 50 other Chinese cities that include Hangzhou and Taiyuan.

Full article: https://www.thebeijinger.com/blog/20...ed-share-bikes



Let me break this into two parts:

1) What do you think of the Coolqi bikes that are the subject of the article? There are some interesting features, but I'm not sure I could endure the indignity of riding something that pretentiously gaudy!

2) Recently, Chinese cities have been covered up with various rental bikes. They are so darned convenient that I even make myself totter along on them. In Beijing, for example, roads are a mess and it is increasingly difficult to even get a license plate. I recall once reading that the average speed of traffic was something like 7 miles per hour. But as the article also notes:

We admit that these sharebikes look very impressive. And yet, sharebikes in China have a way of ending up in less than dignified situations

Would something like this be useful to you? Just as an example, we have a ton of them on campus. They are unlocked and rented by using a phone app, and for short rides the fee is nominal or non existent. Find one (they are usually located by phone app too), use the app to unlock it, ride it, drop it off pretty much anywhere -- no special racks involved for most services. See also: http://www.thestar.com.my/opinion/co...-again-thanks/

Edit: In light of @Hooked 's comment, here is a follow up on just how many bikes are involved, and how evolving problems are being addressed.

There were 18.9 million users of shared bicycles nationwide at the end of 2016. The number is expected to hit 50 million by the end of this year, according to the China E-Commerce Research Center.

However, haphazard parking has caused problems, blocking traffic and tarnishing the image of a number of cities.

Source: https://www.ecns.cn/2017/06-09/260765.shtml (Beijing to use e-fences to tackle haphazard shared-bike parking)

[Hooked]

WOW, that's a lot of bikes.

[XDurionX]

WOW, that's a lot of bikes.

[belfpala]

We have a bike sharing system here. It's linked with the rest of our public transit, so for example, your bus card can get you a bike, and transfers from buses also can get you a bike. There's also an app. People seem to use them a lot, at least downtown. I haven't yet, as I usually walk or am carrying too much and drive.

[Hooked]

I wonder why so many bikes are just thrown on top of each other, that looks like a police impound yard for bikes. I have never seen so many bikes in any picture before, plus they are all same, no individuality or choice.

[Ave07]

Apparently it's a huge problem in China according to this guy.

People just leave the bikes lying around every where some places has banned rental bikes.

[shadowmouse]

plus they are all same, no individuality or choice.

Those are all from one service, my guess would be Ofo. Yep, Ofo. The same picture shows up in another article with a caption:

A worker from the bike share company Ofo puts a damaged bike on a pile at a makeshift repair depot for the company where thousands of derelict bikes are being kept after coming off the road on March 29, 2017 in Beijing, China.

The article itself is mildly interesting: Chinese bike-sharing start-up Ofo says it's now worth more than $2 billion

CEO Dai Wei, a 26-year-old entrepreneur who named his firm Ofo as the letters look like a bike, revealed that figure in a conversation with CNBC. It's about double the last reports of the company's value — which came out less than two months ago.

Such a valuation isn't too shabby for a company that started about two years ago with its founders pooling private savings of 150,000 yuan ($21,800) to kick things off.

Dai, for his part, is unfussed about the value of his Beijing-based firm. He even seems unaware of how astonishing it is to reach that figure for a firm that's so young. What's important to him, he said, is what Ofo can do for consumers.

Source: http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/17/ofo-c...2-billion.html

That's a CNBC article, so I'm reading that as two billion USD, particularly since the article converts RMB to USD in another section.

Further into the article:

Ofo's success has even attracted the attentions of Apple's Tim Cook. The tech CEO visited the company's offices on a recent visit to Beijing, after the bike app became the most popular on Apple's China app store, boasting over half a million downloads a day.

But the quick uptake has given way to yet another problem: The bikes are now polluting the public square, with mangled two-wheelers piled high on some sidewalks.

There, a better look at the variety of ride share bikes. Unfortunately the article with those pictures is talking about those piles of mangled bikes.

Companies such as Ofo and Mobike, with their rival fleets of vibrant yellow and fluorescent orange bikes, have been locked in a cut-throat battle for customers.

But problems have arisen when clients have abandoned their cycles.

“Some people these days just have really bad character,” a man named He, who lives near where the stacks appeared, told the media.

“When they’re done using [the bike] they just throw it away somewhere, because they’ve already paid.”

In the past few days he witnessed people demolishing the bikes before discarding them on the side of the road, he said.

Residents told the media that bikes had been piling up over the past week, either parked haphazardly by careless users or stacked by local security guards trying to clear narrow residential alleys and footpaths.

Source: http://capovelo.com/hundreds-bike-sh...hinese-cities/

[Thoughtful Trolli]

i was gonna say it's a great idea but then I imagine those being rusty spikepiles hoarding spiders and wasps 5 years from now.

[Pickynerd]

More trash for the landfill named China.

(Infracted)

[Fencers]

How is that bicycles are not broken seemingly piled haphazardly in that manner?

When I was in China there were bicycles everywhere but I never saw them in great mounds such as in these photos.

[Video Games]

We have nike share bikes here in portland. They seem well taken care of, but maybe people steal them. I'm too scared to ride a bike though :S

[shadowmouse]

How is that bicycles are not broken seemingly piled haphazardly in that manner?

The yellow bikes in the first picture are up for repairs according the the caption I found in another article.

A worker from the bike share company Ofo puts a damaged bike on a pile at a makeshift repair depot for the company where thousands of derelict bikes are being kept after coming off the road on March 29, 2017 in Beijing, China.

See above

The other bikes are said to have been tossed in a pile in an effort to control abandoned and possibly damaged bike share bikes.

Residents told the media that bikes had been piling up over the past week, either parked haphazardly by careless users or stacked by local security guards trying to clear narrow residential alleys and footpaths.

See above

[ifrah]

The idea is indeed a good one in those bike sharings, but if you just stop for a second and look how the Chinese work as a whole, it's hardly a surprise to anyone that it ends up being just a massive pile of trash.

[GennGreymane]

WOW, that's a lot of bikes.

I was literally about to type that.

[Allybeboba]

Note, the lack of safety equipment on those bikes.

I guess they are one size fits all too.

[shadowmouse]

I guess they are one size fits all too.

Nope, they are adjustable. The Ofo ones I've used are adjustable for height and seat angle. The ones in the initial article get fancier:

The 3.0 version of Coolqi's sharebike also features voice recognition for bicycle locking as well as a bicycle seat that can be adjusted just by inputting your height into the company's bike-sharing app.

Note, the lack of safety equipment on those bikes.

I can't speak for every service. Ofo bikes usually have front and rear reflectors, as well as reflectors mounted in the spokes. I sometimes see them without a front reflector, but I've never seen an undamaged one that did not have at least the rear reflector and the ones in the spokes.

The bell isn't visible, but it rings clearly and is triggered by a mild rotation of the right hand grip. Some models do have a more standard bell, and there may or may not be a basket at the front of the bike.

[Allybeboba]

I think a read an article somewhere there are more bicycles in Netherlands than people. And that they have a serious bike overpopulation "problem".