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Permalink Reply by Tony Adams on December 10, 2011 at 4:47am

That made me cry. Such an inspiration! thanks!

I know that the bike-share thing was only a tiny part of the whole message of the video, but it reminds me of my concern about our bike sharing program. Can anyone here point me to specific information about the actual bikes used by OV-Fiets? Specifically, are those bikes built in the Netherlands or at least in Europe? 

A municipality such as Chicago has a responsibility to promote and support domestic manufacturing and the bike sharing program is an ideal means to do that. So seeing this video makes me wonder if we are missing a huge opportunity to spur local or at least domestic manufacturing?

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Permalink Reply by Thunder Snow on December 10, 2011 at 5:17am

Great point, Tony.  I know many of us will be very disappointed if Chicago buys thousands of cheaply made Chinese bikes to share.  If you're going to the CDOT Open House in the Loop today (I plan to later this morning), you may want to register your concern and suggestion there, where it can get a hearing.
 
Tony Adams said:

I know that the bike-share thing...reminds me of my concern about our bike sharing program....A municipality such as Chicago has a responsibility to promote and support domestic manufacturing and the bike sharing program is an ideal means to do that. So seeing this video makes me wonder if we are missing a huge opportunity to spur local or at least domestic manufacturing?

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Permalink Reply by Thunder Snow on December 10, 2011 at 7:28am

I think the B-Cycles we've had for the past two years are Treks.  The short amount of time I've ridden them, they seemed heavy but fine for the purpose.  If Chicago enforces the $1000 replacement fee that B-Cycle now has, I would think it unlikely many of them will end up in the Chicago River or being ridden down the steps of the Art Institute.

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Permalink Reply by David on December 10, 2011 at 7:43am

That's my biggest fear here as well.   But Capital Bikeshare seems to be doing OK, so that makes me a little more optimistic.  Still, if the kids who show up in the yearly flash mob riots every spring decide that trashing bikeshare bikes is the thing to do this year, the system is screwed. 

I never quite understood the issue with rampant velib theft in Paris.  If people were checking out the bikes and not returning them, I would have thought the required credit card allowed them to recoup some costs.  Or were people stealing the bikes straight out of the racks?  I can't imagine anyone stealing a bike out of the Bixi racks, but Velib looked much more flimsy to me.   None of the many articles I read about velib theft talked about the mechanics of it, it was just stated that the theft rate was very high, especially in comparison with Lyon, etc.

Jeff Schneider said:

Of all the rental and shared bikes I've seen, the best are in the Bixi system in Montreal.  They are made in Quebec by Cycles DeVinci.  I'd be thrilled if we bought those.  They are just about indestructible, although they can still be vandalized or thrown in the river, as happened to a lot of the Velib bikes in Paris. That would be my main concern in Chicago (more than the design of the bike itself) - that biking is seen by some people as something for the affluent, something that normal people don't do.  So they'd trash the bikes just to annoy "The Man" a la the Paris experience.

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Permalink Reply by Duppie on December 10, 2011 at 11:39am

Thanks for posting that video.

I looked up OV Fiets, and it is really more like rental system than a bike share. i.e. you don't ride the bike from station to station, but instead return it where you rented it. They rent bikes, electric bikes and scooters.

What makes it neat is the intregration with OV Chip kaart. It is much like Chicago Card Plus, but this card is used for any kind of public transit (bus, train, metro), and soon bike rentals too.

Costs are about $ 4.50 per 24-hour. Also, when your bike does get stolen you have limited liability ($60), as long as you file a police report. Id you didn't file you pay for the entire bike ($350)

Old bikes are shipped to South Africa and re-used there.

And while I don't know where these specific bikes are made, I can say that there is very little bike manufacturing left in the Netherlands, especially at that pricepoint. It's mostly assembly of frames and parts imported from Asia.

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Permalink Reply by Thunder Snow on December 10, 2011 at 2:35pm

Thanks for the research, Duppie!

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Permalink Reply by Thunder Snow on December 11, 2011 at 7:19am

Some related video:

In Holland, everyone, from infants in cargo bike buckets to seniors with shopping bags, rides bikes. This video shows the range of ages of Dutch cyclists.  Hopefully, the streets of America may look a bit like this within our lifetimes.

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Thunder Snow on December 11, 2011 at 7:24am

And a companion piece to the original posting, showing the history of Dutch cycling in a bit more depth:

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