Dockless Bikeshare – The Dockpocalypse Nears

[huskerdont]

If you don’t follow the POPville, there’s this:

https://www.popville.com/2017/10/dockless-bikeshare-doldrums/

and this:

https://www.popville.com/2017/10/whered-you-find-a-dockless-bike-today-vol-5-and-6-bent-wheel-editions/

The world is truly too foul to have nice things (if you consider these nice).

[mstone]

I think it’s pretty clear that nobody could have forseen this.

[skins_brew]

Less and less sympathy for CaBi this week. I have been met with full docks at Union station in the PM, and empty docks in the morning.

I welcome the dockless bikes. Maybe CaBi needs some motivation to start providing better service.

Not a bike in sight this morning!
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[ginacico]

In case you’re not keeping up or weren’t in the city yesterday, yellow ofo (lowercase) bikes have now joined the dockless bikeshare fray for a total of FIVE companies piloting programs in DC.

ofo held a little reception in Dupont Circle. Riding one of their yellow bikes to the party didn’t earn me any extra swag, but I drank the free lemonade and gave them some vital feedback. Their bikes have 3 gears suitable for urban biking, but the seatpost was actually too short for me (I ride a 54, and my knees were complaining).

The biggest glitch was that their app didn’t map my ride correctly, instead it appeared that I rode a very straight line across the North Atlantic. Now that’s worth a free drink!

Takes all of 5 minutes to download the app, set up an account, and go. Free through the end of October.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]15565[/ATTACH]

ofo scattered 400 bikes in the business district. Four were outside Farragut North.
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Impressive ocean traverse.
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A rainbow at Dupont Circle metro.
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[huskerdont]

It also appears to have tossed you on your head, but at least you’re still smiling.

The most interesting fate of a dockless bikeshare I’ve seen so far.

https://www.popville.com/2017/10/the-early-word-on-dc-dockless-bikeshare/

[ginacico]

@huskerdont 166479 wrote:

It also appears to have tossed you on your head, but at least you’re still smiling.

What’d they put in that lemonade?! (I tried to delete that one and gave up, relying on some message that it would disappear within an hour.)

Egads. If DC doesn’t learn to behave with these dockless bikes, we won’t be allowed to have nice things anymore.

[skins_brew]

I saw a Jump bike cruising by the supreme court, and man, was that thing flying!

I took a Spin bike out the other day, and it was enjoyable, although I basically started at the top of Capitol Hill.

So, question for the masses here: Let’s say that DC give a green light to dockless bikes, do you think all of the companies will remain, or it will be whittled down to one vendor? I love the fact that there are so many options right now. Only thing I hate about the dockless bikes is the cost, which is quite a bit more than CaBi.

[Judd]

I rode a Jump bike on Monday for two reasons:

1. Rudi Riet is working for them now and I like Rudi.
2. I’ve never ridden a ped-elec.

Impressions:
1. There’s not a lot of bikes yet. There were only 6 on the map when I went looking for one.
2. I like entering a member code and pin on the bike better than scanning a barcode with the other bikes.
3. The seat isn’t high enough for me (6’3″). I needed it to go like 2 more higher.
4. They’re really zippy.
5. They are also VERY heavy. I had to wrestle with the bike a little bit to lock it back up.
6. I both like and dislike that the Jump bikes require locking to something. The pro is that bikes won’t be left in bad places like curb cuts and blocking trails like I’ve seen Lime and Mobikes. The con is that bike parking is sometimes challenging already. I think a good compromise for continued operation would be a provision for Jump to fund installation of additional racks, particularly in places they designate as “hubs.”
7. Under the 5th gear, I just spun out the pedals.
8. I probably won’t ever ride one again, but I can see them being very popular.
9. Having ridden a ped-elec, I’m less inclined to be an advocate for e-bikes in general.

Jump offered 10 bucks free credit for signing up. If you sign up and use the offer code JUMPS4RUDI you’ll get an extra $12 credit.

[Judd]

@skins_brew 166500 wrote:

So, question for the masses here: Let’s say that DC give a green light to dockless bikes, do you think all of the companies will remain, or it will be whittled down to one vendor? I love the fact that there are so many options right now. Only thing I hate about the dockless bikes is the cost, which is quite a bit more than CaBi.

It depends on what feedback DDOT receives. They’re encouraging feedback through e-mail: publicspace.policy@dc.gov Full page on dockless bikeshare is here: https://ddot.dc.gov/release/ddot-seeks-public-feedback-dockless-bikeshare-technology

I’m waiting until we get a bit further in to the pilot to provide feedback to see if some of the companies improve. My initial impression is that Lime Bike has been incredibly unresponsive to reports of bikes outside of the approved boundaries. Mobike seems slightly better. I haven’t noticed much issue with Spin (except for one bike that was at Hains Point for over 24 hours). I’ve seen a few instances of Lime Bikes and ofo bikes parked in not ideal places. I’ve seen one or two Lime Bikes with headlights falling off already and a lot more on Twitter.

Not all negative though. I saw a ton of Limes and Mobikes in Navy Yard neighborhoods on Monday. Jump seems good so far but they also don’t have a lot bikes deployed yet.

[skins_brew]

@Judd 166510 wrote:

It depends on what feedback DDOT receives. They’re encouraging feedback through e-mail: publicspace.policy@dc.gov Full page on dockless bikeshare is here: https://ddot.dc.gov/release/ddot-seeks-public-feedback-dockless-bikeshare-technology

I’m waiting until we get a bit further in to the pilot to provide feedback to see if some of the companies improve. My initial impression is that Lime Bike has been incredibly unresponsive to reports of bikes outside of the approved boundaries. Mobike seems slightly better. I haven’t noticed much issue with Spin (except for one bike that was at Hains Point for over 24 hours). I’ve seen a few instances of Lime Bikes and ofo bikes parked in not ideal places. I’ve seen one or two Lime Bikes with headlights falling off already and a lot more on Twitter.

Not all negative though. I saw a ton of Limes and Mobikes in Navy Yard neighborhoods on Monday. Jump seems good so far but they also don’t have a lot bikes deployed yet.

I have not seen too many issues with parking, but I live in MD, and only go from Union Station to Cap South. Someone was leaving a Mobike right outside the front door of my office, but i think security caught them and now it seems this daily user parks it at a rack.

My spin bike mystersiosly unlocked itself after I locked it today, which was peculiar. I submitted a help ticket to spin just so they were aware.

Lime bikes are weird, as the map reports them all over. It says there is one in burtonsville, and I have tried to find it with zero success. It also says there are a bunch of Limes at an office park in laurel, but that might be their base of operations.

I think a big issue will be people leaving then on certain federal properties, like at monuments, memorials, etc. But we will see. I am loving the bikes now though. There were zero CaBi bikes at Union station, so I grabbed a spin.

[Judd]

@skins_brew 166517 wrote:

Lime bikes are weird, as the map reports them all over. It says there is one in burtonsville, and I have tried to find it with zero success. It also says there are a bunch of Limes at an office park in laurel, but that might be their base of operations.

I’ve heard multiple reports of not being able to find Lime Bikes and Mobikes. I’d suspect some of this is due to GPS imprecision. I also wouldn’t be surprised if some of them are actually parked indoors. I tried to convince someone that he should just park his bikeshare in his living room everyday so that it would always be available when he wants to leave the house.

[ginacico]

@Judd 166507 wrote:

Jump offered 10 bucks free credit for signing up. If you sign up and use the offer code JUMPS4RUDI you’ll get an extra $12 credit.

Rudi’s (also Nelle’s) promo codes expired, but you can use JUMP2WHARF for credit.

[lordofthemark]

I needed to get from Navy Yard to Chinatown last night, was meeting QOTM for Simchas Torah at 6th and I. Since I don’t care to ride late at night from downtown DC (especially after customary celebratory imbibing) and she was driving, I decided to leave my bike at the office and try out dockless bike share.

I downloaded the limebike app to use the free intro ride. It showed a bike in the parking lot behind the Van Ness ES. I took my helmet, walked over there. And after walking all around the back of the school, I found no bike. A mistake? Inside? There is a way to report an illegally parked bike, but I don’t think to report a missing one. Walked a few block over and got another. It unlocked pretty easily.

I found the bike, as others did, on the one hand seeming to be lighter and less clunky than the Motivate bikes, but not actually any easier to ride – not sure if its hidden weight, some aspect of rolling resistance, or what. I preferred the shifter to that on Motivate bikes. The seat height was just fine (I am slightly under 5’6″)

The best part, of course, was the ease of dropping it off – no hunt for a station, or an empty dock (I parked for politely in Chinatown park) I liked the lock bike chime, as I have sometimes had problems with CaBi where I thought I had locked the bike, but it hadn’t recorded as locked.

In summary
Finding a bike – bad
Starting and riding – okay
Dropping off – good

[baiskeli]

@lordofthemark 166571 wrote:

I downloaded the limebike app to use the free intro ride. It showed a bike in the parking lot behind the Van Ness ES. I took my helmet, walked over there. And after walking all around the back of the school, I found no bike. A mistake? Inside? There is a way to report an illegally parked bike, but I don’t think to report a missing one.

Do you reserve a bike before going to get it, like with Car2Go? If not, maybe someone else simply rode the bike before you got there. Could be a frustrating problem.

[lordofthemark]

@baiskeli 166578 wrote:

Do you reserve a bike before going to get it, like with Car2Go? If not, maybe someone else simply rode the bike before you got there. Could be a frustrating problem.

No way to reserve the bike, but the app still showed the bike at that location when I was right there, and after I walked away in frustration. So, no, that is not what happened.

In fact as of right now the app STILL shows the bike there.

[Author]

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