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I would have liked to have seen how tall the rider of the ofo is. Ofo seems to be one of the more available bikes, but the seats are short as hell. I am 5′ 8″, with short legs, and I find the bikes to be uncomfortable due to the short seats.

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@PeteD 168108 wrote:

Someone figured out how to remove the seat from this poor one.

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Interesting. There was a lime at Union station this morning that was missing a seat too.

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I still want to know where this stash of mobikes at Union station is!

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Saw a dude pushing a ofo bike up Randolph Rd. In Colesvulle. Something tells me he was out of the service area 😆

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@secstate 167057 wrote:

So. It’s been a few weeks now. Have people who have been using or following the dockless systems developed any loyalties, attachments, or aversions to particular systems yet? This could be due to the quality or comfort of the bikes, or due to good or bad corporate behavior.

It’d be nice to have a backup to CaBi, which I enjoy riding but often has no bikes available in Foggy Bottom by the time I want to get out of here in the evenings. Also, I’m 5’10”, with legs perhaps on the long side for that height, and I hear that fit is an issue.

Apart from Jump, they still all seem interchangeable to me. I know Judd thinks the Limebike people are unresponsive. Assuming I’m not going to sign up and install apps for, like, four separate systems, which should I pick and why?

Mobike has been my favorite lately, as they seem to possibly have the most number of available bikes. That stationary basket on the mobikes still trips me out.

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@Judd 166902 wrote:

You’re going to bike jail. Since Lime Bike hasn’t managed to move the bike parked at Hains Point for an entire week, I don’t think you’re likely to get caught for moving a bike three feet.

Lime does seem to be having issues. I saw two limes parked at Union station literally every day last week. They were not showing on the map, so I assume they were OOC.

I don’t think you would get in trouble, especially now since this is in pilot mode. What law are you breaking by moving a private companies property that is sitting on public property?

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@dasgeh 166848 wrote:

I think the issue is that we have a really good (though not perfect) docked bikeshare system already, and there’s a fear that dockless could come around for long enough to kill the docked system, but then go belly up because of (insert reason here), leaving us with no bikeshare.

We’re going to talk about this at the next BAC meeting – Monday, November 6, 7pm 2100 Clarendon Blvd – and (spoiler alert) I’m going to ask whether there’s any room to ask if CaBi can introduce some of the best parts of the dockless systems — e.g. a framelock that allows someone to park anywhere (possibly for an added fee); eassist.

I am a fairly new CaBi user, and in my short 6 weeks of use, I consider it to be extremely unreliable. So much that I am probably just going to lock my junk bike up down here and use that.

Turning CaBi into a dockless version would require a decent amount of resources. You need not just a locking mechanism, but also a slew of electronics to track the bike and interact with the lock, and then you are going to need a bunch of added functionality on the backend/app/server to support the dockless feature.

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@Kitty 166812 wrote:

I hope they actually have some plans to improve bike parking around the congressional office buildings. There never seems to be enough space (especially on the Senate side!) no thanks to the fence-style racks many buildings have.

Plus while I used to lock up to “No Parking” signs, the Capitol Police have been asking me to move… usually after watching me spend 2 minutes to carefully lock up, then approaching me and asking “Excuse me ma’am, is that your bike?” :rolleyes:

I work at LOC and there is a decent number of racks around the building, but they are all packed to the gills. They have employee bike parking in the garage, but I am still waiting on my parking permit

When I first saw the public racks I considered them to be pretty safe considering the amount of capitol police at all of the various posts in the very immediate area, but someone told me bikes still get stolen/messed with,

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@dasgeh 166780 wrote:

I actually think the AOC (which is very bike friendly) has this high on their agenda. But it’s Capitol Police that puts a stop to grand plans.

The weird thing is that they clearly don’t care if you bike through those lots, as there are a few where I can jump the little curb where the bollards are, or slip between the barricades. All they really have to do is slightly modify the vehicle barricades so a bike can go through- OR, on several of the lots, they can just add ramps so bikes can go through the bollards. I almost hit Marco Rubio the other day when I was riding on the sidewalk

Just add a litte ramp so we can get through!
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@rcannon100 166782 wrote:

Stupid question

CABI you can use without a smartphone. You used a credit card or a CABI key.

Can you use a dockless system wo a smartphone? (my assumption is no?)

Dockless bikes are all over SW and The Wharf (and area that had been underserved by CABI)

I don’t think there is a way yet. One of the dockless companies let’s you enter a pin on the bike, but I think u need a smartphone to get the pin. You might not need a smartphone for Jump, but that is the only dockless bike I have not tried .

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Yes, some of these bike are going to die this winter. I forget which dockless company, but one of them uses regular old center pull brakes, while many other user internal brakes.

Anyway, anyone know where these mobikes at Union station are? Is that the parking garage/bus deck?[ATTACH=CONFIG]15595[/ATTACH]

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Mobike and jump let you reserve bikes (Mobike is 15min, unsure of jump).

I just tried an goo, and I think they byfar have the lowest seat. I am only 5’8″ and every other bike was OK, but I wanted a higher seat on the goo, but it was as high as it goes.

The ofo app also had a very hard time focusing my S7 edges camera enough to take a picture. They have a manual unlock too, but after fumbling with the camera for several minutes, it finally worked.

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The pool of security questions needed to post is very small, and probably does not change enough. In reality, they need to can the static questions and move to a recaptcha type system, or get more moderators

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@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.

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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.

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