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Comment by buckhx | Hacker News Reader

I bought a Xiaomi scooter in June and received it a few weeks ago. I live in Williamsburg and work in SoHo/Chinatown, and my commute is 15-20 mins compared to 25-30 on the subway (L -> NQR). I obey biking rules and only push if I am on a sidewalk. I haven't felt unsafe outside of riding at night in Brooklyn and not feeling visible enough. Overall it's been great, but can imagine it getting out of hand if they were readily available. For example, I was at the Farmers Market in Union Square last Weds a couple of people were riding powered scooters through the crowd clearly NGAF.

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For the price, it makes much more sense to buy a scooter if someone is going to use a scooter as their daily commuter transportation.

I checked the price of Bird (idk what the prices of Lime/Spin are), and it's $1 per ride plus $.15/min. For 2x20min commutes per day, that's $8/day to ride a scooter. A roundtrip on the subway would be 2x$2.75, so $5.50/day.

Taken monthly, it's $160/mo to ride a scooter vs. $110/mo to ride the subway.

A Xiaomi scooter is about $500 on Amazon, so the cost would be recouped in less than 5 months. Seems reasonable for those who would be "frequent riders" to just buy their own collapsible scooters and carry it with them into work.

I bought one recently too, and the folding mechanism is awfully loose, have you had the same problem?

There are several open source shims on thingverse that may be printed, they are also available to purchase online, periodically. The two major "upgrades" for the xiaomi m365 (what bird uses, is about $500 shipped online) is the shim for the folding mechanism, and then a sort of wear plate for the inside of the rear fender to protect the brake light cable. Both bought together usually cost $10 usd.

Typically the shims come in packs of three, depending on how much gap is present in your folding mechanism.

Mine is pretty squeaky, but doesnt feel loose. Will probably purchase a shim as it's supposed to help the squeak.

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