France offers each cyclist €50 for bike repairs once lockdown ends | Hacker News Reader

France offers each cyclist €50 for bike repairs once lockdown ends

cyclingweekly.com

318 pointsleonagano279 comments

People in this thread are getting really hung up on the idea that someone with a bike == cycling enthusiast. In Europe a huge amount of people just own a bike. Often some beaten up thing they probably paid €30-200 for at a flea market or bike shop and use to commute or meet friends. Maybe it's fallen into a state where it's unrideable. The €50 is just a simple nudge for all those people to get it roadworthy so they can start using it again or sell it to somebody who will use it.

> Often some beaten up thing they probably paid €30-200 for at a flea market or bike shop

In Belgium, Belgian people buy mostly new ones in the range of 500-1000. People who don't earn much or students, buy the cheap/used bikes you mentioned.

Electrical bikes are > 2000 € and pretty popular.

In general, a whole family can bike together and it's very popular during the summer. We can bike were-ever we want during Covid as long as it's in the 25 km. range.

I actually have 2 bikes ( 1 normal and 1 race bike) and a bike lending subscription when friends come over ( 1 € / bike / 24 hours for 12€ / year)

> 1 € / bike / 24 hours for 12€ / year)

At that price point it becomes hard to justify owning a bike yourself...

unless they're really bad bikes

I've ridden them, they're not bad, but it's better to have your own.

If you bike every weekday: (52 weeks/year * 5 days/week * 1€/day) + 12 = 272€.

Add in however much you think these bits of hassle are worth:

• various amounts of time spent looking for a bike, especially if you go somewhere they don't tend to cluster and someone else took the one you're using

• bikeshare bikes are typically kind of heavy and clunky, possibly with solid tires that don't blow out but transmit every bump in the road to you

• bikeshare bikes are usually one-size-fits-all, which I guess is fine if you're the perfectly average size, but they're always too small for me; an improperly-sized bike is harder to ride and can create more strain on your body

And of course you can subtract maintenance costs, I'll pull 50€ out of my ass as a yearly number for that.

> bikeshare bikes are usually one-size-fits-all, which I guess is fine if you're the perfectly average size.

I think they are tiny. I have wondered how they got this so wrong, but decided that it must be intentional. It prevents long journeys and limits the frequency of curb hopping and other damage causing activity.

It seems safer for a big person to ride a too-small bike than a small person to ride a too-big bike.

One size fits all cannot be average, it has to be tiny. You can fold a tall person into a small bike, but you can't stretch a short person onto a large bike.

There seemed to be a series of Chinese companies that offered particularly small bikes in Paris. Ofo and Mobike were (are?) just tiny. Maybe they came from a market where the average person was significantly smaller? The bikes were pretty much unusable on a shallow incline if you were of even average height. For comparison, my 9 year old child has a bike that has a larger frame than those ones.

500 euros is a tad expensive. Every few months, Belgian supermarkets like LIDL sell them for €250-300, and I see thes models everywhere. Mike is more expensive, but I bike to work every day.

One thing confused me about this. In major American cities bike theft is incredibly common, to the point that the police won't help at all.

I've had bikes repeatedly stolen out of locked garages at home!

I'd never buy a bike that was worth any reasonable amount of money, my commute pre-covid was a good candidate for an electric bike, but no way would I spend more than a 2 or 3 hundred dollars on something that will get stolen within 3 years.

Is bike theft just less of a problem in Belgium?

I’m from America, but I visited Copenhagen a few years ago and was amazed by how many bikes there were. On top of it, most bikes were parked with only a wheel lock and not chained to anything.

You need a bike friendly road network. Where I am at in suburban Illinois, I have a 45 - 55 mph lane with no shoulder and no continuous sidewalk. There is no way I'm risking life and limb to commute on that with my bike.

On the other hand there are multiple trails which I can and will use now that spring/summer is here.

I think the reluctance to use bikes for basic transport is more to do with lack of space on the road rather than theft.

Theft plays a major role when you're thinking of buying an e-bike... When you're shelling 2+kEUR and you must put the fscking lock eeeeverytime you go somewhere, pause to buy bread, or whatever, and it's the same one or 2 minutes circus (first lock, then second lock, then don't forget the computer...). It gets tiring and discouraging.

Bike trails aren't used in winter because they aren't maintained, just as roads that aren't maintained in winter aren't driven on.

Man visiting Copenhagen truly was a cultural shock, I walked past a street at midnight that may have had like 30 bikes in it without a lock. Those wouldn't last an hour without getting stolen where I'm from

I was in a suburban ward in Tokyo two years ago and it didn't look like any bikes had locks on them. They were all identical bikes with large kickstands.

They do use locks, they are just tiny things that lock the rear wheel in place. They look like the brake mechanism. For example: http://i.ebayimg.com/images/i/252774835823-0-1/s-l1000.jpg

side note: the ubiquitous Japanese bike style you're referring to is called "mamachari"

Good to know. Here I was believing that Japanese society was so advanced they couldn't even conceive of theft.

I did feel a major sense of safety in Tokyo, however.

Yeah. I think it's more likely to stop someone accidentally taking the wrong bike. Since they aren't secured to anything and the locks aren't beefy, defeating it would be pretty trivial.

I have a number of friends with anecdotes about forgetting items on a bus/train and the lengths to which individuals or companies will go to return them is pretty impressive.

> no way would I spend more than a 2 or 3 hundred dollars on something that will get stolen within 3 years.

I'd neither, but a friend of mine did. He got his bike insured (replacement value), for a pretty reasonable amount, considering. And AFAIK most people with expensive bikes do, which is probably also the reason police is not too keen on acting.

I keep my expensive bikes locked inside the dwelling part of my unit.

Pros: Never had a bike stolen

Cons: Can't really just ride it somewhere and let it sit all day.

My use cases have been:

1) Commute to work (my work let me bring it up to my office to park it during the day)

2) Ride somewhere and back home (always parked in my dwelling)

3) Ride it to maybe a place to eat, but park it literally outside the window, locked, so I can watch it while I eat.

Sucks I can't just do whatever with it, but I have a beater if I needed to do that.

Yes! Bike insurance is the way to go once you have a nice bike. I don't and carry a big lock. But I have friends with quality bikes (~1500 EUR) and they park at the train station with laughable locks because it's insured.

Probably depends on the insurance, but his came with certain restrictions on how to lock the bike, and where to store it at home.

... with laughable locks because it's insured. ...

Morale hazard:

https://www.irmi.com/term/insurance-definitions/morale-hazar...

When I lived in Sweden, on average one bike would get stolen per year. My experience in California is similar.

Once you accept that, it's not that much money. The bad part is that you can never buy that Really Nice bike you'd really want.

Exactly why I have a pawn shop beater with some minor upgrades for cycling to work and my well it was super cool when I bought it road bike that never gets left locked up anywhere.

I'm from Sweden and biked NY to SF a few years ago. During the two months it took I never locked my bike (didn't brought a lock at all). Just a related a anecdote ;)

Did you pass through many major cities? In suburban and rural america, you can absolutely leave a bicycle unlocked and expect it to be there when you return.

I’ve have used bicycles as my main mean of transportation most of my 43 years of life in Sweden. I’ve had exactly one bicycle stolen during all those years. But I’ve always been very careful to lock my bike to something with a good lock.

You seem to have incredibly bad luck. I got 2 bikes stolen in 20 years and I think its similar for my friends (all central Europe).

Maybe I'm a bit bolder than others. I do lock the bike etc, but I don't worry much about bringing it wherever I go.

What I've learned while I lived in Amsterdam is that you want to invest ~30% of the value of your bike to purchase a bike lock. Basically make it not worth the effort to break the lock.

Also second-hand and rusty ones are better than new ones. Some Dutch cities have a free-of-charge engraving mechanism where you basically engrave a serial number on a bike to make it easier to track down stolen bikes, as well as to know that you're not actually buying a stolen bike.

Also, you'll be responsible if you're caught with a stolen bike, which is a nice deterrent to actually use a reliable source when purchasing a bike. Shops act as a middlemen between you and the person selling the bike, and they're responsible for making sure that the bike you're purchasing from them isn't stolen. On the downside, that drives the cost up a bit, but on the bright side, you usually get some months of warranty period in which they'll repair your bike free of charge in case anything happens to it.

> What I've learned while I lived in Amsterdam is that you want to invest ~30% of the value of your bike to purchase a bike lock.

That advice predates the battery-powered angle grinder, which many bike thieves in Western Europe now use. Even the toughest, most expensive U-lock can be broken in about a minute with an angle grinder.

How much sound does it make though?

I saw a guy outside a grocery store taking one of those to a U-lock. He said it was his own bike. Wasn’t sure what to do after that.

Take a really good picture including his face. Send picture to the local police department in case someone reports that bike stolen.

Presumably if it's actually his bike, he'll be thankful.

I was under the impression recording people requires their consent in most of western europe?

In the UK this is not the case. Anyone can be photographed in a public place.

How would a security camera work then?

I challenged a guy I saw fiddling with one of the locks on a motorbike with its alarm sounding, by asking if he'd mind unlocking one of the other locks to show it was his bike. Which he promptly did - his alarmed disc brake lock had jammed.

Of course, my confidence to do so was buoyed by the fact there were two other bikers parking at the same time as me, it was in a busy public area, and I was wearing a bunch of leather and kevlar.

Having two locks can also be a good tactic, especially two locks in a different style e.g. a d-lock and a cable lock. The theory being that a thief would need to have two tools to steal your bike which means it's likely more hassle than other bikes that'll only have been secured with a single lock.

An angle grinder will get through a cable lock in a few seconds. It buys you nothing over a U-lock against someone armed with one.

Neither of those are stopping an angle grinder for more than a few seconds

Founder of a bicycle insurer here and I can tell you that the only way to deter people is by parking in secure private or public spaces (never, ever semi-public) and by making your bike less attractive than the one next to it.

2 locks is indeed the standard in big cities. Also make sure they are sold secure gold rated or Art 3. Anything else is a waste of money. There are a few new lock types which are supposed to work better against angle grinders like Tex-lock or LitLok.

Because the average bike price is going up it also becomes interesting to steal parts. A decent handlebar + shifters are easy to sell individually. Companys like Hexlox or Pinheads are working on locks to tackle that.

Can you get GPS tracking systems that are reliable enough that insurance companies take note enough to discount if they are installed?

Where would you install them on the bike where they couldn't be removed easily? I've thought you could place one in the frame, but that would be difficult to do aftermarket and the GPS and WWAN antennas would need to exit it somewhere.

If it's carbon frame then the antennas can be in the frame. Power source sounds more annoying though.

Shaft were the seat affixes, maybe use the frame as the antenna - dunno, was more interested in what is out there already in a way that is respected enough for insurance companies to make a difference. That's the true test of a security product - how much of a discount does your insurance get for having it ;).

> Because the average bike price is going up it also becomes interesting to steal parts. A decent handlebar + shifters are easy to sell individually.

That's an interesting point. Doesn't that make a folding full-size bike the only real solution?

Something like Changebike DF-611MB:

https://www.changebike.com/df-611mb

> There are a few new lock types which are supposed to work better against angle grinders like Tex-lock or LitLok.

After a quick search...

Tex-lock cut in 32 seconds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ictBpMHKhK0&t=1m20s

LitLok cut in 16 seconds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-On0DGcDlc&t=1m25s

A cable lock can be cut with a dozen pocket-sized tools. They're not worth the money if you think theft is remotely an issue; D-locks are far more secure.

> you want to invest ~30% of the value of your bike to purchase a bike lock.

Or get two different ones. Bike thieves specialize on one or two specific locks and prefer easy targets.

It’s certainly a massive problem in the UK. Stealing bikes is almost decriminalized by the fact that it’s too minor a crime for the police to take seriously. And there’s a complete lack of secure bike ‘parking’ space.

Police regularly stopped and scanned bicycle serial numbers at caltrain stations in the bay area. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen this though.

I've been commuting by bike my whole adult life and I get a bike stolen once every 3 years on average. I typically spend around $1000 on my bikes, and the cost is still dick-all compared to transit or driving.

Bummer. I've been bike commuting my entire life and never had anything stolen, depends on where you live.

Seems to be common in many countries, more so city sized area's as statistically, you will get a larger spectrum of humanity and the odds of having more bike thieves will be higher. Let alone, drunken students taking the wrong bike or the like.

Which is one of the reasons I don't have one, that and the types of drivers make it more dangerous, got better from my observations, but still, I'll walk more as unlike the country - not as far to go for most things.

That and if I'd endured a few thefts, I'd just end up getting angry and knocking up a bobytrapped bike and probably go too far and that's probably another reason for me to not own a bycicle. Though I did checkly suggest upon twitter once to the local police that they should have a bait bike, maybe has a spike in the seat that raises up. They liked the idea with supportive comment. But I'm sure it would not playout well legally. Besides, imagine some poor person, drunk for the first time, gets on the wrong bike by mistake. Though I'd probably build some form of electric shock into it, though again, I'd know I'd go too far.

Reminds me of an initiative in Amsterdam many decades back, 90's era iirc. The city had put a a large number of bikes in town for people to use, park up, free for all to use - early bike hire, ride and drop thing without any paying - just free use bikes. Coz what happened was people stole many of them, not everybody lived in Amsterdam and with that, maybe a good initiative, but needs to be done on a large scale to work.

Until then, i'd not buy anything new, second hand end-user type of affair as locks are just not that good and anything close to good would be more than the cost of a use and abuse bike.

Even if you spent $1-2K on a bike, a new car is easily $20K, and owning a car you have depreciation anyways, so it still pencils out.

The bike-locks are enough, the bike-locks are normally integrated with the bike themselve ( normal bikes), i've noticed a lot of foreign people are suprised by this.

Racing bikes don't need locks, since you stall them at your garage or a private place during the night.

Bike theft is usually common in student cities, were cheap bikes have cheap locks and one "steals" from another. The more expensive ones (> 400 €) are normally not stolen, since they also have more decent locks.

Also, bikes can be engraved ( eg. like a serial number).

Fyi: My bike is parked at a "big" train station at night (in Bruges) and it never got stolen in 2 years.

Here in the UK, there are bike thieves who will drive a van up to a bicycle park, load the van with as many bikes as they can get with some bolt cutters in a few minutes, then drive off. It would be surprising to see someone using a lock that allowed a bike to be carried away for this reason!

Of course it's mostly a problem at universities and train stations at night, where you can find big bike racks and no-one around. Lesser locks might be fine away from crime hotspots.

> no way would I spend more than a 2 or 3 hundred dollars on something that will get stolen within 3 years.

Are you happy spending 2 or 3 hundred dollars on burning gas within 3 months?

According to the stats 48% of Belgians own a bike, but only 8% of the trips are by bike.

In China 37% of the population owns a bike, but in Shanghai 60% of the daily trips are by bike.

There are more people riding bikes everyday in northern Italy (which has about 2 times the population of Belgium) than in Belgium, even though the amount of bikes per capita on a national level is much lower than Belgium.

Numbers of bikes sold alone doesn't say much, more so because in some countries bikes are a status symbol, just like being member of a golf court is in Florida.

Most do it because it says something about their life styles more than their likings.

...but how is this controlled? Do they ask for a picture of the bike? ...or maybe it's a voucher for repair work? ...or are they just giving everyone 50EU?

Answered my own question by READING THE ARTICLE...

> A network of 3,000 registered mechanics will be set up, and €50 of repairs will be redeemable, such as tyre changes or chain replacements. The mechanics will provide the repairs and then be reimbursed by the government, meaning citizens will not actually receive any money

TLDR: It is 50EU credit per repair job.

nevermind....

It's basically a job creation scheme. Bicycles are easy to work on, whereas modern cars are highly complex and riddled with DRM issues.

I have paid 40€ for my second-hand 1973 Peugeot road bike. Best bike I have ever had.

These are really nice. Next "second bike" I get will be one of these.

I lost my ‘70s Peugeot (I’ve no idea how that happens). Having the gears as little levers on the frame was user unfriendly but something I loved.

Friction levers. You can still get them! I built a touring bike with them because they’re comparatively cheap and very easy to maintain. They’re indexed (click into place at the center of each sprocket) but you can disable this feature quickly if you need to, which is nice if you’re forced to use a different cassette or there’s an issue with your cable.

I absolutely love them. They wouldn’t work on a racing bike where you need to shift quickly without taking your hands off the bars but for a commuter or a touring bike they’re ideal.

> the idea that someone with a bike == cycling enthusiast

Very common rhetorical technique. Not everyone who does this is calculating; a lot of people just parrot what they hear. But the goal of the messaging is to make marginalize, to make it sound like some tiny group whining about their hobby, which inconveniences "normal" (car driving) people.

Turn it into a game - start talking about the motorist lobby as just another special interest, compare them to some other lobby your conversationalist will find distasteful - guns, animal rights, mountaintop removal, something will push their buttons. If you do it well, the cognitive dissonance is fun to watch.

I don't ride my bike much anymore; have had repeated bad experiences with shithead motorists (live in SF) and just won't risk it anymore. But when I did, I never spent more than $100 on a bike, because it was just going to be stolen within a year.

This is true, but bike market in US (for example) amounts to 47 billions with a prediction of 75 billions in 2025

Car market is much richer but most of it comes from second-hand retail, which is practically non existent for bikes.

For comparison 45 billions is half of the market size of the tobacco industry and about the same size of the gun market.

Not bad for an hobby and more similar to a lobby itself.

> People in this thread are getting really hung up on the idea that someone with a bike == cycling enthusiast.

I’m an American, and literally everyone I know owns at least one bike, and it’s rideable. I’m not even in a big city - in fact I live closer to cows and sheep than to anything resembling a skyscraper...

> I’m an American, and literally everyone I know owns at least one bike, and it’s rideable.

You are, far and away, an outlier.

I’m in a rural place and it’s the same for me - everyone has a bike, or even multiple bikes.

I really don’t think so - according to this 92% of Americans own one:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/693817/percentage-of-peo...

Me2

> The €50 is just a simple nudge for all those people to get it roadworthy so they can start using it again or sell it to somebody who will use it.

Certainly do more to increase bike usage and keep the momentum of usage going than any marketing thing.

What would be nice would be better incentive to use public transport and to not use cars, we have used the stick with taxes for a while, carrots like this can only work better. If they could get that balance right and maybe focus on cheaper public transport, incentivise ride sharing and bikes, more so bikes over electric as they are more accessible to the whole populus, not just those who can afford to cash in on incentives out of many peoples reach.

Been all well having subsidies for solar paanels, electric cars, but when the outlay and means to get those put those out of the reach for so many, let alone people who rent, or indeed walk or cycle. Perhaps the focus would perhaps incentivise using less electricity, incentivise public transport and bicycles, not just expensive hire bikes for hipsters in which most will end up being stolen by those who can't afford to access them via other means.

But this initiative as a one off is both timely and good on many levels as you say, getting unused bicycles into action over the whole disposable mentality of most objects, is fantastic. Also nice boom for the bicycle repair industry, though unsure how they have been impacted by things currently.

At least in the Parisian context, moving people to bikes is probably the most cost effective way to green transport, since the trains are all packed to the gills and getting some people on bikes is a cheaper way of making space than spending billions of euros on new lines (which they are also doing, but it's good to have more than one arrow in the quiver.)

I was thinking more about buses, had a look and https://www.ratp.fr/en/plan-bus

More useful in replacing cars in many area's, as using existing infrastructure, unlike trains.

Buses are good short term but suck long term.

Where I live, in Seattle, the bus system has been wildly popular over the past several years and the transit system has had high ridership growth (in total rides and as % of commutes) in North America while most of the peer agencies have seen total declines. The problem is that they stopped scaling:

- For a while Seattle has been unable to hire enough drivers to run the schedules, because there is simply more demand than supply of bus drivers in the entire US

- Seattle has also run out of space to store buses, and for various reasons people do not like having a bus depot located in their neighborhood (parking lots are unsightly, the bus depot generates traffic and lots of diesel buses are unpleasant; electric is not mature enough for widespread fleet replacement and it would be a massive capital cost)

- the amount of buses being run is now so high that buses get stuck in bus congestion, even with a whole four lane road dedicated only to buses in the downtown area, and several more bus lanes on parallel roads

So now we are hurriedly spending $50B to replace buses with rail, because

- trains carry more people in one vehicle and with one driver

- trains have full or mostly full separation from traffic, which means higher average speed and thus better fleet utilization and running less vehicles for the same frequency

Sounds about right, the bike I use for my daily commute from the train station to the place I work needs things like new tires, new brakes, some new spokes etc about every 1-2 years. Usually totaling around 50 euro. For that amount a good bike repair shop can do a lot for a bike.

Those 50 might actually make my bike rideable again.

People are focused on the relatively small amount here, and that's valid, but I suspect that some of the incentive here is to keep momentum in cycling going (from people avoiding transit, enjoying temporary bike infra, etc.) and trying not to lose that progress. There might be a lot of people for whom that €50 means a tuneup that gets them to take the bike out when before it would've just rusted.

I mean, data would be nice, but that's the hope (I'm guessing)

If you’re right that money in a public health system will pay back dividends I imagine.

Is anyone really waiting for €50 to use or not use their bike on a regular basis?

I'm highly skeptical.

This seems like it will just benefit folks already doing it anyway.

Maybe not, but a properly tuned and lubricated bike is waaaayyyyy more pleasant to ride and may help to encourage increased bike use. It's easier to do stuff when it's pleasant.

I really think so.

We had a pop-up bike repair workshop come around every month at my last place of work and it really increased bike use in the area.

Absolutely. There are plenty of people who have a bike with a flat tyre and a rusty chain and no lights or whatever. They might go back to taking the bus or metro, but if they were offered a free service (effectively) to make cycling a viable option, they'll take it.

I know loads of people who cycle to work because of Ireland's Bike To Work scheme. They can all afford a bike without help, but the extra incentive was enough to get them to start cycling.

Would they go through all of that in the hopes of getting upto $50.00?

Through all of what?

Walking your bike 200m to the closest bike shop?

With 50 EUR, every bike shop does the usual tear fixes: changing tubes, adjusting gears and brake levers, changing break pads, changing the handlebar tape, centering the wheels, and cleaning / oiling.

Those 50 EUR can't cover major damage, but lots of people in Europe have multiple bikes in their basement that are just "rusty" / flat tire / etc. and that they didn't needed during the winter.

> Walking your bike 200m to the closest bike shop?

This also illustrates a secondary benefit of these €50, namely that bike repairs are hyper-local. In addition to making bike repair more affordable for some and helping keep the momentum going on bike commuting, these euros can also drive more commerce to local small repair shops, helping them stay in business.

On July 11, 7-11 offers a free slurpee to all customers. The free slurpee cup is a fraction of the size of any of the already-very-cheap options available for sale.

I have seen lineups out the door and around the block on this occasion. I think this illustrates very well people's well-known tendency to irrationally value free stuff.

I would. I also want to point out that you seem to be trivializing what most people would consider a non-trivial amount of money. That's easily a month of groceries for one person.

I agree that $50 shouldn't be trivialized. That being said, in America that's well below the standard for a month of groceries for one person (unless they're eating all of their meals out or something like that). Here[0] are the USDA food plans with budgets for "food at home". The cheapest category is "thrifty", and even there they budget about $100 per month for a one year old through about $190 for an adult male (those numbers increase by about 20% if it's a one person household rather than a contribution to a family budget).

I don't know how those numbers might compare in France, and there are obviously cheaper parts of the world, but the person trivializing $50 might well be in America where that's closer to a week's grocery than a month's for one person.

[0] https://fns-prod.azureedge.net/sites/default/files/media/fil...

Thanks for the link! Perhaps I should have said $50 is a sizable chunk of a monthly grocery budget.

For about a year when I was 19ish I managed to get by on $50-ish/month for groceries, by mainly living off rice and beans, with some eggs and other items thrown in. I don't know if that counts though because I got a lot of goods from dumpsters as well; Whole Foods throws out a lot :O

Now I'm way less frugal when it comes to groceries, probably closer to 3 or 4 times that. And I would still take that $50 for bike repair.

Not sure why you were downvoted.

When I was in college, I also didn't have much more than 50€ for groceries. I did fine, but I also lived in walking distance to everything. Not everyone is as lucky.

Do people think poor people don't commute? 50$/€ is def. a lot for a myriad of people.

Its rare that you bike somewhere you can't just walk to. If you are that poor to need a government handout to fix it, you don't need it just for the bike.

That's ridiculous. A 35 minute commute on a bicycle is a 2 hour walk.

I can cycle to work in about 20 minutes, or walk to work in about 70 minutes. Cycling is convenient for me, walking is not.

Viewing this is as poor people needing a government handout is a very strange interpretation of what's being proposed. It's a public health and environmental nudge.

It's like when sugar taxes are discussed, and everyone says "why don't they make the healthy things cheaper?" Well now getting a bike serviced is being subsidised. But again, it's not even about the money really.

I think this is exactly it. A lot of people have bikes already but they're a little run down and this might be the encouragement they need to get them fixed.

The fact is that most people can't do even the simplest repairs on their own bike and if their bike is run down then they're less likely to use it.

Bikes tend to degrade slowly over time if you don't do regular maintenance. Most people don't notice the slow decline until it's quite bad when suddenly it feels like an unreliable POS.

Giving people who are just a little frustrated with their bike might go a long way to helping keep people from getting to that point at least once.

This doesn't get enough attention in cycling promotion. One of the absolute biggest reasons that people aren't on their bikes is maintenance. Wheels go out of true, shifting gets wonky, and it starts to look like an unreliable form of transport.

Sturdier commuter bikes help a lot with this, but every commuter seems to think they need a bike with super-light wheels and a thin, weak 12-speed chain.

One of the reasons I think people like the bike share programs. The bikes are burly and slow, but they get the maintenance they need where they usually don't end up truly horrible.

I guess this depends on the bike share program. I've definitely ridden my share of bike share bikes that were in very bad shape (and I have a fairly high tolerance for junkers).

The bike share program in question shut down and isn't available in my area anymore, so maybe that was just because they were cutting back.

The docked bikes in my city have way better build quality and maintenance standards than the undocked ones. They're both heavy but the undocked ones have chains falling off, broken shifters, etc. I expect it makes sense that these get less investment as they are easier to steal.

In my experience they mostly don't get maintenance; they're just built extremely cheaply and treated as disposable. Various parts that are easy to break (derailleurs) are elided by using Internally-Geared Hubs (IGH). The wheels are non-pneumatic and just a solid piece of rubber, so they never go flat.

> Internally-Geared Hubs (IGH)

Just so good. I wish they had more gears. My older one has 8, and I see more on newer ones but not a lot.

Dockless bikeshare bikes are often built as you describe.

Docked bikeshare (as mostly operated by Lyft in the US, formerly Motivate/Alta) generally uses bikes built similarly to high-quality Dutch city bikes and maintains them.

Docked bikeshare is pretty useless in my experience, so despite the lower quality bikes I prefer the dockless model.

12-speed chains are exclusive to the high end MTB space; no commuter bike is going to have that. Even high end road is still mostly on 11-speed. They're also not any weaker than wider chains:

https://bikerumor.com/2013/02/19/bikerumor-shimano-chainwear...

> One of the absolute biggest reasons that people aren't on their bikes is maintenance

I wish that was the case.

The reason people are not on their bikes is because the roads are scary and we don't have nearly enough dedicated bike infrastructure.

(By "we" I mean the entire world with just a handful of European exceptions.)

Europe also has a very temperate climate compared to much of the world. My area many years goes from -40 to over 100F (or 38 if you prefer c). Public and private enclosed transportation must accommodate 100% of the population, because for half the year commuting by bike is fundamentally unsafe" whether by frostbite or heat stroke.

One challenge for the sturdy commuter bike in the US is that cities are built around the car and commute distances are large, rewarding faster bikes. But reliability for commuters is certainly a big part of the recent boom in single-speed road bikes, which have thicker chains, dishless wheels, and no shifter to fail.

This is the only reason I don't ride anymore. I don't get why my complex car full of caustic liquids and burning them to drive a bunch of parts super fast can go tens of thousands of miles with nothing but oil changes and nothing breaks or doesn't work almost-like-new unless I run over a nail, but bikes? Ugh. Every time I go to get on it, something's broken. Flat tires constantly. Changing them sucks and takes forever (rear one, mostly). All the gear combos that ought to work never quite actually seem to. Something'll come loose during the ride, creating a safety hazard. And so on.

Give me a bike that doesn't break all the time or at least makes it super-easy and super-fast to fix any parts that do, and doesn't cost like $1,000 (why the actual hell should a decent one cost 1/20th as much as a lower-end car?! Think about what goes into both! How does that make any sense? 1/100 seems more reasonable, and for one that does not suck just like the $20,000 car probably does not suck remotely the same way a low-end bike does or it'd get lemon law'd away) and I'll go back to bike riding.

Yeah it's annoying that you need to pay like a thousand bucks AND constant maintenance to have a joyful AND functional mode of conveyance that is so ridiculously simple compared to a car.

I dunno, I just look at the one thing, then look at the other, and think that given what each does, the complexity, the sheer quantity of material, the price, and the reliability, it really seems like a bike that pretty much never breaks should cost about $300—maybe less, I'm allowing a fair amount for lower economy of scale, which I'm not actually sure is a problem—and you should be able to buy any bike around that price and expect that kind of quality.

When I go to use one of our cars and it doesn't work, or something goes wrong while I'm driving, that's very surprising. When we try to use one of our bikes and it's broken, or it breaks while riding, that's just... how bicycles are, I guess. Been that way since I rode (and constantly fixed) bikes as a kid. Was that way when I commuted on one for a while. They're just so very damned unreliable and fiddly.

Regarding flats, try tires with Kevlar reinforcement. Flats went completely away since I switched to Maxxis Overdrive Maxxprotect. They are a bit heavy, but I think not having to care about flats is worth it.

Most flats come from not having enough pressure in the tire, causing friction between tire and tube when the inside deforms, especially when riding over curbs. Bad quality tubes and tires plus improper installation also contributes a lot.

Reinforcement in forms of kevlar and such might provide some additional protection but these types of penetrating punctures are rare in the first place. It obviously doesn't make things worse so for peace of mind and some extra protection could still be worth it anyway. Just the fact that these are high quality tires to begin with will help a lot.

I managed to find the cause of most flats - usually it was a small piece of glass or a small sharp stone (as used in winter on icy roads), still stuck in the tire. Maybe we have sharp roads and soft curbs in Prague :-)

> Give me a bike that doesn't break all the time

What you need is a 'commuter bike' with an aluminium frame, Shimano Nexus 8-speed hub gear and Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres. Should cost less than $500.

You'll need to pump up the tyres every 3 months, and have a bike shop service it every 2000 miles or so. But I've been riding this configuration twice a day for 5 years and had maybe 3 punctures in that time and no problems more severe than that.

Make sure to get disc brakes also! Preferably hydraulic but not necessary if you are on a budget.

Those old caliper brakes need constant replacement, constant adjustment, replacing them requires even more calibration, and tiniest little wobble in your wheel or dent in your rim will make the brake very erratic and wear quickly. I get bad shivers down my spine every time i see such brakes, knowing how much time and frustration I've wasted on maintaining them in the past.

Quality of bike components have gone up past decades so don't be hung up on old experiences. Build quality matters a lot so make sure to get a reputable brand also, not something from the corner of the hardware store, doesn't have to be their top of the line model though, something like 400-800€ should give you a good one.

If fixing a flat takes a long time, I might suggest that your technique could be improved. Even though it seems like a simple task there really is a "right way" and many "wrong ways". There are great videos/articles online.

It really shouldn't take longer than 3-5 minutes.

> It really shouldn't take longer than 3-5 minutes.

    - .5 min: flipping the bike
    - 1 min: finding the tools
    - 1 min: removing the wheel and chain
    - 3 min: removing the tire
    - 1 min: removing the tube
    - 2 min: locating the hole
    - 1 min: cleaning the tube
    - 5 min: applying glue and letting it dry
    - 3 min: installing the patch and holding it just to make sure
    - 2 min: putting back the tube
    - 1 min: putting back the tire
    - 5 min: putting back the wheel and making sure it doesn't touch any thing
    - 1 min: inflating
    - .5 min: flipping the bike back up

    Total estimated time: 27 min
    Actual time I take: ~60 min

Any advice, given that my bike is about 40 years old?

My advice is to go to a bicycle co-op and ask them for pointers. Do not take this as an insult -- I really believe you could benefit greatly from some instruction or a demonstration. If there are no bicycle co-ops in your area, reach out to a knowledgeable friend. Or I can recommend some videos but they are not hard to find. There is _absolutely no way_ that it should take you an hour to fix a flat tire on a bicycle, given the right technique.

(For example, it should not take 5 minutes to replace a wheel. That should take about 10 seconds... I am genuinely curious what you spend your time doing over the 5 minutes and I am sure some practice / instruction could save you frustration. Likewise, even for a very tight tire you should be able to remove it quite quickly. A small tip I can give you for removing a tire is to make sure that the entire bead of the tire is unseated and sitting in the deepest part of the rim. This leaves a good amount of slack to pull the tire off. I usually am able to remove a tire without any tools, but a tire lever can make it even easier when used correctly.)

Certainly patching a tube adds to the time, I didn't include that in my 3-5min estimate. The usual practice is to pack an extra tube while out on a ride and patch the damaged tube later at home. Also worth noting there are modern patches that come with adhesive pre-applied that are very easy & quick to use, just peel and stick.

Cheers and good luck!

No worries but to be clear, do you stand by your opinion for old bikes? The ones I maintain are decades old and those 5 minutes I mentioned easily turn into 30 minutes at times because of brakes and guards working together against me. I've always considered that time to be the price to pay to have a cheap, undesirable (to thieves) bike and your estimate is challenging my world views!

Regarding tire removal, I recently did it like three times in a single week. It was like 15 minutes in sweat and finger pain every time. To get an idea of what one can achieve, can you remove a tire without tools with fat tires only or even thin road tires? Mine were thin, 23mm (less than an inch). By the way, in this instance, it wasn't a beater but a high-end 1970s bike.

Thanks for the advice, I'll look into it because it sounds like I'm missing something.

Don't worry, nothing I said is specific to newer bikes. Definitely, older bikes can present unique challenges but swapping tires hasn't changed. (Unless you get into tubeless... I wouldn't recommend it for road riding...)

How difficult it is to remove or replace a tire really comes down to the tire/rim combinations. Different types and sizes of tires can make a big difference.

Some combinations can definitely be trickier to mount, but with the right it can usually be down without too much physical strain. Mechanics in the bike shop do it many, many times each day after all.

If you experience flats, especially when they happen repeatedly, you should always look for the cause. Check the inner tube. When you find the hole check that position on the rim as well as the tire. Make sure that there aren't any sharp edges or objects. Don't go too low on pressure. Buy quality tubes and tires from manufacturers like Continental or Schwalbe.

Flats happen and are inevitable, but they should be a rare occurence. As a daily bike commuter and road bike enthusiast I experienced 2 flats in the last 10 years.

Futhermore most maintenance tasks are quite easy to handle and Youtube has excellent tutorials ready. I understand that this isn't for everyone (I'm not interested in learning how to repair my car for instance), but channels like GCN [1] explain a range of basic maintenance taks for anyone who's interested.

I also think your expectations towards bike prices are somewhat unreasonable. Maintenance is required at any price category, but generally 1000 € bikes will give you a decent entry level experience with quality parts that should last for years. Lower priced options will have to cut corners and cause frustations at some point.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/user/globalcyclingnetwork

They don't. The days when competitive / sportive cycling drove the designs of bikes sold to casual riders have faded into the past.

The most widely sold bikes in the US are "hybrids," mountain bikes, and cruisers. Within the mountain bike category, the most popular ones are relatively simplistic and are mainly used on pavement or light trails. Those are all relatively sturdy bikes with reasonably wide tires. Bikes that are specifically sold for "commuting" sell poorly, even among commuters, for reasons that I don't fully understand.

I live in a relatively bike friendly town, on a street that's designated as a bike thoroughfare, and I commute by bike myself, and I'm curious about bikes. So I make a mental note of what people are riding. The most common type of commuter bike is "whatever was in the garage," often left over from college or some past market fad. The people I talk to about cycling tend to do remarkably little maintenance. Most decent consumer bikes are sold with puncture resistant tires these days, which are a great improvement.

Now, from my observation (my own bikes, helping friends, volunteering for bike charity), bikes that go out of whack frequently, were usually built out of whack. Low end bikes that are shipped from the manufacturer to the retailer with little or no expert intervention often have poorly adjusted spokes and bearings, sometimes missing lubrication, sometimes parts installed backwards, and so forth. This is unacceptable, but it happens. An initial tune-up that includes bringing the spokes up to proper tension, and adjusting / lubricating the bearings, will turn many the crappy bike into an OK bike.

I don't believe a zero-maintenance bike exists yet, though a couple of mine are close. One is single speed with a coaster brake. I live in a relatively flat town. I also bought a new bike a few years ago for about 500 bucks, that has been maintenance free except for a puncture or two, and normal periodic adjustment of the brakes due to pad wear. It's a hybrid with 9 speeds, wide tires, and cable operated disc brakes. I love it.

But for this reason, I still recommend that a cyclist -- casual or enthusiast -- needs to develop basic maintenance skills. Simply being on the lookout for problems is often enough to catch problems before they progress beyond something just needing to be tightened.

If your bike chain breaks and you aren't hammering your bike on mountain bike trails, you've seriously neglected that bike for a long long time. Doesn't matter if it's 12 speed, 11 speed, whatever, bike chains are durable and last for years. Generally they are more likely to freeze up from rust and neglect than break. Clean the chain every few weeks and change it ~yearly (or every 2000 miles or so) and unless you are doing some burly stuff with your bike, it's not going to give you trouble.

Likewise wheels, even lightweight wheels aren't likely to fail on a commuter bike unless it's left in the weather.

The bigger danger to bikes is crappy builds and cheap-ass parts. A well made lightweight wheel is going to last 10 times longer than a cheap wheel. If you bought your bike at Walmart, if your chain breaks it's because it's more likely it's because the bike was badly out of tune when you bought it.

Wheel rims are aluminum, and spokes are stainless. They don't rust. Low spoke-count wheels are weaker and will go out of true faster, especially on potholed roads and with panniers.

Now you have me worried about what maintance I should be doing. Going to a bike shop once a year at the start of summer seems to have been enough for me. After a quick google search I got crazy suggestions that I should be changing my cables every 6 months.

If you are going to a bike shop once a year for maintenance, then you are doing the maintenance you should be doing.

But many people have old bikes with rusty brakes, non-working gearing, and just go on using them until they fall apart.

Also, different bikes require different levels of maintenance. And your riding style and frequency of use affects the speed of wear.

Really depends on how much riding you do and the components on the bike. Back when I was younger and more fit and riding 100+ miles a week I did a lot of maintenance. Some of it was necessary like adjusting brake pads, cables that developed slack, etc. Some of it probably wasn't but gave me an excuse to tinker.

Now I'm riding less, I find I don't need to do as much except keep the chain clean and tires inflated. I still check cables, chain slack, and stuff but they tend to need less work now.

If you commute by bicycle every day rain or shine, then changing the cables twice a year might not be as crazy as it sounds. I doubt that's enough time for them to rust to the point of being in danger of breaking, but it probably is enough time for them to collect enough grit to interfere with smooth shifting and braking. Though a lot of that will depend on how exposed the cables are on your particular bike.

Once a year is plenty unless you're having unexpected failures or a poor experience. If you're riding enough to go through parts faster than that, you'd know it.

You're probably fine with your annual tune up. If you want to do it yourself the drive train should be your highest priority in my opinion:

- Keep your chain clean. Every few weeks use a degreaser to clean it, wash it out with water and apply lubricant suitable to your weather conditions afterwards. There's a chain cleaning tool from Park Tools which makes the degreasing part particularly easy. I highly recommend it.

- Replace the chain every year. Chains will stretch and wear out the cogs on your cassette thereby deteriorating the whole drive train. There are distance recommendations and ways to mesure if it's time to replace the chain if you want to look them up, but doing it every year shoudl be on the safe side

- Replace your tires once they are worn out. I drive Continental Grand prix which come with a handy indicator on the tire itself, but you should be able to look up the recommended life span for your particular tyre

- Keep your bike clean. Cleaning your chain should be a welcome opportunity to also quickly clean the rest of your bike - doesn't have to take longer than a few minutes.

And this is also true of cars, except the maintenance and parts on cars are much more expensive. Probably most Americans don't think much about this much as they drive and service their cars regularly.

I have a problem with spokes getting loose myself. Would love tuffwheels but for adult bikes.

"keeping cycling going" is much less important than spending that money to deal with job loss and unemployment. This is using a crisis to divert money to a person's pet agendas.

if you want to subsidize cycling and stuff, can we at least get the economy back up first and deal with the massive fallout from lost wages due to time off, and business closings?

Where I live, cycling is much cheaper than public transport and astronomically cheaper than driving. If you have lost wages and still have to go places, that's important.

You're assuming that there's a choice between supporting an economic recovery and supporting cycling. I don't believe there is, certainly not when it comes to return on investment for €50 per person.

I see increased mobility, decreased congestion in towns and cities, less pollution and less income lost to transport costs, not to mention the health benefits from more exercise.

I don't see a "than" here. These vouchers are also a cash injection into French businesses and workers, and specifically ones who are both important from a policy standpoint and yet likely to get heavily beaten by the crisis, since everyone delays repairs in a crisis.

50 bucks is more than most of my bikes are worth. ;-)

But seriously I think that most bikes are within 50 bucks of being rideable. I tinker with a lot of old bikes, for family, friends, and at one time for a charity program. At least in the US, a huge fraction of bikes are gathering dust or rust, but the tires are flat, there's no pump in the house, some of the mechanisms are stuck, they haven't been properly adjusted for comfort, etc. Many of the bikes weren't properly built in the first place, and need attention to things like spoke tension and bearing adjustment. And the owners aren't handy with tools.

A bit of lube, air in the tires, and maybe a reassurance from the mechanic at a shop, and some accessories such as a pump, will have the bike up and running. At the very least it will help the shops stay afloat.

If the subsidy kicks in all at once for a lot of people, it could trigger a noticeable increase in bike use, which has a crowd psychology benefit.

For everybody, my consistent advice is that your experience with any kind of cycling will be greatly improved by becoming self sufficient for at least routine maintenance and minor repairs.

My cynical read is that the bike rider/repair lobby was one of the groups at the table, and this is what they managed to get.

> The French government is slowly bringing its lockdown to a close from May 11, with cyclists allowed back onto the roads for the first time since March.

To clarify, this is somewhat inaccurate: biking is permitted, and has always been permitted, during the French lockdown, as a judgment (in French) recently confirmed: https://www.conseil-etat.fr/actualites/actualites/le-gouvern....

Cyclists were just subject to the same restrictions as anyone else -- these restrictions were the same no matter the transportation means.

And yes, these measures should change by May 11, but the details are not confirmed yet.

The french "interior ministry" lied about cycling on twitter, saying you weren't allow to go out for your daily 1h by bike. The law never said that. All the newspapers relayed this lie without checking this fact.

then one can expect that the population also believed it and social pressure enacted it?

it's more like the police actually gave fines for it, and fighting a fine is a hassle. (in particular now, I don't think really can, probably have to wait fo re-opening).

To be fair, some newspapers did checked the information (like Libération's fact-checking service, CheckNews.fr – so did NextINpact, that are quite specialised in those kind of governement overreach), but it wasn't clear if that kind of decision was part of a reasonable interpretation of the law by the minister.

The Conseil d’État clarified that it wasn't.

Let's be honest, 50 Euros per person is a drop in the bucket compared to the subsidies governments give to other modes of transportation.

> Let's be honest, 50 Euros per person is a drop in the bucket compared to the subsidies governments give to other modes of transportation.

And that’s largely sufficient. Having a bike doesn’t cost a lot per year: according to the FNAUT (Fédération des associations des usagers de transport), on average, bikers spend ~€0.21/km. An air chamber costs €5; an air pump (one-time purchase) is €10.

Don't buy cheap air pumps. Those things need to be strong to last. They handle a lot of pressure. A 10€ air pump will break at the first fall and most have small bases so they tip easily. And when they break you must buy a new one.

If you really use it, a 25€ pump will cost you way less over as little as 3 years.

I bought a pump for 5€ and we have been using (4 people) it regularly for around ~10 years. I know, inflation.

If you need to put 8 bars in your quick speedy bike? Absolutely.

For a simple urban commuter bike? No difference, you aren’t going to put in more than 3,5 bars in those fat tires anyways.

Commuting with 8 bars is way more convenient than 3.5. Having the right pressure is much underrated. On my way to work i roll by lots of other struggling commuters without even pedaling, looking at their poor almost flat tires.

Bike pump is one of those items where you will be happy you invested a few extra bucks, a good one lasts a lifetime and you will enjoy it every time you use it, instead of being frustrated to have something that is just barely good enough. I used to have a bad one and it was so frustrating i only pulled it out once the tires were desperately flat, got a good one and now i regularly pump up my tires because it's so effortless.

Fair enough; I just wanted to point out that it’s cheap to own a bike.

I agree. I think it's a small amount for the government, that will still be a meaningful amount for the recipient.

You can save further by patching air chambers with other air chambers, or better yet fit a ring of old air chamber between you tire and the air chamber, creating a thicker wall that it's harder to penetrate by debris, glass, nails, etc.

You can get your tires pumped for free at most bike shops, gas stations, public bike repair stations.

Use your saved up 50€ for beers or better yet give it to someone else so she can buy a bike!

Is 'air chamber' the literal translation from French? I like it better than 'inner tube'

I like it less because I am super confused what they are talking about.

Camera d'aria in Italian. Câmara-de-ar in Portuguese. Cámara in Spanish.

And so on and so forth.

That’s what my friend Google Translation told me

Inner tubes are like $1.50-$2 and with some commuter-friendly tough tires like Schwalbe Marathons or Conti Gator-skins you probably avoid most punctures to begin with. I would not recommend shoving a second inner tube in your tire, that will probably not seat well and may adversely affect handling.

Real tube patchkits are also very inexpensive, there's no reason to bodge something together with old tubes.

Where you live probably.

Cycles 13k+ km and had no problem with second inner tube, it's pretty common. Your mileage might, literally, vary.

It's not about the money but about recycling, feel free to buy more if you like the market, cheers

> Where you live probably.

Nah; I buy them shipped internationally for that price. (This doesn't help on the environmentalism angle, but IMO the impact here is pretty low, especially if it offsets car miles.)

They've gone up in price somewhat but still are pretty cheap: https://www.wiggle.com/lifeline-road-inner-tube/

Please let me know where you get such amazing prices, because with wiggle you have at least 8$ plus in shipping within the UK (where they are located). I can only imagine outside EU.

I also believe you are wrong if you think that sourcing internationally is anywhere within the "low impact" range.

Happy cycling, to each one her own.

[0] https://www.wiggle.co.uk/h/option/international

Wiggle delivers free to the US on orders over $60 USD; I throw tubes in with other orders when my supply on hand is below, say, a half dozen. If don't know about their policies to the UK or EU markets.

Even with $8 in shipping, if you buy 8 tubes that only adds $1/tube. Usually still well below shop prices, which can be as high as $7-8/tube (although less obviously so at $2.80 than their former price of $1.50).

> I also believe you are wrong if you think that sourcing internationally is anywhere within the "low impact" range.

I guess we have different ideas of what that vague term means, and that's fine! For what it's worth, the entire bike part ecosystem is international. The vast majority of bike frames are made in China and Taiwan; Shimano's parts are made in China, Malaysia, and Singapore; and very few brands (Look; I don't know of any others) make frames in North Africa, which is relatively local to the EU but not the US market.

Inner tubes are also made in Taiwan/China. Unless you live in Taiwan, there is international sourcing going on somewhere in the supply chain.

Happy cycling :-)

But then biking is cheap. When I was a student, I would buy a bike at a used bike shop for ~80 euros. They would last me a year and I would bike almost daily to the university, to go to friends, or go out at night. Besides not having incredible amount money, bikes are stolen on such a regular basis that it wasn't much use buying a more expensive bike.

Maintenance costs were very low. Every now and then I had a flat tire, buy a new inner tube for 3 Euro and you are done. Later when I did my PhD I had the same second-hand bike for years. Though, I would usually bring the bike to the store to get a flat tire fixed, which would usually cost 10-20 Euro.

Now that we have enough income, I usually buy a new bike for ~700-800 Euro every two years or so. But even then it is very cheap compared to car ownership or even public transport. Plus much healthier.

The biking infrastructure in The Netherlands is exceptionally good. However, if I was in an another country (I lived in Germany for ~5 years), I'd rather have them invest the N * 50 Euros in bike lanes. Because I think in many countries the problem is not the cost of owning/maintaining a bike, it's just that the infrastructure is bad compared to that for cars. I lived in what is considered to be a 'green' city in Germany with a Green mayor and all, and the cycling infrastructure pretty deplorable.

It's not per person.

It is per REPAIR JOB. Big difference.

People seem motivated to keep their bikes maintained if they don't have to pay for it themselves from my experience.

In Canada I've volunteered at free bike tune up stations for many years, they are usually set up at popular summer events or at community centres.

We get a lot of people who aren't confident enough to do basic things like adjust brakes, gears or even change a flat tire. Most of the time they've simply rode their bike and dealt with poor performance or issues until it becomes a problem or they feel it is unsafe to ride.

For these folks getting someone to do extremely basic yearly maintenance would keep them happily riding for a long time.

I don’t think TCO is an issue with bikes.

I would estimate the TCO of a bike to be somewhere between €15 and €50 a month†. That compares favourably to cars which would be somewhere up at €350 to €700 per month, so that’s an order of magnitude off.

If that payment can be an effective incentive to use the bike more that’s nice, I guess, but I’m not sure it can. Infrastructure would be the most important (and also most expensive) driver of bike usage if I had to guess. That’s not easily or quickly changed.

I mean, for us the cost factor definitely is relevant. We can save so much money by not having a car and there are so few situations where we would need one (if we really need one we can rent one once a year). So sure: Sometimes a car would be practical or nice to have but for that little tiny benefit it is too expensive. So, yeah, TCO does play a role – but I don’t think €50 per year change that calculus significantly if you have already decided that a car is worth it for you.

—

† Between €500 and €1,500 for the bike (used for five years), between €100 and €300 per year for repairs.

I know enough people who don't ride their bikes because of some simple repair job they never get around to doing, often because they're mildly intimidated by it, and it's one of those jobs you can always put off until tomorrow. Money usually isn't the issue. Often it's the most trivial of obstacles that stand between people and their proclivity to adopt a particular habit.

That's for a fancy bike, not that there's anything wrong with it. You can get by with a tenth of that if you get a "beater", which may or may not be sufficient for your urban transportation needs.

Also, the annual repair costs are probably assuming you have someone else do them. I think that's a reasonable expectation for most people, but it can be quite a bit less if you can do some of them yourself. I'm pretty sure I average less than $50/year for all maintenance costs for about 2000 miles of commuting.

I paid ~$1,200 for my Rad Rover about 5 years ago, and maybe $100 in tubes/tire slime/etc since, and it's an e-bike. If someone handed me $50ish today for it, I'd still take it in for a full tune. I can do all of that myself, but the time savings would be great.

Since this isn't just a €50 windfall direct deposited into their bank accounts, as in the IRS stimulus, it seems like the best approach towards getting people on bikes.

If you are skeptical about whether or not this is a waste of government money, consider why you have not yet begun commuting by bike. The French just bought €300M worth of new bike highway and they want it to be used. What costs could outweigh better air quality and healthier people?

It does not get anyone on bikes since it targets people who already have bikes.

It is bizarre to think that people who have bikes were waiting for a €50 windfall before actually riding them.

When you own a 200$ second hand bike, their is a weird psychological pressure to not spend 30-50$ on repair because it is 15-25% of the actual cost of bike.

I have definitely experienced it myself.

Well it only means that these 'repairs' are not required for you to ride the bike. Or you don't plan to ride at all.

Either way, the point is that this is windfall spending but does not change anything to the actual daily use of bikes.

>What costs could outweigh better air quality and healthier people?

And given France's public health system, the upfront investment in healthier people will likely pay future dividends through lower healthcare spending.

Do most people really need $50 for bike maintenance? I think I've spent about $15 on my beater bike over the last couple years, just to buy a new tube and maybe some wd40. For the vast majority of people I would imagine that they don't maintain their bike at all, modern bikes hold together pretty well.

If you want working brakes and use your bike more than twice a year, you definitely need more than buying a new tube every two years. Working brakes will save your life.

I can lock up the front and back brakes easily with a single finger, and haven't touched them in a couple years. And I use that bike constantly.

What type of brake is this? I've never heard of such performant and maintenanceless brakes. Drum brakes like Shimano Rollerbrake can go for thousands of kilometers with very little maintenance (although you're supposed to grease them), but they wouldn't lock up with a single finger. Disc brakes and v-brakes require to change pads every few hundred kilometers. How many kilometers do you ride every year?

I've ridden my (heavy!) e-bike for a few thousand miles, and although I've replaced tubes and tires, I'm still on the original disc pads. I don't think they're anything special, just middle of the road cable actuated stuff. Do pads usually wear faster? Honest question.

Depends on the riding conditions. The pads on my road bike lasted about 10,000km. In 12,000km my mountain bike has needed 6 sets of pads and 1 set of rotors.

Mine usually last 1000 km. What brand are yours?

The stock pads the came with the Rad Rover. Tektros, I think. https://www.radpowerbikes.com/collections/brake-pads

Some generic Shimano disk brake, I think BR-something. Got BOS1 brake pads on it. I don't commute on it, but definitely ride at least a few hundred kilometers on it a year. They aren't particularly performant, you should always be able to lock up hydraulics with a single finger if they are adjusted correctly imo. Even my mechanical avid BB7 disks I could lock up with a finger when my brake cables were newer.

50 dollars is about what it costs for a service for a bike in Dublin and London.

just an fyi since we are talking about bike maintenance - wd40 can be used to clean your drive train but then you are supposed to wipe it off and then apply actual chain lube.

This is easily bought at any bike shop for well under the 50 Euros being offered here

Cyclist for years and never knew this. Thanks very very much

WD-40 somehow picked up the reputation for just spraying it on everything where for a lot of uses, it's not really something you want to leave on there and there are better products for lubrication... in almost every WD-40 use case it seems ;)

£50 would get a bike shop to give you a brief look-over in the UK. I don’t know about France, as I can say it’s amazing how much prices can change over short distances.

Two years ago, I cycled 1050 km along the Rhine, and the bike needed work before and after, in addition to me using ~£15 of chain cleaner on the way.

Yearly checkup for a bicycle is like 100 euro here.

You forgot the last few ingredients: time and know-how. Some can't be bothered to get their hands dirty, or are afraid of breaking something.

Yes, most people don't want to spend the effort fixing a bike.

I used to do all my own work and repairs but with a few bikes in rotation plus my girlfriends bikes it gets a bit much for one person. I defer yearly tuneups and bigger repairs or upgrages to a proper bike mechanic now.

It's a nudge, to get people on their bikes who wouldn't otherwise.

A few things here, wd40 actually accelerates the wear on your bike's drivetrain. It's sticky and will attract grime which chews away at your chainring and cassette. It also gets all over your pants and stains your leg. Use some proper chain lube and your drivetrain and clothes will last longer.

If you ride your bike a decent amount you'll need to do morem maintenance. Per mile ridden, cheap Walmart bikes require more maintenance.

Complexity of the bike is also a huge factor. Compare the maintenance needed between a fixie with no brakes and a full suspension mtb with hydraulic disc brakes, tubeless tires 12 gears etc.

Adjusting brake cables and derailer limits needs to happen all the time, probably once per 500 miles. Over time chains stretch and then you need to replace the chain and the cassette.

Of course this entirely depends on how much you ride, where you ride, and what bike you ride.

A lot of people would just get a new bike before repairing.

I don't think that most people would buy a new bike when they get a flat tire. Some of course but probably a minority.

A lot of people don't buy $4000 bikes.

Where do you live that's so rich that people get new bikes instead of repairing the ones they have???

I live where if someone spends 1000 on a bike this year. They will repeat next year. Same as cell phones. New iphone prime 5k extra hd space. I'm in.

Your calculation assumes one never needs to replace brake pads, chain, tires; it also makes no allowance for lights, tools, incidentals, or the occasions one might need professional repair. Incidentally, WD40 is not a good substitute for lube.

Personally, I've very rarely needed to replace those consumables, and I ride my bikes very hard. Only time I have needed a new chain and cassette is when I let my bike rust because I rode it all winter without washing it. And I've got like one set of brake pads in the last 5 years for my 2-3 bikes, since disk brake pads last pretty well forever as long as you don't foul them with something. I do go through a lot of tubes though, but no tires yet. As for tools all my bikes need for maintenance is a couple of allen keys and a phillips screwdriver.

I could see people spending that money bringing it to a mechanic for a tune up though. Personally I think that is a waste of money since it's super easy to tune up bikes yourself, but I do know lots of people who spent years with their bike shifting like garbage when it would take just a couple minute tune up to fix.

I doubt your story. Disc brake pads do wear out, especially if you ride very hard. The same is true for chain and cassette.

Everything wears out of course, but I've had mine for 7 years going back and forth to work every day and never replaced my breaks or chain or cassette. Maybe you experience a quality issue if it's a frequent issue?

If the motor is in the hub, then I can believe wear on the chain and cassette is minimal. And if you use brakes very sparingly, they could also last for a long time. I'm interested in the brand of your pads, I need those! I have to change mine every 1000 kilometres.

> If the motor is in the hub,

Is this referring to motor as in an electrical bike? I am not using that.

Sorry, I mixed up with a different comment indeed. On electric bikes with the motor in the wheel hub, the transmission sustains little effort.

I'm in Japan, so prices will be different, but

I bought a cheap chinesium city bike (but with fancy in-hub-generation LED lighting) for under $200, and it came with a "3 years of free checkups and repairs, 5 years accident insurance" plan. For those 3 years I brought my bike in every couple months and they'd clean it, oil it, align the brakes, and pump the tyres.

Additional repairs (wheel & tyre since I'm a fatass who also rides lazy and hard on curbs, some spokes cracked and the tube split) are another $100.

I pump tyres at home with a $15 hand pump, and relube the chain with oil cans from the dollar store.

So a total outlay of about $300 in 5 years of riding. I guess it'll survive another 2-3 years before it's cheaper to just buy a new one.

I bought a bike for $900 about 7 years ago. I ride to work every day (25km back and forth) and the maintenance have consisted of one tube and a few packages of lube for chain, probably around $50 in total. The tires need replacement but so far they hold up...

Please buy a new chain. You'll go so so much faster.

I think for most people this will go towards having a professional fix their bike. Even simple repairs/maintenance is too much for most people and they'd rather pay someone to take care of it.

You do see a lot of people riding beaters with flat tires and I get the impression that they do not really like riding their bike but it's better than walking. Seasonal tuneups are pretty popular for people who actually like riding and do so recreationally. Working with the cables and derailleur can be vexing if you don't know what you are doing. It's also nice to support a local business that serves your hobbies, but that's just me. Trade the wd40 for some triflow though. wd40 does not stand up to water.

Bar tape, inner tubes, and lube are all I really buy regularly; and the tape is just because I am vain and like to change up the look.

I just use chainsaw oil.

1L for $5 and I’ll likely die before I use it up.

And an eBay sourced $3 applicator bottle. Or just re-use another oiler.

Does it smell like bananas, though? This is important.

In the very next week, I'll get my 30y old bike getting painted, pedals, breaks replaced and wheels polished.

My company will cover the costs. Not that I couldn't pay for it, but it's a nice gesture to motivate us to use them, just like this French deal.

Bikes wear out if you ride them daily. I also ride a cheap bike that doesn't have to work perfectly, but eventually everything breaks down. Even faster if you don't maintain them, and it will spread out to other parts if you don't replace the worn parts in time. Tires, brakes etc. just wear out in any case.

You can then either replace parts or get a new beat up bike that at least rolls (and stops) for $15, but that's not always realistic. I'm tall and need a large bike, and these are not always easy to find used.

tl;dr 50 is not a lot.

I have to replace the chain every 1500 km. I replace the chain multiple times, store the old chains and then do a second run (the rationale is that putting a new chain on a used drivetrain does not work, so I need to wear them gradually). After 12000 km (4 chains in the process, 3000 km per chain) I need to replace the cassette and after two of these replacements (24000 km) even the front gears. That's 4 * 6 EUR for chains + 10 EUR for the cassette + 20/2 EUR for the front gears every couple years, or more than twice more than what you say, and that's only the drivetrain... I ride 4500 km/year (daily 2 * 7km commute + a few bigger trips during summer). According to a quick Google search, 3000km per cheap chain is reasonable.

Wow, really cool scheme! Would love to see it in Scotland.

A friend nicely lent me his bike and I've been going for rides every day during lockdown. Really got the cycling bug now and a scheme like this would be great.

It is so easy to do: just ask your government to increase the taxes by 100 pounds and then give you back 50 pounds. Your loss, but you will be happy for the 50 pounds you get from the government, not thinking where the money come from.

Wait until you hear about 'free' parking.

Adoption of cycling would require more serious actions like improving the road system for the bicycles so that cyclist are safe from the cars. The cycling should be also a pleasant activity so that people can do it naturally, without being forced.

I am in France and I am enjoying now the reduction of car traffic and the improvement of air quality but this is going to end as soon as the confinement is over.

Same here in London. We still can enjoy relatively car free roads, but this is definitely going back to "normal" where cycling becomes quite close to a Russian roulette type of activity... I'd like to commute on a bike, but I'm not that suicidal (I've clocked in 20k km on London roads commuting, but now it's too far, too dangerous).

"we want the bicycle to be the queen of deconfinement"

I'll bet that sounds really beautiful in the original French.

In french, "la petite reine" (i.e., "the little queen") is a fancy literary idiom for a bicycle. Also, "bicyclette" is a feminine noun.

« Nous voulons que cette période fasse franchir une étape dans la culture vélo, et que la bicyclette soit la petite reine du déconfinement en quelque sorte » [1]

I think the English version is nicer. More succinct.

Edit: ah, ok, my rudimentary knowledge of French meant that I missed out on a pun as another reply to your comment points out. I take it back: a pun trumps all brevity.

[1]: https://fr.news.yahoo.com/d%C3%A9confinement-plan-20-million...

Other similar government initiatives always lead to the providers hiking the price of all repairs and maintenance work by €50...

I'm not sure quite why, since presumably market forces should still work to make people go to the cheapest bike shop to get as much value as possible for their €50, but that never seems to happen...

Example: grants to give discounts of ~£300 to install EV charging points in people's houses simply led to the price of installation rising by £300 overnight.

The region around Paris decided to give a 500eur subvention for ebikes and 600eur for ecargos. One per adult person if you live in Île de France. Great (waiting for the check right now) but I'm not sure it didn't jack the prices up a bit :-\

The US used to have a similar program, created during the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 and subsequently removed by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2018.

Maybe it will come back as part of a new stimulus in 2020?

I am a bit late to the game, so maybe someone already said it in this thread. I am asuming this is intended to have people cycle to work instead of taking public transport once the lockdown is lifted. There is just one problem:

As a cyclist in locked down London, the few times I needed to get to the office on almost empty(!) streets, I noticed how much more difficult social distancing on a bike is. Not while moving, but while waiting on a red light. It is usual to wait in front of the queue in the cycle waiting area just in front of the traffice light. A few times when I waited there more cyclists or scooters with open helmets would join me there, not respecting social distancing at all (pedestrians are much better at this).

I think if the direction is going into pushing people into using bicycles much more than before, an education campaign needs to start that tells cyclists and scooters how they should behave on red lights. Not sure what the best solution will be, as I am sure there wont be much space. I guess most people really would prefer to take their car that naturally enforces separation to others. So I really expect the roads to become very full in the next weeks.

> I am asuming this is intended to have people cycle to work instead of taking public transport once the lockdown is lifted.

No. It literally says in the subtitle, and then again in the first paragraph that this is about keeping pollution levels down.

In holland you can buy a bike for 50 euros.

And in France as well (leboncoin.fr), I guess the idea here is to encourage people who needed a push to fix their tires or breaks to make the move and use all those bikes left collecting dust.

The price of second hand bikes increased massively during the transport strike, I'm not sure if they've come down yet.

French and cyclist and only discovering this :)

Cyclists in France are mostly middle-upper class. Lower classes have been excluded from town centers at distances where it is difficult to commute by bike. And their work is typically in another suburb, where bike infrastructure is poor or non existing.

I'm not impressed.

So France is taxing people to give them money back; with the costs of the overhead (processing taxes and these rebates) one can safely assume it is overall a bad deal, the tax amount is higher than the rebate so the taxpayer is on the losing end, but happy for the "free stuff".

There is no free meal.

> So France is taxing people to give them money back;

Yes, that's generally how governments work.

You're right. Obviously the better solution is for everyone to remember the dozens of tax credits for which they're eligible so they can receive their reimbursement months afterward.

Could I put this toward a new innertube for my electric unicycle?

JK. I live in New York City - curious if anyone else in cities have been increasing use of their personal electric vehicle (PEV) or electric unicycle during the whole Covid 19 shutdown?

I bought my neighbor a bike for 50€ in 2015, and rode more than 5000km a year (50km to 100km week) on it ever since (commuting to work, shopping, week-end long rides now that I work remotely)

That’s a very innovative angle for handing out benefits. I like it

I'd like to see other cities doing something like this. Although a typical annual tune-up costs closer to $100.

This seems like a really cheap way to get the desired outcome, more people exercising

But first you’d have to get to France...

This is a very bizarre headline.

Is there some reason to think this has any kind of predictable outcome?

I'm all for good incentives but not if there is no apparent benefit.

Is it only me or a gov that during a pandemic that will cause a lots of lost jobs giving back 50 euro to bicycle owners is a new level of rudiculesness?

Really why not just spend the money on community bicycles and docking stations, increased racks or similar efforts instead of maintenance? I don't object to promoting bicycling at all but the means puzzle me a bit.

Because there are probably more than 100 million bikes in France, lots of them in garages are not ready to be a daily means of transportation.

France is doing both.

> community bicycles and docking stations,

I have yet to see a place where those have worked very successfully - they seem to very quickly fall apart and into disuse. In China, it is even worse.

We have those in Dublin. Seems to be working mostly ok and pretty cheap to use. A 20€ yearly membership and your rides are free if they last less than 30 minutes. Which means free for most folks.

This €50 subsides is a fantasy from Cycling Weekly. No announcement was made by any local or national public authority, and no sign in the French news about this. Love from Paris anyway.

It was announced by the environment minister:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-france...

If you want a reputable French source : https://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2020/04/30/un-plan-go...

ok my bad

Here it is in Le Monde: https://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2020/04/30/un-plan-go...

Instead of €50. The government could make €70 tax relief. Then there would be no need to transfer (€50 x millions of bike owners) through the government's hands and to waste peoples effort on serving the whole operation.

The only reason why it is not like that is because politicians like to have our money which gives them power and makes the state bigger and bigger.

The administration would be more or less the same either way. The transfer of the money is a very small part of it.

The US used to have a small tax relief for bike commuters. I agree there'd be less overhead, but the proposed system will get people to fix their bikes and ride them.

Tiny tax rebates just get lost in the wash and result in an over-complicated tax filing process. The govt isn't trying to make cyclists relatively a bit richer, it's trying to reduce air pollution.

It's a nice gesture but hardly solves a problem. If the payment is for a mechanic to perform some "service" on your bicycle to make it roadworthy again, and from it you gain neither the tools nor the knowledge to perform two simple, necessary tasks for a cyclist; replace a tyre/inner tube, or replace a chain; what's the long term benefit?

How about put 50 euros per cyclist into a tool kit, a dozen inner tubes and some education (YouTube videos even?) so they can continue to cycle long after the 50 euro one time service has passed?

But what about the economy? Jokes aside, bike mechanics have to pay rent too.

"Cycle training and temporary parking spaces will also be provided by the funds"

> to perform two simple, necessary tasks for a cyclist; replace a tyre/inner tube, or replace a chain

Never had to do either of those things, driving a bike almost daily throughout the city to school, hobbies, friends,... The few times my tire went flat, a short visit to a mechanic cost alsmost nothing

Sure, but this funding would presumably cover you for one visit. Is that enough to convince you to start cycling if you don't already?

If they want to convince people to ride, it makes sense to provide them the tools to sustain themselves.

Teach a man to fish... And all that.

What total mileage do you have? In my experience, it will start skipping on some gears after 7000 or maybe 10000 km and then you need to change the entire drivetrain, because it got destroyer by the heavily worn-out chain.

Learning to fix the flat myself was good because I can do it immediately in 10 minutes without having to walk the bike to the shop (which are closed during evenings/weekends) and wait.

This is one of those of those proposals that allows the pats in the back to go round, but which are in fact completely useless because in effect it is just a windfall for people who did not ask for anything and who did not need any help.

because most people who bike are rich?

That's beside the point.

If you have a bike and puncture a tyre, you do not wait for the state to give you money before you repair it. France is one of the world's richest countries so I'm thinking that the French were not saving up to change their bikes' tyres...

They've been given free money to spend on bikes, so they will spend it on bikes (repairs or not, let's be honest, because it's ridiculous to think that the French are in desperate need of bike repairs). This is just a subsidy for bike shops and bike accessories companies and it allows to spin how green the government is.

> France is one of the world's richest countries

Not even in the top 20.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...

While I don't agree with the original discussion points, I don't think this counterpoint has much merit. While France may not be "one of the richest" verbatim, there's no denying France is a rich first-world country. In the list you linked to, it ranks 25 out of 187 by the IMF estimate and similarly in other listings.

This was not a counterpoint point at all. More like bike-shedding meets strawman.

There has not been any counterpoint to my comments yet, actually. My guess is because people have an emotional and ideological take on this: Cycling is good so giving money to fund repairs of bike has to be a positive measure as well. Except that it is not based on any economic or rational reasoning. I'm pretty certain that the only result will be to fund superfluous purchases or upgrades because that the standard effect of windfall subsidies.

How? they aren't even giving people the money. It's literally just for repairs. If anyone here is having an emotional/ideological take it would be you.

That's not an argument...

"Just for repairs" is exactly my point.

This is what makes it quite obvious that it won't do anything regarding uptake of cycling. It's a windfall, people will obviously be happy and may take the opportunity to upgrade to more expensive parts, but that's about it. If they needed repairs they would have had them done anyway.

This is a political measure that has no practical value.

There was a public transport strike in France recently and that caused an uptake in cycling.

I expect the same after the end of the lockdown because people may still be wary of public transport.

This subsidy brings nothing.

What expensive parts are you getting for 50 euro?

This is a silly argument[0], but for what is being discussed, what really counts is the average wealth per adult for which France does quite well at 11th (for median, 13th for mean)[1]:

[0] with respect to classifying countries as rich or not as it ignores the fact that the category is not fixed in size.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe...

What if it's the chain that's broken or a wheel is not straight or a brake cable needs replacing or the bike spent a few years in a cellar and it's not clear to the owner if it's roadworthy or not?

Almost everyone has a bike but they are convenience vehicle, not everyone is a hobbyist or has the proper tools to repair it outside of patching inner tubes.

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