tyrion

Immediate availability adds to the cost - warehouses and storefronts.

UniChris

Just as the problem is both with the stores and consumer expectations, the solution may not be something either can do on their own.

Part of why I was arguing for a community partnership was to market the virtues of a sound basic bike, vs a more common featuritis bike that looks fancy in the store display.

Also Walmart isn't in the NYC utility cycling market Streetsblog was talking about - Target is now, though may not have been at the time.

UniChris

Yet it's precisely the $99-250 BSO's that are available in store today to take home today for cash

MRT2

All very true. When my son was little, I managed to find some good deals for him from small local bike shops, but the market may have changed since then as that was over 10 years ago. For example, When my son was looking for his first adult sized bike at the age of 9 or 10, I knew it would not be a long term purchase as it was very likely he would grow out of whatever small frame size he was at, and indeed he did. So rather than buy an bike for $350 or $400, which is what a basic new quality bike would cost, I started asking around if any shops, or even mechanics was up to the challenge of building a basic bike with a small frame for under $200. And a local shop owner had a pile of frames in the back some with components attached, some without. And we came up with a plan for an older Trek that looked ok, but needed some work. He said he could do it, clean up the bike, guarantee it was mechanically sound, replace worn or broken components with either new ones or at least functional ones. And because it was going to a kid, it had to look nice. And they did. For less than $200. He outgrew the bike after about 2 years and I sold it for just a little less than what I paid for it, which went towards his next bike.

Reflector Guy

So I am assuming there would be some aspect of quality control, or some checks and balances to be sure the bikes go out the door in top notch condition? Most of us aren't buying bikes because we want to help out local teens or adults trying to get their lives in order; the bikes coming from this venture need to be priced competitively but of better quality than the Walmart bikes and that is a very tall order. If the bike is $500 but is no better than a Walmart bike, pretty soon the cheapest $600 LBS bike from Taiwan or China becomes the best value for the money.

Koyote

I was mostly responding to the OP, whose comments go far beyond those in the article.

As for the article: I could barely make it through. The first 2/3rds, in particular, is very scattershot, but basically explains that there are no good bike options for people with small budgets; the latter 1/3rd makes the pitch for bike coops as a solution, though I can think of several much more efficient and efficacious solutions, some of which could exist alongside bike coops.

UniChris

Big box store bikes have an earned reputation of having no such thing. So basically anything is an improvement - starting with someone knowing which way the fork goes on. I'm arguing you can retain such knowledge in a community organization (and potentially lverage it when there's a pallet of each part) in a way that you can't when someone in the back room is being payed $5 per kitted box they open, has to work with exactly what's in that particular box, good or bad, and has to report to a manager who can't tell a bike from a kick scooter.

It can't be the only selling point, and to not break the others it can't cost much, but the social virtue of a product is actually a huge market interest.

Indeed they do.

Simplicity, volume, getting things right the first time for lower waste. Eg, why should a servicable 1x8 drivetrain cost more than a crappy 21 speed one? Less than half as many parts, made of slightly thicker metal.

Plus the partnerships that are getting them assembled having a role in calling attention to them as a good choice.

sloppy12

I agree I wouldn't buy it. but its not a fantasy of a pallet of parts. Its a bike that someone who is poor can just go buy and ride.

this BSO think is literally something that only a elitist group of people would say about things that poor people own and use happily every day.

You can probably go to goodwill or the salvation army and find a much better bike for less money. Every poor person I have ever know is well aware of places to get a bike, they also have all known someone that could fix a bike. Heck the homeless dudes around here basically made their own bike coop at one point until the city shut down their tent city.

UniChris

Might be worth reading the streetsblog article in the first post, because it's about the coops trying to keep BSO's (and very old better things) going for precisely the people who can't afford anything else.

My own firsthand but limited experience with them has actually been better, so ironically in echoing their frustration that there's a problem in need of solving, I'm listening to rather than dismissing their perspective.

What I'm arguing for is that our consumer supply chain should provide a better "feedstock" for those efforts to keep folks who need wheels, rolling on them, by refocusing from what's flashy to what's important.

A lot of those sources have dried up under the present demand; they're also being replenished less and less as fewer of the new objects sold are going to last.

sloppy12

I did read it. they are doing exactly what I just said. they are fixing or helping poor people keep their bike running. I doubt any of those people care if you the rest of BF, or I call their bike a BSO... this is pretty much what all the Coops I am familiar with do. its what the homeless camp coop did.

consumer supply chain is probably as good as it will ever get. getting pallets of mid range parts to put on budget bike frames is about as realistic as expecting a person at walmart installing a fork on a bike the right way.

people want the stupid parts that big box stores put on the low end bikes, they dont care if a shock works they just want a shock because "nice" bikes have shocks. as was mentioned farther up its not like walmart hasnt tried to sell a sensible usable bike they have. No body wants a IGH 3 speed bike with fenders and a rack. thats what grandma had.


I see you added about used bikes drying up. Yeah no kidding I was going to mention that about the supply chain thing to but didn't. I mean at this point people with money cant get a bike or parts without waiting. I highly doubt all the manufactures are real concerned with the poor people bikes getting nicer parts by the pallet.

Reflector Guy

I'd bet they aren't as horrible as people here like to say they are. If the big box stores sell a million bikes in a year, how many are totally unrideable? A thousand? 900-thousand? Probably closer to the former than the latter.

tyrion

Don't we agree this commerce model isn't satisfactory?

UniChris

My feeling is that its mis-targeted rather than fundamentally useless.

I want the supply chain know-how that imports the 21-speed BSO to instead commission and import the parts of a solid 1x8 rigid frame, work with a community/jobs program to put them together right rather than have a kid in the back room put the fork on backwards, etc.

In the end I don't see anything wrong with people wanting to buy bikes in department stores, it's more that I want the bikes available there to be a better balance of durability vs. cheese flavoring.

UniChris

Well, again I bought a used one for a relative last fall, and apart from needing new grips it's mostly been fine, especially as I got to pay what it was actually worth.

How many are ridden a few times despite the fork being on backwards, sit in the garage for five years then get trashed or given away?

How many have immediate mechanical issues that push on-the-fence people to decide maybe cycling isn't fun after all?

Reflector Guy

Like I said, probably a lot less than we're led to believe by the conventional wisdom here on the forum.

icemilkcoffee 

Bike co-ops are good. But what is really needed, is a good ole fashioned pick-your-part bicycle junk yard. Junk yards have kept the working class rolling in their cars for all these years, they will do the same with bicycles.

UniChris

It's been pretty well established that most bicycles sold to average consumers get very little ultimate use at all, especially for any duration of time.

The distinction would be "cyclists" and "economic necessity utility transport"

cbrstar

Go to Holland or Japan and you will see the ultimate utilitarian bicycles ever created.




But I sure wouldn't ride one.

The problem is no matter how good your bike is If you don't do the maintenance it's going to grind to a halt. My best friend has been riding around on his dept store MTB almost everyday for over 10 years. But he makes sure everything is greased up. I've had other friends who rode their rather expensive road bikes for a few years without even oiling the chain and get upset when "It doesn't shift anymore". You can't run your car forever without changing oil, so why is it so shocking your bike needs TLC to keep running?

MRT2

Some people I know who work in bike shops have told me some funny stories. Like people who bring back their brand new bikes a couple of months after buying them, saying there is something wrong with the tires. The problem? You guessed it. They didn't know that every so often, they were supposed to inflate them.

Pop N Wood

And to support his conclusion he rejects all the common methods of obtaining a bike for little money.

Injustice for non-binary people. What ever does that mean?

philbob57

The disc brakes add costs. So do tariffs. The Chinese government doesn't pay the tariffs. Chinese factory owners don't pay the tariffs. Consumers do.

Besides, even $400 is beyond the reach of 10s of millions Americans and billions of residents of this planet.

Doc_Wui

Someone mentioned the Sears Free Spirit, which I bought in 1973 for about 89 bucks. I think that Huffy is probably a nicer bike.

UniChris

While fully agreeing that Streetsblog tends to play all of the political victimhood cards all of the time, that's not a fair analysis of either the linked article or my posts here.

The article specifically talks about how coops get used bikes back on the road. And I've already mentioned at least twice in this thread that the last bike I bought was on the used market. It's not that those options don't exist - and not that they don't end up being one of the more common solutions - rather it's that they are insufficient to fill the need.

Consider that a used bike has to start out new, someone has to buy it, and it has to have enough residual worth after they're through to be useful to ride, fix up, or as a source of parts. Fewer and fewer of the bike-like things sold have that staying power - if it works (as the one I found did) fine, but otherwise who wants the bendy components off a department store bike?

Next realize that the used market has drastically dried up over the past year. Last fall it took me about a week of looking to find something for my nephew. Given that the goal was just to get him from a 20" onto a 24 to break into 20-30 mile rail trail rides while the weather was still nice instead of that step-up only happening in the Christmas time frame in which something new and shiny might have been in the cards, a week of looking was fine. But if instead of enabling recreation for a kid, if the need was for someone who needed to get to their job after their car broke or their previous bike was stolen, a week of searching the used market doesn't cut it.

Used bikes certainly have a place - but by themselves, they're not a sufficient supply for the need, especially when fewer and fewer re-use worthy assemblies are starting into the system.

Given all the effort bike coops put into keeping things going, I'd like to see them have a feed of quality basic bikes to be maintaining, rather that a lot of crummy junk with the occasional "real bike" find or donation mixed in.

cyccommute 

How long ago was your experience with HelMart bikes? I have to work on them at my local co-op constantly and have zero respect for them. I would rather the people buying them saved their money or bought a far better used bike. Among the things I see on a constant basis are bearings that are both soft and brittle. The bearings grind down to dust or a hemispherical shape in the bearing cup. Of the bearing cup, often they pull apart which trying to extract them. They feel like they are cross threaded...and they are...but the threads are actually separating. Steel crank arms round off while still attached firmly to the crank spindle. And crank spindles have come to me looking like finials that you find on the top of some wrought iron fences. They have also come to me dangerously cracked

Untitled by Stuart Black, on Flickr

This particular one was cracked on both sides in exactly the same place. It’s a laceration waiting to happen.

Blame those Big Box stores you want people to buy bikes from. The features that they add are meant to bring people in to buy a bike that won’t do what they are advertising them for. A low end mountain bike from a bike shop can’t be sold for about $100 but it is much more trail worth then those BSO mountain bikes are. That’s the problem with HelMart bikes...the price. Twenty or 30 years ago, $100 could get you a fairly good bike. Today that $100 buys you a $50 bike from 1990. They cut costs on HelMart bikes so severely that the metal they are using is more slag then iron.

There are fairly good bikes out there. They are the lower end bikes at bike shops. But they cost $500 which is a very fair cost and good value. But the uninitiated wants to spend only $100 and they get what they are paying for...basically nothing.

UniChris

$500 is simply not an acceptable price for basic capability. It needs to cost half of that, and given that there are things on the market for a quarter of that, half seems achievable.

I'd rather consider how to move them from being part of the problem to being part of the solution.

No disagreement there. Neither the problem nor the solution is on the stores alone - purchasers clearly own the other half of the problem. We're "stuck" in grove where an inexpensive bike has to be featureful crap.

But there exists another grove where an inexpensive bike can instead be simpler and more durable.

Neither the stores nor the purchasers can alone climb out of one grove and drop into the other; it would have be be an organized effort of multiple players in partnership - stores and their supply chains, organizations like coops to provide mechanical support and education - including why you want the simple one, and not the 21 speed with suspension.

Case in point, over on the streetblog article someone observed:



To which I'd simply say, don't use indexed shifting - it's a delicate and unnecessary feature. It never worked right on my college-era big-box MTB, so I just switched it to friction mode and shifted by feel and ear.