
This Bikesharing Program Lets You Lock Your Bike Anywhere - koji
http://www.fastcoexist.com/1680664/this-bikesharing-program-lets-you-lock-your-bike-anywhere
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darklajid
I used to be a fan of this service in Germany for a while. Features are the
same (Track it online or grab one from the street, unlock it with your phone,
leave it everywhere you want _), it's operated by the 'Deutsche Bahn' railway
comp.

It was cheap, easy and the bikes were of good quality, plus you can't beat the
flexibility of grabbing one of those to meet a friend on the other side of the
city.

Great to see that the concept spreads further and further.

_) They define a general area in their TOS/contract. You're not supposed to
leave it outside of the city limits, for example. You can leave, of course,
but need to drive back into the city limits to drop it off.

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Loic
Here are some details, basically you lock/unlock with your phone by calling a
given phone number: [http://www.callabike-
interaktiv.de/index.php?id=401&&...](http://www.callabike-
interaktiv.de/index.php?id=401&&f=500)

The bike lock is controlled from a central point. Also, as they have a GPS,
they also propose an iPhone/Android application which can give you the nearest
free bikes around you.

This system is running in several cities in Germany.

~~~
darklajid
Or ckeck the following link to see where the bikes are right now:

[http://www.callabike-
interaktiv.de/kundenbuchung/process.php...](http://www.callabike-
interaktiv.de/kundenbuchung/process.php?proc=bikesuche&f=500&&f=500)

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wickeand000
The article's statement that these bikes wouldn't get stolen didn't really
assure me, so I looked at the stats for my city's bike sharing service.
According to one news report:

> One bike went missing the first year and it was later recovered. Last year
> all were accounted for. This year three or four are missing, but Dossett
> expects them to turn up.

I suppose the distinctiveness of the bicycles has something to do with it,
plus, they're relatively difficult to maneuver.

~~~
csarva
Depending on the particular program, you may not be able to break it down and
sell it for parts as some of them use custom parts that wouldn't otherwise
work on a regular bike.

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notatoad
>The bike still need to be returned to designated spots at the end of the
ride.

can't you lock any bike sharing bike anywhere, as long as you return it to the
designated rack at the end of the ride? what's new here?

~~~
jarek
I understood that it can be locked and trip ended at any 'designated' bike
rack (as in its location is in some database), but the rack doesn't need any
additional hardware since the bike locks itself.

But yes, the wording "ensures that users don’t need to lock their bikes at
designated docking stations [...] the bike still need to be returned to
designated spots at the end of the ride" is pretty bad and unclear.

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Xymak1y
We've had a similar program to this in Germany for some years now:
<http://www.callabike-interaktiv.de/>

Within inner city limits, you can use your smartphone to get an unlock code
(or call a hotline), then use the bike for 8 cents per minute as long as you
wish and drop it off anywhere (again, within city limits).

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Angostura
Ummm, no it doesn't. From the article:

> The bike still need to be returned to designated spots at the end of the
> ride.

~~~
duiker101
But... then... what is the point of this?

~~~
sopooneo
These bikes have integrated locks so that between endpoints you can attach it
to any solid post and it will be safe. If you wanted to carry around your own
chain-lock you could accomplish the same thing with any bike-sharing bike.

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jarek
"If you live in certain parts of the world, like France, Spain, China, Italy,
or Germany, you already are familiar with the joys of having an extensive
bike-sharing system readily available. North America is slowly catching on,
with cities like Boston, Washington, D.C., and New York City gradually rolling
out bike-share systems. "

Or, you know, Canada, where Bixi developed the system that now powers
Boston's, D.C.'s, and NYC's shares.

~~~
apendleton
Yeah, that bit was weird -- it implies a contrast in maturity and scale
between North America and Europe that seems not to have basis in fact.
Germany's largest bikeshare system, per Wikipedia, only has 3,000 bikes, which
is smaller than Montreal's. Even DC's, currently the largest in the US, is on
the same order of magnitude, at ~1700 bikes, and is a well-established system
at this point (over two years old, with somewhere around 2.5 million rides so
far).

~~~
darklajid
Call a bike, just one of the available systems, has 7000 bikes acc. to the
German Wikipedia entry (source is from 2012). Other national systems are
listed, with one quoted as 'starting out as biggest service in 2010', having
around 3000.

But let's ignore the numbers for a second (absolute numbers make not a lot of
sense anyway, imho. Per capita, maybe?). The real feature is what the headline
of this article (wrongly) implied. That you can drive to your friend's place
and 'return' the bike in front of his door. Or in front of your favorite pub.
Or cinema. No docking stations, period.

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001sky
General Question: What is power supply on the bicycle? Both for GPS theft
recovery and for the E-unlock device? Did not see that mentioned in the post,
wondering of any of the users might know?

~~~
a3_nm
The article mentions solar panels.

~~~
001sky
Makes sense, must have missed it. thanks.

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csarva
Social Bicycles is another company doing something very similar based out of
NYC -- <http://socialbicycles.com/>

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ChuckMcM
Its a cool idea, Google started the 'G-bike' idea when I was working there and
it was fun to be able to grab a bike and head from the center of campus to one
of the outer buildings.

But there were some hilarious failure modes too, all company meet at
Shoreline, huge pile of bikes at Shoreline Ampitheater and none on campus.

Bike fail? No clear way how to get it fixed, 'dead' bikes would accumulate in
the periphery buildings.

And of course there was 'diffusion' into the greater Mtn View area :-)

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NDizzle
I know a guy who has one in Pleasant Hill. Talk about diffusion.

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ChuckMcM
One of the folks was threatening to take one on a world tour and send pictures
back. Never got to see if that was implemented or not.

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NDizzle
I've love to grab a bike at Embarcadero or Montgomery BART and ride it to near
pier 39, where I work. I'd even return it in the evening. I'm not sure about
having to make it available at some designated spot, though. Use the GPS!

~~~
dsl
Just buy a cheap bike and leave it at the Embarcadero bike storage area. It's
something stupid like 3 cents an hour. <http://bartbikestation.com/>

