
Open source bike comparison and review - bike_index
https://bikeindex.org/blogs/introducing-bikebookio
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abengoam
I parsed it as (open source bike) comparison and review, not as (open
source)(bike comparison and review).

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PhineasRex
I did this as well and was rather disappointed with the reality.

I wonder if there are enough open source bikes for a worthwhile comparison.

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moron4hire
What materials could we use to prototype? Cheap materials and rapid
construction should probably take precedent, to ensure speedy iterations by a
large number of people.

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bike_index
Love and Richard Stallman's facial hair, just like all the best open source
projects.

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nl
Looks pretty useful!

A few notes:

Each page should have a unique URL. That makes it a lot more sharable.

Different markets have different bikes. For example, the CAAD X Sora
([http://www.cannondale.com/catalog/product/view/id/31945/s/ca...](http://www.cannondale.com/catalog/product/view/id/31945/s/caadx-7-sora/category/916/)
\- I'd link to it on Bike.io but I can't...) isn't available in Australia. For
other manufactures we get bikes the US get - I know Cervelo had different
options in Australia to the US. Edit: Another example; Giant Australia has a
Revolt 1 ([http://www.giant-bicycles.com/en-
au/bikes/model/revolt.1/149...](http://www.giant-bicycles.com/en-
au/bikes/model/revolt.1/14904/66425/)) which you don't list.

Comparison pages need shareable URLs too - you'll get a lot of traffic from
forums if people can share direct links.

In the absence of categories, showing prices next to the models would be a
useful stopgap measure.

Edit 2: No way to reset the app when you want to start again.

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bike_index
We have shareable urls now! Just added them in. just copy the link on the
bottom of the bike.

Also prices. That was a good suggestion.

Thanks!

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doorhammer
I don't think this is exactly what you're shooting for, but I'd love to see a
site like [http://pcpartpicker.com/](http://pcpartpicker.com/) except for bike
parts, and even if it's not what you're going for, they might have some
interesting features or ways of doing comparisons that you could use.

I recently used it to configure a pc, and it was a pretty awesome and smooth
experience nabbing parts, and figuring out the best place to buy them
online/locally. Saved me around $200 or so on my build over the lazy way I
used to do it, which is just buy on newegg.

Whenever I build a bike, I go with a frame, and then buy all my own
components. An easy way to summarize components, find new ones, compare
weight, reviews, etc, and save parts I have to know what I don't have to buy
at a glance, etc. would be killer.

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jzwinck
This is interesting. BikePedia is the site I'd currently go to for stuff like
this. And at least for the bikes I have direct knowledge of, BikePedia has
more of the bikes and fewer errors. For example, in 2005 we have the Trek 2100
WSD which you say has 700/650x25c tires (correct) but 650b wheels (incorrect).
The 1500 WSD in the same year lists 700x25c tires only, despite that the
smallest versions came with 650x25c instead--a critical distinction. And the
derailleur specs are wrong too (BikePedia has the right ones).

I'd contribute corrections if it were right there on the page like Wikipedia,
but probably not if I have to go dig for something to edit in GitHub. And I'm
less motivated to contribute to a project which for some reason has worse
initial data than the existing sites. I wonder where the errors came from.

Similarly, does the site simply rely on people adding whatever bikes they feel
like? It seems odd that Detroit Bikes is a listed manufacturer but LeMond is
not. LeMond was a fairly significant brand until a few years ago, and there
are lots of used ones on the market--unlike Detroit Bikes which I imagine most
people have never seen before.

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bike_index
Yeah, but bikepedia is ugly and isn't useable on mobile. It also, most
importantly, doesn't have an API.

We actually asked bikepedia multiple times if they had an API, or if we could
help build one and were told they weren't interested. So we built a prettier,
more useable, open source solution. The kinks will work themselves out.

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jzwinck
Respectfully, your site is not as usable as BikePedia on a laptop computer.
Here are some suggestions:

Let me change the model year without having to select the model again.
BikePedia has quick links for this, so I know right away what other years
there are.

Have the comparison tool default to something smart, such as the same year and
manufacturer, rather than starting the second bike totally blank.

Add some sort of filtering to help people find bikes they might want ("about
three years old, MTB, Shimano XT or similar").

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atourgates
Horray! This is an idea I had a few months ago, threw around in my head, and
realized it's something I'd never have time to build.

I'm thrilled that you have!

For those of you who aren't super-familiar with the agonizing process of
choosing the proper bike, I'll try to clue you in.

Say you wanted to buy a Full-suspension 29'er from a well-known manufacturer
for about $2,900. You'd narrowed your choices down to the Giant Anthem X 29er,
Trek Fuel EX 8 29er and Specialized Stumpjumper FSR Comp 29er.

At this point, if you wanted to know which option gave you the best value in
terms of components, you'd have to obsessively comb over the manufacturer's
sites, and (if you're like me) possibly build your own spreadsheet that listed
every "important" component from the bikes you were considering.

Now, you can just go to [http://bikebook.io/](http://bikebook.io/), select the
models you're considering, and look at features side-by-side.

Then, quite honestly, you should just ride them all and pick the one you like
the most based on how it feels, but that's beside the point.

\---

A couple suggestions:

* When comparing models, I think that a table-view with individual features lined up would be more useful than the current comparison view. That way I could quickly scan between models.

* I noticed some areas that could benefit from increased granularity. For example, right now if I look at the "Trek Fuel EX 29" I see that it has a single field for "Rear Suspension" that reads: "Fox Evolution Series Float w/DRCV, CTD (climb-trail-descend) damper, rebound, tuned by Trek in California, 7.25x1.875"" \- That's nice, but I think it would be more helpful (especially when comparing to other bikes) if that data were split up into something like:

 __Rear Suspension - Travel: 184mm

 __Rear Suspension - Manufacturer: Fox

 __Rear Suspension - Model: Evolution Series Float

 __Rear Suspension - Features: DRCV, CTD (climb-trail-descend) damper,
rebound, tuned by Trek in California.

That way, I could quickly scan across the comparison page and realize that if
I chose the Trek over the Specialized, I'd be leaving a full 11 mm of travel
on the table?! OMG, how could I even consider such a thing?! I feel like such
a fool.

But seriously, this is wonderful. Spec-obsessed bike nuts everywhere owe you a
debt of gratitude.

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bike_index
Thank you thank you thank you! We're excited about it too and pumped that you
see how useful it is.

We're definitely working on parsing things better, and I agree, tabular view
might be beneficial. We'll work on making it a pretty table.

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bike_index

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     ^--------

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ChuckFrank
Great idea. Unfortunately, I believe that you've shared it too early. I poked
around and found little except some image scrapping and possibly a link. I
also think the idea of qualitative reviews or even ranked reviews could help
tremendously. I love it on Amazon when people do their own product comparisons
and post the results. Right now I feel like it stays to close the manufacturer
catalog information. A great version of this would give good push back on that
data with customer reviews and responses. Good luck with it. Show us again in
a couple of months when it's nicely populated.

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revelation
Sadly, the data seems rather shallow. Look at the output from one of the
example API requests:

[http://bikebook.io/?manufacturer=fuji&year=2014&frame_model=...](http://bikebook.io/?manufacturer=fuji&year=2014&frame_model=Outland%2029%201.1)

They have somewhat seperated the data into component groups, but individual
parts are not identified, so I can't search for all bikes with a specific
brake lever or tire of certain size, since its all just unprocessed raw
strings.

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bike_index
Definitely something we're working on. We got the data in raw strings, if you
have ideas for how to parse stuff, contact me, seth at bikeindex.org

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aalpbalkan
It is pretty good you have lots of brands already in your database, however
the comparison UI is not much helpful. e.g. an end-user of bikes might not
understand what 105, Tiagra, Ultrega means and just showing specs is not
enough IMO. How about you also compare components one by one in rows of a
table for each bike and then greens/reds tell us which one is better?

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pimeys
It's not always so easy to say which component is better than the other. A
good example are Shimano systems: if you compare Ultegra with Dura-ace,
depending on your use, either one of them can be the better choice.

For people like myself, this is quite useful service. It would be even better
to quickly find similar bikes in the same price range and compare them
together.

And please, add Rose bikes to the database...

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listic
Looks interesting.

Do you consider selecting by bike category (e.g. I don't know all makes and
models but say I'd like to narrow my search to just folding bikes or hybrid
(cross, Wheel size 700c) bikes?)

Do you accept suggestions to expand the list of brands? I would like to see
Author [http://www.author.eu/en/](http://www.author.eu/en/)

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bike_index
We're prioritizing brands based roughly on the number of bikes registered on
the Bike Index from that brand. So register more Author bikes and it'll
happen.

And yes, category search would be nice. It's something we'll work on.

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listic
I guess most of your users are US based and this is... more a European brand
maybe? I don't know, I live in Russia and it's quite popular over here. I
guess it's a decent budget-minded brand, though many people (who ride cheapo
bikes) consider it overpriced.

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kimmel
The content is not licensed creative commons. The code to the actual site is
not open source, only the code to use the API. I would not call this an open
source project or a major win. A major win would be a uniformly licensed
content base that is CC-BY and they provide data dumps.

It is a slight improvement over bikepedia but not by much.

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bike_index
Ummmm? What? Yeah, Everything is open source and is in the repo. ALL THE DATA
IS IN THE REPOSITORY. The repository is deployed, as is, to the internet, it
has no database - the data is in the bike_data folder.

You can view the code here,
[https://github.com/bikeindex/bikebook](https://github.com/bikeindex/bikebook)
at the same place the link in the BikeBook footer goes.

It is AGPL, so not creative commons. This is the license the Bike Index is
under, so we just went with it. We'll consider a different license for the
BikeBook, because maybe that makes more sense. Thanks for bringing it up.

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tagawa
A good idea, especially with its open API, but I can't see any reviews or how
to add them. Am I missing something?

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toggle
I think this is for "just the facts." You would use this data on your own
review site.

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tagawa
Thanks. Maybe they should change the title/tagline as it's a bit misleading.

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bike_index
Done. It's now "open source bicycle comparison and research"

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websitescenes
I love this! I am a programmer by week and bicycle shop owner on the weekend.
I build the website, point of sale and app for the shop while my partner runs
most of the day to day. I would love to use the API to pull in relevant
bicycles to the website and app for the shop.

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bike_index
Great! Sending you an invitation to register bikes on the Index through
Chuck's Bikes too.

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websitescenes
Thx! Just signed up. Chuck's Bicycle Repair will support you guys however we
can.

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chris_wot
Will there be an option to choose a colour for your bike shed? If so, how will
they make it happen?

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mianos
I am making a sports training system and this will be a great way to embellish
the data for the bikes people enter in. I am 100% going to give this a try. I
am also willing to share back the bike models that people put into my system
that are not in yours.

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cag_ii
Is there any plan on adding data for size/geometry? (arguably one of the most
important things to look at when comparing bikes)

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bike_index
Yes

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codr
Cool idea.

Would love to see frame weights added, along with complete bike weights.

Not seeing Raleigh, Focus, and a bunch of other brands listed. Will more be
added?

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bike_index
Absolutely more will be added.

And any listing of bike weight is bullshit. You have to find the bike and
weight it, because manufacturers weigh different things (and different sizes).
So we won't be adding that.

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listic
Yes; the weight seems to have become so speculative that many brands boycott
stating it in the specs at all. In fact, I don't know of any brand other than
Author who states weight. I kinda look at it, to compare between different
Author models, but that's all I can do with it; I'm not sure if it would be
fair to compare weight between models because every company weighs differently
and there's some unfair speculation seemingly going on.

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gotninjaskills
This is awesome and could be very useful. Can't wait for more data. No Dahon
yet on the database.

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juaninfinitelop
Do the bike companies have API's as well or how'd you manage to get the data?

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Doctor_Fegg
This is relevant to my interests. :) Is there/will there be a data dump?

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Someone
There's an API from which, as far as I can tell, it is easy to make the dump.
The data also seems to be on GitHub:
[https://github.com/bikeindex/bikebook/tree/master/bike_data](https://github.com/bikeindex/bikebook/tree/master/bike_data)

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fmela
So the only way to contribute more information is via pull request? That
requirement excludes the vast majority of the kinds of people who would be
willing to contribute more bike information (namely, people who ride bikes,
work in bike shops, etc.)

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bike_index
Yeah, we're considering ways to make it editable via web interface of some
kind, but for now - hey, all the data is online and it's accessible and
editable enough.

