<story><title>Recycled Cardboard Bicycles For $9?</title><url>http://nocamels.com/2012/07/recycled-cardboard-bicycles-for-9/</url><text></text></story><parent_chain><item><author>patdennis</author><text>&lt;i&gt;The primary use, like any bicycle, is to prevent pollution while encouraging physical activity and exercise.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I don&apos;t know about other people, but my primary use for my bicycle is transportation.&lt;p&gt;Edit: Also, does anyone else think that disposable bikes are a step backwards, not forwards, in terms of environmental responsibility?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>freiheit</author><text>For a &quot;real&quot; bike (the kind you buy for $500 US or more from a shop that basically just does bikes, or buy used): yes&lt;p&gt;For a &quot;department store&quot; bike aka &quot;bicycle shaped object&quot; (the kind you buy for $100-$300 from Walmart, Sears, Costco or another store that doesn&apos;t actually have anybody that knows how to properly assemble a bike): no.&lt;p&gt;Those department store bikes are estimated to average something like 75 miles of use in their lifetime (showroom floor to landfill) and are generally not made to be very serviceable.&lt;p&gt;So if we assume that a $60 cardboard bike is intended to compete with $100 disposable bikes, it&apos;s probably still a good step forwards.</text></comment>
<story><title>Recycled Cardboard Bicycles For $9?</title><url>http://nocamels.com/2012/07/recycled-cardboard-bicycles-for-9/</url><text></text></story><parent_chain><item><author>patdennis</author><text>&lt;i&gt;The primary use, like any bicycle, is to prevent pollution while encouraging physical activity and exercise.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I don&apos;t know about other people, but my primary use for my bicycle is transportation.&lt;p&gt;Edit: Also, does anyone else think that disposable bikes are a step backwards, not forwards, in terms of environmental responsibility?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jmduke</author><text>Agreed.&lt;p&gt;I still think there&apos;s a lot of room for improvement in modern bikeshare paradigms.  The most common time I tell myself &apos;man, I wish I had a bike&apos; is when I want to get to a convenience store/lunch spot one-three miles away, where walking isn&apos;t really feasible but driving seems exorbitant.&lt;p&gt;I wish there was a system where I could pay fifty cents at a bike station and get the use of a bike for an hour, or something similar.  That&apos;s my ideal system.</text></comment>