<story><title>Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-enters-dockless-bike-wars-with-jump-acquisition-1523280600</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>fataliss</author><text>That would take a lot of political will to do something like that though and it would take YEARS! I don&amp;#x27;t think the US is a great market (right now) for city-bikes. Outside of maybe Manhattan &amp;amp; SF I can&amp;#x27;t think of any major city where a bike would take you places faster&amp;#x2F;better than another way of transportation would. When you consider all the hassles that biking as a transportation comes with, I doubt this has any large potential (compared to the Uber scale). Could be wrong though. I actually really hope I am!</text></item><item><author>maherbeg</author><text>I think you may underestimate the impact e-bikes are going to have on major (non-car centric) cities. They&amp;#x27;ll likely reshape cities significantly as infrastructure gets improved for biking. You can get significant traffic density improvements by pushing bikes instead of cars, and e-bikes make this more accessible.</text></item><item><author>wpietri</author><text>This is a puzzle to me. Uber faces some critical issues ahead. If they can solve them, the bikes will be a rounding error. If they can&amp;#x27;t, the bike business won&amp;#x27;t be enough to save them. Why add the complexity when they could buy or build something later?&lt;p&gt;I especially can&amp;#x27;t figure out why the Jump CEO would do it. The odds of their work surviving to the 10 year mark seems so small. It reminds me of something like Dodgeball. (For those who don&amp;#x27;t remember, it was a company basically like Foursquare, but years before. Google bought it and did little with it. Eventually the founders got tired of it, left Google, and started the same company &lt;i&gt;again&lt;/i&gt;.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>electricEmu</author><text>Seattle? Portland? Minneapolis&amp;#x2F;St. Paul? You might consider bicycling while you travel more. In Seattle alone, OFO, LimeBike, and Spin are all competing.&lt;p&gt;American bicycle infrastructure is behind, but it exists. I don&amp;#x27;t own a car. I get around those cities on bike without issue. It&amp;#x27;s as fast or faster than a car in many cases and I&amp;#x27;m peddling the old fashioned way (with legs).</text></comment>
<story><title>Uber enters dockless bike wars with Jump acquisition</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-enters-dockless-bike-wars-with-jump-acquisition-1523280600</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>fataliss</author><text>That would take a lot of political will to do something like that though and it would take YEARS! I don&amp;#x27;t think the US is a great market (right now) for city-bikes. Outside of maybe Manhattan &amp;amp; SF I can&amp;#x27;t think of any major city where a bike would take you places faster&amp;#x2F;better than another way of transportation would. When you consider all the hassles that biking as a transportation comes with, I doubt this has any large potential (compared to the Uber scale). Could be wrong though. I actually really hope I am!</text></item><item><author>maherbeg</author><text>I think you may underestimate the impact e-bikes are going to have on major (non-car centric) cities. They&amp;#x27;ll likely reshape cities significantly as infrastructure gets improved for biking. You can get significant traffic density improvements by pushing bikes instead of cars, and e-bikes make this more accessible.</text></item><item><author>wpietri</author><text>This is a puzzle to me. Uber faces some critical issues ahead. If they can solve them, the bikes will be a rounding error. If they can&amp;#x27;t, the bike business won&amp;#x27;t be enough to save them. Why add the complexity when they could buy or build something later?&lt;p&gt;I especially can&amp;#x27;t figure out why the Jump CEO would do it. The odds of their work surviving to the 10 year mark seems so small. It reminds me of something like Dodgeball. (For those who don&amp;#x27;t remember, it was a company basically like Foursquare, but years before. Google bought it and did little with it. Eventually the founders got tired of it, left Google, and started the same company &lt;i&gt;again&lt;/i&gt;.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>clairity</author><text>los angeles is perfect for bike transport. it&amp;#x27;s sunny and doesn&amp;#x27;t get too hot or too cold most of the year (in the LA basin proper, the san fernando and inland valleys are a different story). the city government is pro bike path and installing more bike lanes every day. biking is faster during the 6 hours of rush hour a day. most amenities are within 2-3 miles (~15 minutes) of where you live. you can take your bike on buses and trains for the daily commute.&lt;p&gt;the biggest challenge is bike security (not getting it stolen). bike racks and locks are a poor solution if unattended. if we could put bike racks right in front of the gate attendant booths that most public parking garages have, it would be a much better deterrent to theft. and for residential buildings, you could have lockers or a locked bike storage room (possibly with security cameras too).</text></comment>