Comments on: How To Reduce Waste AND Design Bikes That Last Forever: The Circular Economy

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 09 Feb 2018 09:02:00 +0000

I was indeed referring to 650B. In ISO numbers, 26” is 559, 650B is 584. If you
do the math, difference in diameter is 25mm, or 12.5mm in radius. The fact that
650B is an older standard says nothing about its suitability when the size was
just a NICHE French standard back when nearly each country had their own size
(650A, 650B & 650C, 700A, 700B & 700C, etc.).
It never reached the universal standard the 26” has achieved in the last decades. The Penny-farthing is a much OLDER standard, but nobody proposes that we should “right the wrong” and start running 52” wheels just because they came first.

By: David O'Brien

David O'Brien — Sun, 08 Jan 2017 22:28:00 +0000

In reply to Joe.

I assume the 1.25cm bigger wheel radius you’re referring to is 640B. If so, note that 650B was around a LONG time before the popular use of “26 inch” wheels. So the industry is “righting the wrongs” of Schwinn balloon cruisers. If you’re referring to “29er” (aka, 700c) that is also returning to much older wheel sizing. Thus in the end trying to get rid of a wheel size (26″).

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 26 Nov 2016 21:29:00 +0000

I see the case for children bikes that have to change while they are growing up and people renting their touring bike although the problem with touring bikes is demand peaks during the summer and during the rest of the season it will be hard to rent them out.

Here in the Netherlands I see already something that is a bit like a renting model, the OV-fiets, see http://www.ns.nl/en/door-to-door/ov-fiets and that is quite successful. Also just read a report telling that 20% of the students that commute between Utrecht Central Station and the University (about 5 km) would be ready to bike instead of using the bus if the price was €1 per day while the bus is free.

I have my doubts if instead of owing “normal cycles” renting is more efficient, also the process of renting takes resources and typically people who rent or less careful then people owning their bike.

By: Joe

Joe — Tue, 22 Nov 2016 11:15:00 +0000

Thanks for the information about Isla bikes. I think it’s a good idea. However, it’ll be hard to implement in a bike industry that has got used to come up with new “improvements” each year, not compatible with the previous, and discontinuing wheel sizes that were the standard for the previous 30 years just to bring up a new size with a mere 1.25cm bigger radius.
A positive trend is the popularity of touring bikes, currently the only ones in this ever wider market segmentation that are made with reliability and long life exchangeable components in mind.
I don’t follow the reasoning against second hand bikes. Sure, many sell their old bikes to buy a new one. But many don’t. In kids bikes, the bike is just too small and they don’t need it any more. In adults, sometimes they just want to clear the shed, or they’ve realized only few of their bikes get actually used. The cycling population is not all made up of triathletes changing bikes every 2 years for marginal gains.
Reducing what I need (went down from too many bikes to “just” 3), and then going for used, is my personal strategy to reduce resources consumption.