>>Well.. that and I'm broke most of the time, so anything I build has to be cheap or recycled from stuff someone's thrown out.<<
Necessity is the mother of invention.
>>But yeah, it really bugs me that not only are bikes hard to maintain by design but that they make even more money by deliberately designing it so you have to buy a tool that you'll maybe use once or twice a year at most, and costs you a significant fraction of the actual bike, for something that probably cost at most a couple of quid to make!<<
When you deliberately cause your customers to hate you, then you deserve to hemorrhage market share when a competitors comes along who is not an asshole.
I have seen several solutions to the problem of expensive tools:
* Bike repair stations with attached tools. These typically include a bunch of things that are only used on bicycles, like the rim key for removing tires. They are sometimes found at parks or in businesses with a garage space for bike commuters.
* Bike shops with a repair area for their customers or other members to use. It's one way to keep customer loyalty.
* Mobile bike repairmen who set up at places like farmer's markets, where they will fix your bike cheap while you shop.
* More expensive, more convenient bike repairmen working out of a van which they will drive to your home and fix damn near anything wrong with your bike.
>> So, I wanna build something better, and something that if it catches on, makes a dent in those money-grubbing bastards bottom line! <<
I am all in favor of this.
*ponder* The modern custom is for bikes to have separate parts that can be assembled on a mix-and-match basis. So the wheels are one assembly you can buy, the seat is another, the handlebars on their stem, the frame, etc. You might be able to engineer a better version of one piece at a time, rather than trying to do the whole bike at once. And it occurs to me that once you can build and control a working model, you could crowdfund the thing to put it into production.
Another possibility ... you could take the current crappy version, dissect it, and do a critical analysis of what is wrong with it. Take pictures. Post the results to your blog. People like to read complaints, it would start building and audience, and you would gain a more comprehensive idea of what needs fixing.
Maybe chat up your local bike shop(s) along the way. They would probably be interested in a better bike or parts.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dancing_serpent
Thoughts
Date: 2023-02-02 02:14 am (UTC)Necessity is the mother of invention.
>>But yeah, it really bugs me that not only are bikes hard to maintain by design but that they make even more money by deliberately designing it so you have to buy a tool that you'll maybe use once or twice a year at most, and costs you a significant fraction of the actual bike, for something that probably cost at most a couple of quid to make!<<
When you deliberately cause your customers to hate you, then you deserve to hemorrhage market share when a competitors comes along who is not an asshole.
I have seen several solutions to the problem of expensive tools:
* Bike repair stations with attached tools. These typically include a bunch of things that are only used on bicycles, like the rim key for removing tires. They are sometimes found at parks or in businesses with a garage space for bike commuters.
* Bike shops with a repair area for their customers or other members to use. It's one way to keep customer loyalty.
* Mobile bike repairmen who set up at places like farmer's markets, where they will fix your bike cheap while you shop.
* More expensive, more convenient bike repairmen working out of a van which they will drive to your home and fix damn near anything wrong with your bike.
>> So, I wanna build something better, and something that if it catches on, makes a dent in those money-grubbing bastards bottom line! <<
I am all in favor of this.
*ponder* The modern custom is for bikes to have separate parts that can be assembled on a mix-and-match basis. So the wheels are one assembly you can buy, the seat is another, the handlebars on their stem, the frame, etc. You might be able to engineer a better version of one piece at a time, rather than trying to do the whole bike at once. And it occurs to me that once you can build and control a working model, you could crowdfund the thing to put it into production.
Another possibility ... you could take the current crappy version, dissect it, and do a critical analysis of what is wrong with it. Take pictures. Post the results to your blog. People like to read complaints, it would start building and audience, and you would gain a more comprehensive idea of what needs fixing.
Maybe chat up your local bike shop(s) along the way. They would probably be interested in a better bike or parts.