KFI:
Check Out These Incredible Photos of China’s Abandoned Bikes.
Bike sharing was wildly popular in China last year. Dozens of bike share companies popped up with their own fleet of bikes ready to be ridden in the streets in an effort to relieve some of the traffic and gridlock.
Well, because humans are fickle, and because China vastly over estimated people’s enthusiasm, bikes started piling up. There were problems with infrastructure, many cities were not prepared to handle a sudden influx of bicyclists flooding their streets and also, people suck and would just leave the bikes lying around anywhere.
Either way, check out our future if these cities in California keep trying to make bike sharing happen. MORE
Made in Japan?
That reminds me. Back in the early 80’s we were doing a lot of machine work for a couple big Semi Conductor companies. Intel had gone out and had a shit load of posters made of some young Chinese Girl riding her bike and in the funky little basket in front of her was a Lap Top with “Intel Inside” written on the front. Those posters were plastered all over all the Semi Conductor outfits. At that time their target market. That worked out well.
Ship them to Seattle and Portland, and dump them.
I’d laugh.
Dallas, TX is suffering the same fate. Lots of bike share companies unloaded on the town. They make their money selling your information about where you ride, what time, what restaurants you frequent, etc.
Well, Reboot. Seattle is having a fairly successful bike sharing program. Amazingly.
Can the Chinese even suck enough air to ride a bike in the pea soup in the cities. My SIL was there a few months ago on business and he said the air was awful.
pbird — Yes, when it went into private enterprise it worked. The only thing I don’t like about it is the blight of orange and green bicycles parked EVERYWHERE.
Even communists can’t escape THE GREEN SCAM. Hey China, DURP!
I rode a bicycle until I got my driver license and that was the last time. Children ride bicycles and people on the left.
It happens; when you turn 16, and get that first drivers license!
Except in unionized libtardia, like, NYC, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Portlandia, et.al. 🙄
These bikes just pile up here as well, and they just started last month.
We in the (conservative) Beach community still Ride our Bikes to the Beach and anywhere else we can. There are few things like getting off work and pointing the Cruiser to the Sea !
PLEASE. Do not send abandoned Chinese bicycles to Portland. We already have too many democrat voters.
ReCYCLE that, libtards.
Reminds me of all the betrayed and discarded human ‘tools’ of the democRATS.
The Dutch may be stunned by this news.
China drops out of the top 10.
http://top10hell.com/top-10-countries-with-most-bicycles-per-capita/ .
“In the USA only 0,9% of all trips are made by bike.
The average distance cycled per person is 0.1 km.”
0.1km! really? That’s only about 67 paces. Why bother?
Aaaaaaannnnnnd then there’s Mexico. When I worked down there (thirty years ago) you would hardly ever see a Mexican riding a bike. They had no money, lived in hovels, but would drive the most clapped-out P.O.S. running on half their cylinders that you’d ever seen just so they could drive somewhere. Then I went to Europe, with nice cars on the road, and riding a bike is common and popular.
Go figger!
“Anything worth doing, is worth doing to excess”
Mae West
A far cry from images of China 40-50 years ago, when everybody rode bikes and there were hardly any cars on the road.
Santa Monica has one bike-share, sponsored by the city. Then we got Bird electric scooters, first city to get them, and the bikes are clearly used a lot less. Now I hear that several more vendors have applied for ‘last mile’ service. One was ok, although I questioned the city’s expenditure for it. Two is tough. More is going to lead to junkyards full of unused equipment.
Being China, at least the bikes were cheap!
If that happened in the US, enterprising people would load a ton of bicycles into their pickup and bring it to the local metal recycler and earn a few bucks.
@Quinn – That’s what I was thinking. In my city, those acres of bicycles would be a Crackhead’s wet dream!
A local school had a “Loaner Bike” program for their students to use. They bought over two dozen bikes to keep it rolling. When they got down to 2, they ended the program.
@ refuse/resist
Those yellow beasts are laying on the sides of roads all over Dallas now. You’ll see a bunch of them lined up on Lower Greenville and other “hip” places in town, but seeing them laying around everywhere is a bit of an eyesore, IMO.
They aren’t free to ride, I’m told. Don’t know how that works. Don’t care.
The last time I took steel to a metal recycler, I got 1 cent per pound. If I didn’t get .35 a pound for the painted aluminum siding scrap, I wouldn’t have taken any steel to them.
Not sure it’s worth the gas alone, then add your time in. You have to ask yourself what you’re doing at some point.
I thought you were going in the direction of selling refurbished bikes, which would make more sense to me.
I consider my curb the place where someone can grab something useful to themselves before the city takes it away. The week leading up to large item pick up, you can see a dozen trucks running around checking out everyone’s stuff they’re throwing away.
Non-pro tip: If your mower or weed eater runs out of gas while you’re working near your curb area – don’t leave it there to go get the gas can.
It might not be there in the “Take me, I’m trash” zone by the time you get back.
I see these incredible photos as proof Bernie’s way is wrong.
You really can’t engineer society the way the Commies would like to. You can only force the state’s will, damn the consequences.
Free bicycles for everyone!
People: meh, whatevs