Giving people who are just a little frustrated with their bike might go a long way to helping keep people from getting to that point at least once.

Sturdier commuter bikes help a lot with this, but every commuter seems to think they need a bike with super-light wheels and a thin, weak 12-speed chain.

I wish that was the case.

The reason people are not on their bikes is because the roads are scary and we don't have nearly enough dedicated bike infrastructure.

(By "we" I mean the entire world with just a handful of European exceptions.)

Just so good. I wish they had more gears. My older one has 8, and I see more on newer ones but not a lot.

Docked bikeshare (as mostly operated by Lyft in the US, formerly Motivate/Alta) generally uses bikes built similarly to high-quality Dutch city bikes and maintains them.

The bike share program in question shut down and isn't available in my area anymore, so maybe that was just because they were cutting back.

Likewise wheels, even lightweight wheels aren't likely to fail on a commuter bike unless it's left in the weather.

The bigger danger to bikes is crappy builds and cheap-ass parts. A well made lightweight wheel is going to last 10 times longer than a cheap wheel. If you bought your bike at Walmart, if your chain breaks it's because it's more likely it's because the bike was badly out of tune when you bought it.

The most widely sold bikes in the US are "hybrids," mountain bikes, and cruisers. Within the mountain bike category, the most popular ones are relatively simplistic and are mainly used on pavement or light trails. Those are all relatively sturdy bikes with reasonably wide tires. Bikes that are specifically sold for "commuting" sell poorly, even among commuters, for reasons that I don't fully understand.

I live in a relatively bike friendly town, on a street that's designated as a bike thoroughfare, and I commute by bike myself, and I'm curious about bikes. So I make a mental note of what people are riding. The most common type of commuter bike is "whatever was in the garage," often left over from college or some past market fad. The people I talk to about cycling tend to do remarkably little maintenance. Most decent consumer bikes are sold with puncture resistant tires these days, which are a great improvement.

Now, from my observation (my own bikes, helping friends, volunteering for bike charity), bikes that go out of whack frequently, were usually built out of whack. Low end bikes that are shipped from the manufacturer to the retailer with little or no expert intervention often have poorly adjusted spokes and bearings, sometimes missing lubrication, sometimes parts installed backwards, and so forth. This is unacceptable, but it happens. An initial tune-up that includes bringing the spokes up to proper tension, and adjusting / lubricating the bearings, will turn many the crappy bike into an OK bike.

I don't believe a zero-maintenance bike exists yet, though a couple of mine are close. One is single speed with a coaster brake. I live in a relatively flat town. I also bought a new bike a few years ago for about 500 bucks, that has been maintenance free except for a puncture or two, and normal periodic adjustment of the brakes due to pad wear. It's a hybrid with 9 speeds, wide tires, and cable operated disc brakes. I love it.

But for this reason, I still recommend that a cyclist -- casual or enthusiast -- needs to develop basic maintenance skills. Simply being on the lookout for problems is often enough to catch problems before they progress beyond something just needing to be tightened.

Give me a bike that doesn't break all the time or at least makes it super-easy and super-fast to fix any parts that do, and doesn't cost like $1,000 (why the actual hell should a decent one cost 1/20th as much as a lower-end car?! Think about what goes into both! How does that make any sense? 1/100 seems more reasonable, and for one that does not suck just like the $20,000 car probably does not suck remotely the same way a low-end bike does or it'd get lemon law'd away) and I'll go back to bike riding.

Flats happen and are inevitable, but they should be a rare occurence. As a daily bike commuter and road bike enthusiast I experienced 2 flats in the last 10 years.

Futhermore most maintenance tasks are quite easy to handle and Youtube has excellent tutorials ready. I understand that this isn't for everyone (I'm not interested in learning how to repair my car for instance), but channels like GCN [1] explain a range of basic maintenance taks for anyone who's interested.

I also think your expectations towards bike prices are somewhat unreasonable. Maintenance is required at any price category, but generally 1000 € bikes will give you a decent entry level experience with quality parts that should last for years. Lower priced options will have to cut corners and cause frustations at some point.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/user/globalcyclingnetwork

What you need is a 'commuter bike' with an aluminium frame, Shimano Nexus 8-speed hub gear and Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres. Should cost less than $500.

You'll need to pump up the tyres every 3 months, and have a bike shop service it every 2000 miles or so. But I've been riding this configuration twice a day for 5 years and had maybe 3 punctures in that time and no problems more severe than that.

Those old caliper brakes need constant replacement, constant adjustment, replacing them requires even more calibration, and tiniest little wobble in your wheel or dent in your rim will make the brake very erratic and wear quickly. I get bad shivers down my spine every time i see such brakes, knowing how much time and frustration I've wasted on maintaining them in the past.

Quality of bike components have gone up past decades so don't be hung up on old experiences. Build quality matters a lot so make sure to get a reputable brand also, not something from the corner of the hardware store, doesn't have to be their top of the line model though, something like 400-800€ should give you a good one.

Reinforcement in forms of kevlar and such might provide some additional protection but these types of penetrating punctures are rare in the first place. It obviously doesn't make things worse so for peace of mind and some extra protection could still be worth it anyway. Just the fact that these are high quality tires to begin with will help a lot.

When I go to use one of our cars and it doesn't work, or something goes wrong while I'm driving, that's very surprising. When we try to use one of our bikes and it's broken, or it breaks while riding, that's just... how bicycles are, I guess. Been that way since I rode (and constantly fixed) bikes as a kid. Was that way when I commuted on one for a while. They're just so very damned unreliable and fiddly.

It really shouldn't take longer than 3-5 minutes.

    - .5 min: flipping the bike
    - 1 min: finding the tools
    - 1 min: removing the wheel and chain
    - 3 min: removing the tire
    - 1 min: removing the tube
    - 2 min: locating the hole
    - 1 min: cleaning the tube
    - 5 min: applying glue and letting it dry
    - 3 min: installing the patch and holding it just to make sure
    - 2 min: putting back the tube
    - 1 min: putting back the tire
    - 5 min: putting back the wheel and making sure it doesn't touch any thing
    - 1 min: inflating
    - .5 min: flipping the bike back up

    Total estimated time: 27 min
    Actual time I take: ~60 min

(For example, it should not take 5 minutes to replace a wheel. That should take about 10 seconds... I am genuinely curious what you spend your time doing over the 5 minutes and I am sure some practice / instruction could save you frustration. Likewise, even for a very tight tire you should be able to remove it quite quickly. A small tip I can give you for removing a tire is to make sure that the entire bead of the tire is unseated and sitting in the deepest part of the rim. This leaves a good amount of slack to pull the tire off. I usually am able to remove a tire without any tools, but a tire lever can make it even easier when used correctly.)

Certainly patching a tube adds to the time, I didn't include that in my 3-5min estimate. The usual practice is to pack an extra tube while out on a ride and patch the damaged tube later at home. Also worth noting there are modern patches that come with adhesive pre-applied that are very easy & quick to use, just peel and stick.

Cheers and good luck!

Regarding tire removal, I recently did it like three times in a single week. It was like 15 minutes in sweat and finger pain every time. To get an idea of what one can achieve, can you remove a tire without tools with fat tires only or even thin road tires? Mine were thin, 23mm (less than an inch). By the way, in this instance, it wasn't a beater but a high-end 1970s bike.

Thanks for the advice, I'll look into it because it sounds like I'm missing something.

How difficult it is to remove or replace a tire really comes down to the tire/rim combinations. Different types and sizes of tires can make a big difference.

Some combinations can definitely be trickier to mount, but with the right it can usually be down without too much physical strain. Mechanics in the bike shop do it many, many times each day after all.

https://bikerumor.com/2013/02/19/bikerumor-shimano-chainwear...

Now I'm riding less, I find I don't need to do as much except keep the chain clean and tires inflated. I still check cables, chain slack, and stuff but they tend to need less work now.

- Keep your chain clean. Every few weeks use a degreaser to clean it, wash it out with water and apply lubricant suitable to your weather conditions afterwards. There's a chain cleaning tool from Park Tools which makes the degreasing part particularly easy. I highly recommend it.

- Replace the chain every year. Chains will stretch and wear out the cogs on your cassette thereby deteriorating the whole drive train. There are distance recommendations and ways to mesure if it's time to replace the chain if you want to look them up, but doing it every year shoudl be on the safe side

- Replace your tires once they are worn out. I drive Continental Grand prix which come with a handy indicator on the tire itself, but you should be able to look up the recommended life span for your particular tyre

- Keep your bike clean. Cleaning your chain should be a welcome opportunity to also quickly clean the rest of your bike - doesn't have to take longer than a few minutes.

But many people have old bikes with rusty brakes, non-working gearing, and just go on using them until they fall apart.

Also, different bikes require different levels of maintenance. And your riding style and frequency of use affects the speed of wear.

The fact is that most people can't do even the simplest repairs on their own bike and if their bike is run down then they're less likely to use it.

But seriously I think that most bikes are within 50 bucks of being rideable. I tinker with a lot of old bikes, for family, friends, and at one time for a charity program. At least in the US, a huge fraction of bikes are gathering dust or rust, but the tires are flat, there's no pump in the house, some of the mechanisms are stuck, they haven't been properly adjusted for comfort, etc. Many of the bikes weren't properly built in the first place, and need attention to things like spoke tension and bearing adjustment. And the owners aren't handy with tools.

A bit of lube, air in the tires, and maybe a reassurance from the mechanic at a shop, and some accessories such as a pump, will have the bike up and running. At the very least it will help the shops stay afloat.

If the subsidy kicks in all at once for a lot of people, it could trigger a noticeable increase in bike use, which has a crowd psychology benefit.

For everybody, my consistent advice is that your experience with any kind of cycling will be greatly improved by becoming self sufficient for at least routine maintenance and minor repairs.

I'm highly skeptical.

This seems like it will just benefit folks already doing it anyway.

I know loads of people who cycle to work because of Ireland's Bike To Work scheme. They can all afford a bike without help, but the extra incentive was enough to get them to start cycling.

Walking your bike 200m to the closest bike shop?

With 50 EUR, every bike shop does the usual tear fixes: changing tubes, adjusting gears and brake levers, changing break pads, changing the handlebar tape, centering the wheels, and cleaning / oiling.

Those 50 EUR can't cover major damage, but lots of people in Europe have multiple bikes in their basement that are just "rusty" / flat tire / etc. and that they didn't needed during the winter.

This also illustrates a secondary benefit of these €50, namely that bike repairs are hyper-local. In addition to making bike repair more affordable for some and helping keep the momentum going on bike commuting, these euros can also drive more commerce to local small repair shops, helping them stay in business.

I have seen lineups out the door and around the block on this occasion. I think this illustrates very well people's well-known tendency to irrationally value free stuff.

I don't know how those numbers might compare in France, and there are obviously cheaper parts of the world, but the person trivializing $50 might well be in America where that's closer to a week's grocery than a month's for one person.

[0] https://fns-prod.azureedge.net/sites/default/files/media/fil...

For about a year when I was 19ish I managed to get by on $50-ish/month for groceries, by mainly living off rice and beans, with some eggs and other items thrown in. I don't know if that counts though because I got a lot of goods from dumpsters as well; Whole Foods throws out a lot :O

Now I'm way less frugal when it comes to groceries, probably closer to 3 or 4 times that. And I would still take that $50 for bike repair.

When I was in college, I also didn't have much more than 50€ for groceries. I did fine, but I also lived in walking distance to everything. Not everyone is as lucky.

Do people think poor people don't commute? 50$/€ is def. a lot for a myriad of people.

Viewing this is as poor people needing a government handout is a very strange interpretation of what's being proposed. It's a public health and environmental nudge.

It's like when sugar taxes are discussed, and everyone says "why don't they make the healthy things cheaper?" Well now getting a bike serviced is being subsidised. But again, it's not even about the money really.

We had a pop-up bike repair workshop come around every month at my last place of work and it really increased bike use in the area.

if you want to subsidize cycling and stuff, can we at least get the economy back up first and deal with the massive fallout from lost wages due to time off, and business closings?

You're assuming that there's a choice between supporting an economic recovery and supporting cycling. I don't believe there is, certainly not when it comes to return on investment for €50 per person.

I see increased mobility, decreased congestion in towns and cities, less pollution and less income lost to transport costs, not to mention the health benefits from more exercise.