I take it you remember the O-bike debacle?
Guy
I take it you remember the O-bike debacle?
Guy
Nope, just the e-scooter debacle in Austin ha. And pictures of the bike piles in China.
The scooter situation in Austin got better after they added post-ride picture-taking to the apps + gps-enforced no-go areas, and making the companies pick up any that were reported in parking garages and stuff
Same sort of thing here. O-bikes everywhere, and then the company bust and all the bikes just stopped working.
Must be a Taipei only thing. This info doesn’t show up on Google Maps when I check stations in Taoyuan
You can download the Youbike App and check the number of bikes and parking spaces available in real time
Thanks, I know. I just wanted to whine about Taoyuan being left out.
I saw one parked around Bitan last week. I’m glad somebody is using the bike instead of it just becoming junk.
Here’s something I didn’t know about YouBike…
I used to use YouBike all the time, but they wore a hole in my (expensive) pants after riding around Taichung for maybe a couple of hours a day over a week or so. I looked at another pair of pants I was wearing at that time, and they’ve thinned in the same place. I guess it has to do with the quality of the seat, which I imagine is designed to withstand a lot of punishment.
Until I later looked this up online and found that this is actually something that can happen when riding bicycles, I never knew this was a thing. Now, I ride them much less frequently.
That “someone” could find themselves in trouble! Convicted of theft for picking up abandoned OBike - Legal / General Legal Matters - Forumosa
That’s how cycling shorts came into being.
Gotta say I’m not really a fan of these new Youbikes.
I’ve had to use them every day to ride the last bit of my commute to class. The only benefit for
me as a rider is the seat improvement.
The card scanning imo is much slower. Not only that, I’ve had a bunch of issues scanning my Easy card. I prefer the old ones, the process was quicker.
Another thing is half the time the stations have no bikes. So today i downloaded the app, and found out Youbike 1 and 2 have separate apps… wtf.
Dropped Youbike and yoyo cashcard didn’t have enough money on it. Bike locked in.
Can I go to kiosk later and pay with a sufficiently cash loaded card later?
Or need to go to a Youbike center?
Now I know how Youbike collects outstanding charges if you return a bike with insufficient funds remaining on your cash card.
Cannot pay at the kiosk but can check to see if you have an outstanding charge. For example
NT$315! Did you try to use that youbike to climb Jade Mountain or something?
Guy
I knew someone would pick up on that.
It was a long long day riverside Taipei, never really had a break near a bike stand, and didn’t want to chance swapping for a problematic bike.
The steepest incline that day was climbing ramp to Xinbei bridge Xinzhuang/Banciao.
I calculated that you would need to keep the bike for about 9.5 hours to get that charge. It’s possible (I think I kept a bike 8 hours once).
I think it was closer to 8.5 hours but who counting. Higher fees kick in periodically along the day and they send SMS text reminding of the price increase.
Edit: Oh yea, the picture from kiosk says 8:39.
So i got a youbike with a flat tire today. Because of the no change rule i rode it all the way to my destination. I was quite sweaty and pee’d off after finishing. Apparently if you return it you don’t need to wait the 15 mins if you get another one from a different station… wish i found out earlier!