Verdict: Unhappily, I don’t expect I’ll be riding it much due to the short seat height and the high gear ratio.
Rode it for the first time today. Actually, I tried two different bikes to see if I could it make any adjustments.
I don’t mind the quality.
But the bike is too small for an adult. Even with the seat at the highest setting your legs don’t even go halfway straight. It was a pain on my knees within about 5 minutes.
The single speed gear ratio is wrong for the start-stop traffic of a city like Taipei. It takes a lot of work to get the bike going again after you stop at a stoplight or for a car or for a pedestrian or some other traffic hazard it’s everywhere.
The gear ratio might be fine on the bike path near the river but not in the city.
The U bike is much more comfortable with a very adjustable seat and adjustable gear settings.
Yeah it just feels like trying to ride a tank.
One thinks that they messed up big time with such a heavy awkward bike. They should have stripped it down to bare essentials and made it lighter or a with an easier gear ratio. Even it cost 20% more would have made it way more popular. Now the use case isn’t great because it’s a terrible ride…
I don’t like that they are starting to litter the city in random places that don’t seem like good areas to leave a bike. This morning I passed two just sitting in the middle of a narrow sidewalk forcing people into a busy street to walk. My guess is residents start to complain and the gov’t starts removing them/ fining the company.
At least the parking of owned bikes and Ubikes are organized to a degree.
It feels like the management is not that professional or smart. You want to work with the government not against them. I would approach the relevant department and try to get everyone on the same page, figure out where those bikes could be needed most as an alternative to Youbikes, discuss the best locations etc. It feels they are randomly dumping bikes and hope it’ll work.
Ponied up and joined oBike last night and went for a short ride to the MRT station.
Agree with most of the points already mentioned above, but from the few that I’ve seen around the Zhonghe area, the bikes are in pretty good condition here. The gear ratio is fine for me on (on flats at least) but the seating position is quite strange compared to uBikes and definitely isnt as comfortable. I also wish it had a proper basket in the front instead of whatever you call that pannier like thing.
I haven’t used it yet, but I can see they are trying to increase the availability of oBikes.
Just this morning, next to my company, dozens of oBikes were placed and none of them were there when I left work yesterday.
I guess it’s just about time for me to try it.
Just rode another obike from the bus stop to the office (probably should have walked that 500 meters). And AGAIN, the right brake didn’t work! There seems to be like a 50% chance that I try an obike and the rear brake does not work. WTF, seriously. They must have a very poor QC attitude at the assembly line.
Good that you asked, RL! Made me go back into the APP to find out. Yes, you can report the bike and it’s easy. After you have ridden your obike, the trip is logged in your account and if you go to the last trip under “My Trips” there is a function “Faulty Bike”. If you press on that you’ll see the ID of the bike and a list of problems you can check. I checked “Broken Brake” and hit “Submit”.
But to be honest, I don’t believe they will do a good job doing maintenance, if their brand-new steeds are already broken when upon release.
However, you have zero clues as to what the previous user did with the bike. They haven’t been released for too long, but you don’t how the rider before you treated the bike. It’s hard to keep some people accountable, no matter what kind of bike share program.
I am pretty sure all of the bikes I have used so far were not damaged by previous riders. The brakes just don’t work, they simplydon’t connect to the disk of the back wheel. I have been on about a hundred different Youbikes, never any problem with the brakes. On some older Youbikes you can see the wear and tear, but that’s probably after a few thousand kilometers carrying hundreds of riders.
any issues there are already with the bikes are only going to get worse as time goes on. don’t expect maintenance to be part of the business plan with these bikes.
Taipei, July 10 (CNA) Stationless bike-sharing platform oBike has said it may appeal the New Taipei Department of Transportation’s recent ban on parking oBikes in public parking spaces in 11 densely-populated districts of the city.
More than half the time, you see that it’s the company leaving bikes in (a very orderly fashion) on scooter parking. Tbh, I get pretty pissed off when I see one of those Ah Yi bikes in a scooter spot.
Wang questioned whether New Taipei’s order to ban the parking of the company’s bicycles in public spaces is lawful and said she will consult with lawyers to decide if the company will file an administrative appeal against the ban in the Executive Yuan, the Liberty Times reported on Sunday.
I’m actually a little curious as to what the regulation behind bike parking within non-paid scooter lines. I would assume if it was a group of cyclists or just those Ah Yi bikes parking there would get people mad, but it’s not a reoccurring issue throughout the city, so government and others wouldn’t even look. However, since oBike is registered to a company, there’s a way to track down someone to blame.
The city’s Transportation Department said it chose the areas where the ban is being imposed because they are densely populated and scooter and bike parking spaces are in short supply.
I’m on both scooter AND bike on a weekly basis and I would never park my bike in a scooter spot. Scooter parking is scooter parking. Car parking is car parking. Bike parking is pretty much ANYWHERE, but scooter and car parking.
Most people are familiar with the YouBike. It’s ran by the Taipei city government and operated by Giants bike company. The bikes are usually docked at specific stations and you are paying for using one until it is returned to one of the stations.
Since April of this year, there’s a new player in the public rental bike business, the oBike. The system is imported from Singapore, and the bikes do not have to be docked at a station. You can ride them and then leave them pretty much anywhere once you’ve arrived at your destination. The bikes are tracked by GPS and users can use the oBike app to find the closest available bike, reserve it and travel around the city.
In theory oBike is way more convenient, however, it’s the leaving it anywhere part that became a problem. People literally leave the oBikes everywhere. People leave the oBike in parking spaces for cars, in the middle of the sidewalk, on the side of the roads where parking isn’t permitted.
The situation has gotten to the point where the New Taipei city governments began towing illegally parked oBikes. They have towed at least 1600 oBikes in 3 months. The Taipei city government is considering to follow suit.
Has anyone seen the oBikes in Singapore? Why is it not a problem there but a problem here in Taiwan?
The bikes are usually left in an orderly fashion in legal parkng spots.
Just scooter riders thinking they own all the spaces.
One problem was that the contractor they used dumped some of the bikes in inappropriate places like car parking spots and put too many in scooter spots at one time which obviously riled up the masses.
Because, if a police officer there sees you dropping a bike in the wrong place, they’ll hit you with a stick. You’ll get some spanking right there right then.
You are kidding, right? Have you seen all the bikes (and scooters) parked anywhere? there are bicycles rusting into unexistance everywhere in Taiwan… i don’t think the government does anything.
Uhmmm now I’m thinking that may be they are removing them (if there’s any) in those posh streets and buildings that the city government wants to keep clean.