General Cycling Discussion - our own bicycle rescue service

Hi folks How about having our own bicycle rescue service all over the world.Imagine the benefit of travelling to these far away destinations that people only dream of and having no worries about a breakdown.The type of service the motorist enjoys.Your thoughts and suggestions please.

The issue I see is bikes "break down" a lot more than modern cars do. Especially with regards to flat tires. Plus, there are relatively few cyclist over which to spread the cost of the service.

Companies like AAA work because they have a lot of members but relatively few field calls. Think about it, out of thousands of cars on the road you really don't see that many broken down. Plus, the towing agency typically tows the break down to their own shop, where they charge for repairs thereby recouping a lot of the cost of the tow.

There isn't enough profit in bike repairs to implement a similar model, so the dues would probably have to be too high for it to be viable.

I donno about bikes breaking down more than cars. Seriously, the only failures I have ever really had were flats... and I could fix those right where I was. I once busted a derailuer, but I resolved that by becoming a single speed until I got to a bike shop.

Any other failure that might occur is generally due to poor maintenance. Bicycles are quite simple machines compared to say a VW which was supposed to be the "people's car" and easy to fix.

I cannot really think of a single "normal" failure item that is not readily repairable with a simple tool kit. (or today with a bike multi-tool).

As someone that has toured great distances, I have found bike shops all over that could aid in the most complex repairs such as a busted derailuer or broken spoke. Of course my systems are simple too... I still use friction shifting vice index shifting, so my parts are easy to replace and my adjustments are simple.