...I want a bicycle vending machine.

actually saw this over a year ago or so, ever since I have been thinking that every major city should have one of these towers ever 3-4 blocks, looks like a fantastic solution and a great use of limited space. There is a vid somewhere or other that goes into detail about just how much cubic feet this structure actually uses, the great solution they have to constructing and setting up one of these stations and how little impact/disturbance it has while doing so.

Great solution, but I suspect all kinds of hurdles will be created to get in the way of this system being set up in the USA, we do seem to trip over our own feet when it comes to using common sense at times.

That would be excellent! No more wiping off a day's worth of rain off my bike and hoping no one fiddled with the brakes. I loved the bike escalator on the staircase.

*sigh* I guess one day I'll have to move to Japan to ever get to use one of those bike parking lots.

That's if you can find a free space in one.

It'll be a long time before we'd see something like that in the U.S. I think--though it would be awesome. Perhaps a few years after gas hits $5 a gallon and above people will start taking alternative modes of transport more seriously. It will literally take a serious oil crisis to force us to change. On second thought, maybe it wont be such a long time after all. . .

You know..... if I were a bike manufacturer, I think I would also try to develop some bicycle infrastructure. Like open up a full bike shop in a dowtown area that would include various kinds of storage solutions, etc., just to see what works. Maybe not do it in every city, but put two or three shops like that in, plan to invest heavily in this stuff for those to markets, and see if it takes off. Maybe also have a partnership with a city to develop and test bike infrastructure (sharrows vs. lanes vs. trails vs. bike boulevards). If those companies want to sell more bikes in the U.S., they probably have to develop the market, but I bet it would pay off in the end.

I hate to think what happens when this thing jams Although, it's a neat idea. I've seen videos of it previously. What's cool is that the whole thing takes up an area of 7 meters in diameter to park nearly 150 bikes. Bike parking and retrieval is under 30 seconds.

It's called EcoCycle. This is the company that builds it, navigate under Construction Solutions->Marvelous Solutions->Car and Bicycle Parking:

https://www.giken.com/int/st/index.html

You just get Godzilla to rock it a little till your bike falls down to the bottom.

I see they have something similar for cars. Neat idea for both bikes and cars.

Hipster high-lock^2

Heck, just get bike shops to offer LAB Road 1 and Road 2 would be a start. The support from bike shops and maybe from manufactures seems to be limited to putting bikes in the hands of the user...

On the other hand Lance's shop down in Austin, Mellow Johnny's, at least has what you are talking about... a commuter center. Great shop... take a run down 35 and go to Austin and check it out... https://www.mellowjohnnys.com/index.php

Or better yet, ride the back roads and don't forget to stop in Fredericksburg for great beer. Just a bit out of the way (grin) but worth the stop.

Regarding the bike market in the US... Oh it is a great market, a huge number of bikes are sold in the US, which then gather dust in garages. There was some sort of crazy quote about this I can't recall at the moment (may be in my sig)

I just showed a friend those clips, "yep, that would be great if it was safe to ride around here"

They just put in a bike rental setup in DC. Not quite a vending machine but similar to the cart rental machines at Airports. I think there is only a total of like 150 bikes to rent currently, and maybe 5 or 10 pick-up/drop-off locations.

You from VA? Talking about Fred Red? If so then yes, worth a trip to the brewery on Weds or Fri afternoon for a growler or two. Miss that stuff!

The video in the first post of this thread blew my mind.

sooprvylyn,

I think the reference was to Fredricksburg, TX. https://wikitravel.org/en/Fredericksburg_(Texas)