It's a standard term familiar to anyone who knows anything about challenges faced by segments of society other than their own.

If you don't know what you're talking about, don't care to look it up, and didn't pick up the examples already given in the thread including the context you pulled it from, then maybe you don't have a lot to say?

Incidentally, they are a major consumer group; in fact there are whole, rather exploitative industries, for which they are nearly the entire customer base. So in fact yes, people do organize business around that.

Where I am in S E Asia, they buy container loads of second hand bikes from Japan, and often sell ladies bikes for around $50 retail.

New ladies bikes are often not much more, maybe $60.

You cam buy new mountain bikes for under $150, manufactured in Asia.

These prices are retail. The importer is making money, and the retailer is making money.

I'm not sure what your crusade is about. If you honestly feel you can make a quality, trouble free bike for $250 then by all means do so. Might be an interesting education in reality for you.

There is no shortage of used bikes, just bikes that meet your Americanized standards. I volunteer at charities that ship bikes to Africa as part of their ministry. They have warehouses of used bikes they mix and match parts from to make whole bikes. Their biggest problems in not a lack of bikes but shipping costs.

Yeah?...
The ‘unbanked’ you referred to make up around 5% of the population.
And about half of them made the choice to avoid banks due to fees and overall distrust of banks. Not lack of funds or inability to pay $500 for an item.
Either way, they are most certainly a nonfactor when it comes to bicycle mass production.
But you keep doing you lol

In other words: if the consumers would simply demand it, and the producers would simply produce it, we could have these bikes that you want at the price that you want.

Got it.

The thing is this isn't just a bike thing. Pick a hobby. Any hobby. Be it photography, downhill skiing, snow shoeing, fly fishing, trap shooting, golfing etc. The good quality equipment, just like in biking, is going to cost money.

Some of you would probably be surprised to know that I have I have approximately $1000 wrapped up into one of the many fly rods I own.

https://www.orvis.com/helios-3d-fly-rods

If you are so sure a decent bike could be sold (consumer price) for $250.... I like to see how you actually do that in the real world and not just in an internet discussion. unless your definition of decent is much different than mine.

Except economics, nothing stops you from actually delivering on your promise of selling the bikes you advocate for.

I am trying to follow your scheme here.

You want to start a bike brand that builds a kinda budget bike with features from the 70's that wont be as "cool" as a walmart bike.

You want to build the bikes and pay the workers with virtue.

You want a huge distribution network (this part I assume, I'm sure you don't want to leave out poor Appalachian Americans and only service mega cities.)

You want a dealer network for service so the consumer can keep this junk on the road.

I guess my question is did you survey these poor folks you are trying to help?

I work with people who think I am completely nuts for riding a bike to work everyday. I have spent most of life in horrible low income neighborhoods. I have never in my life meet a single mom who did her banking at the check into cash that said you know what would make my life better a bike to ride to my crap job/jobs. I have never meet a guy version of that person that had any interest in biking. those people need/want cars they have to transport kids carry tools time is not a resource they have riding bikes is wasting time(mega cities may be a exception)

You mentioned this isnt all about commuting. well that brings up the a question if its recreation. what makes you think poor people that are bike nerds want a feature less bike to play on?

Sounds more like the government should mandate this to me. Its really the only way all the things described could ever happen in a country this size.

This is the part that UniChris , and the author of the article linked in the original post, have completely missed: getting low-income/low-wealth people on bikes could most effectively be accomplished with government intervention.

There is plenty of data on the question of "why people don't use bikes for transportation," and cost is not a top factor; more often, people cite safety and infrastructure concerns -- in other words, they don't feel safe while riding along the shoulders of busy streets. With good bike infrastructure (bike lanes, paths, safer intersections, bike racks, etc), we could overcome the biggest hurdle for many people. After that, if cost is a factor, it's easily solvable with means-tested subsidies (or tax breaks), incentives for employers to provide bike-friendly facilities (secure storage, showers, etc), even directly subsidized bikes. (Bike share or citi-bike programs are an example. There's no reason why low-income people couldn't be provided with free access.)

Simply wishing and hoping for bikes to cost less is not a solution.

It does have that kind of feel to it. I am assuming eventually "other people's money" will be asked to pay for it.

$250 price points:p unbanked ;) bicyclists co op :) bike cost inflation :foo: Breezer or State brand :thumb: noob workshops:thumb: $timulus Checks:thumb:

I have no use for such a thing.

The article linked in the first post was about people who want and need them, but can't get them.

That's not to deny that many would probably prefer a car if they had the choice, but that's orders of magnitude further out of reach.
​​​​​​
Economic desperation bike transport is very much a thing.

But yes, it's true that the reason good inexpensive bikes aren't on the market when they could be, is that it would take a joint change on both the selling and buying side - neither could switch without the other.

In the long-run, it's cheaper than climate change + more traffic congestion + higher healthcare costs caused by obesity + etc.

Our tax dollars already heavily subsidize an auto-centric lifestyle; wouldn't it be smarter to put some of those resources towards cycling?

I’m not getting your point here. Your first sentence makes no sense.

You do it for fun or the bragging rights. You also probably didn’t load your bike up with clothes for commuting or groceries or other items.


If you look in the world where single speed is used extensively, those places tend to be in relatively flat areas. Other places that have hills may have people riding single speeds but people riding there tend to do it as a challenge.

But, again, you haven’t identified any item on a bicycle that could be pared down so as to get the cost of a durable bicycle below around $500.

About those. We got a mess of them from the local ride share when Lime and Uber killed the ride share system in Denver. We sold a few of them for $10 but we had a whole bunch more that we couldn’t even give away.


You keep going on about index shifting. It’s not that expensive nor that hard to keep operating. The expensive part...the research and development...was paid for long ago. You seem to think it adds hundreds of dollars to the price of the bike. It adds pennies, if even that.

You have the perfect model of how to make a budget bike in the HelMart Heavys (and similar). You end up with a bicycle that is heavy, unreliable, too expensive to fix, and is a danger to its rider. Making them a bit better and doubling the price probably would only make a bike that is slightly better. My co-op scraps hundreds of these kinds of bikes per year. Even with free labor and reclaimed parts, they aren’t worth the effort of even stripping the parts from them. I took about 6 tons of them to the scrap yard last summer.

The biggest thing with department store bikes is that the assembly is such a roll of the dice. Retail assembly is usually done by piece-rate contract assemblers, rather than store employees, and there's neither time nor room allowed for more than a cursory function check, let alone a test-ride. If you, the buyer have little to no mechanical knowledge, particularly about adjusting bike components, then you may get home with a bike that doesn't work right, and no other option than to return it to the store for another one.

There are some not-bad bikes out there. A quick walk through the bike aisle at Target this morning turned up a couple of interesting tidbits:

At $259 : The Schwinn Ranger 26" MTB. All steel, even the bars and seatpost. 3x7 'A' series Grip-shift Shimano, with V-brakes. I actually have a used one, that my 12-year-old learned how to ride on. It's definitely a cost-point bike, but it doesn't have any silly features, other than a basic coil-spring fork, and has been holding up well to the bumps and bangs of a rookie rider. I'm not surprised that it seems to be durable, it probably weighs 40 lbs. It's a tank.
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...8109972459.png
For $110 more (that's $369) is the Schwinn Circuit hybrid; Aluminum frame, all Tourney with Rapidfire shifters and mech disk brakes. Shipping weight is listed as 31lbs, but it feels lighter than that on the stand. It also surprised me for how well turned-out it is. Replaceable RD hanger, rack and fender mounts, even mid-mounts on the front fork. The cranks (and probably the BB) are the only thing obviously cheap-looking, but it appears to be a standard threaded unit, so it's easy to remedy if needed.
Seriously considering this one as an upgrade for Mr Skinnylegs when he outgrows that 15" frame MTB

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...90e20930f4.png

Maybe try treading it a bit more carefully - it's quite clear



You'd be surprised what I carry on a distance ride. And in terms of grocery shopping, adding 10-15% of ones body weight to the rolling load doesn't make that big a difference in utility cycling. Most economically disadvantaged folks in first-world countries are (unfortunately) grocery shopping in small quantities anyway, because they don't have the cash on hand to buy the larger quantities that have cheaper unit price - the "expensive to be poor" trap is quite comprehensive.

Not only - never having to resort to "two foot gear" is a privilege, not a right. But given that a $129 bike can have a flimsy 21 speed drivetrain, its clear that a solid but simpler 1-x-something is possible at twice that price.

Sounds like people in your area had better options than durable but heavy share bikes - which is a very good thing! But that's not true everywhere. If there were plenty of used good bikes available everywhere people needed them, that article wouldn't have been written.

You keep not reading what I actually wrote, and imagining something I didn't. The reason for avoiding something precision like index shifting, is that in avoiding it, you remove something that needs maintenance and adjustment to keep working right. "My bike doesn't shift right becomes" "I move the lever until it's happy". Maybe you can get a BSO's derailleur properly adjusted - the coop mechanic who posted in response to the article couldn't. More than a few bike touring folks opt out of index shifting for the same reason of having less to worry about in the field. But it's only one example of the whole theme of keeping things simple to keep them affordably functional.

That's why I was suggesting moving the assembly out of the store and instead contract it to a community organization that can care a bit about bikes and do the work while sharing that knowledge. And also have them work from pallets of parts, rather than having to make a "bike" out of the contents of each kitted box, so that bad parts can be individually discarded rather than having to decide between using them or putting the whole "bike" in the store dumpster.

Those "return the whole thing" cases are already priced into the sticker price too - something obviously inefficient, that happens because a big box store isn't organizationally set up to do anything but sell and take returns (many of which end up in the dumpster).

Maybe. If you look through the thread, you'll see some people vehemently arguing that BSO's often aren't all that bad, and others arguing that they are deadly in their very existence. What is true is that they feature a lot of designing to the margins of plausibility, compounded by inconsistency in assembly, but also component manufacture.

Maybe. It's interesting if you read the reviews - the top critical one is from someone who got a flat tire and gives the impression that user unfamiliarity/expectation may be part of it. Then there are a bunch of negative ones that attack it over quality complaints, bearing issues, etc. Then you get to the positive ones - and IIRC every single positive review was from someone sent a free sample to evaluate.

It may actually have potential if one gets "a good one". But there are also things that might go quickly wrong that may not be immediately visible. It's especially the kind of thing where one year it might have been decent, and then another they substituted cheaper bearings/bearing surfaces and ruined it - and you'd never be able to tell what was going to have accelerated wear when looking at it in the store, but at most if you knew what you were looking for detect that something was already wrong before it had been ridden at all.

It is however along the lines of what I see as demonstrating that with more care to narrow it to the important features only (eg, drop the suspension fork and front derailleur) and manufacture them right, and then delegate assembly to those who actually know something, something is possible.

I remember helping a man with a flat. He was trying to get to work. His pay was going to support his family. The tires on his BSO mountain bike were so rotten that I could see the inner tube. I pumped him up to 20 psi or so; I didn’t want the tire to fail.

As we move to bicycles for transport at scale and not just for the economically desperate, appropriate bicycles will be demanded (and supplied) as you see in other countries.

The original Streetsblog article was essentially an advertisement for co-ops. They serve a useful purpose for the transportation market as it stands today: dominated by people who can’t afford tires.

Even bigger yet is they are made with cheap inferior materials. Even if the department store had a competent person to assemble the BSO, quality materials aren't there.

... what you want is an AK 47 shaped like a bicycle

Indeed!

this topic is what people with money talk about. "you know if the poor just had bikes" lol a car in this country is a sign of effort, making it, success (even a junk car).

the majority only see bikes as toys not transport. if you want to solve a problem that is the one to focus on. If bikes become a reasonable means of transport in this county all of sudden $500 bikes wont seem out of reach.

No doubt about it.

But the article and this thread are specifically about the people who already want bikes - either by choice, or by necessity of no other option.

Pretending they don't exist is just proving you have nothing to contribute to this thread - your claims about car purchase were so clueless as to be hilariously comical, if they weren't so sad.

But feel free to start yet another thread about advocating that people consider bikes, as for climate issues that's indeed important too.

So this has become another of those kinds of threads where the OP browbeats anyone who doesn't agree with him?

I thought so.

I worked for 15 years at used car lots. My best friends family owned a used car lot. it takes next to zero effort in this country to go buy a car.

My comments about car ownership and purchase are real world. find me a bike shop that will let you walk out the door with a 1500-5000 bike with two pay stubs and $99 down and no credit check.

Not to do so and then operate it legally.

Start with the federal documentation mandates to get even get a license - community forums regularly get posts from thoroughly middle class native-born people complaining about procedural difficulties there.

Then you need registration fees.

Then in all but a handful of states, you'll need to buy mandatory insurance coverage before you can register it...

Even if you've got a salesman / finance manager willing to give a car away without any evidence of likelihood to ever see a single payment, there are still huge obstacles.

Then you need a place to park it...

That's why desperation-forced utility cycling is a thing.

In ignoring those payed in cash, you're ignoring some of the major categories of economic desperation bike users.

Is that employment illegal? Probably. Does that mean one might as well compound it by driving an uninsured vehicle without a license? No.

seems like it.

I don't even really disagree. I just think its a used market solution. which is already covered pretty well anywhere there is a demand for it.

the environment and infrastructure for bikes are totally different topics. if you are one of economically disenfranchised that can only move around by bike those things are more than likely really low on your radar.

What this thread really brings home for me is how the income of Americans has stagnated. Realistically the cost of a basic bike (using the upthread quote of $89 for a bike in 1972 which is equal to $560 in 2021 greenbacks) is roughly the same as the minimum wage increase (the minimum wage was $1.25 in 1972 which is worth $7.87 now) BUT the cost of everything else has gone up more than the cost of inflation: Median house price in 1972 - $27,000 or $169,00 adjusted. Median house price 2020 was $289,000 or $6,676 in 1972 dollars.

Same is true for food, utilities etc. So while bikes in the commuter range have increased comparable to the minimum wage, nothing else has. In order to do that Bicycle manufacturing has largely left the US for China where wages (and worker living conditions) can be dismal.

So really the argument I left with is that we need to increase the minimum wage to reflect the total cost of inflation to pre-Reagan levels if we want Americans to buy better bikes.

I am all for it.

So basically, your model is to have the bikes manufactured locally. (Assembled from components) and delivered to the stores complete and ready to ride?
I appreciate where you're heart's at, but there's a lot of things that don't scale when you try to apply the 'Co-Op' workshop model to a big-box retail supply chain.

That final delivery leg alone would introduce a whole lot of labor, expense and extra risk to the product. Bikes come in flat boxes because it's easier to transport them that way. They're usually mostly complete, as well. 'Final Assembly' as takes place in the stores is pretty much a matter of installing the front wheel, and attaching the (already assembled / cabled) handlebar and stem to the head tube. Maybe installing the saddle. (That's how BikesDirect does it, too) Even higher end bikes going to bike shops already have major subassemblies done by the factory. Very few retail bikes arrive at their sales destination as a bare frame, wheelset, and 'box of components'
Moving complete bikes without risk of damage takes a lot more time and care and equipment than just loading a pallet of boxes on to a delivery truck. THULE and Yakima have made very good business over the years, doing just that. So now you also need dedicated delivery vehicles, with appropriately licensed and insured drivers, as well as the operating costs of those vehicles.

Same goes for the 'workshop' with 'pallets of parts' idea. That's pretty much a production line. That's not really a thing that you're going to find a community outreach group that wants to take that on. Who will your assemblers be? Will they be paid a comparable wage to typical assembly work, or will they be working "for the good of the cause?" Have you ever worked on an assembly line? It's a tough thing to do day in and day out, and not everyone has the capability for it. In order to get people with the skills and mentality to do a good job, you've either got to have a good incentive, or get full buy-in on your goal.

From a nuts-and-bolts perspective, unless you limit your production to a single model per facility, you're going to start getting into inventory and production control issues. I spent a couple of decades in production and assembly, and model change-overs are the riskiest part of a production day, as far as the possibility of making errors goes.
Unless your production model is for each assembler to get a frame and 'build sheet' then 'shop' the required components from 'the pallets'
How many bikes is this operation going to supply per week/month/season? How will you account for period of high seasonal demand?

Now, I can see this <somewhat> working if, instead of supplying a big-box retailer, your Cooperative Bike Factory is also the point of sale. That would add some overhead, but also cut out all the final transportation leg. You'd need to locate it where these unbanked, car-less potential customers live however.

I am pretty sure by everything you just said you don't really know any poor people. lol Or how the poor get cars.