Ebikes, bicycles, scooters, skateboards, longboards, eboards, motorcycles, skates, unicycles, heelies, or an office chair: Whatever floats your goat, this is all things micromobility!
"Transportation using lightweight vehicles such as bicycles or scooters, especially electric ones that may be borrowed as part of a self-service rental program in which people rent vehicles for short-term use within a town or city.
micromobility is seen as a potential solution to moving people more efficiently around cities"
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It's a little sad that we need to actually say this, but:
Don't be an asshole or you will be permanently banned.
Respectful debate is totally OK, criticizing a product is fine, but being verbally abusive will not be tolerated.
Focus on discussing the idea, not attacking the person.
Everyone thinks fixing a bike is simple until some ass hat routes cables through the headset
there's no money in it
Not until you get drafted as mechanic on one of the big bicycle Formula 1 teams like red bull or McLaren OH WAIT
A reading from the book of the prophet Scott Biram:
Well you can spend all your life makin lots of money, but only Jesus gonna save you honey
No one’s gonna rent a room on a bike mechanic salary.
That's because rent prices are extremely high, not because the salary is low.
both can be true. any salary that does not pay rent is demonstrably too low. argue with the economy as a whole, not your opinion of where acceptable should be.
It isn't a robotics proof job.
It is for now. We can revisit is ten years and see where technology is, but right now there isn't any robot that can diagnose and fix the things mechanics deal with. Mechanics of all kinds are going to be the some of the last jobs to go away due to robots.
What kind of robot do you imagine replacing a bike mechanic? Short of some kind of science fiction synthetic human I can't see that happening. Let alone at a cost that would make it economical.
Yeah, but how much are they going to pay them?
I worked in bike shops for a few years. Most repairs are dead simple once you understand the basic principles, and the harder things are more often replace rather than fix (e.g., most bearings are sealed cartridge units now, bottom brackets are serviceable, etc.). But the last place I worked, I was making only a little over minimum wage. Maybe that's survivable in the EU; it's not in Chicago.
No longer in the EU but UK minimum wage is comfortably survivable in most of the country. Might be fucked in London though.
It's not survivable in the EU. It's just that you would qualify for government assistance whereas in the US you're probably told to go live in a cardboard box. The problem is it doesn't really fix the underlying issue which is that as soon as anyone is offered a better paying job they'll disappear.
No one's going to put in the effort to get certified if the job is known not to pay very well.
there's certification for bike repairing?
... What government assistance? You got a job, who's going to be giving you assistance?
This has to be the most American comment yet.
Don't know about other countries, but in Germany, 72% (2023 numbers) of those who receive income support are officially employed. They just don't make enough money to get by.
But don’t they know if they just hand out free money they’ll all just turn into freeloaders and stop working??? If all those poor people have money they’ll just go out and spend it all on drugs and hookers! Clearly Germany is failing smh my head. ^/s^
And you don't need to learn anything because it's not hard at all!
Anything related to repair is in demand, but not for the right pay. I quit doing my job--different field--to do something else. Got tired of it. I really enjoyed the morons that tried to fix it themselves or cut corners find out how expensive the bill is to fix their mistakes.
I do it all myself and just follow guides very slowly. Haven't had a problem in 7 years, not everyone that does DIY is a moron.
And some things don't need professional quality. Did my own plastering for some patches of wall. Is it as perfectly smooth as getting a plasterer in? Maybe not if you look very closely. So just stop looking so closely at the wall. Plus learnt for next time if I need to do it again I can probably do a somewhat better job.
I commend you for that. I have no problem with anyone fixing their own things. My only gripe is fixing other peoples mistakes. 35K espresso machine breaks, catastrophically, I spent a week fixing it as I've never seen this kind of damage. Then basically spent a few hours interrogating the customer if they changed the settings. Finally they cracked and said yes, the milk wasn't working so they turned it off. They didn't. So the entire system kept running and created calcification all throughout the path and blew out all the connectors on the boiler. I should have charged double for that experience; hence why I don't feel like doing that line of work anymore.
"X" needs [underpaid] workers right now!