“There’s something pretty cool about going to a site and being able to rent a bike from someone in Australia, Romania, Paris, or Austin, Texas.”
—Spinlister: Peer-To-Peer Bike Sharing Gets Rolling
Spinlister: Peer-To-Peer Bike Sharing Gets Rolling
fastcoexist.comThis is test launching in a couple of cities in California. I have a lot of thoughts on this, but I don’t have enough time to sort through them all at the moment.
My initial thoughts are: Maybe, but I’m not convinced.
If social is the enabler of the sharing economy, #IoT is the deliverer
Who else followed the Techcrunch Disrupt in SF last week? Who else thought, that the idea of an AirBnB for bikes isn’t that bad?
With people getting more confident in using P2P services, rising energy costs and a change in lifestlye and mobility - Spinlister could hit the bullseye.
The moment I thought of opportunities in this space, it made me think what puts Spinlister apart from city-based rental schemes from e.g. Deutsche Bahn Call-a-Bike or London’s Barclay Bikes?
Let’s Start with the
Pros:
- you can ride wherever you want - there are no restricted areas
- Spinlister enables you to ride an ‘authentic’ bike
- lower rates than public bicycle sharing schemes, especially on long-term rentals
- you can keep the bike over night
Cons:
- you need to meet the renter to get the bike firsthand and to return it
- you can’t park it somewhere and forget about it and continue your journey with another bike, or the bus or the tube.
So my second thought was:
What if every bike in a city could become a “rental scheme bike” ?
For this to happen, a lot of friction in the locating, overhanding and payment system process has to be eliminated.
So what about NFC, GPS & Wifi enabled Bikelocks?
The software infrastructure is widely established. Now our task is the deployment of hardware to enhance the experience. Here, the whole game gets interesting. Imagine online-startups which are backed by a hardware counterpart. Devices like the Arduino Platform already pull down the entry-barriers for IOT enabled StartUps.
Another positive side-effect on the finance side is the IP protection. IOT linked startups can make use of their hardware IP protection to leverage their risks in software imitability.
"Your bike is money" - Spinlister
Ev dropped of his Go Pros this morning, I packed my skateboard, grabbed my bike and my new helmet and headed to the city to spend the day with Shanna, our art director, Sean, our videographer and Eric, my slave, and Jeff and Will of Spinlister. It was great.
Can’t wait for you all to see everything we’ve been working on.
:)
Spinlister: The First Peer-to-Peer Bike-Sharing Program
Do you have a bike or two sitting in your apartment or garage? Ones you wish you rode just a little bit more? Well, thanks to Spinlister, a new bike-sharing startup, now those bikes can make you cold hard cash while helping out a fellow cyclist in need.
While community bike programs currently exist in many European cities like London and Paris, they are either funded by government or private organizations. What makes Spinlister unique is that it’s the first peer-to-peer bike program — you rent someone else’s bike while you’re in town, or someone rents yours.
Created by co-founders Jeffrey Noh and Will Dennis, Spinlisterofficially kicked off on April 1 in New York City and San Francisco when their web-based startup opened for business, bringing bike riders and bike renters together on their online hub. (If you don’t live in New York or San Francisco you can let Spinlister know where you are and that you want them to bring the service to your area or city.)
The process is simplicity at its finest: Bike owners just upload a picture of their bike, their location, and choose a day rate (currently anywhere from $1 a day for a basic bike to $80 a day for a high-end ride.) Bike renters search the site and reserve the bike of their choosing.
Spinlister handles the transaction and takes a 12.5 percent commission from both ends. So if you list your bike for $20 a day (the average cost right now) you get $15 and the renter pays $23. Spinlister keeps a credit card of all renters on file in case a bike gets damaged, and they are fully insured in the event of injury to a rider.
While planning a family trip to Disney World a few months ago, I spent several hours online trying to find a bike to rent to get in some early morning Ironman training rides. Had a program like Spinlister existed in Florida, it would have saved me significant time and money, and I could have picked from a number of higher-end bikes. So you can see that I love this idea; it’s a huge win-win for bike riders and bike owners alike. It also offers a simple way for people to be more active while helping protect the environment.
I have to be honest though: I’d list my mountain bike on Splinlister, but my tri-bike is off-limits.
Would you consider listing your bike on Spinlister? Would you rent a bike through them?
- Tom Holland, Men’s Health Reporter
peer to peer bikesharing
spinlister.comI pulled apart Oregon’s House Bill 3149 (HB 3149) a while ago for a policy brief. It was a policy insuring car owners who opted to enroll their vehicle in a peer-to-peer carsharing system, making some money while their car sat idle for odd hours of the day.
If any of you are like me you’ve got a couple of extra bikes just lying around your house waiting to be ridden. You have the road bike for riding-riding and racing, the commuter which will most likely not be rentable because it is almost always in use by you, and you have the 1-2 speed cruiser (mine is soon to be introduced in a post to come, stay tuned!). This website allows you (well, you in New York and San Francisco) to put one of your steeds up for rent for a price per day determined by you. Prices range from $4 to $50 for bikes of all sorts. Check out the details on the link provided.
I would love to make some cash money off of my lovely steeds when not in use and help out a fellow bike enthusiast. And this is just another way showing that bikes can use the same systems that cars are implementing. Fingers crossed that it is successful.
Spinlister: bicycle rental through individuals in NYC and San Francisco
This is a neat idea. A new company named Spinlister I’m not exactly sure how it’ll work in reality to ensure that bicycles aren’t stolen, but if it does work, it could be the ZipCar of the cycling world. I suppose NY and SF are the best of any places to test this idea out.
