France offers each cyclist €50 for bike repairs once lockdown ends

People in this thread are getting really hung up on the idea that someone with a bike == cycling enthusiast. In Europe a huge amount of people just own a bike. Often some beaten up thing they probably paid €30-200 for at a flea market or bike shop and use to commute or meet friends. Maybe it's fallen into a state where it's unrideable. The €50 is just a simple nudge for all those people to get it roadworthy so they can start using it again or sell it to somebody who will use it.

People are focused on the relatively small amount here, and that&#x27;s valid, but I suspect that some of the incentive here is to keep momentum in cycling going (from people avoiding transit, enjoying temporary bike infra, etc.) and trying not to lose that progress. There might be a lot of people for whom that €50 means a tuneup that gets them to take the bike out when before it would&#x27;ve just rusted.<p>I mean, data would be nice, but that&#x27;s the hope (I&#x27;m guessing)

&gt; The French government is slowly bringing its lockdown to a close from May 11, with cyclists allowed back onto the roads for the first time since March.<p>To clarify, this is somewhat inaccurate: biking is permitted, and has always been permitted, during the French lockdown, as a judgment (in French) recently confirmed: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.conseil-etat.fr&#x2F;actualites&#x2F;actualites&#x2F;le-gouvernement-doit-indiquer-publiquement-que-le-velo-est-autorise-durant-le-confinement" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.conseil-etat.fr&#x2F;actualites&#x2F;actualites&#x2F;le-gouvern...</a>.<p>Cyclists were just subject to the same restrictions as anyone else -- these restrictions were the same no matter the transportation means.<p>And yes, these measures should change by May 11, but the details are not confirmed yet.

Let&#x27;s be honest, 50 Euros per person is a drop in the bucket compared to the subsidies governments give to other modes of transportation.

People seem motivated to keep their bikes maintained if they don&#x27;t have to pay for it themselves from my experience.<p>In Canada I&#x27;ve volunteered at free bike tune up stations for many years, they are usually set up at popular summer events or at community centres.<p>We get a lot of people who aren&#x27;t confident enough to do basic things like adjust brakes, gears or even change a flat tire. Most of the time they&#x27;ve simply rode their bike and dealt with poor performance or issues until it becomes a problem or they feel it is unsafe to ride.<p>For these folks getting someone to do extremely basic yearly maintenance would keep them happily riding for a long time.

I don’t think TCO is an issue with bikes.<p>I would estimate the TCO of a bike to be somewhere between €15 and €50 a month†. That compares favourably to cars which would be somewhere up at €350 to €700 per month, so that’s an order of magnitude off.<p>If that payment can be an effective incentive to use the bike more that’s nice, I guess, but I’m not sure it can. Infrastructure would be the most important (and also most expensive) driver of bike usage if I had to guess. That’s not easily or quickly changed.<p>I mean, for us the cost factor definitely is relevant. We can save so much money by not having a car and there are so few situations where we would need one (if we really need one we can rent one once a year). So sure: Sometimes a car would be practical or nice to have but for that little tiny benefit it is too expensive. So, yeah, TCO does play a role – but I don’t think €50 per year change that calculus significantly if you have already decided that a car is worth it for you.<p>—<p>† Between €500 and €1,500 for the bike (used for five years), between €100 and €300 per year for repairs.

Since this isn&#x27;t just a €50 windfall direct deposited into their bank accounts, as in the IRS stimulus, it seems like the best approach towards getting people on bikes.<p>If you are skeptical about whether or not this is a waste of government money, consider why you have not yet begun commuting by bike. The French just bought €300M worth of new bike highway and they want it to be used. What costs could outweigh better air quality and healthier people?

Do most people really need $50 for bike maintenance? I think I&#x27;ve spent about $15 on my beater bike over the last couple years, just to buy a new tube and maybe some wd40. For the vast majority of people I would imagine that they don&#x27;t maintain their bike at all, modern bikes hold together pretty well.

Wow, really cool scheme! Would love to see it in Scotland.<p>A friend nicely lent me his bike and I&#x27;ve been going for rides every day during lockdown. Really got the cycling bug now and a scheme like this would be great.

Adoption of cycling would require more serious actions like improving the road system for the bicycles so that cyclist are safe from the cars. The cycling should be also a pleasant activity so that people can do it naturally, without being forced.<p>I am in France and I am enjoying now the reduction of car traffic and the improvement of air quality but this is going to end as soon as the confinement is over.

&quot;we want the bicycle to be the queen of deconfinement&quot;<p>I&#x27;ll bet that sounds really beautiful in the original French.

Other similar government initiatives always lead to the providers hiking the price of all repairs and maintenance work by €50...<p>I&#x27;m not sure quite why, since presumably market forces should still work to make people go to the cheapest bike shop to get as much value as possible for their €50, but that never seems to happen...<p>Example: grants to give discounts of ~£300 to install EV charging points in people&#x27;s houses simply led to the price of installation rising by £300 overnight.

The region around Paris decided to give a 500eur subvention for ebikes and 600eur for ecargos. One per adult person if you live in Île de France. Great (waiting for the check right now) but I&#x27;m not sure it didn&#x27;t jack the prices up a bit :-\

The US used to have a similar program, created during the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 and subsequently removed by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2018.<p>Maybe it will come back as part of a new stimulus in 2020?

I am a bit late to the game, so maybe someone already said it in this thread. I am asuming this is intended to have people cycle to work instead of taking public transport once the lockdown is lifted. There is just one problem:<p>As a cyclist in locked down London, the few times I needed to get to the office on almost empty(!) streets, I noticed how much more difficult social distancing on a bike is. Not while moving, but while waiting on a red light. It is usual to wait in front of the queue in the cycle waiting area just in front of the traffice light. A few times when I waited there more cyclists or scooters with open helmets would join me there, not respecting social distancing at all (pedestrians are much better at this).<p>I think if the direction is going into pushing people into using bicycles much more than before, an education campaign needs to start that tells cyclists and scooters how they should behave on red lights. Not sure what the best solution will be, as I am sure there wont be much space. I guess most people really would prefer to take their car that naturally enforces separation to others. So I really expect the roads to become very full in the next weeks.

In holland you can buy a bike for 50 euros.

French and cyclist and only discovering this :)<p>Cyclists in France are mostly middle-upper class. Lower classes have been excluded from town centers at distances where it is difficult to commute by bike. And their work is typically in another suburb, where bike infrastructure is poor or non existing.<p>I&#x27;m not impressed.

So France is taxing people to give them money back; with the costs of the overhead (processing taxes and these rebates) one can safely assume it is overall a bad deal, the tax amount is higher than the rebate so the taxpayer is on the losing end, but happy for the &quot;free stuff&quot;.<p>There is no free meal.

Could I put this toward a new innertube for my electric unicycle?<p>JK. I live in New York City - curious if anyone else in cities have been increasing use of their personal electric vehicle (PEV) or electric unicycle during the whole Covid 19 shutdown?

I bought my neighbor a bike for 50€ in 2015, and rode more than 5000km a year (50km to 100km week) on it ever since (commuting to work, shopping, week-end long rides now that I work remotely)

That’s a very innovative angle for handing out benefits. I like it

I&#x27;d like to see other cities doing something like this. Although a typical annual tune-up costs closer to $100.

This seems like a really cheap way to get the desired outcome, more people exercising

But first you’d have to get to France...

This is a very bizarre headline.

Is there some reason to think this has any kind of predictable outcome?<p>I&#x27;m all for good incentives but not if there is no apparent benefit.

Is it only me or a gov that during a pandemic that will cause a lots of lost jobs giving back 50 euro to bicycle owners is a new level of rudiculesness?

Really why not just spend the money on community bicycles and docking stations, increased racks or similar efforts instead of maintenance? I don&#x27;t object to promoting bicycling at all but the means puzzle me a bit.

This €50 subsides is a fantasy from Cycling Weekly. No announcement was made by any local or national public authority, and no sign in the French news about this. Love from Paris anyway.

Instead of €50. The government could make €70 tax relief. Then there would be no need to transfer (€50 x millions of bike owners) through the government&#x27;s hands and to waste peoples effort on serving the whole operation.<p>The only reason why it is not like that is because politicians like to have our money which gives them power and makes the state bigger and bigger.

It&#x27;s a nice gesture but hardly solves a problem. If the payment is for a mechanic to perform some &quot;service&quot; on your bicycle to make it roadworthy again, and from it you gain neither the tools nor the knowledge to perform two simple, necessary tasks for a cyclist; replace a tyre&#x2F;inner tube, or replace a chain; what&#x27;s the long term benefit?<p>How about put 50 euros per cyclist into a tool kit, a dozen inner tubes and some education (YouTube videos even?) so they can continue to cycle long after the 50 euro one time service has passed?

This is one of those of those proposals that allows the pats in the back to go round, but which are in fact completely useless because in effect it is just a windfall for people who did not ask for anything and who did not need any help.