What caused Shimano's Coasting-program to fail? (2010)

I spent some time learning the creative thinking process from an IDEO employee&#x2F;teacher while in school. One of the early steps is defining your problem by interviewing consumers, which seems like where the misstep occurred. Being an avid cyclist with nearly no friends who bike, I&#x27;ve seen that they are not intimidated by &quot;technology&quot;.<p>They are afraid of looking like an idiot. If they ride with me I look really cool with a slick bike and low profile gear, while they are riding a walmart bike in baggy shorts with a dumb helmet, while visible to hundreds of people in cars.<p>IMO the solution is not a new bike - its better group rides. Most people don&#x27;t show up to the gym and start working out on their own, they take a class at a gym with gear and other noobs. I believe the best way to get people off the couch and biking is letting them go to a gym, with a bunch of noobs, and ride bikes together. Don&#x27;t spend $400+, spend $75&#x2F;mo. (A bike is maybe ~70% of the total cost of bike gear).<p>I have a ton of cool resources from IDEO (now quite a few years old) and the creative thinking&#x2F;ideation process, I can post them here if desired.<p>For those misunderstanding my example: The difference is looking like you know what you&#x27;re doing, and looking like you have no idea what you&#x27;re doing. Regardless of the situation (biking, at work, or talking to women at bars) not knowing what you&#x27;re doing and having that be publicly visible can be a huge hurdle to overcome.

Increasing ridership can come from tech but I think it’s much more likely to come from better and more bike-centric infrastructure and norms. Separated bike paths, bike storage, showers at offices&#x2F;work, etc would all make it much more likely for someone to decide to bike.<p>We could tell people: Decide to bike and save money. Decide to bike and save health. Decide to bike and save the environment.<p>We can tell people those reasons now but there is still a huge hurdle, and it has nothing to do with the bikes or technology. What if all bike companies (and component manufacturers like Shimano) spent all their R&amp;D budgets on education and lobbying instead of better technology? That might work. Is any one company big enough to make a difference if it went at it alone? Probably not.<p>I don’t look forward to environmental catastrophe but I do think it could help move cycling into more of a mainstream solution. Then perhaps we could have the will to tackle some of the infrastructure and norm issues that keep cycling a hobby at best.

A description of the Coasting system at Park Tool, <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.parktool.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;calvins-corner&#x2F;shimano-coasting-system" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.parktool.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;calvins-corner&#x2F;shimano-coastin...</a>

I think one think urban planners [and HNers] get wrong about bike usage is bike lanes and mixing bikes with cars. That works in overcrowded coastal cities, but for the vast majority of the country, a different approach is likely optimal.<p>Bentonville, AR I think has cracked the puzzle. They built mountain bike trails... literally everywhere. You&#x27;re hanging out with your buddies north of town and want to grab a pizza for lunch? Awesome, hit this rad piece of singeltrack and shred your way to to za and beer. They even replaced a bunch of sidewalks with singletrack. This is not only better for the environment (it&#x27;s literally just tamped dirt), but easier to maintain (a tamping machine and water truck vs a fossil fuel burning asphalt paver).<p>Another success that&#x27;s been less explosive, but worthy mention is streamway buffer trails. Rather than tossing bikes into traffic, which intimidates casual riders, and probably isn&#x27;t safe where bike culture isn&#x27;t a thing... municipalities put asphalt trails next to watersheds that need erosion control. The benefit is two fold, a shorcut throughway that&#x27;s dedicated for pedestrian and bike traffic, plus civil engineers can use the bike pathway itself as a durable flood zone.

Portland is supposed to be one of the most bike-friendly cities in the United States. What the city has done is paint bike outlines on streets that are supposed to be mostly for bikes.<p>It&#x27;s supposed to be about every 10 blocks north-south and much further apart east-west. Downtown for most of the city is west. Every few streets there might be something that blocks cars (signage or physical barriers) or is supposed to slow them down (bumps, planters in the center of an intersection).<p>One problem is that they&#x27;re not dedicated to bikes. So you&#x27;re sharing the street with other cars. And it&#x27;s gotten worse because the city is cutting 4-lane feeder streets down to 2 lanes. They call it &quot;traffic calming&quot;, which is not what most people would call it. So frustrated drivers are moving over to residential streets and zooming down them as fast as they can.<p>It really seems like a lost opportunity to take the extra lanes and make them dedicated bike lanes. Have bollards in them that prevent cars from using them.

I had an internal geared hub (IGH) bike with a coaster brake and it was a blast to ride with almost zero maintenance. Even as an enthusiast that likes doing maintenance, it was nice to have that bike.<p>I’m an advocate for IGH and drum or coaster brakes for casual commuter riders. Belt drives are nice too. These things have more drag than a derailleur and disc or caliper brakes, but this is offset by the maintenance aspect. What people don’t often realize is that IGH can have very wide gearing. A 3 or 7 speed IGH can have as wide gearing as a 24 speed, just with fewer gears in between and fewer gear combinations that are virtually the same. Another nice feature is you can change gears when stopped.<p>On the other hand, what seems to sell in North America is crappy bikes with full suspension and maximum number of gears.<p>In this case, Shimano should have simply sold the public on IGH and other existing low maintenance features, and got people on test rides. The automated shifting part seems useless and annoying. The real benefit is having fewer gears and one rather than 2 places to change the gear which is much simpler to manage. Actually IGH can’t shift smoothly under load so I can only imagine this automated system would feel clunky whenever you’re trying to accelerate or ride uphill.

My opinion as a casual bicyclist:<p>* I bought a bike during the existence of these things and never knew they existed (and I&#x27;m casual enough that my bike has a cupholder).<p>* I&#x27;m certainly interested in less maintenance but have no interest in losing handbrakes, and if I did, would probably prefer fixie over coaster-esque.<p>* Seat storage seems neat, but bike seats are very finicky person to person in terms of circulation, numb feet&#x2F;toes, etc.<p>* In my view single shifter is great and newer style single sprocket stacks that do 5 to 15 speeds off one shifter are where it&#x27;s at.<p>* I suspect if there were good (in same price bracket) disk brake options on very upright riding stance bikes people who tried would like.<p>* A better default derailleur + shifter is probably an improvement casual bikers don&#x27;t realize they&#x27;d love, but have no basis for ever getting.<p>* Casual bikers need at least one very low gear because we find hills miserable.<p>* Storage options can really make a bike for a casual rider, but they&#x27;re less obvious to figure out than ideal.<p>* It confuses me that these would win design awards.

The core thesis behind the program is exciting. The bike industry in America exists primarily serve a relatively small group of enthusiasts, but it doesn&#x27;t have to.<p>There&#x27;s no equivalent to the Dutch department store bikes that, if memory serves correctly, were cheap but simple, low-maintenance, and better outfitted for casual riding (fenders, a light, a lock).<p>As the article suggests, I suspect it&#x27;s more a problem of distribution. If IDEO suggested a $500 bike to be sold to casual riders at their local bike shop, well, that already exists. What doesn&#x27;t exist (but could?) is a $275 steel three-speed at Walmart that&#x27;s less performance-oriented than a $500 Trek but more practical than a beach cruiser.

I don&#x27;t think a lot of people in the cycling industry are surprised this failed. While design is important, people with money want bikes that have good performance and are light weight. Bling is great, I take pride in my bike... but none of the components I have on my bike are heavier than their more bland looking counterparts. I&#x27;ll accept half a pound for better suspension, but for a nice looking chain guard? Not a chance.<p>On high end bikes, bling comes in the form of Anodized aluminum (or titanium), sexy colorful carbon fiber frames, colorful paint, or other parts that are colorful or polished <i>without adding weight</i>.<p>Performance-&gt;Weight-&gt;Bling in that order. Looks like Shimano&#x27;s Coasting program skipped steps 1 and 2 and skipped to Bling.

I don’t get the drama. Coaster brake, shielded chain and automatic transmission are extremely common in the cycle-friendly parts of Europe. Though they are now being quickly replaced by electric.

Interesting to note this write up is from 2010. Today internal shifting is much more commonplace - nearly every single e-bike and bike rental (jump bike&#x2F;etc) have internal shifters, though they aren&#x27;t automatic.

&gt; Who did Shimano and IDEO work with when they <i>testes</i> their prototype(s) ?<p>Quite the funny typo, considering what long-term bicycling can do to male fertility.