Once a shared bike, always a shared bike

A while back I wrote about a former Froom bike at the Naarden Bussum station and yesterday I saw a Mobike at that same spot. The questions I had were similar as with my initial encounter, but while I was examining this a bit further, a number of interesting angles presented themselves.

The Mobike has a pretty distinct design and stands out from the dutch alternatives. Because of the unique frame, wheels and handlebars you could tell that bike was “made in China”. In this case it was the Mobike Lite 3.0 version that was released in 2017. This bike was probably part of the introduction into the Netherlands (Delft & Rotterdam).

It didn’t look like a previously owned sharing bike because it had a new “livery” on it. A company named “DockHolland?Autoverhuur - mobility” was highlighted on the bike and after googling their website, I learned that the DockHolland group provides services for labor migrants. They offer homes but they also have other services like mortgages, insurances and education, to name a few. Since the company is based in Maasdijk (I don’t think a trip on this bike from Maasdijk to Naarden would be a pleasant one), I assume the owner is not an employee of this company, so that could mean it that it’s actually been rented out.

The bike got its former job back!

The mobility endeavours of this organisation might still be in development, but it makes me curious what the business model would be for this. It sounds like a smart idea to offer bikes to labor migrants to help them get around. And at the same time repurposing existing bikes to prevents them from adding to landfill. In either case; the initial goal from the designer to makes these bikes as robust as possible, give them a long lasting purpose to help people with their last mile, no matter the provider or origin. Different owners, same concept.

The bike mentioned in a previous article (September 1st) was stil present and looked untouched...