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Kerbi puncture fix expert Uma gets to workVideo: Got a flat? There's an app for that — Kerbi brings a puncture-fixing pro to you
What do you do if you get a puncture on the way across town, you've no tools or spares and no idea where the nearest bike shop is? You need Bicycle Repair Man (or Woman) to the rescue as summoned by Kerbi, a new app that aims to bring together cyclists with mechanical problems and people who can fix them.
Kerbi's not slated to launch until March, but the idea is simple. Folks with mechanical skills can sign up to be repair providers and users who have a problem can then send out an alert for their nearest puncture fixing expert to come to the rescue.
Kerbi sees couriers as potential repair providers as they're out on the streets, highly and quickly mobile, and have to be good at fixing punctures to stay in business.
Here's a video to show how it works:
Kerbi explains it like this: "The stranded cyclist simply ‘hails’ a repair provider via the app which allows couriers and other repair providers in the area to respond directly to the call. The stranded cyclist may then choose a repair provider, based on proximity and price. Once the repair has been made secure payment is made via the app, using Stripe.
"For couriers and other repair providers, Kerbi offers an additional source of income for the cost of carrying a few extra inner tubes. Since providers are not obliged to respond to every call, repairs can be fitted in around any existing commitments."
Job done!
Users will be able to provide feedback, rate their repair person and even put delivery work their way through the developers' sister app StreetStream which provides courier services.
The app will be initially available for iPhone and you can find out more at kerbi.uk
The Monty Python crew saw the need for an app like this way back in the 1970s, and even realised the biggest problem would be getting Bicycle Repair Man's attention.
"If only Bicycle Repair Man were here!"
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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34 comments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWCDEAYn8rQ
After watching this guy I don't think I will ever have an excuse for not being able to fix a flat myself.
Why the heck would you launch this iPhone only?????
In a way I can understand the contempt, and initially thought "this is for lazy Mamils in suits..." but then I considered other possible scenarios.
If your other half is as clueless about mechanics as my wife then she'd probably be hugely relieved to have this kind of assistance available. No need to weigh up the risk of asking a stranger, no need to try ringing you at work to talk her through what to do (after you've lost your patience at hearing "and how do I do that?" for the fifth time, or her on the verge of tears because she can't undo the canti brake wire). My wife's bike doesn't have QRs, so she'd need to carry a 15mm spanner as well.
A friend of the family is 60, single and she only recently started cycling. For someone like her, who has a smartphone, a facility like this could be the difference between riding their bike and not.
How many of you have AA/RAC/similar breakdown cover for your car?
You seem to be implying that women and 60 year olds can't be expected to fix a puncture or carry a spanner. When you say your wife would need to 'weigh up the risk of asking a stranger,' what risk would that be?
When I had a car I had breakdown cover. I didn't call them out to jump start it or change the wheel.
I'm not implying anything. If people can do their own repairs that's great.
But lots of people do not approach riding a bicycle in the same way as enthusiasts. I cited two people I know well. My wife would never carry a 15mm spanner, learn how to remove & replace the rear wheel on her bike or repair a puncture and no amount of persuasion from me would change her mind.
There are other people I know / have met who ride solely for utility - not only women - who don't carry tools and often don't know how to fix what we would consider to be simple problems.
Great. However, lots of people do. In 2012 the RAC reported:
That's 111,000 people who couldn't jump-start their car outside their own house.
In the end if this service gives people the confidence to ride their bikes more then I think it's a good thing, regardless of snarky put-downs on cycling websites.
Getting narrow roadbike tyres of the rim is a tricky task. When I switched from a roadbike to an MTB all those years ago, I was amazed at how much easier it was to get the tyre off the rim to fix a flat. For commuting on London's crappy roads, an MTB with road-orientated tyres makes a lot of sense. I appreciate that having carpal tunnel syndrome makes changing tyres hard work and perhaps even impossible while it's entirely possible a rider could have forgotten to take a puncture kit, but for most people fixing a flat should be an essential part of cycling. I taught my kids to ride a bike and now that they're older, I expect them to fix their own punctures because I've better thing to do.
Stupid... you can do itself, take a pump and tube. It's for lazy people.
Reminds me of the classic Viz handy hints . " trouble finding punctures in bicycle inner tubes ? Then why not carry around an old tin bath full of water on your ride "
Reminds me of the classic Viz handy hints . " trouble finding punctures in bicycle inner tubes ? Then why not carry around an old tin bath full of water on your ride "
I would LOVE this!
It is such a ball ache to try and get Conti GP4000s II off of my Vision Team 30 wheels!
Inside, safe in the dry and warm, it generally takes me about half an hour, 6 tyre levers, 1.5 pints of lost blood, copious swearing, skinned knuckles and 4 cups of tea to get the tire back on these stupid rims!
This would let me sit in a nice warm coffee shop, while someone else struggles with them!
I just wonder how long it would take them to get to me in Switzerland,,,,,,,,
Usual superior nonsense on here...
I have just started riding a bike after 30 years gap. I have had carpal tunnel surgery on both hands. Repairing a puncture is hard, because it requires force and fine motor skill...so no ,not everyone can do it, and it is not idleness.
Urgh, I've had some carpal tunnel problems in the past. You're absolutely right, getting a tyre off would have been hell.
Its a combination, slight deadness and loss of fine control in fingers leading to cackhandedness,and whilst i can apply force,applying it whilst simultaneously being cackhanded is frustrating to say the least. I am guaranteed to drop keys, loose change or things like debit cards, if i try to seperate them out. Headbangingly annoying.
Pah.
They won't have a monkey chain for a Sturmey Archer 3 speed...
The question of insurance also springs to mind; if you let our Uma change your tyre while you stand aside in a cute metrosexual way, then it blows out 300 yards down the road, squishing you under a rickshaw carrying a coffee urn for Nathans latest flash mob start up festival, who pays?
The travelling mechanic thing has been around for a while, but that's a dedicated business. Using couriers seems like an attempt to add value to a role rather than a stand alone thing.
...and it's all about bloody London too...
Says who?
This is no worse than the kid (well, 18 year old'ish) who took his bike into Halfords to ask why his tyre was flat. If it gets more people out then why not.
Plus I can see the weight weenies taking advantage of this, just think how many grams they can save by leaving the repair kit and multitool at home.
I guess young people will take any number of shit, zero-hours jobs if it'll keep them out of Cameron's forced-labour schemes.
But this is more akin to using an icon on your smart phone when your shoelace has become undone. It encourages jumper boy above to go out completely unprepared, safe in the knowledge that lovely Uma will roll up and help him.
I do try hard not to be a curmudgeon, but this kind of urban hipster nonsense would try the patience of a saint.
Well the way they've presented it makes the person look as useless as possible. Another way to look at this, is that it's something you might use to get the bike fixed after you've limped to the office and have to be at your desk.
Another startup had the idea of doing a full mobile bike repair/service from the inside of a van, which I thought was brilliant. I've used those sort of services with the car to get punctures and dents repaired, and they're a time saver. No need to take it to the garage, get it done during work hours from whatever parking space you can leave it in.
And no reason why completely useless people should be excluded from riding a bike. As I said, I've rescued quite a few of them myself, and there's no guarantee that I'll always be there, I'm not bicycle repair man!
This is relevant in what way?
Riding a bicycle requires a number of very basic skills which, once learnt allow the user freedom to go anywhere and deal with the occasional issue. Whipping out a smart phone and calling someone to fix something so basic is a whole new level of silliness.
Nathan Barley was meant to be fiction...
I'm sure the skill required to grow vegetables is very basic as well.
Or to clean. Should everyone that has a cleaner feel guilty now about their inability to apply a very basic skill.
Some people would just rather pay someone else. That's a paying job for someone, sounds fine to me.
not cycling related, but I once helped a father and son that had run out of petrol...they were pushing their car uphill to get home...instead of downhill to the petrol station....???
I offered to bring one of them to the petrol station as I had a petrol container in the boot of my car...
After getting back to the car and the son adding the petrol to the empty tank and me stowing my petrol container away, I asked if he would like to prime the carb with some petrol (pre EFi)..a vehement 'no' was given - as neither had the first idea about cars...obviously...and as the father proceeded to drain the battery whilst trying to start the uphill facing car, the son decided to have a cigarette....
whoosh...his hands went aflame....I just got in my car and drove away.....waved and shouted 'good luck'
The moral of the tale...even with a tube and a pump, not every cyclist is able to fix a puncture, or with a multi tool - able to fix a minor mechanical...so why not let a good samaritan help?
It's not rocket science...but you may still combust from the fuel...
There's always 'Youtube' for incidents like mine..pity it wasn't around then...because it would have been an indelible stain on someone's life of stupidity...
Don't let it happen to you...call the experts...you know it makes sense....
It's not good idea, it's a get out of jail card for the idle and technically inept. Typical approach of the well-to-do; don't learn a skill when you can pay someone else to do it for you.
So, you grow your own food?
Agree I think this is a good idea. But reckon all the callouts during the week in London at least will be during commuting time when the other cyclists who can help will be riding their bikes to work commuting.
The App will need a proper noisy alarm that you can hear 'cos my phone's always in my bag on my commute.....
This idea struck me when riding up the country, around Shropshire, with a broken spoke, spare spokes but no cassette tool to easily fit said spare spoke... I was going to call it Spoke Buddy
I'm not sure how effective it would be in London or other cities, surely there are passers by to help and numerous bike shops?
We live in the same London?? :oP
I think that's a pretty good idea, but it needs to do more than just fix punctures. I've rescued a few commuters over the years, stranded with things bent, broken or snapped.
But even for punctures, there's plenty of people who have trouble getting a tyre off the rim.
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