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If you’re an active rental bike user, you’ve probably seen enough bikes getting trashed and/or damaged deliberately like this and this. Just to name two of a ton.
Otherwise, you’ll definitely have faced the frustration of going through damaged bike after damaged bike until you finally find one that is in decent condition.
Damaged rental bikes have become a ubiquitous sight in Singapore, sadly, but that’s why what this guy we’re about to introduce to you is doing is so important, and so awesome.
Meet Zhivko Girginov, also known as Jiv, a 32 year-old Bulgarian who has been living in Singapore for almost nine years.
He started a social initiative called Volunteer Bike Patrol after reporting more than 200 damaged — and rendered unusable — shared bikes through the oBike, ofo and Mobike apps in the first eight months of this year.
To his surprise (or perhaps not), he found that months later, many of these bikes he reported were still there, right where he had found and reported them, and accumulating rust and dirt.
Speaking to Mothership.sg, he said he noticed that users were also treating the bicycles irresponsibly and recklessly.
“Some inconsiderate users will even throw them on grass patches, parks, pathways, void decks, drains. Once I came into a bike deliberately thrown on the floor in front of the door of the police center in my neighborhood.
These acts were probably spontaneously triggered by some social anger from residents who were annoyed by the eye-sore of those abandoned shared bikes. I heard lots of people complaining and read tons of comments in social media.
I was seeing that day after day more and more damaged bikes popped up while those that I had reported were still there. This triggered me to take action and I decided to rent a lorry, paying for it myself, and to collect those unattended bikes, starting from my neighborhood.”
Volunteer Bike Patrol
Girginov started the initiative’s Facebook page in September this year, which he uses to encourage volunteers to walk around their neighbourhood or any other area in Singapore to look out for damaged (to the point of being unusable) bikes.
If they should find any, all they have to do is take a screenshot of the location on any mapping app to show the details of where these bikes are and upload it to the Facebook group.
Giriginov will then hunt these bicycle corpses down and load them up on a lorry (that he rents with money from his own pocket) like what you see in the photo below:
https://mothership.sg/2017/12/man-f...d-rental-bike-vigilante-the-hero-we-all-need/
Otherwise, you’ll definitely have faced the frustration of going through damaged bike after damaged bike until you finally find one that is in decent condition.
Damaged rental bikes have become a ubiquitous sight in Singapore, sadly, but that’s why what this guy we’re about to introduce to you is doing is so important, and so awesome.
Meet Zhivko Girginov, also known as Jiv, a 32 year-old Bulgarian who has been living in Singapore for almost nine years.
He started a social initiative called Volunteer Bike Patrol after reporting more than 200 damaged — and rendered unusable — shared bikes through the oBike, ofo and Mobike apps in the first eight months of this year.
To his surprise (or perhaps not), he found that months later, many of these bikes he reported were still there, right where he had found and reported them, and accumulating rust and dirt.
Speaking to Mothership.sg, he said he noticed that users were also treating the bicycles irresponsibly and recklessly.
“Some inconsiderate users will even throw them on grass patches, parks, pathways, void decks, drains. Once I came into a bike deliberately thrown on the floor in front of the door of the police center in my neighborhood.
These acts were probably spontaneously triggered by some social anger from residents who were annoyed by the eye-sore of those abandoned shared bikes. I heard lots of people complaining and read tons of comments in social media.
I was seeing that day after day more and more damaged bikes popped up while those that I had reported were still there. This triggered me to take action and I decided to rent a lorry, paying for it myself, and to collect those unattended bikes, starting from my neighborhood.”
Volunteer Bike Patrol
Girginov started the initiative’s Facebook page in September this year, which he uses to encourage volunteers to walk around their neighbourhood or any other area in Singapore to look out for damaged (to the point of being unusable) bikes.
If they should find any, all they have to do is take a screenshot of the location on any mapping app to show the details of where these bikes are and upload it to the Facebook group.
Giriginov will then hunt these bicycle corpses down and load them up on a lorry (that he rents with money from his own pocket) like what you see in the photo below:
https://mothership.sg/2017/12/man-f...d-rental-bike-vigilante-the-hero-we-all-need/
