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> They made expensive e-bikes with theft recovery features My husband's VanMoof bike got stolen in Ghent, they couldn't do shit about it.
As far as I know the theft recovery is part of an additional package and not included with a regular purchase. Certainly fun, but I think there are cheaper theft insurance policies out there.
Honest question: what’s the appeal of a bike that needs an internet connection & app to unlock?
You don't need an internet connection or the app, but that's the most convenient way - you can enter a PIN on the bike itself to unlock it. I think the appeal (at least for me, I considered one but never got one) is that it makes the bike harder to steal. Someone can't just ride off on it after they cut your lock. I worry about leaving my $600 bike out in public, so I'd be super paranoid about a $2000+ bike.
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Van Moof bikes are EVERYWHERE in Amsterdam. They obviously shouldn’t have taken so much investment. But if you can capture a latent market need like that, there probably is a lot of opportunity at scale, too.
There is a lot of bikes in Amsterdam in general. Van Moof just stands out because of their 1 marketing, 2 annoying signature noise whenever people bump into them, 3 loud owners that general use it as a status symbol and 4 joke status due to national Dutch publications writing about all the shortcomings of owning this bike. I live in Groningen, a Dutch city that is even more suited for bikes, and I rarely spot any Van…
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Yeah, but for the price bump you get features which affect the ride of the bike directly (lower weight, better braking, easier shifting etc.). Of course there are diminishing returns, but a 2k bike is significantly better than a 1k bike in almost all aspects, and a 4k bike is also noticeably better than the 2k one. (Whether the price is worth it for you is another question). For me, theft-protecting a 4k bike which o…
I'm using a bike that I bought new for less than 100 euro from a big box shop. I've been using it for more than a decade with zero maintenance (apart from fixing occasional flat). It still works. It's just little stiff which is a feature because I can prop the handlebars against the wall and it stays like that because the weight of the bicycle is not enough to turn the handlebars. It's also heavy because it has suspe…
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What did Van Moof make, exactly? Do you think they were normal bikes? They made expensive e-bikes with theft recovery features. They have features that make it possible to trace and locate them, and Van Moof would actually do this. For people who spend €3-4k on an easily stolen object that the police won't care about, that's a unique selling point.
> They made expensive e-bikes with theft recovery features My husband's VanMoof bike got stolen in Ghent, they couldn't do shit about it.
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>Theft is a reason why I've never bothered with premium bikes. Because you can't take them anywhere and expect them to not get stolen. Maybe where you live. Here in Tokyo, bike theft isn't a big problem, and there's lots of reasonably expensive bikes (and e-bikes) parked on the sidewalk with just a lock through the wheel spokes.
You'd be shocked anywhere in the Netherlands (I'm Dutch) at how common bike theft is. We have actual secured parking garages in many cities to counter the problem. The larger ones in Utrecht and Amsterdam have room for many thousands of bikes and they are used a lto. Berlin where I currently live isn't much better but they've not yet introduced parking garages for bikes as far as I know.
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Van Moof bikes are EVERYWHERE in Amsterdam. They obviously shouldn’t have taken so much investment. But if you can capture a latent market need like that, there probably is a lot of opportunity at scale, too.
There is a lot of bikes in Amsterdam in general. Van Moof just stands out because of their 1 marketing, 2 annoying signature noise whenever people bump into them, 3 loud owners that general use it as a status symbol and 4 joke status due to national Dutch publications writing about all the shortcomings of owning this bike. I live in Groningen, a Dutch city that is even more suited for bikes, and I rarely spot any Van…
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They are expensive for what is essentially a commuter bike. I think they simply chose a wrong strategy, because if you have a cheap(ish) bike and a good U-lock, you can leave it anywhere without much stress. It will most probably not be stolen (because the value of the bike is low), and if it does get stolen, then it is cheap to replace - you can buy at least 5 commuter bikes for the price of a fancy one. In fact, in…
How do you secure the battery with ulock? Or are there bikes with non-replaceble batteries? How do you charge them?
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While I think you're right, you could have said the same thing about Tesla cars - but it worked out in that case. The problem with VanMoof was that they prioritized growth over quality - which may be a side effect of taking VC money, but is plain dumb if you're selling physical goods that are expensive to fix. Just talk to anyone with a VanMoof or see the subreddit: Nearly every bike they sold required multiple repai…
Part of a premium product is the number of failures to expect. To reduce the number of failures, they need a fleet of thousands of bikes in the field to monitor and redesign any component that might break. But those bikes aren't yet reliable - so they shouldn't be putting their brand name on them. Other manufacturers get this right. It is pretty common I buy something from Aliexpress for really cheap and it is clearl…
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I'm riding a Cowboy right now, and I chose it because they didn't have the service and quality issues that Vanmoof had. I've been very happy with it and hope they will not go under. I was annoyed with the app but I created a bluetooth key fob so I don't have to use the app to unlock it. Now I'm even happier with my daily rides. That being said: if I were in the market today I think I'd go for the Veloretti Ace. Less…
Care to share more details on that bluetooth fob? Thanks!