Hah, my dad made something like this for me when I was a kid using a weed eater engine, with a makeshift lever as a clutch to engage/disengage it. This looks about as makeshift, I wouldn't trust it for serious use.
Asus Bike Booster
161–170 of 476 posts
Re: Asus Bike Booster
#162Everyone is hating but this is a hack and you love to see it.
Re: Asus Bike Booster
#163Fenders, anyone
Re: Asus Bike Booster
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
This bike booster will probably come in at less than half the cost but the Bimotal kit is another option that doesn't have the tire wear issue, offers better performance, and the form factor is much nicer. https://bimotal.com/products/elevate
Wow, $2k? You could get a decent ebike for that money. And the installation doesn't look any easier than a hub motor... Only seems worth it if you already have an extremely nice bike. I think of friction drives as being aimed at budget-conscious commuters, not serious mountain bikers.
Bimotal is removable after the installation: the motor and battery can both be taken off in under 30 seconds and you're left with just the cables and a specialized brake disc. I'd say that's its main differentiator. It is definitely more for premium bikes though and even then isn't for everyone.
Re: Asus Bike Booster
#165Friction drive e-bike conversions were popular years ago. They generally: * Wear tires surprisingly quickly * Absolutely suck in any form of weather or terrain condition (dirt, rain, etc.) * Have ~20% less efficiency than any other drive form. But, they are easy, and they do work.
Also: * you cannot install them on bikes with a rear rack. Here most city bikes have them.
That made me question who this is for. Looks like it's only for racing bikes that have taken off the rear mudguard. And those bikes are typically used to exercise..
Which makes me wonder about the cleaning after it rained..
Re: Asus Bike Booster
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tbh solving this is one of the actual use cases for things like flock cameras. Simply bolting things down harder is still defeated by a battery powered grinder.
It's actually solved by putting thieves in prison (by the help of flock cameras).
Aside from the fact that there's little to no actual evidence (not funded by flock cherry-picking, and doing a lot of extremely thin correlation/causation nonsense...
No, it's actually solved by providing social safety net programs and managing the economy to have entry level accessible jobs that pay a living wage. People steal because they run out of other options. The cost of flock contracts would be far better spent on food pantries, job counseling, emergency housing...
There is nearly zero correlation between the number of police and the amount of crime.
Re: Asus Bike Booster
#167Ouch, love to see a great product like this. However, hate to see that bike theft wasn’t discussed at all. “Easy installation” with two screws seems like a benefit to customers except when they come back to their parked bike only to find their expensive mod also had a hidden feature: “easy uninstallation”.
That is the same for most bicycle parts that you can remove with a small multitool and optionally a cable cutter yet most thieves just grub the whole bike as it is more convenient and it provides the getaway vehicle.
Most bicycle parts don’t cost thousands of dollars though
Re: Asus Bike Booster
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also: * you cannot install them on bikes with a rear rack. Here most city bikes have them.
That made me question who this is for. Looks like it's only for racing bikes that have taken off the rear mudguard. And those bikes are typically used to exercise.. Which makes me wonder about the cleaning after it rained..
Nobody who rides a road bike would be seen dead with something like this. There are proper road ebikes for that.
Re: Asus Bike Booster
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it though? Does prison work as a deterrence to others?
There's usually a fairly small number of criminals in the population and they have short careers. Otherwise, the whole enterprise of society wouldn't be viable. So once you take them off the streets for a couple of years, or decades for the more hardened ones, it's fine. It has an added benefit of breaking criminal networks so the future adepts have no place to fence the stolen goods.
"It has an added benefit of breaking criminal networks so the future adepts have no place to fence the stolen goods" is probably the most naive thing I've ever heard.
I also think you have no idea how much it costs per prisoner per year.
I also think you have no idea how much harder it is for someone to get a job, housing, a partner, etc after they have a conviction. Or how much whatever life they had falls apart, which includes partners, friends, family. And guess what happens when you strip away all of someone's social connections? They lose that safety net, and are now dependent upon whatever society as whole provides. And in the US we have people saying "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" non-ironically, not realizing the whole fucking point of that phrase is that recovering from poverty in the US is extremely difficult.
That money is better spent on helping people who are not able to afford basic necessities, because that is why a lot of people commit property crime.
I suggest you actually open up some studies on this subject because you clearly have no idea what you're talking about. Or just open up a chart reflecting the economy over the decades and compare it with property crime rates.
The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world by both headcount and percentage of the population. How's that working for us? We have one of the higher property and violent crime rates among developed nations. Far higher than nations where criminals are imprisoned for rehabilitation, not to punish. Things like giving them a cell that looks like a bedroom, not pen in an animal shelter.
Re: Asus Bike Booster
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's usually a fairly small number of criminals in the population and they have short careers. Otherwise, the whole enterprise of society wouldn't be viable. So once you take them off the streets for a couple of years, or decades for the more hardened ones, it's fine. It has an added benefit of breaking criminal networks so the future adepts have no place to fence the stolen goods.
On one hand, you’re breaking existing networks; on the other hand you are establishing a social club for new ones.
That person is insanely naive - either very young, or very lacking in life experience and worldly knowledge.