Earlier quoted context omitted.
No one relies on bike theft to "survive".
No one goes around stealing bikes just because they want to do bad things.
nobody steals bikes to buy milk for their baby either.
Asus Bike Booster
361–370 of 476 posts
Re: Asus Bike Booster
#362Earlier 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..
What I've noticed in my area is that people just don't ride on rainy days. If I'm at work and it starts to rain, someone will offer me a ride. It doesn't occur to people that a bike can get wet.
Bikes are sold without mudguards, and the aftermarket ones are flimsy and don't fit very well. (The steel ones that came with my 1983 Schwinn frame being the exception).
"Who this is for" is the great un-answered question in American cycling. The reason is that our biggest untapped market is people who don't ride at all. The marketing looks like lifestyle marketing: Here's what's wrong with cycling and how we solve it. Here's what you will look like.
Re: Asus Bike Booster
#363Friction 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.
Removing a rear rack is a few minutes with a screwdriver. I have my stuff in a rucksack. Good to point out, but will not stop most users I imagine.
Re: Asus Bike Booster
#364Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a large amount of people who go around stealing bikes for fun and some cash; and often "street cred" or something akin to that.
Then maybe society should be improved upon so that a few dollars or a few minutes of "fun" or "street cred" isn't seen as such a boon to their life that people risk jail time for it. The US tried "tough on crime" approaches, what has it resulted in? 25% of the entire world's prison population and it still has higher crime rates than its peer nations.
Good plan; instead of a decent bike lock, and asking for some (read: ANY) enforcement & punishment of bike theft I'll just "improve society".
Re: Asus Bike Booster
#365Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't need to be educated on the increasing lack of customer service for anything below 2000 euros, having got my first bicycle in 1984, upgraded to a cycling one in 1986, had plenty of others since then. And from all places I lived in Europe, only around here this upselling seems to be a thing.
I think it’s just “cheap bikes”. Nobody wants to work on or with cheap bikes. And bikes are getting more and more expensive (quite fast). A solid bike built with brand name components is quickly approaching 2000€.
400 € might be a month salary for many people in the south after taxes when earning minimum wage, hardly cheap.
Not everyone needs Apple priced bicycles, that get as easily stolen as a 50 € from the flea market.
Re: Asus Bike Booster
#366Earlier quoted context omitted.
> How do you get exercise without sweating. Do you sweat a ton when you walk? Yet walking is exercise. The point being, of course, there’s a correlation between how hard the exercise is (plus other factors like clothing and weather) and the amount of sweating, but to claim that not sweating equals no exercise is incorrect.
you'd get more exercise walking to the bus stop than on ebike
Depends on the ebike and the setting. In Europe (at least; I'm not so clear on rules the US) in most cases the motors on ebikes respond to pedal input, so riding along purely by electrical power isn't usually possible. As such, you can choose from different levels of assistance, from lots to very little or nothing at all, which also correspond to different ranges.
Re: Asus Bike Booster
#367Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it’s just “cheap bikes”. Nobody wants to work on or with cheap bikes. And bikes are getting more and more expensive (quite fast). A solid bike built with brand name components is quickly approaching 2000€.
This. A quality city bike built to order by Azor or Achielle can easily cost 1300 to 2500 EUR. Non-electric.
I wonder how good the lock has to be, or the break cables and wire frames cutter resistant, for it to be worthy of leaving alone while shopping on the city centre.
Re: Asus Bike Booster
#368I totally thought this was about bike theft.
Re: Asus Bike Booster
#369Earlier quoted context omitted.
it's also likely mildly more dangerous than a standard ebike, as ebikes typically overprovision their brakes. A customer putting this on a standard bike (especially a disc brake bike) might have less stopping power than they want on an ebike.
The requirement for better brakes is more a myth. Yes an e-bike is heavier but the rider + bike pair is not significantly heavier so e-bikes don't really need better brakes as most of them aren't going significantly faster than regular "muscular bikes", especially the legal ones that have an assistance speed limit. Rider weight makes a much bigger difference yet bike brands don't insist on speccing more powerful brak…
I think this is basically correct, although ebikes shift the distribution rightward -- the average rider+bike system is marginally heavier, average speeds are marginally higher -- at the margin, someone is going to be unable to brake to prevent a collision they would otherwise be able to. But it's also true that heavier riders on manual bikes should often consider brake upgrades.
Re: Asus Bike Booster
#370Earlier quoted context omitted.
The whole European Union has that limit. Without it it's not an electric bicycle anymore, it's a moped or electric motorcycle, that sort of thing, and you have to register it, have a driving license and so on.
do they enforce it? California has similar laws but they are not enforced. People ride 40mph (64kph) down bicycle trails and bicycle lanes. And, they still ride like most cyclists here, ignoring red lines, stop signs, and all other traffic laws.
The Romanian police is kind of lazy and does not enforce a lot of other things like cars or motorcycles using the bicycle lanes, cars parked on pedestrian crossings which hide pedestrians from drivers etc.
Though sometimes they take action.
They also organize prevention PR stunts where they check lots of people passing by.