Summers ending, watch your bike dealers for deep discounts!

I can't even look at this device without cheering myself on for buying the complete package, rather than messing around with gizmos.

https://www.pitlock.de/en/set-sichert-2-innensechskantschrau...

Many commuters on e-bikes are people who otherwise would be driving a car, so e-bikes that help people commute to work in a timely manner are critical. At the end of the day people are going to do the thing that is competitive on time and if we want to reduce the crush of car traffic around the country then we need the people who can bike to go out and do it.

But in any case wet tyres would have a negative impact on the ability of this device to efficiently drive the tyre.

But less facetiously: there are large demographics that might ride bicycles more if it was slightly easier for them, including older people and people with mobility issues. I don’t have opinions particular to this product, but expanding the feasibility of cycling seems like a generally good thing to me.

Where is it ebikes don't have a good reputation?

Where I'm living, they have a very good reputation, and very many have them.

The motor shuts off at 26km/h.

A Skarper system [0] that drives through an adapted brake rotor sounds [1] like it is the way to go if really want [2] a well thought close to non-permanent conversion solution.

[0] https://skarper.com/

[1] https://road.cc/ebiketips/review_v2/skarper-ebike-drive-syst... .

[2] Compared to other conversion options they are currently expensive https://road.cc/ebiketips/content/advice/buyers-guide/best-e...

Seems like normal text to me, I don't think we need to scrutinize every sentence, now. Who cares if they used AI?

I gave the answer a thumbs up, of course.

RAM prices.

"Bikes" with 20-30mph speed are awesome, much healthier than gas vespas, and much cheaper and more sustainable than cars.

Find a bicycle without mudguards and ride very slowly, or just ride on clean roads on a sunny days.

To elaborate a bit, friends of mine have had bikes with both cadence and torque sensors. And I've tried their bikes out. Agreeing with one friend, the bike with the cadence sensor seems to decide how fast it wants to go.

The bike with the torque sensor behaves a lot more like what you're used to from riding a conventional bike. After all, the control input to a conventional bike is torque.

I'm guessing you are European? Bicycles in the US almost never have fenders except for old timey / retro style models. Fenders fell out of style in the 1980s and never really returned. People who do have them usually install them themselves as an upgrade.

Speaking as an American who owns a basic beach cruiser bicycle and

- puts less than 50 miles on it per year

- has zero desire nor space for a full electric bike

- would never use their bike in any kind of inclement weather

- would never use their bike for anything other than leisure

I think it might be aimed towards my demographic specifically?

Like this thing seems pretty neat, just strap it to my bike and go? Sign me up.

It has a removable battery so it seems the mechanism is designed to be left on the bike.

I was fine, but surprised he so carelessly and thoughtlessly sneaked up on me and tried to pass when I was already going fast downhill off of a bridge over a canal, on my legal eBike with 25 kph maximum assist.

Pedaling makes you pay attention and gives you direct control over the speed, and the assist drops out once you're going >25 kph. The asshole who hit me from behind probably didn't have time to find the throttle with his hand, and was never really in control of his bike or paying much attention up to when he freaked out and hit me.

What to do about fatbikes endangering our safety?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Netherlands/comments/1knza1c/what_t...

Fatbikes in the Netherlands 2026: What You Actually Need to Know

https://bikefair.org/blog/fatbikes-netherlands-guide-2026

From experience I can say that it seems like a lot more common sense to simply replace the front wheel of your bike with a wheel containing an electric motor, rather than attaching whatever Asus is selling to your bike.

* you cannot install them on bikes with a rear rack. Here most city bikes have them.

https://bimotal.com/products/elevate

The web page tells that the app can be used to switch between eco/normal mode but that seems to be the extent of it.

I'm not in the market for this, but I am in the market for making my cargo bike electric. Having to slow down at a traffic light and then start from zero absolutely sucks. It goes very slow, it is rough, and you won't have time. I'd use it just for that specific use-case.

It was so bad that the rear wheel ended up getting bigger at the end of the race, as it picked up rubber deposited by the front wheel!

Keep it mind it was custom bikes though, the front tire just had to finish the race, they used a roller made of hard materials and knurled. I don't remember the reason, but it probably had to do with the fact their engines were quite a bit more powerful than traditional ones despite having the same displacement.

Which made it seem neat and clean, but meant it had serious reliability issues, couldn't handle wet conditions[], wasn't really repairable, and was expensive compared to more reliable alternatives with better battery life, etc.

[] The manufacturer apparently stated that "[...bad bearings] can occur when the Wheel is repeatedly exposed to wet conditions. Due to the nature of the problem, this cannot be repaired": https://forums.electricbikereview.com/threads/known-issues-p...

I recall a wheel-mounted rotor system from a few years back that did address theft, tire-wear, and weather, but it suffered from far too little torque and very limited battery life.

Counterpoint: Portland OR, where I live — enormous bike city (in some rankings, the highest in the country) — and most have fenders due to the rainy climate much of the year.

Well yes, because there’s no other input. It’s an on/off switch, the bike just knows that you’re pedaling. Usually there are multiple power levels you can switch between with a button, and those decide roughly how much of a push you get from the motor, but the power curves are all “hardcoded”. It doesn’t feel great for active riding, but it’s adequate for commuter bikes. Torque sensors are actually kind of expensive on their own.

It says on the website it will fit hardtails but not full sus, and that it isn't recommended on knobby tyres due to performance which isn't ideal either.

I could be wrong on all of this but those are just the concerns coming to mind as another mountain biker.

I agree, but would like to point out that sometimes this might not be what you want. I had a bike with a front motor and a cadence sensor that I used for my commute for a few years, and was very happy with the motor just pulling me along while I lazily pushed the pedals with ~zero torque, barely enough to let the bike know I'm there. Basically like pressing a throttle. If all you want is to get from A to B comfortably, I've found this to be superior to a torque sensor, and it was also dirt cheap.

Expensive as f though. Also the gear-thingy looks proprietary (=expensive).

Feels like an overgeneralization. I have a perfectly slow Ride1Up Roadster V3. It's a PA bike with a throttle, but it's not a hot rod. Max speed with my weight is around 20MPH. I use the throttle to just get moving on inclines or at stops when I forgot to downshift.

That said, there are plenty of idiots around on bikes and cars.

https://ride1up.com/product/roadster-v3/

People who don’t bicycle in North America won’t quite get it. It’s not exactly Taiwan. Theft is rampant and it’s societally sanctioned in most major cities.

Hub gears work quite well though don't they? In particular respect of being sealed and protected from the weather. Unclear why there's an opposite effect for this wheel.

A proper e-bike needs to be designed as an e-bike from the beginning.

Obviously I'm talking about good electric bikes, with mid-mounted engines that detect pedaling strength. These feel great, unlike electric motors strapped to bikes, which feel like, well, electric motors strapped to bikes.

Which makes me wonder about the cleaning after it rained..

Although in my experience when your bike/cargo is heavily loaded, a throttle is nice to get running, especially when stopped at a red light going uphill. Borrowed one like this and it was really useful. But i agree with your sentiment i see many people with throttled bikes going really fast and careless.

The only reason most Americans outside NYC and Chicago ride a bike is leisure. Well, that or too many DUIs if we're being honest.

Ideally though if I had something like this it would encourage me to use my bicycle more.

I think the tyres would limit the power output most. Probably quite annoying to have no rear mudguard in anything but the driest conditions. You’d be spraying a lot of crap up at the motor (and probably your back).

Attaching and detaching it looks relatively simple, though - removing it for downhills doesn’t look arduous. You could probably 3d print a clip for the frame.

Given the likely reduced power, and that the spec seems to be saying ‘500w peak, but 250w is sensible’ - probably up to the user’s needs whether the hassle is worth the extra watts per kilo. For those without mobility issues or longterm injuries, it’s usually best to optimise the rider rather than the bike for that.

I feel like off-road climbing would necessitate really wide, sensitive speed variance that this motor is likely not great at supporting. It strikes me that you’d want more direct pedal feedback.

Really fun bike design problem.

Did you mean hub gears or hub motors?

The Copenhagen had an ungeared hub motor. Comparing it to other hub motors, theirs was only IPX4-rated, which is basically splash-proof, not waterproof. Decent hub motors are IPX5 or 6.

On top of that, when your hub motor leaks and bearings seize up, fixing it is typically simple and cheap. Pop in a new bearing and new seals and you're done. Most bike shops can do it. With the Copenhagen Wheel, the manufacturer's advice was to throw it away.

The waterproofing rating seems to have been a design decision they made to simplify the design, keep costs down, etc. Since it all had to be custom, they couldn't benefit from the decades of experience, millions of units manufactured, and standardization that hub motor companies like Bafang or Bosch rely on.

See the page about it by the company that actually designed the wheel: https://www.mistywest.com/posts/project/copenhagen-wheel/ :

> "MistyWest had to work around the constraints posed by fitting a heat sensitive component next to a heat generation component in a closed system that allows for very little heat dissipation. The engineering team’s understanding of thermal physics enabled a stable battery system to be designed and adopted for the smart wheel. The inventors of the wheel were the first to ever fit a motor and a power source into a fitted bicycle wheel."

It was a challenging level of complexity. Even if they'd had more funding and stuck with the product, it's hard to see how they would have made it efficiently repairable.

It seems to me that the fundamental issue is that almost every other design is preferable from an engineering perspective. The only attraction of the Copenhagen Wheel was that it made for a quick and easy drop-in upgrade. But at the $1500 price it sold for, you can now buy a whole, much better ebike.

(As for hub gears, they're sealed and filled with oil, grease, or traction fluid, which helps keep water out.)

I am not sure if this is enough argument for having this instead of having a decent electric bike plus a normal bike, but it is an argument I guess.

There are cases one may not want to use an electric bike, eg when going out for a coffee, a drink etc and you may not want to carry the battery or risk theft, in contrast eg to biking for 40 minutes every day for work each way.

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.

When i was young all bicycles came with mud guard (then called "fenders") front and rear. Now they seem to be anathema.

Every bike I rode w/o fenders put a stripe of mud up my back!

Or put a different way: I use electric Lime rental bikes all the time, it’s super fast and convenient. But I’m keenly aware they don’t give me any exercise, so I do want to go back to unpowered bikes as much as possible.

It has three wheels. Two smaller ones at front, one back. As such, I'd prefer to install the motor on the back. We do have that speed limit of 26 km/hour (my current e-bike has it as well), but since more force is required, the kit would need to know this as well.

I got it second hand, same as my e-bike. Otherwise, these aren't affordable for me. 6k EUR for a cargo e-bike is just insane IMO.

[1] https://www.babboe.nl/media/akeneo_connector/media_files/b/a...

(Of course, "capacity" is misleading, as this will be less efficient than a real e-bike.)

You won't be able to remove the cassette and crankset with a multitool but a full campagolo super record EPS groupset MSRP is above $4000.

They will even steal a helmet off a parked bike and that's way cheaper. Just look how many helmets are left on bikes in different parts of different towns (because there is literally no advantage to take your helmet anywhere other than for theft protection)

*At the very least, you have to worry about Jackie Chan "borrowing" your wheels for a wacky chase scene. Based on my knowledge of Hong Kong cinema, this must happen at least once per week. Dude is a menace and a fiend.

However bimotal is not that nice - adding a motor to rear triangle alters weight distribution and adds unsprung weight. Also unlike actual nice MTB e-bikes it cannot use chain/casssete for gearing, so gearing is fixed at the factory. If you’re used to nice bikes you will want your ebike to be dialed in just right.

One place where it makes sense is as an alternative to shuttling on forest roads / lifts for downhill-focused riding. F you’re going strictly downhill you can move the motor to the backpack after finishing the climb to reduce unsprung weight. This opens up a large number of trails where forest roads are blocked to car traffic. It also allows dh riding on trail where motor bikes are prohibited.

That being said, having driven electric bikes for a while, here in France they're ridiculously limited in speed and power. 25km/h limit on flat land usually makes sense (except on long straight lines), but when you get climbing even slightly you get down to ~10km/h and have to provide more effort. I guess that's where the 750/1250W 70Nm unrestrained motor comes in handy, and if you live in a place with lots of small hills the choice is either that kind of motor or a car, not the 1000€-total Decathlon/Carrefour electric bike.

How nice should one's bike be that you'd rather turn it into a mediocre ebike for the price of buying a good ebike?

And if we want to limit cars - you know, the number one thing that actually kills a lot of people directly - then I don't think it helps artificially limiting alternatives like E-Bikes.

The only difference is with enforcing the rules, but there are solutions for that. Police on E-Bikes doing patrolling, mandatory number plates, E-Bike driving licence, .. not that I want all those things, but I much rather have that and not crippled bikes so cars stay the norm.

Sorry but what? The only alternative to a FS frame is a hardtail. Where “hard” means that the rear wheel doesn’t move relative to the saddle. Your road bike is a hardtail.

If the rear wheel moves relative to the saddle, it’s full suspension (full meaning front and back)

The biggest issue to me is the inability to put the seat all the way down given that's quite important, and obviously this won't work at all with a dropper post (which are fairly common nowadays), honestly actual ebikes are quite popular in the mountain biking scene at the minute and they seem like a significantly better fit to me.

I wonder how much torque the motor could put out though without putting a lot of wear on your (probably fairly soft material on mtb) tyres or slipping on knobby, possibly dusty/muddy, tyres; that itself might kill it off for offroad climbing.

From a cyclist’s perspective, this is fundamentally a stopgap product for “curious” customers dipping their toes into e-bikes. I don’t say that necessarily to criticize it. There’s a place for a product that someone can put on any old bike and see if they want to buy a more expensive long-term solution. But that doesn’t make it a product I’d recommend.

The tire wear problem is significant enough that there are heat resistant tires specifically for this type of drum application (designed for old-style indoor trainers, not for use on the road), because use on a drum will cause premature wear for normal road tires.

Of course most bikes still come with fenders, but that's also a major limitation for this device: you've got to remove your rear fender. Maybe this device acts somewhat as a fender, but the site says you can't use it in heavy rain, exactly when you need that fender the most.

Not sure how these two things got tied together in the common culture. Something I hear all the time is "but you have an electric bike, what's the point, it doesn't get you any exercise" and people saying that commute to work sitting in their cars.

If you google images of something like Redbull Hardline pretty much all the bikes you see will have at least one front guard.

That's because no one wants a face full of mud at the wrong moment.

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.

Here in Germany if you want to get a cheaper bicycle, other than flea markets, usually they make you mount the pedals yourself, doesn't have fenders, lights might also be missing, depending on the offer.

I suspect this depends on the weather in your area - road cycling clubs near me often require mudguards for "winter club rides".

Simply bolting things down harder is still defeated by a battery powered grinder.

I've ridden bikes with Bosch 65Nm motors and with a 80kg rider plus 20kg of cargo they're perfectly fine even up steep hills. As in 18kmph or more with only a moderate amount of effort from the rider. Your bike was really underpowered (50Nm?).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wg_1LOYLPsM

I have a ebike that cost ~1500 in 2018 and is probably comparable to what $2k would buy you these days. It's very heavy and while the drivetrain is repairable, there are important pieces of it that I would struggle to repair/replace if they died today.

I have a steel touring bike that's significantly lighter, has standard sized parts that can be repaired, replaced and upgraded (many of which I have already upgraded in the last 15 years) and fits me like a glove. If I didn't own an ebike and you asked me whether I'd rather spend $2k buying something like my ebike or adding a 750W motor to my Surly, I'd upgrade my touring bike.

In my experience with electric motors, yeah I can absolutely believe it. Electric motors aren't cheap!

To compare: a tour de france runner outputs 400-500W on mountain climbs while keeping up to 20-25km/h. So a 500W motor (plus 100W power output from yourself) should be enough for smaller climbs!

You can have an electric vehicle that runs at 100kph if you want, but that is not a bike, that is a motorcycle.

The problem here is people having vehicles assimilated as ebikes, but with radically different specs.

I have no problem with these guys driving their vehicles on the car lane, like motorbikes do, but that's not what we're talking about here.

These vehicles are running on the bike lane, drivers are without helmets, they cross pavements, and enjoy all the slow vehicles perks, while being far more dangerous for their surroundings.

If you see someone with mudguards on a road bike it's a sign they're a proper cyclist.

I don't think you're allowed to entry audax events without guards and you definitely won't be allowed on a club run without them. Getting a face full of oily road water for the guy in front is not exactly fun. Even small clip on "racing blades" will get you a sniffy look.

I don't have a problem with them riding an eRoad bikes, I like that they can keep coming out with us, but like you say I wouldn't want to ride one myself.

But for people who'd reach the max 26 km/hour, if they'd need better brakes, then if they reach such speed manually (going downwards, for example) would suggest my current brakes aren't adequate either. But I'm not interested in going from to 20 km/hour ASAP. I am interested in getting a little of help at 0 km/hour going forward. After that, the electric part can go off for all I care.

On the flats, I get no benefit since the motor cuts off at my normal cruising speed of some 20 mph. It just feels like a solid bike in that mode, a bit heavy, of course.

I have taken it on a few regular non-commute rides as a test and must say it did not make me lazy or weak, or suffer less. Easy of riding is not me. In the end, it is the rider that makes the ride.

https://www.techspot.com/news/113381-google-ai-told-people-f...

AngryData> No one goes around stealing bikes just because they want to do bad things.

But people go around stealing Flock cameras because they want to do good things.

If, however, they are doing that for commuter bikes...

I can only drive my E-Bike with my car to the forest (like to many people do), or drive slowly there myself.

Do we have any sources that people are stealing to survive? What definition of surviving are we using here?

And yes, once your winter 'proper road bike' has mud guards, tyres with treads, and an all-weather-riding design people might start calling it an 'adventure bike' or 'gravel bike' instead.

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.

Sure you can use all number of locks, security bolts, and stripping the bike down yourself every time you leave it, but it’s sucks. You’d rather public spaces just be safe.

Making the search process easier makes locating stolen stuff becomes more of an office job that’s cheaper to do so the math works out better.

Just a few quick examples, you can find more with your favourite AI/search engine

16500 bikes confiscated - https://www.ilent.nl/actueel/nieuws/2024/09/12/ilt-legt-besl... https://nos.nl/artikel/2483770-inspectie-waarschuwt-voor-ill... https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/1ndpf3z/i_just_pai... https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/sep/04/britain...

1. someone has a cheap disc brake bike for pleasure rides (mostly in the sun)

2. they get something like this for commuting or whatever

3. now they're on their disc brake bike most days (including when it rains), going faster than they're used to

it's not the end of the world, but it also doesn't seem great

Phew, good to hear. Here I thought it would be a hard and complex problem, with lots of unknown unknowns, difficult political compromises, a generation-spanning efforts and many potential solutions with uncertain outcomes, partially contradicting each other.

Instead, we just have to make society better. So, what's step 1?

This is the approach if you go offers on regular supermarkets that also sell bicycles.

Personally I am never going to give more than 400 euros tops, for a new bicycle, it is either that or not much beyond 100 euros at a flea market.

Getting the bicycle stolen or worse, revenge damage when they fail to steal it, is not worth more than that.

While there are a lot of people riding more powerful bikes in Europe illegally, at least some countries are trying to crack down on them. In the US, it seems easier to buy class 2 and 3 e-bikes, and there seems to be a higher proportion of illegal bikes. It's an open secret which "class 1" bikes you can buy and then overclock easily.

So in Europe you mostly have class 1 e-bikes and obviously illegal (as in you can tell just by looking at them), but in the US you have these plus a lot of class 2 and 3 e-bikes, and overclocked class 1 e-bikes. The end result is most mountain bike trails in Europe allow class 1 e-bikes only, but in the US it's impossible to enforce class 1 only, so a lot of regions are trending towards banning all e-bikes from all trails. So be careful about wishing for a more powerful e-bike you can drive in traffic and mountain bike trails.

There is some sort of complacent attitude that results from, what is normally a road-only moped device, exploiting the privileges of the bike paths. I hope this law changes - I ride a 'normal' electric moped and motorbike also, so I guess I'm a bit biased, but I'd like to see those 45km/h limited e-mopeds classified for road only. It makes no sense to let them use the bicycle paths, in my opinion. They're road-ready, so let them stay on the roads.

If there's lot of theft and you can't store bike at a secure place - have a cheap bike.

In the UK police will ask the value of the property stolen and use that to decide whether to do anything. Low-value is under a few £k.

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.

I think it's ok to define "survive" as an addict who needs (<-also loosely defined) a fix.

You don't generally commit serious white collar crime, tax fraud or do crypto grifts to survive. For petty street crime, I don't really see any other motivation.

And if you are still worried about theft in the mean time, you could try looking at wage thefts which has a value greater than all other forms of theft combined.

You often don’t get pedals on new bikes because you have your favorite pedals that work for you and anything that’s included with the bike goes straight to the bin, because it’s useless trash. You don’t get fenders, because you don’t usually use those on any kind of sporty bike. They’re heavy, they don’t usually work that well, they are often hard to use in bikes with suspension with longer travel or and they can rattle or simply break and fall off if you ride hard. You don’t get lights and reflective elements, because they’re heavy plastic crap that breaks and falls off. If you often ride at night, you probably own some kind of night gear, high powered LEDs, reflective stickers or spokes…

And obviously once that is the norm for “bikes” in general, then why not save a few cents on supermarket bikes.

That's into the absurdist territory, but it reflects the real pattern of behavior. People do go around committing petty crimes for various reasons.

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.

not sure the game you want to go with examples

I don’t agree. After my last bike was stolen I decided to buy the cheapest Decathlon had to offer - 240 - for getting around town and there’s nothing unsafe about it. It’s heavy and has cheap components but everything works fine for light city cycling.

That would make society better, I agree, but I don't see how that would lead to a reduction in theft, or crime in general.

> And if you are still worried about theft in the mean time, you could try looking at wage thefts […]

I'm not worried about wage theft, no. I am worried about theft of my personal property, though. And I notice that you haven't proposed any credible path to reducing it, beyond an incredibly generic "make society better", whatever that means and however you want to achieve that.

And from all places I lived in Europe, only around here this upselling seems to be a thing.

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.

The recidivism rate for property crime is higher than violent crime, so it seems plausible that the same is true for theft: https://counciloncj.org/recidivism_report/

Do you have anything to back this up? You think people are stealing because they lack basic necessities? How are you defining this?

I think there are many other and better things to try than the repeated failure of trying to catch and punish crimes even more harshly.

Not everyone needs Apple priced bicycles, that get as easily stolen as a 50 € from the flea market.