Thread: Interbike 2017
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Old September 23rd 17, 03:43 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Frank Krygowski[_4_]
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Default Interbike 2017

On 9/23/2017 4:44 AM, wrote:
On Saturday, September 23, 2017 at 3:14:48 AM UTC+2, AMuzi wrote:
On 9/22/2017 7:40 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, September 22, 2017 at 5:26:32 PM UTC-7, sms wrote:
On 9/22/2017 3:32 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, September 22, 2017 at 2:31:56 PM UTC-7, sms wrote:
Photos with text at
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Vs26GExC_oC476V4oZl-dDn_2TcvWFCAuDZwjJN_MYE/edit?usp=sharing

Interbike is in a Death Spiral

E-Bikes

Lights

Cleaning and Lubrication

Bamboo

Cameras

Power Meters

Smart Helmets

Folding Bikes

Locks

WIKE Salamander

Pure Cycles

Rod Brakes Are Back!

Tent

What I Won

What I bought

I thought I missed the boat because my new bike will have rim brakes instead of discs. I should have waited for rod brakes -- or traveled back in time.

BTW, I rode with a guy last week who had been in marketing for Chris King. He was riding a Cielo with CK components. Pretty bike. CK quit manufacturing Cielo in August. It has also laid-off a lot of employees from its core component business since this article:
https://bikeportland.org/2017/08/16/...-frames-239074 Whole lot of hurting going on in the high-end market.

The same guy then went to work for Mavic trying to help them revive their brand in the US -- another slow death from a company that is not keeping up. It bought Enve, so it will probably concentrate on that brand. It seems odd that bicycle sales are struggling so much, being that it is still popular. Is it because of eBikes or something else?

I was in a store near Stanford this afternoon. There were five Stanford
students buying new bicycles. When you're spending $80K a year on
college (or your parents are), the cost of a bicycle is pretty much lost
in the noise. Stanford is a big biking campus and it's very large. Which
is why it was depressing that the store was Walmart and they were buying
the worst pieces of crap you can imagine. I understood enough Mandarin
to know what they were talking about. One girl said that the bicycle was
"good looking," or "好看."

Speaking of eBikes, I got dumped by some chick on an eBike the other night. I was struggling to keep up and thought I was having a heart attack. As it turned out, my rear cable disc was stuck on. ****ty return springs on the first-gen BB7s, and the rear cable run on my new warranty-repalcement CAADX is all in housing and takes some nasty turns, so the system is pretty draggy. It was really designed for hydraulic brakes. I'm going to work on that tonight.

Apparently e-bikes are extremely popular in Europe and Asia where
there's more transportational cycling, and not in the U.S. where it's
more recreational.

It's cheating, but I'm going to buy one for my wife -- and then use it. Sorry, honey, got to take the eBike today.

It's the rare transportational cyclist riding an eBike around here, but that may change over time. I have no qualms about drafting eBikes since most are too fast to be in the bike lanes anyway. Some are just lightweight motorcycles. It's like Kommuter Keirin for me -- except for this one woman I see a lot who has an eCargoBike that goes zero to thirty in like a second. I don't have the thighs or lungs for that, and she drops me off the lights.

-- Jay Beattie.


I sincerely just don't get it.
Is it faster than a much less expensive new moped?


1 out of 3 sold bikes here in the Netherlands is a E bike and sales going up every year. The majority electric assisted (up to 25 km/hr). The people aren't 'ashamed' anymore and they really look like a normal bike. We have a discussion now because more deadly accidents happened the last year due to accidents involving E bikes. Older people can't handle the speed and that heavy bike.


https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ce-netherlands

Similar features - Too heavy to carry upstairs and it's not
a bicycle.


We don't carry bikes upstairs.


If you want power, that's available at much cheaper rates
than an electric thingy.


I don't understand this remark of Andrew's. It's true that burning
gasoline can give you a lot more power, but "rate" implied dividing by
some quantity. I don't know what Andrew's dividing by.

Still, there are other advantages to electric drives: less maintenance,
less noise, less excess heat, more controllability.

One might propose a scale of power requirements, with (say) power
screwdrivers and hand drills on the lower end, and locomotives and ocean
liners on the upper end. We may need to burn fuel to make sufficient
power at the big end, but almost nobody wants a gasoline powered hand
drill. Electricity makes more sense at the small end of the spectrum,
and it's gaining ground every year, and moving up the spectrum into
cars, buses and trucks.

Electric drive definitely makes more sense for bikes. Whizzer motors for
bikes have been around forever. They'll never be popular.
You are missing the point Andrew. If you had a utility bike shop here you would go out of business if you didn't offer E bikes.


But I do see problems with unskilled novices doing 25 mph among crowds
of 10 mph cyclists.

--
- Frank Krygowski
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