On Friday, September 22, 2017 at 6:47:11 PM UTC-7, sms wrote:
On 9/22/2017 6:14 PM, 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.Â* He was riding a Cielo with CK components. Pretty bike. CK
quit manufacturing Cielo in August.Â* 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.Â* 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.Â* 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.Â* I was struggling to keep up and thought I was having a heart
attack.Â* 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.Â* 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?

You can ride a e-bike on bicycle multi-use paths. Mopeds aren't allowed.
Even when motorized bicycles aren't allowed, a lot of them are not
obvious enough for anyone to complain, and since on the "pedal assist"
models you have to be pedaling, there's some legal distinction in some
states.

That's exactly it -- beating traffic without undue exertion. You can't lane split on a motorcycle here in Oregon, so next best thing -- speed in the bike lane. I'm interested in what Lou has to say and the experience in NL because it seems like a dangerous mix -- but then again, you get some of the same problems mixing stronger and weaker riders even without motors. We're no Amsterdam, but we do have a lot of bicycles for a US city, and bike conflicts are common in some places.

-- Jay Beattie.