I’ve been doing a bit of (non e-bike) riding in poor weather of late, and it’s really surprising just how wet and dirty everything gets. After a wet road ride, every surface is covered in black, greasy dirt. It rots fabric, makes grinding paste in mechanical parts and generally makes everything worse. You need really good seals to keep that crap out.
I never see them in the US outside of city bike share programs, but I feel like most casual bike users would be better served by internal gear hubs and similar closed systems. The maintenance is minimal, outside of dropping some oil in every year.
But for some reason, every bike in a bike shop, including the most casual upright bike, has a finicky derailleur.
So instead we’re doomed to a life of misaligned derailleurs and bent derailleur hangers.
You're glossing over the fact that internal gear hub transmissions easily cost in the hundreds, whereas you can get a derailleur for a tenner or so. I've owned a number of bikes in my life and all of them have been cheaper than the transmission you suggest everyone should use.
There's a lot of range in internally-geared hubs though, from the crazy end with the $1500 Rohloff 14sp to the $80 Sturmey-Archer 3sp. I commute on a Shimano Alfine 11sp that's ~$200 which isn't exactly "a tenner" but if you add up the price of a derailleur, cassette, chainrings, etc. I don't think it's much different?
One of the really weird things with bikes is that entry level bikes tend to be 3x7 which means that you have a lot of extra weight and complexity (a second shifter, shift cable, and front gears) for pretty much no benefit over a 1x9 system.
The biggest reason we use 3x8 on all our bikes is because the spare parts are cheaper than all other ratios and we can switch around as we like between all bikes and can even keep some spare parts on the shelf for when the local stores are out. The first thing to go on my bike is the deraileur though, they keep a year or so even if taken care of. They can still be used a couple of years but the shifting isn't so exact as I would like it. The sport I do is very gear-shifting intense due to lots of stopping so I guess that eats away ant that poor thing. And I do buy the cheapest ones I can find for around 10-15 euro.
>The first thing to go on my bike is the deraileur though, they keep a year or so even if taken care of
>I do buy the cheapest ones I can find for around 10-15 euro
Customer benefit: Longevity. 3x7 chains and cassette last wayyy longer than 1x9 (and usually have a bigger ratio). 9s cassettes are not wider than 7s but instead each gears and spaces are narrower. The chain then need to be thinner resulting in faster elongation (=wearing).
Single speed and 3s chains last 5000km easily while 12/13s won’t last much more than 1000km.
A bottom bracket mounted Pinion C.12 transmission runs 12 gears (grip shift) and over 600% ratio from gear 1 to gear 12. I bought a reasonably priced Priority 600x mountain bike (now replaced by two newer models) with this system. No derailleur, no chain, no lube. Two cogs/sprockets, one at the pedals, one on the back wheel. A carbon fiber belt drive. Not an e-bike. Easy to maintain. The extra cost is worth it avoiding the hassle.
This is one area where I've found that paying for quality up front can be a cost saving and certainly a time saver.
We have lots of bikes and have gone through even more (bought & sold). The most reliable drivetrain on any of them just turned 20 (2004 model). It was the highest end Shimano XT-R at the time. It is easy to align, always stays in alignment, all in all takes very little attention and always shifts perfectly.
The bikes with cheaper drivetrains are a lot fuzzier and take more frequent attention and even when freshly aligned don't quite shift as nicely.
The absolute worst is the cheapest one (a department store bike my partner insisted on buying as an exercise bike). It simply can't be aligned well no matter how many hours spent. When I get it to a good-enough state, it's misaligned after a few weeks. The amount of time wasted on that thing would easily buy at least an Ultegra set to replace it.
I'm not really seeing the argument. I've never had a derailleur break, if anything, this sounds like some supreme yak shaving. Granted, I don't ride bikes for a living, but I ride a bike every day and durability isn't even remotely as big of an issue as you make it out to be.
I have broken derailleurs, and I’ve also had them bumped out of adjustment and damaged at bike racks.
Switching is probably a bit of an unecessary faff. But if you want a drivetrain that can be ignored or neglected and never complain, an internal gear is really great.
For a commuter bike it also allows you to fully cover the chain and chainring if you want.
Once the bike is dropped drive-side and the derailleur hanger is bent, all it takes is a normal ride to catch the derailleur in the spokes and you get a very expensive repair.
A derailleur makes it a lot easier to maintain correct chain tension. Fixing a rear flat by the side of the road is more of a hassle with an internal transmission hub (or a fixie).
I’d argue fixing a flat on a IGH or fixed gear/single speed is easier than a geared bike. Hardest thing about a single speed is needing the proper tool to remove the axle nuts, but after that take the chain off the cog and the wheel will slip right out, just as easy to put back in, just reverse the process. Getting chain tension can be tricky, but tighten the drive side bolt first at the point the chainline has about a centimeter of mesial play and once you tighten the other bolt the chain line should be spot on.
Where a geared bike with a derailleur will need you to put the bike in the smallest gear, and untangle the chain from the cassette. Replacing the wheel back in requires the chain to be properly laced around the cassette and can require dexterity.
Unfortunately derailleurs are necessary to ensure chain tension when the bicycle frame isn’t designed the allow for manual chain tensioning (vertical dropouts).
Also, run tubeless and flats will feel like a thing of the past.
Your description of the way of fixing a flat on a fixed gear sound much more work than the deraileur way. You disengage the handbrake if you have rim-brakes, open the quick-release for the wheel, bend the deraileur outwards a bit and just lift the wheel out. The gear is already at a low gear (does not have to be smallest) since you just got a flat.
Reinstall by moving the casette back inbetween the chain on the same cog and just drop it down and flip the quickrelease back to locked. Connect the brake again if you have rimbrakes. No need to fix chain tension.
I guess it all depends on what you are used to do. I had soooo many flats last year when the spikes started eating through my one year old schwalbe wintertires. 220 spikes makes 220 holes. Had to give up on fixing the holes and change innertube until I could get new tires. Not schwalbe this time.
Don't think tubeless would do any difference here though, see enough people get flats with those too and as someone else stated, the glue can get pretty messy.
Tubeless sucks. I've seen several cyclists on group rides running tubeless tires have flats that couldn't be fixed at all, or required installing a tube to get home. Maybe it works well enough for mountain bikes but for road bikes the tubeless tires seem too weak.
Unfortunately all IGHs are not created equal. Removing a back wheel with a Shimano Nexus with a coast break is a lot harder than removing a back wheel with a Rohloff.
It’s not difficult at all, just release the clickbox, unscrew two axle nuts, unscrew the brake arm. If you have any chain tensioners, slightly unscrew each the same amount.
That's kind of true, but it isn't the right comparison. The gear hub isn't just a replacement for the derailleur, but also all your gears, and has a simpler axle. The IGH is still a bit more expensive (~$200 vs $80 for a not completely bottom of the line derailleur based system), but it also requires a lot less maintenance to keep working well.
You can even use a completely enclosed chain guard. You see them quite often in the Netherlands and will keep your chain out of the rain and dust, this lowers maintenance cost and lifetime significantly.
The only problem is, is that this kind of guard typically is quite susceptible to damage if the bike falls or when you hit something.
Otherwise it is in many ways superior to a belt. Belts are inherently inefficient compared to chains.
My bike, with a Sturmey Archer three-speed, cost £160 (from a very reputable shop that services pretty much everything for free or only charges for parts). It is perfectly good for commuting and hobby rides up to at least 50 miles—and I say this as someone rather out of shape.
If in a dry climate, a derailleur transmission can last a long time and will be cheap to maintain. But once a person starts replacing quality components with like quality, especially in a wet climate, a derailleur transmission can be expensive over 10 years.
The set of my experience is { Shimano: [ $various_derailleurs, Nexus 3, Nexus 7, Alfine 11 ] , Rohloff: [14 speed], Other: [rear-hub e-bike] }
$various_derailleurs -- fussy to maintain, cheap to replace but costly over 10 years
Nexus 3 -- rubbish
Nexus 7 -- not bad for modest bicycling
Alfine 11 -- zero maintenance, excellent performance, cheaper over 10 years than $various_derailleurs
Rohloff -- low maintenance, expensive, built to last, and 14 speeds! But heavy and 10% efficiency loss.
e-bike -- reliable, fast and fun, but zero exercise and in the range of a Rohloff for cost
In short, I think an e-bike in 2024 is brilliant for single-mode commuting. The technology is reliable and performant... but heavy.
An Alfine 11 or Rohloff is bliss for multi-modal commuting (assuming 16" or 20" wheels).
From your comparison it may seem that Rohloff is worse than Alfine 11. But it is actually lighter and more efficient. Plus it has wider gear range and equal range jumps between each gear
> e-bike -- reliable, fast and fun, but zero exercise
I disagree on the last point, I can turn the motor up or down, or all the way off, based on how much of a workout I want to get.
Also the only reason I'm willing to bike around my hilly city (Seattle) is because I have an ebike.
To put it another way, across 3 or 4 blocks I have around a 100 meter incline on the way to a park.
Can experienced bicyclists who are in good shape pull that off? With a kid on the back of their bike? Sure. But an ebike lets me turn turn the motor on for that part, and turn it off when I'm not doing something as difficult.
Poor durability. In addition, the gear range is suitable only for short, low-effort rides. I used one for city commuting until it simply failed mechanically. In sum, the Nexus 3 is not in any way better for ownership than a working derailleur transmission. For a rental, there may be some value proposition.
The Nexus 7 proved reliable; the Alfine 11 a good value for durability and range of speeds; the Rohloff is brilliant but yes, those 14 speeds are expensive.
The choice depends on the rider's needs. I'd rather ride an IGH bicycle for the reliability and value over 10 years of riding. I'm not sure that an indifferent/infrequent bicycle user (the sort who lets things rust and never checks tire pressure) would care.
For the purpose of long commutes it's possible to buy an entire e-bike in 2024 for less than the price of a Rohloff hub alone.
The Alfine 11 and the Rohloff are brilliant. The Rohloff is a joy to use on all types of terrain. Instant shifts without fuss.
They are always sold with wrong sprockets. The high gear is never usable. Number 2 gear is connected directly, and so it should be the default on no-wind flat road. Then it lasts forever on flat country like holland.
I have 420 mm folding bike with Nexus-3. The correct ratio is less than 2:1, which meant changing both sprockets to smallest and largest available. I do not even know what to do with 622 mm wheels.
Mountain bikers run on "finicky" derailleurs over rocks and through wet mud and sand all day. They are unbelievably reliable. With the modern 1x10 or even 1x12 systems, you get enough range to remove the front shifter, reducing maintenance even more, remove almost all sources of jumping chain and allows fitting chain guard with better coverage.
SRAM has a famous video where they lay the bike sideways and jump on the derailleur while shifting, without it bending. Admittedly that model is out of price range for most riders.
Ideally you should give the chain a quick rinse and brush of to prevent grime from accumulating. Sure, the internal gears are a bit easier in that regard, because you don't need to get into the cassette. Otherwise from a reliability standpoint they should take equal beating. The cleaning frequency depends a lot on the oil you use also, wet lube will accumulate more grime than dry.
Still cleaning regularly is a lot of work (been there) and most people here never clean it, resulting in unreliable shifting and non-smooth cycling. Most people are better served by an internal hub and belt drive. Almost no maintenance (just bring it to a bike shop yearly to get it tuned up again).
Internal hubs are common in places where biking is common - ie. Amsterdam.
Derailleur's just seem to be far cheaper, I suspect because most of their parts can be made from stamped steel, whereas most parts of an internal gearbox must be CNC machined and face hardened.
Deraillers are a bit more efficient (almost no loss) and overall simpler to work on. They also (generally) offer a wider range of geear ratios.
Internal hubs work great, but have a bit more loss, tend to weigh more, and when they start going sideways tend to go really wrong. But for the commuter-y / daily use like what you mention they tend to last and be more weather resistant.
Because of all of this they haven't found a place in much hobby/fitness mountain or road biking, but are really great for less hilly utilitarian needs.
Derailleurs have, on average, 2% lower loss than hub gears, when new.
However, many suggest that because hub gears usually have an enclosed chain, whereas derailleurs rarely have an enclosed chain, that 2% is usually eclipsed by chain losses as the chain gets dirty/rusty/worn far faster on derailleurs.
Only the expensive ones have the range and you can buy a complete entry level bike for the price of a decent one. They are still heavy and have more than noticeable drag.
The maintenance is minimal but repair is much more expensive. Not even talking about the gearbox itself. Consider a damaged rear rim - you'd need to re-lace a new wheel on your expensive hub, which is a lot of labor even for a bike mechanic at $25/h. And repairing the gearbox itself is not something the aforementioned bike mechanic can do at all. Even diagnosing issues with it is an endeavor. On a derailleur system everything is in the open, problems are obvious and parts are cheap and easily replaceable.
Also, for the low end the price is prohibitive: there is a firm (Priority) selling relatively cheap, casual belt driven bikes in NYC, which, I figure is quite flat, but the gear ratios on the cheap ones are not good enough for someplace hilly. And for the high end the weight is insane. One does not need to be a "weight weenie" to feel a ~2Kg hub spinning with the wheel.
I've got a couple of 1960s Sturmey-Archer AW hubs (on modern rims) in the family fleet, and I like them a lot. They're virtually maintenance free. One was run completely dry and filled with powdery rust when I got it. After cleaning and lubrication, it's given me thousands of trouble-free miles.
I consider 3 speeds to be the sweet spot for capturing the advantages of an IGH without an exponential increase in cost. In technical terms, a 3x only needs a single planetary unit, and shifting is simplistic.
But it's going to be a tough sell in the US. Derailleur systems have actually improved a lot since I've been riding bikes (50+ years). Indexed shifting really works. Even low-end Shimano systems last a long time with minimal maintenance. There are maybe a dozen bikes among my family members, and derailleur problems are quite rare.
> But for some reason, every bike in a bike shop, including the most casual upright bike, has a finicky derailleur.
The cost difference alone is extreme enough to explain why you don’t see internal gear hub bikes everywhere. Even if you did have them on the showroom floor, those casual bike riders wouldn’t be buying them much due to the price.
You’re also underestimating the reliability of a modern derailleur system. As long as you’re not buying the absolute cheapest, no-name system, they’re actually quite reliable. The technology has come a long way.
Practically, all the "all weather" bike commuters I know do a yearly maintenance at best and that is it. It is not that finnicky, actually, unless you aim for maximum performance or do hardcore mountain biking (those do maintenance after each ride).
It is dirty after rain, but they still just leave it at that.
A dirty rear derailleur of course also reduces the drive train's efficiency by a lot - which can be solved by cleaning the chain every other month.
When moving towards belt drives, you need a very stiff frame which can be opened/split in the back to fit the belt. These frames are more expensive to produce which will furthermore increase the overall bike's price.
Ideally, we all train our legs to be able to handle a single speed setup ;-)
You know what bike lasts forever? Friction shift. I first noticed this in college. There would be new bikes and then really old bikes that had friction shifters. Hardly any maybe 10-20 year old bikes interestingly. All you really need to do for friction shift bikes are tires brakes and lube. You don’t really need to fuss with adjusting the derailer since theres no indexing you just move it with your lever until its in gear, wherever that may be. Plus you can get an entire friction shift bike in working order for like $50 sometimes.
I think the finicky part is the indexing system, the old friction shifters were way more reliable. On an indexing shifter any knock on the rear mech can bend the hanger and mess up the shifting and it can't be adjusted without straightening the hanger. A good indicator of a bent derailleur hanger is that adjusting works on one part of the cassette but than causes issues on the other end. On a friction shifter it doesn't matter, you can always make adjustments by hand. Internal hubs are heavy, drag like mud and usually require twist shifters.
An internal hub and a gates belt really reduces the amount of maintenance needed to keep your bike running well. The belt avoids most of the chain issues and doesn't need a properly lubed chain to function and moving the gears inside reduces the contamination that cogs get exposed to.
I've had complete opposite experiences, there is issues with the derailleurs constantly. Switching to internal gears and a belt instead of a chain has made commuting a much better experience and may in some cases actually cheaper in the long run when you factor in the saved maintenance time and costs.
The black greasy dirt is an emulsion of worn tyre particles, sandy powdered dirt and maybe a little spilt fuel. It's probably toxic - the pollution from tyre wear is underestimated.
In the tire industry we are well aware that carbon and pollution from grinding synthetic rubber into dust all day everyday is a HUGE problem, that is why we spend millions on promoting "green" rubber and natural products that we don't actually use but make a big deal about to distract people.
The biggest problem for tire companies is keeping the truth quiet about how we are on of the largest polluters.
There is also a lot of metal (random pieces along with nails and screws) and glass on roads. It seems roading contractors here are obligated to pour a box of screws onto the road before they move onto the next job.
As a biker, cyclist, skater, and ebiker, I’ve settled about various wax-like sprays to keep crap off and out. ACF-50 for the motorbike, various protective wax sprays for the bicycles, Vaseline for skate bearings.
Friends will sometimes give me crap for not riding in poor weather, but whether it's mountain bike, road, or gravel, riding in wet/muddy conditions just result in so much work.
The bike itself gets really dirty, it gets into EVERYTHING. Wear on brake pads and drivetrain are accelerated. Stuff doesn't work right. Post-ride it requires so much cleanup that it can take just as long as the ride did.
Sure, I'll get caught out sometimes, but I really don't like starting out in poor conditions because it's just so much work to get things back to right and can potentially cost quite a bit. I'll usually just skip riding these days.
Not to joke too hard but how long do you ride usually? To me a solid post ride cleanup takes 10mins tops. Thousands of miles on my dirty moutain bike and stuff still works right. Sure I replace parts that wear but seems insignificant.
Yes I am very confused by that statement as well. After rides on muddy trails I just hose my bike down, pat the metal parts dry and apply grease to relevant parts.
Any city bike worth its salt will have a chain case and long inverted U-shaped fenders that will redirect dirty spray away from you.
You won’t get off completely clean but maybe 99% clean?
Nope, I'm talking about riding fairly high end gravel bikes on Southeast Michigan (US) dirt roads on which the surface has been treated with a chloride spray which acts as a binder and water repellent for the road surface. The treatment keeps light rain from saturating the road surface, which keeps the road nice for longer.
If it's been wet enough for the surface to get soft and sloppy, once this flings up on a bike it dries hard. This material requires a solid soaking on the bike to get it to soften before it can be cleaned off, and it also is highly corrosive to metal due to the salt content. (Unless it's had time to soak in water runs off of it.) So it takes a fair bit of time and effort, and it's pretty much required that, you get it off of all metal parts including chain, cassette, rotors, bolts, etc. Depending on the ride I've also had to pull the fork because enough has flung up into the lower headset bearing that it'll be problematic if left alone.
By design it doesn't just rinse off, so time and a lot of water and a brush with soap (typically dish soap) and a rag is needed to get it clean and back to a sane state. And sometimes disassembly.
I'm mostly thinking of dirt roads which have been treated with a chloride spray. And I'm being a wee bit hyperbolic with the cleanup time, but an hour ride can result in an hour+ of cleanup if I need to get the (corrosive) chloride gunk out of all the bits around brake rotors, in the cassette, and all the little spaces around the crank arms.
We have a lot of very sandy soil around here as well, so if it's really wet the dirt absolutely tears up brake pads.
(That's a worst case.)
A particularly pointed example is the Iceman Cometh Challenge bike race. It's 2-3 hours for most people, but after the bad-conditions years it was common for folks to be replacing brake pads, jockey wheels, and aluminum chainrings. Plus the added suspension seal wear because for most of the event the seals were working hard clearing gunk from the stanchions.
EDIT: Or Barry-Roubaix, a gravel race in Southwest Michigan (US) that's on similar roads. Typically a 2 hour race for the most popular distance, but on some of the wet years it absolutely trashed bikes due to all the abrasive muck being thrown around.
It's not hard to find e-bikes with belt drives. Honestly, I think they'll take over the e-bikes market within 10 years or so (I think there are still some outstanding patents?). More expensive and slightly less efficient than a chain, but both of those are probably negligible for the context of e-bikes, and in exchange you never get grease on your pant leg, you never need to lube anything, you never need to worry about a derailleur needing to have its gears realigned or having the chain jump out (of course you could have an internally-geared chain bike).
Harley Davidson, among others, uses belts. Torque isn't the issue in the context of m/c final drive. Chains are a tad more efficient, which hp obsessed customers fuzz about.
I have a lectric and the build quality is terrible. Had to deal with:
- a bent frame out of the box
- a recall due to defective brakes
- lights not secured properly
- loose fender after less than 100km
- a derailleur that refuses to allow use of all gears- no matter how adjusted it is unable to use either the lowest or highest
Yep. I have a single speed e bike with a belt drive and internal motor in the back wheel. Use it for commuting round London. 0 maintenance. None of this over engineered Bosch shit. Cheap Chinese 250w motor in the back, belt drive, aluminium frame. These should take off, but so far the major bike manufacturers have overcomplicated the category - and the startup that made mine has gone under (analog motion)
The cycling industry and trends are based on processional racing and a chain/derailleur is going to maintain significantly more power transfer at that level than a belt drive or internally geared hub.
If Shimano/Sram cared about building top-shelf commuter drivetrains (Shimano has Alfine) they could easily purchase Gates or build a competing company.
No, and this would help.
While it’s commuting, I’m taking a route 3-4x longer than I need and picking off PRs. The fender helped a little, but was also finicky and I didn’t get a lot of value from it.
Your point is correct - some better gear would help.
Fenders needs to be big and cover all the way down to the ground back and front. Small fenders help with the worst, but good fenders are really worth it.
After a ride in foul weather I pour a kettle of boiling water on the drivetrain, brakes, and rims, let it dry off inside, then re-lubricate. Always works like a charm.
SKS (also known as ESGE or Blumels) "chromoplast" full fenders have always worked well for me. There are fancier (sometimes metal) fenders, but they tend to rattle, like you say.
For chain and coat guards: Hesling. Plastic or cloth, they're equally reliable.
For mudguards, basically anything aluminium from any Dutch maker. If you can get Azor, they're especially high-quality.
If it's a Chinese e-bike, it's probably lying about being IPX67.
OTOH, Riese & Müller $15k USD e-bikes aren't IPX anything because the Bosch components aren't. If you get it wet, just kiss that money goodbye. Absolutely bonkers.
Huh, that’s not my experience. My wife rides to work on her R&M e-bike, every working day, all year round, in sun, rain or snow. Daily distance is about 40km (25 miles), two hours back and forth. Not a single major problem caused by water in more than 5 years.
Yes. You can use the system in the rain without any concerns. It is protected against rain and splashes, but not against riding through rivers when the motor is submerged in water.
Equivalent of about IPX54. To me, this means it's not really waterproof (IPX?7) should it fall a puddle when it rains. Never spray it with a garden hose or pressure washer while washing. And, it's really a gamble to take it in the rain. Plus, like cell phones, they tend to lose IPX protection when repaired because of customary sloppy repair jobs that fail to restore gaskets.
I think it really pays to go with an e-bike from an actual bicycle company. The Trek TQ system for example is submersible (IP67) and has a 2-year warranty, same as Bosch.
Is it safe to generalize like that? IP67 is a certification criteria that says that it must withstand conditions for certain amount of time during the test. But it doesn't say anything about doing it twice or how long you must wait between tries.
For electronics it sometimes achieved by gel that can hold liquid for 30 min before water penetrates. It may eventually get dry again, but that is not covered by certification.
Another point is that testing is done in distilled water, any impurities like oils can increase its penetrating ability and reduce the time.
To me it looks like it's all down to actual manufacturer and item. IP rating is better than "splashproof" but still very vague.
I’m glad you wrote this. I have one of these, and I love it, but haven’t ridden it in the rain. Now I won’t. I thought it might be okay because, as you pointed out, it definitely wasn’t cheap.
Serious question, why would a person spend that kind of money on an ebike? An entry-level motorcycle is less than half that. What benefit does the bike get you that a motorcycle doesn't?
Convenience and sense of freedom. No license required, can lend it to friends or kids. Can be parked anywhere. Can be loaded on a car, ferry and some places even the metro. Can ride them on bike lanes, the forest and the sidewalk. More approachable diy maintenance. Don't need full leather protection, just a helmet and t-shirt and you are good to go. If you are only traveling max 30km within the town, you don't need anything faster.
Some bicyclists in Palo Alto do, probably because they can't take their Ferrari's with them. A former business partner had a ~$8k bicycle stolen from Castro St. downtown in a very public area. All it takes to steal is 30 seconds and a battery-powered angle grinder. If someone doesn't have Tile, AirTag, and a GPS tracker on such a bike, then they're an idiot.
Hahaha. I hope a precondition to any bicycle theft includes requires 1 or more tracking devices and not transiting anywhere near a major metropolitan area or any city area with a drug problem.
I'm curious too when bikes became that expensive. I just recently started looking for a new bike. Every major bike brand (Specialized, Trek, Cannondale, Orbea, Canyon, Santa Cruz, etc...) all sell bikes between $4000 an $18000! That's regardless of whether they are e-bikes or non-e-bikes.
When did bikes get that expensive? I bought a "brand name bike" just like 6 years ago for $900 and thought I was going way out of a normal budget.
Even 20 years ago, $900 was on the lower side for a serious bike but the big thing to remember is that e-bikes are transformative: they make daily commuting practical for many people who are not avid cyclists and especially so for parents.
That means you should compare them to cars: I bought a cargo e-bike for just under $3k when I needed to take my son and all of his stuff to daycare near my office ~6 miles away. I certainly used to bike that distance before but the weather, workday timing, etc. meant I never did it more than 3 days a week before, but the speed & cargo capacity of the e-bike made it my preferred option every day.
The other people who didn’t live within walking distance all drove, so their trips took longer door to door (congestion around the school alone was 20 minutes) and my expensive e-bike was the equivalent of a couple months of what they spent on SUV payments, parking, gas, and insurance. Plus my son _loved_ going on the bike every day (it helped that we went by the train yard) while most of his classmates protested going in the car because they’re so isolated with nothing to see.
Most bikes are not silent. Worse, it's getting popular to make them loud. I was looking for an e-mtb recently. Tried a Trek ($4.5k down from $7.5k), ridiculously loud hub. Sales person claimed (falsely) that the more pro the hub the louder.
Talked to another dealer who gave me the same story.
MTB hubs are noisy as hell anyway, and yes, the more expensive the MTB the noisier the hub. For pedal bikes it's about being able to pedal without doing a full rotation and not losing power or wasting energy
It's kind of true. If you want the hub to engage right away when you pedal, you'll need the rachet mechanism to have more points of potential contact and those points will all make clicking sounds when you're coasting.
You can attach trailer to bicycle and use it to transport your kids to nursery/school during winter. There I live both things would be illegal with motorcycle.
Total bike and trailer builder and believer of yore here.
One can fail to appreciate the additional breaking forces
and shifts in balance a loaded trailer introduces to the bicycle.
Where the trailer attaches should be as close to the center of gravity of the bike & rider as possible so the trailer's resultant forces have the least leverage.
The trailer hitch should be rotationaly neutral which is a gentler way of saying
if the trailer flips over it should not take the bike down with it.
If the trailer has its own breaks they should slightly and lightly lead the bikes rear break.
Being careful helps, I never wrecked, but do see how the addition of electrical assist does up the concern as it could result in more mass moving fast.
I've been rear-ended by other drivers a couple of times, once in the centre of town. If a child in a trailer been between the two vehicles they would have been killed. The reason for one of the rear-endings was that the brake rubber came of the pedal. I don't trust other drivers to not be on their phone or to properly maintain attention at all times. The OP also said that he did this in winter time. Here in the UK there can be black ice on the road at that time of the year.
or a escooter or one of those things you just stand on and it moves? The main reason to ride a bike nowadays is for pleasure or exercise and a ebike defeats both.
An ebike can be for both pleasure and exercise. Most ebikes are pedelecs - you're still cycling, you're just getting a boost. They aren't loud, you just either get somewhere faster or with less effort. I find an ebike to be more pleasurable than a regular bike 90% of the time.
Just because you're doing less work, doesn't mean you're doing no work. An ebike can provide mobility for people who aren't in perfect shape. Ebikes can also allow you to use your bike for more errands, like getting groceries that people would otherwise not do on a regular bike.
With an ebike you can ride in bike lanes, sidewalks and many other places motorcycles are not allowed. They can also park loads of places motorcycles aren't allowed plus you get exercise.
Yep. Ebikes can do a lot of things motorcycles aren't allowed to do. For example, it's customary (while illegal) for ebikes to not stop at stop signs in the US because there's little-to-no enforcement of it compared to the enforcement of traffic laws against motorcyclists.
it's not surprising to me that the bosch mid-drives are failing, they're typically placed at an angle that catches all the run off from every tube at the lowest point on the bike (except on recumbents), and the controller is (usually) integrated.
mid-drives are great, the gear advantage rocks; the bosch units suck but unfortunately they had so much industry sway that a lot of ebike frames are coming out built around the unit -- which is absolutely unlike any other unit out there aside from vague similarities to the bafang units in the same range -- so it forces replacement with the same garbage, or a total re-engineer of the gear train; a big pain.
one thing to be said about the bosch unit : it looks sleek and it integrates well. This is likely a lot of the reason behind the mass adoption, aside from Bosch's presence itself.
I can't see how mid-drives are significantly superior. An electric motor doesn't need any gear advantage and sending more force to the rear wheel seems like it's actually a disadvantage since it put more stress on bicycle components that are often designed for just human levels of force.
As far as I can tell, the mid-drives became dominant just 'cause people wanted to have something the looked more "seamless".
I have rear drive ebike (Avanton Pace 300 v1) and I'm very happy with it (it was also cheap as a show room model). It's responsive and I can pedal up any hill to about a 25% grade. The controller is still mid-frame and the battery inset into the down tube. Thinking about it, my ideal ebike would be a heavy duty frame with all the components just bolting on (plus could use power tool batteries).
In the EU, e-bikes are limited to a maximum power output of 250 watts - anything over that is a motorbike. That's basically the same power output as a decently fit cyclist. A mid-drive allows for sustained high torque even with limited power. Water ingress issues aside, mid-drives also tend to be more durable in off-road applications where the rear wheel is subject to severe shock and vibration.
As I said, my rear drive gives what seems like high torque to me (I think bike's at about the power you mention). I've only taken my bike off-road a bit but it seems like the force on the rear hub and the bottom bracket are things that simply have to be designed for. The bottom bracket experiences both frame flex and the rider pounding the pedals, so it's subject to punishment and the rear hub is cushioned by the tires, spokes and any rear suspension present.
Power is power, there is no combined "power + torque" that measures how much wind you have in the sails. Torque just characterises how much power you can get along different RPMs.
But the EU/UK 250 W cap is so low that it seems unlikely torque characteristics would enter the picture significantly unless you're going very slowly. I think most of the mainstream EU ebike motors are capped this way (vs designed to have a natural peak output of 250W).
Torque (at the wheel) does matter as well as power. With a hub motor, the gear ratio is typically fixed so you're at the mercy of the motor characteristics, but driven through the chain, you can change it. I used to have a low powered hub motor e-bike and it was fast but pretty useless at accelerating from stopped or climbing hills. At these very low speeds, an optional low gear would have put the motor in a higher power point on its speed-torque curve.
Though perhaps you're saying these motors are so over-rated that even close to stall torque, their reduced power output is still 250W? That would be an efficiency loss but not a power loss since they're not allowed to deliver full power at higher speeds.
>> Power is power, there is no combined "power + torque" that measures how much wind you have in the sails. Torque just characterises how much power you can get along different RPMs.
> Torque (at the wheel) does matter as well as power.
If you are getting 250 W of power at the wheel (in other units, 250 Joules per second, or 250 Newton-meters), that's what you are getting, no torque about it.
>> the EU/UK 250 W cap is so low that it seems unlikely torque characteristics would enter the picture significantly unless you're going very slowly
> Though perhaps you're saying these motors are so over-rated that even close to stall torque, their reduced power output is still 250W?
Yes, I was saying something close to that ("very slowly").
IOW the overprovisioning of the motor combined with the power cap makes the motor work much more like a "always 250 W" power source than a "250 W peak output modified by torque" power source.
Electric motors have a wide power band but it isn't infinite[1], gearing does make a difference. If I'm in a higher gear on an incline my motor has significantly less usable torque vs shifting down to a gear that's closer to the power band.
Now if that is worth the complexity/cost is a fair debate but there are mechanical advantages to mid-drive motors.
My local bike shop said they are all in Bosch because they had better reliability and less issues with their support compared to other companies and because of the commitment to long term spare parts availability.
The gear advantage of a mid-drive rocks but I was quite surprised that I chewed through a rear cassette in under a year / about 1k miles -- a 250W motor + heavy cargo bike + kid passenger + a large and pretty strong rider exert an awful lot of force. And with the assist, I almost never use the larger cogs, so all the wear gets concentrated. (This compares to many, many thousand miles on my road bike.)
Maintain your chain! I chewed through a nice cassette on my mtb quickly by not watching my chain and replacing it when worn. A worn chain will dramatically increase cassette wear. I only replaced it yearly and should have probably done twice per year.
Since then, I switched to hot waxing my chains and have now gone a year with the same chain reading as almost new. (Actually use 2 chains but both are barely worn)
There’s a great site called zero friction cycling that details all of this. The key that they opened my eyes to was looking at the total cost of riding including the cassette.
IGH's are not all that rugged. Most have a published requirement for a minimum ratio between the chainring and cog, that translates into an approximate torque limit. I love my old Sturmey Archer AW hubs, but I'm not sure I'd recommend one for the aforementioned use case.
Seeing how as I regularly managed to break the drive cross in my 3-speed SA hub just by pushing the thing real hard under pedal power alone - this is 40 years ago - I don't think they're particularly strong. I fixed my bike by myself so all this cost me was a new drive cross but still, it shouldn't break in the first place.
The cross is made of a fairly hard type of steel. They knew how to make that 40 years ago so I don't think there is any noticeable difference. If anything I suspect the older gear hubs were built stronger than the current ones.
Why would that surprise you? A semi serious mountain biker will go through a cassette on an analog bike in 2 years. You're driving the thing with a huge motor, cargo and an entire extra human. Your expectations must have been unrealistically high.
The difference between a mid-drive (in which all of the force goes through the rear cassette) and a rear hub drive (in which only the pedal force goes through the rear cassette) is large.
Also, most people online report over 2k miles on a cassette. Pittsburgh's hills and more force are apparently good for some extra wear.
(Also, a 250W motor is fairly small by e-bike standards. They generally start at 250 and go up from there; 750W is not uncommon.)
I think the follow-on post above about making sure to be better about maintaining the chain is part of it. I'm a little lazy with my road bike chain because I mostly only ride it in good weather, and I carried the same attitude to the e-bike, which gets a lot more stress per mile and I'm more likely to ride in rain.
I'm not hot waxing it, though it's tempting, but I do wipe it down and apply T-9 much more regularly now. We'll see -- I'm 400 miles into the new chain and cassette...
Bosch is in a bunch of high end eMTB setups, including a few of my friends’ rides. We do plenty of wet riding, and the bikes have been hit with the hose for years now to clean them off when we’re done.
If there’s a problem here I think it must be the frame design or the way they’re installed and not an across the board problem with Bosch components.
Specialized had problems with their last gen of the Brose motor (2.1?), leading to lots of premature failure. I’d not heard of significant problems with Bosch units, it’s always hard to determine what is truly a design flaw vs a few anecdotes.
I mount a 350€ Bafang motor on my bike five years ago. I use it almost every day to go to work, even on rainy days (and this year is very wet). The display now shows almost 16000km. It never failed, although it's given as NOT waterproof...
Do you also leave it outside to sit in the rain? I found that bringing a bike indoors (regardless of it being electric or not) significantly improves the lifespan of most parts.
My bafang motor has seen a lot of issues in the ~1.5 years I had it. The bike shop (also) claimed rain and mud where a problem and they considered the ~1000 km per month I rode it 'misuse'.
I had a good run with electric bikes up until that time (~10 years with a front-hub motor and after that the Bafang) but to be honest I'm kinda glad it died because I've been riding a decent non-electric bike ever since and monthly visits to the bike shop became yearly visits instead.
From my perspective water is only at best a proximal cause. The big problem is that if the motor needs replacing five times during a two year waranty period that is a lemon and the manufacurer should give back the money one paid for it.
It sounds like a Kaabo e-scooter, a Samsung refrigerator, and most consumer electronics and appliances. Designed to fail because parts = $$$.*
* In fairness, Kaabo e-scooters aren't designed, they're thrown together and spaghetti wire is rammed in every crevice without a sensible circuit or terminal diagram.
Nawh, Kaabo's are just shit but are also all about selling parts. Unfortunately, very few e-bike repair shops will work on them because they're awful. It's worth noting that 3 of the Kaabo dealers in the US are fly-by-night, shady operations unconcerned with customer service and honesty.
Anecdotally, my wife's Magnum Premium 2 has held up well for 4 years of all weather use in west coast Canada. This includes pulling a cargo trailer or kids trailer year round - salty and sandy slushy snow, pouring rain, sun...
For two of the years she hauled him to school everyday, in all weather, and did all of her shopping and errands with the bike. About 100km every weekday. I'll have to look at the odometer sometime and see what it's at.
I believe it has a Bafang motor and I think we paid about C$2200 as it was in clearance.
Not casting doubt on your numbers here, but to put some perspective on how much usage that implies: 100km every weekday means literally hours of use every day - we're talking about an e-bike that must average what, 20-25km/h at most? That's assuming you're not in stop-start urban traffic. So four or five hours a day? I guess if you're doing a school run that's 30 mins there and 30 mins back, morning and afternoon, plus another trip to town and back... it all adds up.
The numbers might be a bit bloated, but not by a lot.
We had just moved to Canada from a country without a reciprocal drivers license exchange - no matter as she never had one. Where we had moved from, drivers licenses are largely considered optional and although I taught her to drive and she had been riding motorcycles since age 12 or so, driving in North America is way different. We moved just before covid hit. Driving lessons and license testing were difficult / near impossible to get - and with very long wait times. So it was her only form of transportation for quite a long time.
She was doing cleaning at various businesses around the area as well, so again she would take the bike to those locations every day with her little cargo trailer and cleaning supplies. She'd come home after dropping our son off at school, charge the bike, eat a snack, change trailers and head back out, then repeat when it was time to pick him up.
She quite easily spent 3-4 hours on the bike everyday. Just getting to school and back for our son was about 45 minutes one way. He wasn't in the closest school because of things the further school offered (nature school), another 30 minutes each way to the local shopping centre, and then wherever she needed to go for work.
We went through a lot of tires and brake pads, but other than general maintenance the bike held up great and is still going strong.
She has a good job and nice little car now, so the bike is seeing a lot less use this year.
> 100km every weekday means literally hours of use every day
And multiple batteries per day.
I suppose it’s possible if someone’s entire day revolved around e-biking everywhere most of the day and they live in an area that’s relatively flat and there’s not a lot of stop and go and the trips fit into the charge of a single battery and so on.
I like biking a lot, but spending hours and hours on an ebike doing errands every day and hoping nothing breaks when you’re far from home is not my idea of a good time.
That's not necessarily true. My battery is rated for 45 miles, and I get every bit of it. I typically only do about 15-20 miles daily, but I have a weekly ride that is a little over 30 miles which after that the battery still shows 2 of 5 bars remaining. It all depends on how much output you're getting from your meat motor.
To add perspective, I have a battery rated for 70 miles, which so far seems fairly realistic if I stick to slower speeds and lower assist settings that have me putting in a bit of effort. I went ahead and bought an extra battery just for the hell of it so I have the option of riding out to hiking trails or the coast. Plus I don't own a car, so putting in a ton of miles in a day without worrying about charge is worth the expense (also easier to keep them in the 20% - 80% charge window for the sake of longevity).
So far I've done 40 miles in a day several times simply commuting and running errands, and it goes fairly quick with a top speed of ~25mph if I'm in a rush. Point being, people shouldn't be so quick to make assumptions about other people's use cases. I used to commute 30 miles per day to work on a touring bike, plus extra for errands and activities. Yes, it is a lot of time riding, but often it felt like recreation especially since much of my commute was scenic on a dedicated bike trail through natural areas.
Bar inclement weather I used to ride my bike (regular, not e-bike) about 50 km per day. Now I alternate between cycling, fast walk and riding EUC. Add lots of swimming on top in the summer (I am 63 btw).
LandCruiser 'Mudcrab' driven 7km under water across Darwin Harbour
A rag-tag team of engineers, commercial divers and rev-heads have successfully driven a waterproof electric vehicle 7 kilometres under water across Darwin Harbour, in a stunt they claim has broken two world records.
"The latest units are protected against dust and splash water, according to protection class IP54, and most error codes caused by magnetic interference disappear on restart."
This used of "latest" implies Bosch's engineers initially assumed dust and splash water aren't a thing, so by the sound of it they design indoor bike motors for people who hoover very regularly.
It's the second part that worries me more, though: "most" (= not all) error codes disappear on research, i.e. you have to regularly reboot your e-bike, like a 1998 Windows PC? Sorry, I never want to reboot an appliance, because real bikes never required that in the past, so it has been shown it is possible.
I never want an e-bike, and I don't like throwing away engines because of the environmental damage. Don't people bike because they want to get fit? If not, get a proper motorbike.
Not sure an IP rating alone gives you the information you need for this usecase.
A [mountain] bike motor doesn't just need to resist ingress, it needs to do so after hundreds of hours of violent shaking while its external bearings are under heavy load. It should also tolerate a certain amount of direct impact.
I can certainly imagine this being tricky to achieve for a few hundred $!
> Don't people bike because they want to get fit?
No. I personally ride a _non-motorized_ bike for the health benefits, but I ride a _bike_ as a means of transport. I want as many people as possible to do this, it's better for everyone if people cycle. E-bikes are a fantastic way to expand the pool of potential cyclists.
"Bikes are for sporty people" is a symptom of a car-centric environment. In a healthy city, bikes are an option for everyone who has full mobility.
In my city people bike because they want to get from A to B.
E-bikes are great for that! They enable reasonable fast biking without breaking into sweat (good for commuting) and in hilly areas.
First they enabled senior citizens to bike fast and longer. Then came the mountain e-bikes and made it cool. Than the city hipsters. Then family mum and dad zipping their children around:
Also insurance, yuck. Plus all that gear so that when you have to lay your bike down because some dipshit driver did something insane up ahead of you you can keep at least some of your layers of skin intact.
>Don't people bike because they want to get fit? If not, get a proper motorbike.
Riding an ebike is still a moderate workout especially if you are putting on the miles, hauling stuff, have hills, etc. And on most bikes you can set your engine assist in real time, so it's easy to adjust to the level of workout you are in the mood for. Which is a massive game changer for me as someone with health problems including fatigue and leg pain that doesn't own a vehicle.
I like the freedom of the ebike vs a motorcycle for city commuting, it's much quieter, I can ride on greenways and bike trails away from traffic fumes and the majority of impatient/distracted drivers. It is far lighter than a motorbike and I already have the tools and skills for basic maintenance. It is cheaper to maintain and operate. But more than anything else I have an ethical problem with the combustion engine. I drew a line in the sand long ago that I will never own nor make regular use of a gas-powered vehicle and in 20 years I still haven't crossed it.
Some people walk because they’re trying to get to the office, some people walk to lose weight, some people walk to enjoy sunday afternoon with their partner
From the article it seems that this problem is mostly coming from bikers with mountain bikes, riding in wet Wales off road. It looks like for the general case (on street, commuting) that ebikes are working as intended. For mountain bikers it is possible to simply get a mountain bike but where ebikes shine here is the ability to scoot back up the mountain after riding down.
Sounds like they got various brittle sensors and electronics that make the thing break earlier than it should, while in theory the motor should just work if you apply high enough voltage to it. I don't think the main coils of the actual motor would care about a little bit of magnetic field from a traffic light sensor.
Probably because the Netherlands doesn’t have as much rain, off road and mountains as Wales?
From the article.
> The problem appears to mainly affect those riding mountain bikes in all weathers, particularly in Wales and the UK’s other wettest areas, because they are not sealed properly against water ingress.
As someone living in London and travelling to The Netherlands on a regular basis (intending to migrate), I have to say, pretty much everything from public transport to supermarket design seems of a much, much higher standard than its British equivalent.
Further to that, it generally feels as though the UK is a country massively in decline and this transcends down to the quality of goods which we pass as acceptable.
The bar of quality seems to have exponentially lowered over the past decade and the effects of such are now rearing their head in our day to day life.
I was born in England, live in London, have a Dutch partner, and also travel to the Netherlands often enough. I agree completely. They have their problems too (from the political to having to tap out on buses), but the overall level of quality and care seems rather higher. The sense of decline and disengagement is strong too. Difficult to say much objective about that (though keep an eye on the turnout in the upcoming general election), but I see it from all political persuasions.
Yeah I agree that it is hard to be entirely objective on something as subjective as sense of decline — lord knows I’ve spoken to Dutch natives whom hold an opinion that the country is ‘not what it used to be’. I do get a feel that people, generally, seem less embroiled in a race to the bottom than we do in the UK.
It feels that people in UK have been ground down to a point of ‘ah well, it’s all f*cked and always will be now’ and, as such, people accept things like a £5k bicycle failing multiple times within 2 years.
> Further to that, it generally feels as though the UK is a country massively in decline
To a large extent it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. People expect decline so it happens. It has been happening for a long time - back to the 1960s or so when the UK became the only only country ever (still true) to have a space launch capability and lose it.
That said, IMO the causes of this are widespread across the west. It is evident in the US, and the drift away from competitive free markets, the rise of culture war politics, short termism is business and politics, naivety about the rest of the world (disastrously reflected in foreign policy - Russia being the obvious example) and so on seem to be spreading.
> drift away from competitive free markets, the rise of culture war politics, short termism is business and politics, naivety about the rest of the world (disastrously reflected in foreign policy - Russia being the obvious example) and so on seem to be spreading.
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head here. Especially the naivety about the rest of the world. As someone whom travels to India regularly (my family are there) I have to say, people have no clue about the rate of change happening over there.
In an extremely short space of time (I want to say at most a couple years) I’ve seen what used to be an all day journey from Delhi to Meerut be cut down to a couple hour bus trip through the building of the Delhi - Meerut expressway.
I’ve seen the Delhi metro continue to expand its reach and new expressways begging building (in our home city of Batala a new motorway was recently started to take us to Delhi directly)
Meanwhile the M25 continues to be a massive pothole with indefinite road works that never seem to complete
The west (admittedly this not only a flaw of the west) tends to think its cultural norms, identities and values are human universals.
There is also a tendency to think that the golden age of peace and prosperity the west enjoyed after the end of the cold war is the rather than the exception - it even lead to silly ideas like "the end of history".
Different bike brands, but the same motor is very common in NL as well. Never heard a lot of failures and e-bikes are absolutely everywhere.
One factor may be that in most of the UK biking is done on the road mixed with cars which may have more oil, sooth or other things in the water that gets on the bike, compared to dedicated bike lanes in the Netherlands. A lot of those lanes here aren't just a part of the same road, they're a few meters away from the road.
Another factor may be that there is more of a longer term bike culture, so more people know about simple bike maintenance (spray the chain etc) or have a bike shop around the corner.
You may nog hear it a lot because it's mostly warranty issues and consumer protection is pretty good here so with most issues it'll be handled quickly and under warranty.
I've had pretty much my entire electric drive system replaced under warranty with my first electric bike (admittedly I rode a _lot_ of km with that one.) Then on the second it's been in the shop at least once a month for ~1.5 years. Sure it was all covered by warranty but the amount of hassle did make me reconsider and go back to a regular bike.
Well road condition can do a lot. Most of water that ingress into bike parts do not usually come from the rain directly but being sprayed by the wheels. So in theory well made/designed bike paths shouldn't induce as much dirty water spray as badly maintained roads full of puddles.
Cube is not a very popular brand of ebikes in the Netherlands as far as I'm aware. Definitely not for city bicycles. Gazelle, Batavus, Cortina, Vogue, Azor, but Cube? Not so much.
The bike brand doesn't really matter, the brand of the electrical motor system matters. There are 3 big leaders: Bosch and Shimano on the high end, Bafang on the low end with Brose, Yamaha and a handful of other smaller brands occupying a much smaller fraction of the market.
It does matter since different brands may offer different levels of weather protection. Typically only Dutch bicycle makers care about things like proper mudguards and chain guards, for example. And some, like Azor go crazy and test their parts in a rust chamber.
And, for example, the Cube bicycle as depicted in the article, is clearly not designed to be used in rainy weather. Who knows what else shortcuts they took?
> Typically only Dutch bicycle makers care about things like proper mudguards and chain guards, for example.
That is not true.
It is about class of bikes, not brands. Sure there are brands such as Gazelle who focus pretty much on those characteristics only but there are other brands doing the same all over the world alongside more racy models.
> And, for example, the Cube bicycle as depicted in the article, is clearly not designed to be used in rainy weather
The bike depicted is a mountain bike, so no it hasn't be designed with fender in mind but that doesn't mean Cube or any other non-dutch brand doesn't produce city/trekking/touring bikes.
Having said that, I would expect a mountain bike to be built to survive wet and muddy conditions.
I would say shop culture as well as buyer cultures. A lot of shops in non cycling friendly areas just only keep stock of high margin high end road bikes and MTBs. So it may very well be that the guy in the article photo didn't knew much about bike and was sold an e-MTB because that was what was available and it looked good and unlike those bikes used by grannies and only installed fenders as a second thoughts later when he came back from a commute totally soaked.
They do have a lot of nice trekking models with upright geometry, full mudguards, rack and lights that can be used as a city bike though. Just not so many models with step through frames, aka "Dutch" bicycles.
I don't mean "Dutch" but actually bicycles built for the Dutch market, mostly by Dutch companies. And that means, among other things, bicycles that are excessively robust to avoid regular trips to service, and are built to live outside in the unpredictable and rainy Dutch weather. Cube doesn't come close to even cheaper Dutch brands. Also Cube bicycles are a maintainability nightmare with a lot of incompatible and proprietary parts.
> United Kingdom: Average wind speeds range from 13 to 19 km/h (8 to 12 mph).
> Netherlands: Average wind speeds range from 15 to 20 km/h (9 to 12 mph).
> Yet another case of the British not learning from the Dutch?
This apparently affects Bosch motors. Bosch is a reputable company. Maybe they screwed up on these motors but I don't see how bikes used in the Netherlands, if they're using the same Bosch motors, wouldn't be affected. Especially seen the shitty all year weather we're all "enjoying" in our countries (UK / .nl / .be / .lu etc.). It's been, what, 8 months of rain nearly every day now?
The Netherlands does have a reputation for the best built/maintained roads in Europe. Maybe better drainage, fewer puddles and potholes? Plus flatter terrain, so less overall strain on the motor.
This. Road condition is the key. Most of the water you collect while riding, even with full length fenders, is dirty water sprayed by your and other users tires. The rain itself usually account for very little in comparison.
The article mentions "mountain bikes" several times, which implies the failing bikes aren't ridden on roads at all. The fenders shown on the picture are not the same ones to be used on the road. It's possible we're talking about two completely different types of cycling.
The article provides zero insight beyond anecodes. The fact a a specialist ebike repair company sees lots of broken ebikes tells you practically nothing about the frequency of problems. The anecdote about 5 failures in a warranty period sounds a bit suspicious and if true is probably a combination of bad luck and extreme usage, or possibly a design flaw in a specific bike model. It's also from a forum post from 5 years ago . That said, as a Bosch ebike owner myself, I'd love to see some decent stats on reliability of different systems. Had no problems myself so far and love it.
Good to hear this, since it encourages me to stick with the VanMoof I bought in 2019. Fancier, swishier bikes abound, but the VM just keeps on truckin’
Yeah my VM ES2 from 2019 is still in good condition and riding well. I use it every day.
Shame about the company but a former mechanic from the London shop has started his own repair business so hopefully I'll be riding mine for a few more years to come.
There are labs that test equipment and verify the claimed ratings. It should be simple for the bike or motor manufacturers to upgrade their seals by one IP step. Most suppliers provide a significant range of IP coverage in their catalogs. The price difference is probably small.
The only issue is that any maintenance on the motors has to respect the seals - understand how to disassemble and reassemble without compromising the join.
BLDC motor design also has a conundrum - most of the heat is made in the motor coils, and they can be designed to get up to about 250C, which makes them easy to cool.
However, they are wrapped round thermally conductive steel touching thermally sensitive neodymium magnets which have to stay below ~60C for full performance.
So it isn't simply a matter of getting rid of heat - it's a game of preventing heat transfer.
Weight really isn't such an issue with ebikes. I'm riding around a 62lb clunker, carry a 10lb chain lock everywhere, plus I'm hauling big loads of groceries and other crap. Even an extra 5lbs isn't going to make a big difference, nor would an extra $150 to the purchase price if it means years of added longevity.
The engineering challenges make sense. Hopefully it is something that is being actively R&D'd.
I converted my regular bike with a Tongsheng motor. It probably is of less quality than Bosch, but I like the repairability aspects of this approach. Spare parts, instruction videos, modularity and lower price. It looks a bit uglier but has worked well for me so far, about a year of riding at least once or twice per week.
hmm just an extra data point. I've ridden my 2018 bike in wet Scottish winters, across spring rivers, and summer beaches in summer, and it's been fine.
Are you sure that's not just because it's cadmium plated or packed with other nasties that provided similar benefits? :D
The guy that sometimes services my BMW goes on frequent unprompted rants about how the modern bikes corrode so much more easily, etc etc etc. Not once has he looked into why.
You get this with anything that hasn't been mass-produced at a large scale and commodified for a long time. It's more remarkable that something like a car (or a mobile phone, or a CPU) is cheap than that something like an electric bike motor is expensive. And it could be that this is a poor application for this type of motor technology and that a better type will be developed and that we'll look back on this as an expensive relic that was holding us back.
What is going on with that guy's bike. It is like the Canyonero XL Extreme of bikes. What kind of riding is it suited to? You wouldn't pop down to the grocer in a Unimog, right?
It's hard to guess the use of a bike from its looks. When mountain bikes first appeared, most of the people who bought them intended to ride them on pavement, and perhaps rarely on trails. Likewise most pickup trucks and SUV's are bought for urban passenger use.
At the time, the perception was that mountain bikes were just more rugged and comfortable to ride. There was a not inconsequential amount of marketing hype about the condition of roads, and the roads in some areas were in fact pretty crappy. Just due to market timing, MTB's were also where most people first experienced indexed shifting, which did improve the ease of riding a bike.
In the case of e-bikes, there's a tendency to get "more bike than you really need" because the marginal cost is acceptable and the motor takes care of the added weight. And from a pragmatic standpoint, the difference may also be mostly aesthetic.
It's a regular mountain bike, one of the more offroady kinds — full suspension with generous travel, very nice all-purpose tires (Nobby Nic from Schwalbe), aggressive frame geometry. It is obviously not a commuter bike, but it isn't anything extreme, either.
That seems to be a modified bike, with a head tube extension plus lots of random spacers, and lots of accessories. It's probably used as a very comfortable road/gravel bike.
I notice that we've been seeing a lot of articles here about how e-bikes have motor problems, how EVs don't sell, how EVs have issues, how they "aren't really green", etc, yet we never see any such articles for ICE cars and motorcycles. I wonder why there's such interest in maligning green ways of transportation.
This is only normal and a good thing. Both are adopted as main stream now and they start to age and fail in large numbers, as one would expect. People are disappointed, as one would expect. This will drive the quality up. I don't think there's any intention to malign green transportation. I think there's no return form EVs anymore.
Ebikes are a bit ahead of EVs in certain aspects. They had a quick boom, a lot of new brands came up with different models and designs but now most of them are going bankrupt because the sales are slowing down. The main reason is not people don't buy ebikes anymore, but they already bought one! What I find stupid is there are only 3-4 companies producing motors or electronics for ebikes. These parts, as the article points out, are not sourced to customers for repairs. This has to change for more sustainability.
I hope there's no return from EVs, but this "some ebikes had problems" sort of thing is only useful for maligning ebikes, as it doesn't really do much for either owners or prospective buyers.
It's true about parts, I'd hope that, given how simple ebikes are, there would be a tendency to use easily-replaceable, off-the-shelf components, but I guess companies do want to design custom parts, as that's where they provide value.
Maybe it’s just that ICEs don’t have these issues because the kinks have been sufficiently worked out.
There’s really a lot to criticize about the current state of electric. Flimsy range numbers, build quality from most manufacturers, reliability issues, charging time, hidden costs around outfitting your house, no real solution to the drivetrain having a severely limited shelf life.
I definitely think electric is the future, and I’m glad for it, but they are _not there_ from a “replace ICE wholesale” standpoint. They need more of their kinks worked out. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t continue to work on them or adopt them for their limited efficacy. Most people don’t need all of the benefits ICE cars offer and for them, electric right now is ideal.
Why? Because people click & share those articles (”lol see turns out ebikes generate so much waste I’m way more green taking my F250 to work every day”)
I think it's just because EVs (and PEVs) are relatively new and promising. I recently purchased an electric scooter, and that sort of form factor can be very difficult to fit an ICE into. Not like it can't or hasn't been done, but the instant torque I get from dual hub motors is far superior to any combustion engine.
How do you like the scooter? I have an ICE motorcycle, and I hate how loud and dirty it is. I'd like an electric one, but they're very expensive, and with electric scooters/ebikes I worry that they'll get stolen (as with a good bike).
Good e-scooters / e-bikes can be had for only $1-2k, in my limited experience. Not sure what the typical cost for a motorcycle is, but I'd be surprised if it's too much less than that.
I started with a $900 Segway Ninebot MAX G2 (1×1000W) a couple weeks ago, but it didn't have enough power for my needs. Even in sport mode, it would stall on some pretty slight inclines. So I picked up an $1800 Maxfun 10 PRO (2×1500W), just a couple days ago, actually.
I do like the added speed and hill climbing ability, but the compromise in features and build quality is astonishing. The Ninebot is so, so much better. If only the motor were three or four times more powerful...
As for it getting stolen, with a scooter (as opposed to a bike or motorcycle) I've so far had a 100% success rate just bringing it with me through the door. Serious. Nobody bats an eye at me bringing my scooter into the pharmacy, any number of fast food places, grocery stores, etc. Not super easy or likely for someone to steal the scooter from right next to me.
YMMV with that, depending on how friendly your area is to PEVs, but everyone here seems cool with it. It's honestly great. Not only that, but I can store it inside my house when it's not being used, to charge it, work on it, and protect it from the weather.
The Ninebot can only be locked with an app over Bluetooth, while the Maxfun can be locked with an NFC key (I far prefer this). But you can also of course use a normal bike lock as well if you ever have to let it out of your sight.
Anyway, I love the scooter. It's had some issues but it mostly came down to me popping the tire on the first day by making it eat a curb (oops). Somehow, the scooter managed not to care whatsoever. No trip, no fall, no damage to the frame or suspension, only the inner tube which was easy to replace once I got back home. Good as new now.
If you do ever get an electric scooter, it will probably take an hour or two to learn proper weight transfer, but it's extremely easy.
Note: if you get an electric scooter, it's extremely important to check your local laws first. Electric bikes usually have laws that are fairly self-consistent and useful, because they are essentially the poster child for PEVs. Electric scooters, however, often have laws that are unnecessarily restricting or even entirely contradictory, because all of the work that has been put into electric bike laws has entirely overlooked the existence of electric scooters, leaving them in often very precarious positions. Any laws that have exceptions for electric bikes will most likely not have any exception for electric scooters. For example, in my local area electric bikes are allowed on sidewalks in parks and electric scooters are not, despite the scooter being far smaller and less obnoxious than any bike.
Thanks for the detail! I suspect our use cases are different, though: I use my bicycle and motorcycle for different use cases, the former to transport myself, the latter for myself and another passenger. For going places, I prefer the bicycle, as you get free exercise as a bonus. For going somewhere with someone else, or going far, I'll need something closer to the motorcycle form factor, which necessarily will have to be much more expensive and elaborate.
I'm glad to see that e-bikes have become so good, though. My use case is very niche, because I live right at one end of a bike lane that spans the entire city, so going to any of the busy areas is just biking next to the sea, on a level road, for max half an hour, which isn't really hard enough to warrant an e-bike...
I can't really offer advice on how good e-bikes are, but I can say the costs have come down, yes.
Our use cases are definitely different. If you want a replacement for the motorcycle to carry another passenger, you probably won't be able to use a scooter. You could grab something like the XPedition Cargo eBike which can carry a passenger. It's got a 750W motor and weighs only about 70lbs when unloaded. It's only $1400 and there is a one-year warranty on the motor. However, they do not sell replacement motors even if you have money, so expect the bike to last only the one year. (In my experience, regardless of industry, the length of the warranty is usually a relatively accurate indicator of how long the product actually lasts in practice.)
Huh, that looks very interesting, thank you! The motor not being available to buy separately is a concern, but I'll evaluate my risk profile on this, thanks again!
If you want more options, Reddit's one of the best places to find organic product recommendations from real users. It's also where people go to complain whenever they get screwed over. Reddit's where I found someone recommending the XPedition, so both treat my recommendation with the appropriate level of salt, and also feel free to make the same search I did to find more options to evaluate.
It's kind of annoying that the web is so bad that reddit is the best place to get recommendations, but you're right, that's where I do all my research nowadays. I'll look there, thanks!
Because ICE continue to sell well, because most serious makes have sorted most issues (a cheap car having issues isn't news for anybody), everybody knows ICE isn't green, etc...
Another proof that conspiracy theories aren't exclusive to the right, try some of Occam's razor.
If you think that "companies will promote articles that malign competing products" and "9/11 was an inside job" are the same level of conspiracy theory, I don't think any fruitful conversation can result.
> ITV News investigations have found there is a "growing problem with severe mould and damp" throughout the UK, with councils often not dealing with residents' complaints.
> Damp problems affect around six per cent of homes in London with serious condensation being the most common form.
>
Damp and mould were responsible for almost a third (28 per cent) of category one hazards in London councils, more than twice the proportion seen across England as a whole.
I’ve been doing a bit of (non e-bike) riding in poor weather of late, and it’s really surprising just how wet and dirty everything gets. After a wet road ride, every surface is covered in black, greasy dirt. It rots fabric, makes grinding paste in mechanical parts and generally makes everything worse. You need really good seals to keep that crap out.
I never see them in the US outside of city bike share programs, but I feel like most casual bike users would be better served by internal gear hubs and similar closed systems. The maintenance is minimal, outside of dropping some oil in every year.
But for some reason, every bike in a bike shop, including the most casual upright bike, has a finicky derailleur.
So instead we’re doomed to a life of misaligned derailleurs and bent derailleur hangers.
You're glossing over the fact that internal gear hub transmissions easily cost in the hundreds, whereas you can get a derailleur for a tenner or so. I've owned a number of bikes in my life and all of them have been cheaper than the transmission you suggest everyone should use.
There's a lot of range in internally-geared hubs though, from the crazy end with the $1500 Rohloff 14sp to the $80 Sturmey-Archer 3sp. I commute on a Shimano Alfine 11sp that's ~$200 which isn't exactly "a tenner" but if you add up the price of a derailleur, cassette, chainrings, etc. I don't think it's much different?
One of the really weird things with bikes is that entry level bikes tend to be 3x7 which means that you have a lot of extra weight and complexity (a second shifter, shift cable, and front gears) for pretty much no benefit over a 1x9 system.
The biggest reason we use 3x8 on all our bikes is because the spare parts are cheaper than all other ratios and we can switch around as we like between all bikes and can even keep some spare parts on the shelf for when the local stores are out. The first thing to go on my bike is the deraileur though, they keep a year or so even if taken care of. They can still be used a couple of years but the shifting isn't so exact as I would like it. The sport I do is very gear-shifting intense due to lots of stopping so I guess that eats away ant that poor thing. And I do buy the cheapest ones I can find for around 10-15 euro.
Ofcourse it is, I even said so :-) But my wife and kid has the same ones and they can go much longer since they don't stop/start so much as I do.
It's much easier to manage tension on 3x7 over 1x9
Customer benefit: Longevity. 3x7 chains and cassette last wayyy longer than 1x9 (and usually have a bigger ratio). 9s cassettes are not wider than 7s but instead each gears and spaces are narrower. The chain then need to be thinner resulting in faster elongation (=wearing).
Single speed and 3s chains last 5000km easily while 12/13s won’t last much more than 1000km.
i’d wager this becomes increasingly less likely. everything that isn’t the cheapest is 1x or 2x these days.
in some number of years, 3x parts will become less available and less common on cheap bikes.
Well, 21 is like 12 better than 9, you see… (it’s frustrating how well stuff like that works).
A bottom bracket mounted Pinion C.12 transmission runs 12 gears (grip shift) and over 600% ratio from gear 1 to gear 12. I bought a reasonably priced Priority 600x mountain bike (now replaced by two newer models) with this system. No derailleur, no chain, no lube. Two cogs/sprockets, one at the pedals, one on the back wheel. A carbon fiber belt drive. Not an e-bike. Easy to maintain. The extra cost is worth it avoiding the hassle.
Drawback is of course way worse drivetrain efficiency, but for a all weather bike it seems awesome
This is one area where I've found that paying for quality up front can be a cost saving and certainly a time saver.
We have lots of bikes and have gone through even more (bought & sold). The most reliable drivetrain on any of them just turned 20 (2004 model). It was the highest end Shimano XT-R at the time. It is easy to align, always stays in alignment, all in all takes very little attention and always shifts perfectly.
The bikes with cheaper drivetrains are a lot fuzzier and take more frequent attention and even when freshly aligned don't quite shift as nicely.
The absolute worst is the cheapest one (a department store bike my partner insisted on buying as an exercise bike). It simply can't be aligned well no matter how many hours spent. When I get it to a good-enough state, it's misaligned after a few weeks. The amount of time wasted on that thing would easily buy at least an Ultegra set to replace it.
An internal transmission hub replaces a hub, cassette, and derailleur and starts at less than $100 for the whole kit.
A derailleur can cost $10, but it won’t be nearly as durable. Buying a high quality one is gonna cost in the same neighborhood as $100.
I'm not really seeing the argument. I've never had a derailleur break, if anything, this sounds like some supreme yak shaving. Granted, I don't ride bikes for a living, but I ride a bike every day and durability isn't even remotely as big of an issue as you make it out to be.
I have broken derailleurs, and I’ve also had them bumped out of adjustment and damaged at bike racks.
Switching is probably a bit of an unecessary faff. But if you want a drivetrain that can be ignored or neglected and never complain, an internal gear is really great.
For a commuter bike it also allows you to fully cover the chain and chainring if you want.
Once the bike is dropped drive-side and the derailleur hanger is bent, all it takes is a normal ride to catch the derailleur in the spokes and you get a very expensive repair.
Have you ever rode a bike with a $10 derailleur for a long time? I'm guessing there are differences in part durability
I have. The welding that held the handlebars in place was the first to go, twice.
A derailleur makes it a lot easier to maintain correct chain tension. Fixing a rear flat by the side of the road is more of a hassle with an internal transmission hub (or a fixie).
I’d argue fixing a flat on a IGH or fixed gear/single speed is easier than a geared bike. Hardest thing about a single speed is needing the proper tool to remove the axle nuts, but after that take the chain off the cog and the wheel will slip right out, just as easy to put back in, just reverse the process. Getting chain tension can be tricky, but tighten the drive side bolt first at the point the chainline has about a centimeter of mesial play and once you tighten the other bolt the chain line should be spot on.
Where a geared bike with a derailleur will need you to put the bike in the smallest gear, and untangle the chain from the cassette. Replacing the wheel back in requires the chain to be properly laced around the cassette and can require dexterity.
Unfortunately derailleurs are necessary to ensure chain tension when the bicycle frame isn’t designed the allow for manual chain tensioning (vertical dropouts).
Also, run tubeless and flats will feel like a thing of the past.
Your description of the way of fixing a flat on a fixed gear sound much more work than the deraileur way. You disengage the handbrake if you have rim-brakes, open the quick-release for the wheel, bend the deraileur outwards a bit and just lift the wheel out. The gear is already at a low gear (does not have to be smallest) since you just got a flat. Reinstall by moving the casette back inbetween the chain on the same cog and just drop it down and flip the quickrelease back to locked. Connect the brake again if you have rimbrakes. No need to fix chain tension.
I guess it all depends on what you are used to do. I had soooo many flats last year when the spikes started eating through my one year old schwalbe wintertires. 220 spikes makes 220 holes. Had to give up on fixing the holes and change innertube until I could get new tires. Not schwalbe this time. Don't think tubeless would do any difference here though, see enough people get flats with those too and as someone else stated, the glue can get pretty messy.
Tubeless sucks. I've seen several cyclists on group rides running tubeless tires have flats that couldn't be fixed at all, or required installing a tube to get home. Maybe it works well enough for mountain bikes but for road bikes the tubeless tires seem too weak.
Anyone running tubeless who doesn't also bring a tube or two in their underseat bag is not doing it right.
Having a properly packed underseat bag is essential to any long ride.
Also I have never run tubeless at 25mm. Most folks I see running tubeless have 28mm at the smallest.
Unfortunately all IGHs are not created equal. Removing a back wheel with a Shimano Nexus with a coast break is a lot harder than removing a back wheel with a Rohloff.
It’s not difficult at all, just release the clickbox, unscrew two axle nuts, unscrew the brake arm. If you have any chain tensioners, slightly unscrew each the same amount.
Tubeless is a right pain when the hole is large or otherwise unplugged by the sealant.
The geyser of glue makes a hell of a mess too. I went back to inner tubes.
Same
What kind of derailleur can one get for $10?
Looking at jensonusa, the cheapest rear derailleur is a Shimano Altus 7/8 speed for $22.
That's kind of true, but it isn't the right comparison. The gear hub isn't just a replacement for the derailleur, but also all your gears, and has a simpler axle. The IGH is still a bit more expensive (~$200 vs $80 for a not completely bottom of the line derailleur based system), but it also requires a lot less maintenance to keep working well.
Getting rid of the external gears also allows you to use a fixed chain guard. Less pants with a hole chewed in one leg = profit.
You can even use a completely enclosed chain guard. You see them quite often in the Netherlands and will keep your chain out of the rain and dust, this lowers maintenance cost and lifetime significantly.
The only problem is, is that this kind of guard typically is quite susceptible to damage if the bike falls or when you hit something.
Otherwise it is in many ways superior to a belt. Belts are inherently inefficient compared to chains.
Why are belts inherently inefficient compared to a chain?
Belts have slightly higher friction. Although I'd argue that the convenience is worth the loss in efficiency for most non-competitive cyclists.
My bike, with a Sturmey Archer three-speed, cost £160 (from a very reputable shop that services pretty much everything for free or only charges for parts). It is perfectly good for commuting and hobby rides up to at least 50 miles—and I say this as someone rather out of shape.
If in a dry climate, a derailleur transmission can last a long time and will be cheap to maintain. But once a person starts replacing quality components with like quality, especially in a wet climate, a derailleur transmission can be expensive over 10 years.
The set of my experience is { Shimano: [ $various_derailleurs, Nexus 3, Nexus 7, Alfine 11 ] , Rohloff: [14 speed], Other: [rear-hub e-bike] }
$various_derailleurs -- fussy to maintain, cheap to replace but costly over 10 years
Nexus 3 -- rubbish
Nexus 7 -- not bad for modest bicycling
Alfine 11 -- zero maintenance, excellent performance, cheaper over 10 years than $various_derailleurs
Rohloff -- low maintenance, expensive, built to last, and 14 speeds! But heavy and 10% efficiency loss.
e-bike -- reliable, fast and fun, but zero exercise and in the range of a Rohloff for cost
In short, I think an e-bike in 2024 is brilliant for single-mode commuting. The technology is reliable and performant... but heavy.
An Alfine 11 or Rohloff is bliss for multi-modal commuting (assuming 16" or 20" wheels).
From your comparison it may seem that Rohloff is worse than Alfine 11. But it is actually lighter and more efficient. Plus it has wider gear range and equal range jumps between each gear
> e-bike -- reliable, fast and fun, but zero exercise
I disagree on the last point, I can turn the motor up or down, or all the way off, based on how much of a workout I want to get.
Also the only reason I'm willing to bike around my hilly city (Seattle) is because I have an ebike.
To put it another way, across 3 or 4 blocks I have around a 100 meter incline on the way to a park.
Can experienced bicyclists who are in good shape pull that off? With a kid on the back of their bike? Sure. But an ebike lets me turn turn the motor on for that part, and turn it off when I'm not doing something as difficult.
Why is the Nexus 3 rubbish?
Poor durability. In addition, the gear range is suitable only for short, low-effort rides. I used one for city commuting until it simply failed mechanically. In sum, the Nexus 3 is not in any way better for ownership than a working derailleur transmission. For a rental, there may be some value proposition.
The Nexus 7 proved reliable; the Alfine 11 a good value for durability and range of speeds; the Rohloff is brilliant but yes, those 14 speeds are expensive.
The choice depends on the rider's needs. I'd rather ride an IGH bicycle for the reliability and value over 10 years of riding. I'm not sure that an indifferent/infrequent bicycle user (the sort who lets things rust and never checks tire pressure) would care.
For the purpose of long commutes it's possible to buy an entire e-bike in 2024 for less than the price of a Rohloff hub alone.
The Alfine 11 and the Rohloff are brilliant. The Rohloff is a joy to use on all types of terrain. Instant shifts without fuss.
It isn't. It's good enough for small hills and requires very little maintenance or adjustment. And it's cheap.
They are always sold with wrong sprockets. The high gear is never usable. Number 2 gear is connected directly, and so it should be the default on no-wind flat road. Then it lasts forever on flat country like holland.
I have 420 mm folding bike with Nexus-3. The correct ratio is less than 2:1, which meant changing both sprockets to smallest and largest available. I do not even know what to do with 622 mm wheels.
Mountain bikers run on "finicky" derailleurs over rocks and through wet mud and sand all day. They are unbelievably reliable. With the modern 1x10 or even 1x12 systems, you get enough range to remove the front shifter, reducing maintenance even more, remove almost all sources of jumping chain and allows fitting chain guard with better coverage.
SRAM has a famous video where they lay the bike sideways and jump on the derailleur while shifting, without it bending. Admittedly that model is out of price range for most riders.
Ideally you should give the chain a quick rinse and brush of to prevent grime from accumulating. Sure, the internal gears are a bit easier in that regard, because you don't need to get into the cassette. Otherwise from a reliability standpoint they should take equal beating. The cleaning frequency depends a lot on the oil you use also, wet lube will accumulate more grime than dry.
Still cleaning regularly is a lot of work (been there) and most people here never clean it, resulting in unreliable shifting and non-smooth cycling. Most people are better served by an internal hub and belt drive. Almost no maintenance (just bring it to a bike shop yearly to get it tuned up again).
Internal hubs are common in places where biking is common - ie. Amsterdam.
Derailleur's just seem to be far cheaper, I suspect because most of their parts can be made from stamped steel, whereas most parts of an internal gearbox must be CNC machined and face hardened.
Deraillers are a bit more efficient (almost no loss) and overall simpler to work on. They also (generally) offer a wider range of geear ratios.
Internal hubs work great, but have a bit more loss, tend to weigh more, and when they start going sideways tend to go really wrong. But for the commuter-y / daily use like what you mention they tend to last and be more weather resistant.
Because of all of this they haven't found a place in much hobby/fitness mountain or road biking, but are really great for less hilly utilitarian needs.
Derailleurs have, on average, 2% lower loss than hub gears, when new.
However, many suggest that because hub gears usually have an enclosed chain, whereas derailleurs rarely have an enclosed chain, that 2% is usually eclipsed by chain losses as the chain gets dirty/rusty/worn far faster on derailleurs.
> Internal hubs are common in places where biking is common - ie. Amsterdam.
And by sheer coincidence, the popularity of bicycles and internal hubs coincides with having extremely flat terrain.
Internal hubs now can have just as much range of ratios as derailleur's.
They also have the benefit they can change gear while stationary (very handy for traffic lights etc)
Historical (ie. 1960's) internal hubs only had 3 gears, so what you say might have led to market dominance.
Only the expensive ones have the range and you can buy a complete entry level bike for the price of a decent one. They are still heavy and have more than noticeable drag.
> SRAM has a famous video
I presume you don’t mean the Bauke Mollema one?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Tsk3zAZyLaQ
Wet mud and sand is far easier to clean than the thick black tar that accumulates on road bike chains. Tire and tarmac dust is nasty.
The maintenance is minimal but repair is much more expensive. Not even talking about the gearbox itself. Consider a damaged rear rim - you'd need to re-lace a new wheel on your expensive hub, which is a lot of labor even for a bike mechanic at $25/h. And repairing the gearbox itself is not something the aforementioned bike mechanic can do at all. Even diagnosing issues with it is an endeavor. On a derailleur system everything is in the open, problems are obvious and parts are cheap and easily replaceable.
Also, for the low end the price is prohibitive: there is a firm (Priority) selling relatively cheap, casual belt driven bikes in NYC, which, I figure is quite flat, but the gear ratios on the cheap ones are not good enough for someplace hilly. And for the high end the weight is insane. One does not need to be a "weight weenie" to feel a ~2Kg hub spinning with the wheel.
I've got a couple of 1960s Sturmey-Archer AW hubs (on modern rims) in the family fleet, and I like them a lot. They're virtually maintenance free. One was run completely dry and filled with powdery rust when I got it. After cleaning and lubrication, it's given me thousands of trouble-free miles.
I consider 3 speeds to be the sweet spot for capturing the advantages of an IGH without an exponential increase in cost. In technical terms, a 3x only needs a single planetary unit, and shifting is simplistic.
But it's going to be a tough sell in the US. Derailleur systems have actually improved a lot since I've been riding bikes (50+ years). Indexed shifting really works. Even low-end Shimano systems last a long time with minimal maintenance. There are maybe a dozen bikes among my family members, and derailleur problems are quite rare.
I mostly agree - it’s just that every flat I ever got was the read wheel and it’s was a complete nightmare keeping the chain tension right.
When it was working, it was a thing of beauty.
> But for some reason, every bike in a bike shop, including the most casual upright bike, has a finicky derailleur.
The cost difference alone is extreme enough to explain why you don’t see internal gear hub bikes everywhere. Even if you did have them on the showroom floor, those casual bike riders wouldn’t be buying them much due to the price.
You’re also underestimating the reliability of a modern derailleur system. As long as you’re not buying the absolute cheapest, no-name system, they’re actually quite reliable. The technology has come a long way.
Practically, all the "all weather" bike commuters I know do a yearly maintenance at best and that is it. It is not that finnicky, actually, unless you aim for maximum performance or do hardcore mountain biking (those do maintenance after each ride).
It is dirty after rain, but they still just leave it at that.
Bikes are all about efficiency since you don't use any energy but your own. Things change a bit nowadays with e-bikes.
When it comes to efficiency, internal gear hubs sadly aren't yet in the range of a rear derailleur.
https://fahrradzukunft.de/17/wirkungsgradmessungen-an-nabens...
A dirty rear derailleur of course also reduces the drive train's efficiency by a lot - which can be solved by cleaning the chain every other month.
When moving towards belt drives, you need a very stiff frame which can be opened/split in the back to fit the belt. These frames are more expensive to produce which will furthermore increase the overall bike's price.
Ideally, we all train our legs to be able to handle a single speed setup ;-)
You don't NEED an opened/split frame for a belt. There are so many ways to solve this problem.
You know what bike lasts forever? Friction shift. I first noticed this in college. There would be new bikes and then really old bikes that had friction shifters. Hardly any maybe 10-20 year old bikes interestingly. All you really need to do for friction shift bikes are tires brakes and lube. You don’t really need to fuss with adjusting the derailer since theres no indexing you just move it with your lever until its in gear, wherever that may be. Plus you can get an entire friction shift bike in working order for like $50 sometimes.
I think the finicky part is the indexing system, the old friction shifters were way more reliable. On an indexing shifter any knock on the rear mech can bend the hanger and mess up the shifting and it can't be adjusted without straightening the hanger. A good indicator of a bent derailleur hanger is that adjusting works on one part of the cassette but than causes issues on the other end. On a friction shifter it doesn't matter, you can always make adjustments by hand. Internal hubs are heavy, drag like mud and usually require twist shifters.
An internal hub and a gates belt really reduces the amount of maintenance needed to keep your bike running well. The belt avoids most of the chain issues and doesn't need a properly lubed chain to function and moving the gears inside reduces the contamination that cogs get exposed to.
derailleurs are easy to adjust once you understand how. 99% of the time you only need the high and low limit adjustments.
decent bikes derailleur hangers.
they’re simple and they work reliably enough. why do we need something more complicated?
building a touring bike for remote areas? reliability wins, internal transmission and belt drive sounds smart.
otherwise, your money is better spent on nicer brakes, lighter weight wheels, nice hubs, etc.
I’ve been commuting weekdays on a bike with ‘finicky derailleurs for 30 years. Probably had problems with them twice.
I've had complete opposite experiences, there is issues with the derailleurs constantly. Switching to internal gears and a belt instead of a chain has made commuting a much better experience and may in some cases actually cheaper in the long run when you factor in the saved maintenance time and costs.
Privately-owned ebikes are enormously popular in Chicago and surrounding suburbs fwiw.
The black greasy dirt is an emulsion of worn tyre particles, sandy powdered dirt and maybe a little spilt fuel. It's probably toxic - the pollution from tyre wear is underestimated.
In the tire industry we are well aware that carbon and pollution from grinding synthetic rubber into dust all day everyday is a HUGE problem, that is why we spend millions on promoting "green" rubber and natural products that we don't actually use but make a big deal about to distract people.
The biggest problem for tire companies is keeping the truth quiet about how we are on of the largest polluters.
There is also a lot of metal (random pieces along with nails and screws) and glass on roads. It seems roading contractors here are obligated to pour a box of screws onto the road before they move onto the next job.
P.S. ... and brake, clutch particles too:
https://theconversation.com/air-pollution-from-brake-dust-ma...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4315878/
As a biker, cyclist, skater, and ebiker, I’ve settled about various wax-like sprays to keep crap off and out. ACF-50 for the motorbike, various protective wax sprays for the bicycles, Vaseline for skate bearings.
Any brands for the bike sprays?
Sure, the one I use right now is a German spray: https://www.weicon.de/en/corro-protection-wax-like-corrosion...
YMMV
Boeshield T9
Cyclon, for example
(Note, I don't have an eBike.)
Friends will sometimes give me crap for not riding in poor weather, but whether it's mountain bike, road, or gravel, riding in wet/muddy conditions just result in so much work.
The bike itself gets really dirty, it gets into EVERYTHING. Wear on brake pads and drivetrain are accelerated. Stuff doesn't work right. Post-ride it requires so much cleanup that it can take just as long as the ride did.
Sure, I'll get caught out sometimes, but I really don't like starting out in poor conditions because it's just so much work to get things back to right and can potentially cost quite a bit. I'll usually just skip riding these days.
Not to joke too hard but how long do you ride usually? To me a solid post ride cleanup takes 10mins tops. Thousands of miles on my dirty moutain bike and stuff still works right. Sure I replace parts that wear but seems insignificant.
Yes I am very confused by that statement as well. After rides on muddy trails I just hose my bike down, pat the metal parts dry and apply grease to relevant parts.
Any city bike worth its salt will have a chain case and long inverted U-shaped fenders that will redirect dirty spray away from you.
You won’t get off completely clean but maybe 99% clean?
Maybe OP just has really cheap bikes.
Nope, I'm talking about riding fairly high end gravel bikes on Southeast Michigan (US) dirt roads on which the surface has been treated with a chloride spray which acts as a binder and water repellent for the road surface. The treatment keeps light rain from saturating the road surface, which keeps the road nice for longer.
If it's been wet enough for the surface to get soft and sloppy, once this flings up on a bike it dries hard. This material requires a solid soaking on the bike to get it to soften before it can be cleaned off, and it also is highly corrosive to metal due to the salt content. (Unless it's had time to soak in water runs off of it.) So it takes a fair bit of time and effort, and it's pretty much required that, you get it off of all metal parts including chain, cassette, rotors, bolts, etc. Depending on the ride I've also had to pull the fork because enough has flung up into the lower headset bearing that it'll be problematic if left alone.
By design it doesn't just rinse off, so time and a lot of water and a brush with soap (typically dish soap) and a rag is needed to get it clean and back to a sane state. And sometimes disassembly.
I'm mostly thinking of dirt roads which have been treated with a chloride spray. And I'm being a wee bit hyperbolic with the cleanup time, but an hour ride can result in an hour+ of cleanup if I need to get the (corrosive) chloride gunk out of all the bits around brake rotors, in the cassette, and all the little spaces around the crank arms.
We have a lot of very sandy soil around here as well, so if it's really wet the dirt absolutely tears up brake pads.
(That's a worst case.)
A particularly pointed example is the Iceman Cometh Challenge bike race. It's 2-3 hours for most people, but after the bad-conditions years it was common for folks to be replacing brake pads, jockey wheels, and aluminum chainrings. Plus the added suspension seal wear because for most of the event the seals were working hard clearing gunk from the stanchions.
EDIT: Or Barry-Roubaix, a gravel race in Southwest Michigan (US) that's on similar roads. Typically a 2 hour race for the most popular distance, but on some of the wet years it absolutely trashed bikes due to all the abrasive muck being thrown around.
This is one reason I wish belt drives where more common.
It's not hard to find e-bikes with belt drives. Honestly, I think they'll take over the e-bikes market within 10 years or so (I think there are still some outstanding patents?). More expensive and slightly less efficient than a chain, but both of those are probably negligible for the context of e-bikes, and in exchange you never get grease on your pant leg, you never need to lube anything, you never need to worry about a derailleur needing to have its gears realigned or having the chain jump out (of course you could have an internally-geared chain bike).
Motorbikes still overwhelmingly use chains, not sure why but there must be a good reason
Belts are not suitable for passing lots of torque. This is why cvt are not that popular outside of small-ish cars.
Harley Davidson, among others, uses belts. Torque isn't the issue in the context of m/c final drive. Chains are a tad more efficient, which hp obsessed customers fuzz about.
Probably the most interesting, cost-effective one I know of: https://lectricebikes.com/products/lectric-one-ebike
I have a lectric and the build quality is terrible. Had to deal with:
- a bent frame out of the box - a recall due to defective brakes - lights not secured properly - loose fender after less than 100km - a derailleur that refuses to allow use of all gears- no matter how adjusted it is unable to use either the lowest or highest
Yep. I have a single speed e bike with a belt drive and internal motor in the back wheel. Use it for commuting round London. 0 maintenance. None of this over engineered Bosch shit. Cheap Chinese 250w motor in the back, belt drive, aluminium frame. These should take off, but so far the major bike manufacturers have overcomplicated the category - and the startup that made mine has gone under (analog motion)
I feel like oil and those sorts of things would be even worse on a belt?
Most belt drives are run dry so the oil doesn’t attract dirt in the same way
My belt drive bike is dry, no lube at all. They advise you to wash it off with a hose if it gets dirty.
But the Shimano/Sram cartel really want to keep the chain/derailleur cash cow alive.
The cycling industry and trends are based on processional racing and a chain/derailleur is going to maintain significantly more power transfer at that level than a belt drive or internally geared hub.
If Shimano/Sram cared about building top-shelf commuter drivetrains (Shimano has Alfine) they could easily purchase Gates or build a competing company.
Belt drive is a fixed ratio system. It’s not comparable to a derailleur which has a wide range of gear ratios.
Apples and oranges. One doesn’t swap for the other. It’s not an industry conspiracy.
Belt drives are often used with an internally-geared hub, so the system as a whole still has gears.
Do you have full mudguards/fenders?
No, and this would help. While it’s commuting, I’m taking a route 3-4x longer than I need and picking off PRs. The fender helped a little, but was also finicky and I didn’t get a lot of value from it.
Your point is correct - some better gear would help.
Fenders needs to be big and cover all the way down to the ground back and front. Small fenders help with the worst, but good fenders are really worth it.
To this point, and especially for certain classes of bikes (fat tire ebikes, for example),
not selling it full-fendered is just an insult to your customer.
After a ride in foul weather I pour a kettle of boiling water on the drivetrain, brakes, and rims, let it dry off inside, then re-lubricate. Always works like a charm.
Use mudguards, chain guard and coat guards.
Any recommendations? I had guards and found they rattled, slowed me and were less effective than what I wanted.
Honjo or Velo Orange. Aluminum, come in a bunch of sizes, depending on the frame/tires you’re using.
You still might need additional mudflaps on the front to keep the spray off the bottom bracket and rear for others rig is with you.
SKS (also known as ESGE or Blumels) "chromoplast" full fenders have always worked well for me. There are fancier (sometimes metal) fenders, but they tend to rattle, like you say.
This one is cheap and light and works great on various bikes but on a 29er:
https://a.aliexpress.com/_Eu2mwYj
Link is broken, but my curiosity is piqued.
Link worked for me, the item description is "Rrskit Bicycle Fender Ultra Light Foldable Bicycle Mudguard"
For chain and coat guards: Hesling. Plastic or cloth, they're equally reliable. For mudguards, basically anything aluminium from any Dutch maker. If you can get Azor, they're especially high-quality.
The guards aren't properly mounted (or perhaps lack sufficient rigidity & mounting points) if they are rattling and rubbing.
It's worth it to invest in good guards to keep the mud off your bike!
If it's a Chinese e-bike, it's probably lying about being IPX67.
OTOH, Riese & Müller $15k USD e-bikes aren't IPX anything because the Bosch components aren't. If you get it wet, just kiss that money goodbye. Absolutely bonkers.
Huh, that’s not my experience. My wife rides to work on her R&M e-bike, every working day, all year round, in sun, rain or snow. Daily distance is about 40km (25 miles), two hours back and forth. Not a single major problem caused by water in more than 5 years.
They don't mention any specific IPX rating, however they claim it's "rain resistant".
https://www.r-m.de/en-us/service/faq/
Yes. You can use the system in the rain without any concerns. It is protected against rain and splashes, but not against riding through rivers when the motor is submerged in water.
Equivalent of about IPX54. To me, this means it's not really waterproof (IPX?7) should it fall a puddle when it rains. Never spray it with a garden hose or pressure washer while washing. And, it's really a gamble to take it in the rain. Plus, like cell phones, they tend to lose IPX protection when repaired because of customary sloppy repair jobs that fail to restore gaskets.
I think it really pays to go with an e-bike from an actual bicycle company. The Trek TQ system for example is submersible (IP67) and has a 2-year warranty, same as Bosch.
Is IP67 safe to wash like a car? Soapy sponge and reasonable hose pressure (not pressure washer) spray?
IP67 means "completely dust proof and submersible up to 1 meter". You can safely hose it down to clean it, pressure washers are probably a bit much.
There's actually bespoke pressure washer codes for the IP system, suffixing with a K
https://www.polycase.com/techtalk/waterproof-electronic-encl...
That said even ip66 is supposed to be resistant to 'jets' of water, like ~hose pressure.
Also, fwiw, I've never seen these used on prebuilt ebike components.
Is it safe to generalize like that? IP67 is a certification criteria that says that it must withstand conditions for certain amount of time during the test. But it doesn't say anything about doing it twice or how long you must wait between tries. For electronics it sometimes achieved by gel that can hold liquid for 30 min before water penetrates. It may eventually get dry again, but that is not covered by certification. Another point is that testing is done in distilled water, any impurities like oils can increase its penetrating ability and reduce the time. To me it looks like it's all down to actual manufacturer and item. IP rating is better than "splashproof" but still very vague.
$15K ???
I’m just checking their website. If you buy a “Culture Touring” e-bike from Riese & Müller you pay about €4K.
That is still a lot of money. But not nearly as much as $15K.
Link: https://www.r-m.de/nl/bikes/culture/
That's your costs where you are. That's not what they cost where I am. https://electricavenuebike.com/store/riese-muller-load-75-ro...
Yes. I was trying to make a point an out absurt price differentiation based on location.
Buy lots there and arbitrage them here. ;) (Might not work because of the warranty arrangements.)
Also, it appears a subset of Americans have way, way too much money and are begging to be relieved of this burden.
I’m glad you wrote this. I have one of these, and I love it, but haven’t ridden it in the rain. Now I won’t. I thought it might be okay because, as you pointed out, it definitely wasn’t cheap.
Here in Switzerland they rent them out (carvelo2go) and they seem to be doing just fine in (rainy) Switzerland.
Serious question, why would a person spend that kind of money on an ebike? An entry-level motorcycle is less than half that. What benefit does the bike get you that a motorcycle doesn't?
One example among many:
https://powersports.honda.com/motorcycle/cruiser/rebel-500
Convenience and sense of freedom. No license required, can lend it to friends or kids. Can be parked anywhere. Can be loaded on a car, ferry and some places even the metro. Can ride them on bike lanes, the forest and the sidewalk. More approachable diy maintenance. Don't need full leather protection, just a helmet and t-shirt and you are good to go. If you are only traveling max 30km within the town, you don't need anything faster.
Bigger isn't always better.
> Can be parked anywhere
Jesus I wouldn't park a $15k bike anywhere...
This is hard to believe but if true it's insane. The claim is, 2 million bikes are stolen in the USA every year.
https://cyclingindustry.news/bicycle-theft-surpasses-2-milli...
Some bicyclists in Palo Alto do, probably because they can't take their Ferrari's with them. A former business partner had a ~$8k bicycle stolen from Castro St. downtown in a very public area. All it takes to steal is 30 seconds and a battery-powered angle grinder. If someone doesn't have Tile, AirTag, and a GPS tracker on such a bike, then they're an idiot.
You took the Most expensive example to make your Point.
Who even owns a 15k bike? 0.0001 % of the population?
Did you actually read this thread? We're specifically talking about a $15k ebike.
Anywhere, including indoors :)
If you're afraid of it getting stolen you can buy insurance.
"Hi, I'd like to insure my $15k ebike. How many times has it been stolen you ask? Oh only a few. Half a dozen at most. Hello? Is anyone there?"
Hahaha. I hope a precondition to any bicycle theft includes requires 1 or more tracking devices and not transiting anywhere near a major metropolitan area or any city area with a drug problem.
Serious answer: they are lighter, quieter, go slower, handle differently, and have access to different infrastructure.
The lighter and slower bit may sound glib, but it makes a huge difference to what it feels like to ride them and to have them ridden around you.
a Riese and Muller is not a light bike
It's a heavy bike, but a very light motorcycle, which is the point
I'm curious too when bikes became that expensive. I just recently started looking for a new bike. Every major bike brand (Specialized, Trek, Cannondale, Orbea, Canyon, Santa Cruz, etc...) all sell bikes between $4000 an $18000! That's regardless of whether they are e-bikes or non-e-bikes.
When did bikes get that expensive? I bought a "brand name bike" just like 6 years ago for $900 and thought I was going way out of a normal budget.
Even 20 years ago, $900 was on the lower side for a serious bike but the big thing to remember is that e-bikes are transformative: they make daily commuting practical for many people who are not avid cyclists and especially so for parents.
That means you should compare them to cars: I bought a cargo e-bike for just under $3k when I needed to take my son and all of his stuff to daycare near my office ~6 miles away. I certainly used to bike that distance before but the weather, workday timing, etc. meant I never did it more than 3 days a week before, but the speed & cargo capacity of the e-bike made it my preferred option every day.
The other people who didn’t live within walking distance all drove, so their trips took longer door to door (congestion around the school alone was 20 minutes) and my expensive e-bike was the equivalent of a couple months of what they spent on SUV payments, parking, gas, and insurance. Plus my son _loved_ going on the bike every day (it helped that we went by the train yard) while most of his classmates protested going in the car because they’re so isolated with nothing to see.
E-bikes imported to the US from Europe for sale to Americans who have essentially unlimited funds and little concern for what things actually cost.
For mechanical bikes, they've always been (relatively) expensive. Here's one for $16k: https://www.cannondale.com/en-us/bikes/road/race/supersix-ev...
Yes they all very sell expensive bikes. They also sell less expensive bikes.
At a quick glance for road bikes: * Canyon starts at $1899 * Specialized starts at $1200 * Trek starts at $999
If you want a more upright hybrid, they can be found at lower prices.
> I bought a "brand name bike" just like 6 years ago for $900 and thought I was going way out of a normal budget.
I'm curious what you got for $900. I doubt the current iteration of that $900 bike is now being sold for many thousands.
> What benefit does the bike get you that a motorcycle doesn't?
Exercise and silence.
Most bikes are not silent. Worse, it's getting popular to make them loud. I was looking for an e-mtb recently. Tried a Trek ($4.5k down from $7.5k), ridiculously loud hub. Sales person claimed (falsely) that the more pro the hub the louder.
Talked to another dealer who gave me the same story.
MTB hubs are noisy as hell anyway, and yes, the more expensive the MTB the noisier the hub. For pedal bikes it's about being able to pedal without doing a full rotation and not losing power or wasting energy
> Sales person claimed (falsely) that the more pro the hub the louder.
What's false about it? Pros tend to ride wheels with loud hubs. It's kind of a known thing.
Even loud hubs are more silent than most motorbikes.
It's kind of true. If you want the hub to engage right away when you pedal, you'll need the rachet mechanism to have more points of potential contact and those points will all make clicking sounds when you're coasting.
What about EV motorcycles? That at least solves noise.
You can attach trailer to bicycle and use it to transport your kids to nursery/school during winter. There I live both things would be illegal with motorcycle.
Sounds very dangerous to me
Why would attaching a trailer to your bike be very dangerous?
Total bike and trailer builder and believer of yore here.
One can fail to appreciate the additional breaking forces and shifts in balance a loaded trailer introduces to the bicycle.
Where the trailer attaches should be as close to the center of gravity of the bike & rider as possible so the trailer's resultant forces have the least leverage.
The trailer hitch should be rotationaly neutral which is a gentler way of saying if the trailer flips over it should not take the bike down with it.
If the trailer has its own breaks they should slightly and lightly lead the bikes rear break.
Being careful helps, I never wrecked, but do see how the addition of electrical assist does up the concern as it could result in more mass moving fast.
I've been rear-ended by other drivers a couple of times, once in the centre of town. If a child in a trailer been between the two vehicles they would have been killed. The reason for one of the rear-endings was that the brake rubber came of the pedal. I don't trust other drivers to not be on their phone or to properly maintain attention at all times. The OP also said that he did this in winter time. Here in the UK there can be black ice on the road at that time of the year.
or a escooter or one of those things you just stand on and it moves? The main reason to ride a bike nowadays is for pleasure or exercise and a ebike defeats both.
An ebike can be for both pleasure and exercise. Most ebikes are pedelecs - you're still cycling, you're just getting a boost. They aren't loud, you just either get somewhere faster or with less effort. I find an ebike to be more pleasurable than a regular bike 90% of the time.
Just because you're doing less work, doesn't mean you're doing no work. An ebike can provide mobility for people who aren't in perfect shape. Ebikes can also allow you to use your bike for more errands, like getting groceries that people would otherwise not do on a regular bike.
That's fair. I can see how an ebike might encourage people to ride them more compared to owning a regular bike and never using it!
With an ebike you can ride in bike lanes, sidewalks and many other places motorcycles are not allowed. They can also park loads of places motorcycles aren't allowed plus you get exercise.
Yep. Ebikes can do a lot of things motorcycles aren't allowed to do. For example, it's customary (while illegal) for ebikes to not stop at stop signs in the US because there's little-to-no enforcement of it compared to the enforcement of traffic laws against motorcyclists.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It's a stupid amount of money for what it is.
KTM makes an 18 kW e-motorcycle for $12k USD.
https://www.ktm.com/en-us/models/e-ride/freeride/2023-ktm-fr...
it's not surprising to me that the bosch mid-drives are failing, they're typically placed at an angle that catches all the run off from every tube at the lowest point on the bike (except on recumbents), and the controller is (usually) integrated.
mid-drives are great, the gear advantage rocks; the bosch units suck but unfortunately they had so much industry sway that a lot of ebike frames are coming out built around the unit -- which is absolutely unlike any other unit out there aside from vague similarities to the bafang units in the same range -- so it forces replacement with the same garbage, or a total re-engineer of the gear train; a big pain.
one thing to be said about the bosch unit : it looks sleek and it integrates well. This is likely a lot of the reason behind the mass adoption, aside from Bosch's presence itself.
I can't see how mid-drives are significantly superior. An electric motor doesn't need any gear advantage and sending more force to the rear wheel seems like it's actually a disadvantage since it put more stress on bicycle components that are often designed for just human levels of force.
As far as I can tell, the mid-drives became dominant just 'cause people wanted to have something the looked more "seamless".
I have rear drive ebike (Avanton Pace 300 v1) and I'm very happy with it (it was also cheap as a show room model). It's responsive and I can pedal up any hill to about a 25% grade. The controller is still mid-frame and the battery inset into the down tube. Thinking about it, my ideal ebike would be a heavy duty frame with all the components just bolting on (plus could use power tool batteries).
In the EU, e-bikes are limited to a maximum power output of 250 watts - anything over that is a motorbike. That's basically the same power output as a decently fit cyclist. A mid-drive allows for sustained high torque even with limited power. Water ingress issues aside, mid-drives also tend to be more durable in off-road applications where the rear wheel is subject to severe shock and vibration.
As I said, my rear drive gives what seems like high torque to me (I think bike's at about the power you mention). I've only taken my bike off-road a bit but it seems like the force on the rear hub and the bottom bracket are things that simply have to be designed for. The bottom bracket experiences both frame flex and the rider pounding the pedals, so it's subject to punishment and the rear hub is cushioned by the tires, spokes and any rear suspension present.
Power is power, there is no combined "power + torque" that measures how much wind you have in the sails. Torque just characterises how much power you can get along different RPMs.
But the EU/UK 250 W cap is so low that it seems unlikely torque characteristics would enter the picture significantly unless you're going very slowly. I think most of the mainstream EU ebike motors are capped this way (vs designed to have a natural peak output of 250W).
Torque (at the wheel) does matter as well as power. With a hub motor, the gear ratio is typically fixed so you're at the mercy of the motor characteristics, but driven through the chain, you can change it. I used to have a low powered hub motor e-bike and it was fast but pretty useless at accelerating from stopped or climbing hills. At these very low speeds, an optional low gear would have put the motor in a higher power point on its speed-torque curve.
Though perhaps you're saying these motors are so over-rated that even close to stall torque, their reduced power output is still 250W? That would be an efficiency loss but not a power loss since they're not allowed to deliver full power at higher speeds.
>> Power is power, there is no combined "power + torque" that measures how much wind you have in the sails. Torque just characterises how much power you can get along different RPMs.
> Torque (at the wheel) does matter as well as power.
If you are getting 250 W of power at the wheel (in other units, 250 Joules per second, or 250 Newton-meters), that's what you are getting, no torque about it.
>> the EU/UK 250 W cap is so low that it seems unlikely torque characteristics would enter the picture significantly unless you're going very slowly
> Though perhaps you're saying these motors are so over-rated that even close to stall torque, their reduced power output is still 250W?
Yes, I was saying something close to that ("very slowly").
IOW the overprovisioning of the motor combined with the power cap makes the motor work much more like a "always 250 W" power source than a "250 W peak output modified by torque" power source.
One nit, it's max /continuous/ output of 250W. Bikes with a temporary boost function to 500W are still legal and they're great to ride.
Electric motors have a wide power band but it isn't infinite[1], gearing does make a difference. If I'm in a higher gear on an incline my motor has significantly less usable torque vs shifting down to a gear that's closer to the power band.
Now if that is worth the complexity/cost is a fair debate but there are mechanical advantages to mid-drive motors.
[1] https://forums.electricbikereview.com/threads/ebike-motor-po...
One might expect some disadvantages to having more spinning mass in the rear wheel.
My local bike shop said they are all in Bosch because they had better reliability and less issues with their support compared to other companies and because of the commitment to long term spare parts availability.
> long term spare parts availability.
The article says that you can’t get spares, any service requires sending to the factory for repair?
The gear advantage of a mid-drive rocks but I was quite surprised that I chewed through a rear cassette in under a year / about 1k miles -- a 250W motor + heavy cargo bike + kid passenger + a large and pretty strong rider exert an awful lot of force. And with the assist, I almost never use the larger cogs, so all the wear gets concentrated. (This compares to many, many thousand miles on my road bike.)
Still love the thing, though.
Maintain your chain! I chewed through a nice cassette on my mtb quickly by not watching my chain and replacing it when worn. A worn chain will dramatically increase cassette wear. I only replaced it yearly and should have probably done twice per year.
Since then, I switched to hot waxing my chains and have now gone a year with the same chain reading as almost new. (Actually use 2 chains but both are barely worn)
There’s a great site called zero friction cycling that details all of this. The key that they opened my eyes to was looking at the total cost of riding including the cassette.
Would an internally geared hub solve for this type of wear?
IGH's are not all that rugged. Most have a published requirement for a minimum ratio between the chainring and cog, that translates into an approximate torque limit. I love my old Sturmey Archer AW hubs, but I'm not sure I'd recommend one for the aforementioned use case.
Shimano E5000 is an IGH rated for e bikes.
Seeing how as I regularly managed to break the drive cross in my 3-speed SA hub just by pushing the thing real hard under pedal power alone - this is 40 years ago - I don't think they're particularly strong. I fixed my bike by myself so all this cost me was a new drive cross but still, it shouldn't break in the first place.
I think material science minute might have advanced over 4 decades.
The cross is made of a fairly hard type of steel. They knew how to make that 40 years ago so I don't think there is any noticeable difference. If anything I suspect the older gear hubs were built stronger than the current ones.
I manage to ruin chain and cassette in under a year on my acoustic bike. The trick is to ride fast in all weather and never clean the chain.
Congratulations, your brief comment has managed to trigger me in 3 different ways.
Why would that surprise you? A semi serious mountain biker will go through a cassette on an analog bike in 2 years. You're driving the thing with a huge motor, cargo and an entire extra human. Your expectations must have been unrealistically high.
The difference between a mid-drive (in which all of the force goes through the rear cassette) and a rear hub drive (in which only the pedal force goes through the rear cassette) is large.
Also, most people online report over 2k miles on a cassette. Pittsburgh's hills and more force are apparently good for some extra wear.
(Also, a 250W motor is fairly small by e-bike standards. They generally start at 250 and go up from there; 750W is not uncommon.)
I have a friend in your same scenario. I’ve never thought to ask how quickly he goes through cassettes on that bike.
I think the follow-on post above about making sure to be better about maintaining the chain is part of it. I'm a little lazy with my road bike chain because I mostly only ride it in good weather, and I carried the same attitude to the e-bike, which gets a lot more stress per mile and I'm more likely to ride in rain.
I'm not hot waxing it, though it's tempting, but I do wipe it down and apply T-9 much more regularly now. We'll see -- I'm 400 miles into the new chain and cassette...
I just dropped a bunch of money on a Bosch based bike because I was told they are very reliable.
I'm going to be very annoyed if that turns out to not be the case....
Bosch is in a bunch of high end eMTB setups, including a few of my friends’ rides. We do plenty of wet riding, and the bikes have been hit with the hose for years now to clean them off when we’re done.
If there’s a problem here I think it must be the frame design or the way they’re installed and not an across the board problem with Bosch components.
Your mileage may literally vary but indeed: this no problems with my Bosch either.
Specialized had problems with their last gen of the Brose motor (2.1?), leading to lots of premature failure. I’d not heard of significant problems with Bosch units, it’s always hard to determine what is truly a design flaw vs a few anecdotes.
> they're typically placed at an angle that catches all the run off
aren't they also directly behind the front wheel?
fenders, fenders, fenders.
something unsexy with a flap / mudguard.
I mount a 350€ Bafang motor on my bike five years ago. I use it almost every day to go to work, even on rainy days (and this year is very wet). The display now shows almost 16000km. It never failed, although it's given as NOT waterproof...
Do you also leave it outside to sit in the rain? I found that bringing a bike indoors (regardless of it being electric or not) significantly improves the lifespan of most parts.
It sleeps inside, and parking is protected at work, sure it has some influence
Our experiences differ sadly.
My bafang motor has seen a lot of issues in the ~1.5 years I had it. The bike shop (also) claimed rain and mud where a problem and they considered the ~1000 km per month I rode it 'misuse'.
I had a good run with electric bikes up until that time (~10 years with a front-hub motor and after that the Bafang) but to be honest I'm kinda glad it died because I've been riding a decent non-electric bike ever since and monthly visits to the bike shop became yearly visits instead.
It’s because you use it daily. If you used it once a month it would rot to hell.
From my perspective water is only at best a proximal cause. The big problem is that if the motor needs replacing five times during a two year waranty period that is a lemon and the manufacurer should give back the money one paid for it.
It sounds like a Kaabo e-scooter, a Samsung refrigerator, and most consumer electronics and appliances. Designed to fail because parts = $$$.*
* In fairness, Kaabo e-scooters aren't designed, they're thrown together and spaghetti wire is rammed in every crevice without a sensible circuit or terminal diagram.
So out of the list, Kaabo e-scooters seem to be the only ones where the obsolescence is incidental, instead of planned :).
Nawh, Kaabo's are just shit but are also all about selling parts. Unfortunately, very few e-bike repair shops will work on them because they're awful. It's worth noting that 3 of the Kaabo dealers in the US are fly-by-night, shady operations unconcerned with customer service and honesty.
I’m not sure how this adds any perspective beyond what’s said in the article?
Anecdotally, my wife's Magnum Premium 2 has held up well for 4 years of all weather use in west coast Canada. This includes pulling a cargo trailer or kids trailer year round - salty and sandy slushy snow, pouring rain, sun...
For two of the years she hauled him to school everyday, in all weather, and did all of her shopping and errands with the bike. About 100km every weekday. I'll have to look at the odometer sometime and see what it's at.
I believe it has a Bafang motor and I think we paid about C$2200 as it was in clearance.
Not casting doubt on your numbers here, but to put some perspective on how much usage that implies: 100km every weekday means literally hours of use every day - we're talking about an e-bike that must average what, 20-25km/h at most? That's assuming you're not in stop-start urban traffic. So four or five hours a day? I guess if you're doing a school run that's 30 mins there and 30 mins back, morning and afternoon, plus another trip to town and back... it all adds up.
The numbers might be a bit bloated, but not by a lot.
We had just moved to Canada from a country without a reciprocal drivers license exchange - no matter as she never had one. Where we had moved from, drivers licenses are largely considered optional and although I taught her to drive and she had been riding motorcycles since age 12 or so, driving in North America is way different. We moved just before covid hit. Driving lessons and license testing were difficult / near impossible to get - and with very long wait times. So it was her only form of transportation for quite a long time.
She was doing cleaning at various businesses around the area as well, so again she would take the bike to those locations every day with her little cargo trailer and cleaning supplies. She'd come home after dropping our son off at school, charge the bike, eat a snack, change trailers and head back out, then repeat when it was time to pick him up.
She quite easily spent 3-4 hours on the bike everyday. Just getting to school and back for our son was about 45 minutes one way. He wasn't in the closest school because of things the further school offered (nature school), another 30 minutes each way to the local shopping centre, and then wherever she needed to go for work.
We went through a lot of tires and brake pads, but other than general maintenance the bike held up great and is still going strong.
She has a good job and nice little car now, so the bike is seeing a lot less use this year.
She is as tough as nails. :)
Top speed on a Magnum Premium 2 is 45kph. So it really depends on where you’re using it as to the kind of average speeds are reasonable.
Average 35+kph and they are under 3h per day. It doesn’t seem that unlikely especially if it’s more like 90km than 100.
> 100km every weekday means literally hours of use every day
And multiple batteries per day.
I suppose it’s possible if someone’s entire day revolved around e-biking everywhere most of the day and they live in an area that’s relatively flat and there’s not a lot of stop and go and the trips fit into the charge of a single battery and so on.
I like biking a lot, but spending hours and hours on an ebike doing errands every day and hoping nothing breaks when you’re far from home is not my idea of a good time.
> And multiple batteries per day.
That's not necessarily true. My battery is rated for 45 miles, and I get every bit of it. I typically only do about 15-20 miles daily, but I have a weekly ride that is a little over 30 miles which after that the battery still shows 2 of 5 bars remaining. It all depends on how much output you're getting from your meat motor.
To add perspective, I have a battery rated for 70 miles, which so far seems fairly realistic if I stick to slower speeds and lower assist settings that have me putting in a bit of effort. I went ahead and bought an extra battery just for the hell of it so I have the option of riding out to hiking trails or the coast. Plus I don't own a car, so putting in a ton of miles in a day without worrying about charge is worth the expense (also easier to keep them in the 20% - 80% charge window for the sake of longevity).
So far I've done 40 miles in a day several times simply commuting and running errands, and it goes fairly quick with a top speed of ~25mph if I'm in a rush. Point being, people shouldn't be so quick to make assumptions about other people's use cases. I used to commute 30 miles per day to work on a touring bike, plus extra for errands and activities. Yes, it is a lot of time riding, but often it felt like recreation especially since much of my commute was scenic on a dedicated bike trail through natural areas.
Bar inclement weather I used to ride my bike (regular, not e-bike) about 50 km per day. Now I alternate between cycling, fast walk and riding EUC. Add lots of swimming on top in the summer (I am 63 btw).
My cheap ebike dies closer to 33 kph easily
top speed != average speed
That's not the top speed. That's about how fast it goes when I casually ride it on a level bike lane.
With The Right Stuff though:
LandCruiser 'Mudcrab' driven 7km under water across Darwin Harbour
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36928038Video of that https://youtu.be/1TD5uuUAhCY?t=723
"The latest units are protected against dust and splash water, according to protection class IP54, and most error codes caused by magnetic interference disappear on restart."
This used of "latest" implies Bosch's engineers initially assumed dust and splash water aren't a thing, so by the sound of it they design indoor bike motors for people who hoover very regularly.
It's the second part that worries me more, though: "most" (= not all) error codes disappear on research, i.e. you have to regularly reboot your e-bike, like a 1998 Windows PC? Sorry, I never want to reboot an appliance, because real bikes never required that in the past, so it has been shown it is possible.
I never want an e-bike, and I don't like throwing away engines because of the environmental damage. Don't people bike because they want to get fit? If not, get a proper motorbike.
Not sure an IP rating alone gives you the information you need for this usecase.
A [mountain] bike motor doesn't just need to resist ingress, it needs to do so after hundreds of hours of violent shaking while its external bearings are under heavy load. It should also tolerate a certain amount of direct impact.
I can certainly imagine this being tricky to achieve for a few hundred $!
> Don't people bike because they want to get fit?
No. I personally ride a _non-motorized_ bike for the health benefits, but I ride a _bike_ as a means of transport. I want as many people as possible to do this, it's better for everyone if people cycle. E-bikes are a fantastic way to expand the pool of potential cyclists.
"Bikes are for sporty people" is a symptom of a car-centric environment. In a healthy city, bikes are an option for everyone who has full mobility.
"In a healthy city..."
Speaking of things which are (evidently) "tricky to achieve"...
There are dozens of such cities all over Europe, doesn't seem that hard to me if you actually care about it as a goal!
True. But a great many things are easy to achieve if you presuppose competent and honest (at least on the given issue) politicians.
> Don't people bike because they want to get fit?
In my city people bike because they want to get from A to B.
E-bikes are great for that! They enable reasonable fast biking without breaking into sweat (good for commuting) and in hilly areas.
First they enabled senior citizens to bike fast and longer. Then came the mountain e-bikes and made it cool. Than the city hipsters. Then family mum and dad zipping their children around:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQhzEnWCgHA&t=168s
> If not, get a proper motorbike.
Motorbikes are loud and heavy and more expensive. You need a helmet and have to use the road instead of bike lanes. You need a driving license.
Also insurance, yuck. Plus all that gear so that when you have to lay your bike down because some dipshit driver did something insane up ahead of you you can keep at least some of your layers of skin intact.
> Don't people bike because they want to get fit?
People bike because they want to get around. Also, a bicycle is a lot less bulky and more quiet than a motorbike and it doesn't require a license.
>Don't people bike because they want to get fit? If not, get a proper motorbike.
Riding an ebike is still a moderate workout especially if you are putting on the miles, hauling stuff, have hills, etc. And on most bikes you can set your engine assist in real time, so it's easy to adjust to the level of workout you are in the mood for. Which is a massive game changer for me as someone with health problems including fatigue and leg pain that doesn't own a vehicle.
I like the freedom of the ebike vs a motorcycle for city commuting, it's much quieter, I can ride on greenways and bike trails away from traffic fumes and the majority of impatient/distracted drivers. It is far lighter than a motorbike and I already have the tools and skills for basic maintenance. It is cheaper to maintain and operate. But more than anything else I have an ethical problem with the combustion engine. I drew a line in the sand long ago that I will never own nor make regular use of a gas-powered vehicle and in 20 years I still haven't crossed it.
Some people walk because they’re trying to get to the office, some people walk to lose weight, some people walk to enjoy sunday afternoon with their partner
Biking is just as diverse.
From the article it seems that this problem is mostly coming from bikers with mountain bikes, riding in wet Wales off road. It looks like for the general case (on street, commuting) that ebikes are working as intended. For mountain bikers it is possible to simply get a mountain bike but where ebikes shine here is the ability to scoot back up the mountain after riding down.
Sounds like they got various brittle sensors and electronics that make the thing break earlier than it should, while in theory the motor should just work if you apply high enough voltage to it. I don't think the main coils of the actual motor would care about a little bit of magnetic field from a traffic light sensor.
Somehow this is not a big deal across the Channel in the Netherlands. Yet another case of the British not learning from the Dutch?
Probably because the Netherlands doesn’t have as much rain, off road and mountains as Wales?
From the article.
> The problem appears to mainly affect those riding mountain bikes in all weathers, particularly in Wales and the UK’s other wettest areas, because they are not sealed properly against water ingress.
My uncle ran a bike shop, the amount of bikes that came in with broken displays cus of water damage is high. Usually it’s warranty.
Maybe the UK has the wrong kind of rain?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_wrong_type_of_snow
Do the same bikes magically not fail and have cheaper replacement motors in the fabled Dutch paradise?
As someone living in London and travelling to The Netherlands on a regular basis (intending to migrate), I have to say, pretty much everything from public transport to supermarket design seems of a much, much higher standard than its British equivalent.
Further to that, it generally feels as though the UK is a country massively in decline and this transcends down to the quality of goods which we pass as acceptable.
The bar of quality seems to have exponentially lowered over the past decade and the effects of such are now rearing their head in our day to day life.
I was born in England, live in London, have a Dutch partner, and also travel to the Netherlands often enough. I agree completely. They have their problems too (from the political to having to tap out on buses), but the overall level of quality and care seems rather higher. The sense of decline and disengagement is strong too. Difficult to say much objective about that (though keep an eye on the turnout in the upcoming general election), but I see it from all political persuasions.
Yeah I agree that it is hard to be entirely objective on something as subjective as sense of decline — lord knows I’ve spoken to Dutch natives whom hold an opinion that the country is ‘not what it used to be’. I do get a feel that people, generally, seem less embroiled in a race to the bottom than we do in the UK.
It feels that people in UK have been ground down to a point of ‘ah well, it’s all f*cked and always will be now’ and, as such, people accept things like a £5k bicycle failing multiple times within 2 years.
Why is tapping out on the bus a bad thing? It means you can pay for distance traveled instead of a flat fee.
It was sort of a joke, I’m mostly just not used to it - but also apparently it’s a pain if you forget to do it.
You have to log into a website and enter your point of exit. That way whatever was subtracted form your credit can be returned to you.
It’s the same for train travel. It is an honor system because there is no way to check if that really was your exit or not.
In London it is a slight benefit to poor people with lots of time, as you can travel a long way (sometimes) on a single bus.
But the Netherlands has a country-wide system (unlike Britain) so it has this compromise of tapping out.
> Further to that, it generally feels as though the UK is a country massively in decline
To a large extent it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. People expect decline so it happens. It has been happening for a long time - back to the 1960s or so when the UK became the only only country ever (still true) to have a space launch capability and lose it.
That said, IMO the causes of this are widespread across the west. It is evident in the US, and the drift away from competitive free markets, the rise of culture war politics, short termism is business and politics, naivety about the rest of the world (disastrously reflected in foreign policy - Russia being the obvious example) and so on seem to be spreading.
> drift away from competitive free markets, the rise of culture war politics, short termism is business and politics, naivety about the rest of the world (disastrously reflected in foreign policy - Russia being the obvious example) and so on seem to be spreading.
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head here. Especially the naivety about the rest of the world. As someone whom travels to India regularly (my family are there) I have to say, people have no clue about the rate of change happening over there.
In an extremely short space of time (I want to say at most a couple years) I’ve seen what used to be an all day journey from Delhi to Meerut be cut down to a couple hour bus trip through the building of the Delhi - Meerut expressway.
I’ve seen the Delhi metro continue to expand its reach and new expressways begging building (in our home city of Batala a new motorway was recently started to take us to Delhi directly)
Meanwhile the M25 continues to be a massive pothole with indefinite road works that never seem to complete
There is even more than that.
The west (admittedly this not only a flaw of the west) tends to think its cultural norms, identities and values are human universals.
There is also a tendency to think that the golden age of peace and prosperity the west enjoyed after the end of the cold war is the rather than the exception - it even lead to silly ideas like "the end of history".
Are you blaming our decline on negative attitudes?
The Dutch trains (the rolling stock) are a joke for such a rich country but I love everything else about the Dutch railway
And yes overall everything in the NL seems better quality
What does that have to do with German-developed and Hungarian-made electric motors breaking down in the UK?
Different bike brands, but the same motor is very common in NL as well. Never heard a lot of failures and e-bikes are absolutely everywhere.
One factor may be that in most of the UK biking is done on the road mixed with cars which may have more oil, sooth or other things in the water that gets on the bike, compared to dedicated bike lanes in the Netherlands. A lot of those lanes here aren't just a part of the same road, they're a few meters away from the road.
Another factor may be that there is more of a longer term bike culture, so more people know about simple bike maintenance (spray the chain etc) or have a bike shop around the corner.
You may nog hear it a lot because it's mostly warranty issues and consumer protection is pretty good here so with most issues it'll be handled quickly and under warranty.
I've had pretty much my entire electric drive system replaced under warranty with my first electric bike (admittedly I rode a _lot_ of km with that one.) Then on the second it's been in the shop at least once a month for ~1.5 years. Sure it was all covered by warranty but the amount of hassle did make me reconsider and go back to a regular bike.
Well for instance I don't see why an electrical motor would fail on a well designed bike.
Who knows about "the same bikes", but yes in general the e-bikes we have over here are quite reliable.
Well road condition can do a lot. Most of water that ingress into bike parts do not usually come from the rain directly but being sprayed by the wheels. So in theory well made/designed bike paths shouldn't induce as much dirty water spray as badly maintained roads full of puddles.
It's not the same bikes, that's the point.
How come? Article doesn't seem to mention that. That Cube bike for 5k ain't British producer, manufacturer is german.
Cube is not a very popular brand of ebikes in the Netherlands as far as I'm aware. Definitely not for city bicycles. Gazelle, Batavus, Cortina, Vogue, Azor, but Cube? Not so much.
The bike brand doesn't really matter, the brand of the electrical motor system matters. There are 3 big leaders: Bosch and Shimano on the high end, Bafang on the low end with Brose, Yamaha and a handful of other smaller brands occupying a much smaller fraction of the market.
Bosch is also widely used in the Netherlands.
It does matter since different brands may offer different levels of weather protection. Typically only Dutch bicycle makers care about things like proper mudguards and chain guards, for example. And some, like Azor go crazy and test their parts in a rust chamber.
And, for example, the Cube bicycle as depicted in the article, is clearly not designed to be used in rainy weather. Who knows what else shortcuts they took?
> Typically only Dutch bicycle makers care about things like proper mudguards and chain guards, for example.
That is not true.
It is about class of bikes, not brands. Sure there are brands such as Gazelle who focus pretty much on those characteristics only but there are other brands doing the same all over the world alongside more racy models.
> And, for example, the Cube bicycle as depicted in the article, is clearly not designed to be used in rainy weather
The bike depicted is a mountain bike, so no it hasn't be designed with fender in mind but that doesn't mean Cube or any other non-dutch brand doesn't produce city/trekking/touring bikes.
Having said that, I would expect a mountain bike to be built to survive wet and muddy conditions.
Not sure what you mean, I think it is more about buyer culture than what class of bicycle it is. So saying "Dutch" might be a good short cut.
I would say shop culture as well as buyer cultures. A lot of shops in non cycling friendly areas just only keep stock of high margin high end road bikes and MTBs. So it may very well be that the guy in the article photo didn't knew much about bike and was sold an e-MTB because that was what was available and it looked good and unlike those bikes used by grannies and only installed fenders as a second thoughts later when he came back from a commute totally soaked.
The article says many other brands have the same problem though.
They do have a lot of nice trekking models with upright geometry, full mudguards, rack and lights that can be used as a city bike though. Just not so many models with step through frames, aka "Dutch" bicycles.
I don't mean "Dutch" but actually bicycles built for the Dutch market, mostly by Dutch companies. And that means, among other things, bicycles that are excessively robust to avoid regular trips to service, and are built to live outside in the unpredictable and rainy Dutch weather. Cube doesn't come close to even cheaper Dutch brands. Also Cube bicycles are a maintainability nightmare with a lot of incompatible and proprietary parts.
The Dutch benefit from nice flat terrain, so less need for power assistance.
But they have higher average wind speeds, and headwinds can slow you down as much as hills.
According to ChatGPT it's not that different:
> Comparison:
> United Kingdom: Average wind speeds range from 13 to 19 km/h (8 to 12 mph). > Netherlands: Average wind speeds range from 15 to 20 km/h (9 to 12 mph).
Is that true?
I'd expect the UK to have slightly higher average speeds, as it's nearer the Atlantic.
Searching "Europe wins speed map" suggests it's close, with the UK slightly higher.
The speed in a typical city might be higher in the Netherlands, as large cities in Britain have a more varied setting. I don't know.
> Yet another case of the British not learning from the Dutch?
This apparently affects Bosch motors. Bosch is a reputable company. Maybe they screwed up on these motors but I don't see how bikes used in the Netherlands, if they're using the same Bosch motors, wouldn't be affected. Especially seen the shitty all year weather we're all "enjoying" in our countries (UK / .nl / .be / .lu etc.). It's been, what, 8 months of rain nearly every day now?
The Netherlands does have a reputation for the best built/maintained roads in Europe. Maybe better drainage, fewer puddles and potholes? Plus flatter terrain, so less overall strain on the motor.
This. Road condition is the key. Most of the water you collect while riding, even with full length fenders, is dirty water sprayed by your and other users tires. The rain itself usually account for very little in comparison.
The article mentions "mountain bikes" several times, which implies the failing bikes aren't ridden on roads at all. The fenders shown on the picture are not the same ones to be used on the road. It's possible we're talking about two completely different types of cycling.
I'm willing to bet that most electric mountain bikes are ridden on roads.
I guess the bicycles are better designed?
The article provides zero insight beyond anecodes. The fact a a specialist ebike repair company sees lots of broken ebikes tells you practically nothing about the frequency of problems. The anecdote about 5 failures in a warranty period sounds a bit suspicious and if true is probably a combination of bad luck and extreme usage, or possibly a design flaw in a specific bike model. It's also from a forum post from 5 years ago . That said, as a Bosch ebike owner myself, I'd love to see some decent stats on reliability of different systems. Had no problems myself so far and love it.
Good to hear this, since it encourages me to stick with the VanMoof I bought in 2019. Fancier, swishier bikes abound, but the VM just keeps on truckin’
Yeah my VM ES2 from 2019 is still in good condition and riding well. I use it every day.
Shame about the company but a former mechanic from the London shop has started his own repair business so hopefully I'll be riding mine for a few more years to come.
There is a simple scale for water and dirt ingress, e.g. IP65 for protection from water jets and fine dust:
https://www.iec.ch/ip-ratings
There are labs that test equipment and verify the claimed ratings. It should be simple for the bike or motor manufacturers to upgrade their seals by one IP step. Most suppliers provide a significant range of IP coverage in their catalogs. The price difference is probably small.
The only issue is that any maintenance on the motors has to respect the seals - understand how to disassemble and reassemble without compromising the join.
Most ebike motors are air cooled - ie. Outdoor air goes into the motor and flows around the magnets and coils to cool them.
Such a design is fundamentally incompatible with being fully water sealed.
I feel like there must be some clever solution to this using heat sinks / heat pipes.
There is, but weight, cost, etc.
BLDC motor design also has a conundrum - most of the heat is made in the motor coils, and they can be designed to get up to about 250C, which makes them easy to cool.
However, they are wrapped round thermally conductive steel touching thermally sensitive neodymium magnets which have to stay below ~60C for full performance.
So it isn't simply a matter of getting rid of heat - it's a game of preventing heat transfer.
Weight really isn't such an issue with ebikes. I'm riding around a 62lb clunker, carry a 10lb chain lock everywhere, plus I'm hauling big loads of groceries and other crap. Even an extra 5lbs isn't going to make a big difference, nor would an extra $150 to the purchase price if it means years of added longevity.
The engineering challenges make sense. Hopefully it is something that is being actively R&D'd.
There's no combustion, why is there cooling at all?
Friction of internal components of the motor -> heat.
It's mostly heating due to the resistance of the motor coils and magnetic hysteresis of the steel core. Friction is a small part.
There is no combustion in a kettle either, why does it boil water? Axles and brakes don't combust either.
> There is no combustion in a kettle either, why does it boil water? Axles and brakes don't combust either.
A kettle sits on top of a flame... which is combustion.
Axles should not be getting hot. You want to get your car checked.
Brakes are intentionally designed to cause as much friction as possible, the opposite of an electric rotor.
I converted my regular bike with a Tongsheng motor. It probably is of less quality than Bosch, but I like the repairability aspects of this approach. Spare parts, instruction videos, modularity and lower price. It looks a bit uglier but has worked well for me so far, about a year of riding at least once or twice per week.
hmm just an extra data point. I've ridden my 2018 bike in wet Scottish winters, across spring rivers, and summer beaches in summer, and it's been fine.
could be luck of courser
Friend of mine has a e-bike from cowboy. The thing is 8 years old and has rust and other forms of oxidation on all kinds of places.
Meanwhile my 20 year old koga miyata bike (which I also used for 10 years for my commute in all kinds of weather) has no sign of rust anywhere.
Are you sure that's not just because it's cadmium plated or packed with other nasties that provided similar benefits? :D
The guy that sometimes services my BMW goes on frequent unprompted rants about how the modern bikes corrode so much more easily, etc etc etc. Not once has he looked into why.
£700 for a replacement motor? Bloody hell
You get this with anything that hasn't been mass-produced at a large scale and commodified for a long time. It's more remarkable that something like a car (or a mobile phone, or a CPU) is cheap than that something like an electric bike motor is expensive. And it could be that this is a poor application for this type of motor technology and that a better type will be developed and that we'll look back on this as an expensive relic that was holding us back.
Bosch CX4 motors are a mere £550.
Do manufacturers really test the stuff they sell nowadays?
What is going on with that guy's bike. It is like the Canyonero XL Extreme of bikes. What kind of riding is it suited to? You wouldn't pop down to the grocer in a Unimog, right?
It's hard to guess the use of a bike from its looks. When mountain bikes first appeared, most of the people who bought them intended to ride them on pavement, and perhaps rarely on trails. Likewise most pickup trucks and SUV's are bought for urban passenger use.
At the time, the perception was that mountain bikes were just more rugged and comfortable to ride. There was a not inconsequential amount of marketing hype about the condition of roads, and the roads in some areas were in fact pretty crappy. Just due to market timing, MTB's were also where most people first experienced indexed shifting, which did improve the ease of riding a bike.
In the case of e-bikes, there's a tendency to get "more bike than you really need" because the marginal cost is acceptable and the motor takes care of the added weight. And from a pragmatic standpoint, the difference may also be mostly aesthetic.
It's a regular mountain bike, one of the more offroady kinds — full suspension with generous travel, very nice all-purpose tires (Nobby Nic from Schwalbe), aggressive frame geometry. It is obviously not a commuter bike, but it isn't anything extreme, either.
That seems to be a modified bike, with a head tube extension plus lots of random spacers, and lots of accessories. It's probably used as a very comfortable road/gravel bike.
In Japan almost everyone uses non electric fixed gear bikes and it seems to work okay. They are dirt cheap too (under $100)
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I notice that we've been seeing a lot of articles here about how e-bikes have motor problems, how EVs don't sell, how EVs have issues, how they "aren't really green", etc, yet we never see any such articles for ICE cars and motorcycles. I wonder why there's such interest in maligning green ways of transportation.
This is only normal and a good thing. Both are adopted as main stream now and they start to age and fail in large numbers, as one would expect. People are disappointed, as one would expect. This will drive the quality up. I don't think there's any intention to malign green transportation. I think there's no return form EVs anymore.
Ebikes are a bit ahead of EVs in certain aspects. They had a quick boom, a lot of new brands came up with different models and designs but now most of them are going bankrupt because the sales are slowing down. The main reason is not people don't buy ebikes anymore, but they already bought one! What I find stupid is there are only 3-4 companies producing motors or electronics for ebikes. These parts, as the article points out, are not sourced to customers for repairs. This has to change for more sustainability.
I hope there's no return from EVs, but this "some ebikes had problems" sort of thing is only useful for maligning ebikes, as it doesn't really do much for either owners or prospective buyers.
It's true about parts, I'd hope that, given how simple ebikes are, there would be a tendency to use easily-replaceable, off-the-shelf components, but I guess companies do want to design custom parts, as that's where they provide value.
Ebikes have a lot of easily-replaceable, off-the-shelf components, those shelves just aren't available to consumers. Obviously, this needs to change.
Maybe it’s just that ICEs don’t have these issues because the kinks have been sufficiently worked out.
There’s really a lot to criticize about the current state of electric. Flimsy range numbers, build quality from most manufacturers, reliability issues, charging time, hidden costs around outfitting your house, no real solution to the drivetrain having a severely limited shelf life.
I definitely think electric is the future, and I’m glad for it, but they are _not there_ from a “replace ICE wholesale” standpoint. They need more of their kinks worked out. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t continue to work on them or adopt them for their limited efficacy. Most people don’t need all of the benefits ICE cars offer and for them, electric right now is ideal.
Why? Because people click & share those articles (”lol see turns out ebikes generate so much waste I’m way more green taking my F250 to work every day”)
Yes, and also because some companies have a vested interest in people taking their F250 to work every day, is my point.
I think it's just because EVs (and PEVs) are relatively new and promising. I recently purchased an electric scooter, and that sort of form factor can be very difficult to fit an ICE into. Not like it can't or hasn't been done, but the instant torque I get from dual hub motors is far superior to any combustion engine.
How do you like the scooter? I have an ICE motorcycle, and I hate how loud and dirty it is. I'd like an electric one, but they're very expensive, and with electric scooters/ebikes I worry that they'll get stolen (as with a good bike).
Good e-scooters / e-bikes can be had for only $1-2k, in my limited experience. Not sure what the typical cost for a motorcycle is, but I'd be surprised if it's too much less than that.
I started with a $900 Segway Ninebot MAX G2 (1×1000W) a couple weeks ago, but it didn't have enough power for my needs. Even in sport mode, it would stall on some pretty slight inclines. So I picked up an $1800 Maxfun 10 PRO (2×1500W), just a couple days ago, actually.
I do like the added speed and hill climbing ability, but the compromise in features and build quality is astonishing. The Ninebot is so, so much better. If only the motor were three or four times more powerful...
As for it getting stolen, with a scooter (as opposed to a bike or motorcycle) I've so far had a 100% success rate just bringing it with me through the door. Serious. Nobody bats an eye at me bringing my scooter into the pharmacy, any number of fast food places, grocery stores, etc. Not super easy or likely for someone to steal the scooter from right next to me.
YMMV with that, depending on how friendly your area is to PEVs, but everyone here seems cool with it. It's honestly great. Not only that, but I can store it inside my house when it's not being used, to charge it, work on it, and protect it from the weather.
The Ninebot can only be locked with an app over Bluetooth, while the Maxfun can be locked with an NFC key (I far prefer this). But you can also of course use a normal bike lock as well if you ever have to let it out of your sight.
Anyway, I love the scooter. It's had some issues but it mostly came down to me popping the tire on the first day by making it eat a curb (oops). Somehow, the scooter managed not to care whatsoever. No trip, no fall, no damage to the frame or suspension, only the inner tube which was easy to replace once I got back home. Good as new now.
If you do ever get an electric scooter, it will probably take an hour or two to learn proper weight transfer, but it's extremely easy.
Note: if you get an electric scooter, it's extremely important to check your local laws first. Electric bikes usually have laws that are fairly self-consistent and useful, because they are essentially the poster child for PEVs. Electric scooters, however, often have laws that are unnecessarily restricting or even entirely contradictory, because all of the work that has been put into electric bike laws has entirely overlooked the existence of electric scooters, leaving them in often very precarious positions. Any laws that have exceptions for electric bikes will most likely not have any exception for electric scooters. For example, in my local area electric bikes are allowed on sidewalks in parks and electric scooters are not, despite the scooter being far smaller and less obnoxious than any bike.
Thanks for the detail! I suspect our use cases are different, though: I use my bicycle and motorcycle for different use cases, the former to transport myself, the latter for myself and another passenger. For going places, I prefer the bicycle, as you get free exercise as a bonus. For going somewhere with someone else, or going far, I'll need something closer to the motorcycle form factor, which necessarily will have to be much more expensive and elaborate.
I'm glad to see that e-bikes have become so good, though. My use case is very niche, because I live right at one end of a bike lane that spans the entire city, so going to any of the busy areas is just biking next to the sea, on a level road, for max half an hour, which isn't really hard enough to warrant an e-bike...
I can't really offer advice on how good e-bikes are, but I can say the costs have come down, yes.
Our use cases are definitely different. If you want a replacement for the motorcycle to carry another passenger, you probably won't be able to use a scooter. You could grab something like the XPedition Cargo eBike which can carry a passenger. It's got a 750W motor and weighs only about 70lbs when unloaded. It's only $1400 and there is a one-year warranty on the motor. However, they do not sell replacement motors even if you have money, so expect the bike to last only the one year. (In my experience, regardless of industry, the length of the warranty is usually a relatively accurate indicator of how long the product actually lasts in practice.)
Huh, that looks very interesting, thank you! The motor not being available to buy separately is a concern, but I'll evaluate my risk profile on this, thanks again!
If you want more options, Reddit's one of the best places to find organic product recommendations from real users. It's also where people go to complain whenever they get screwed over. Reddit's where I found someone recommending the XPedition, so both treat my recommendation with the appropriate level of salt, and also feel free to make the same search I did to find more options to evaluate.
It's kind of annoying that the web is so bad that reddit is the best place to get recommendations, but you're right, that's where I do all my research nowadays. I'll look there, thanks!
Good luck :)
Because ICE continue to sell well, because most serious makes have sorted most issues (a cheap car having issues isn't news for anybody), everybody knows ICE isn't green, etc...
Another proof that conspiracy theories aren't exclusive to the right, try some of Occam's razor.
If you think that "companies will promote articles that malign competing products" and "9/11 was an inside job" are the same level of conspiracy theory, I don't think any fruitful conversation can result.
Wait until they realize what such an environment does to your housing, and health.
What do you mean?
> ITV News investigations have found there is a "growing problem with severe mould and damp" throughout the UK, with councils often not dealing with residents' complaints.
> Damp problems affect around six per cent of homes in London with serious condensation being the most common form.
> Damp and mould were responsible for almost a third (28 per cent) of category one hazards in London councils, more than twice the proportion seen across England as a whole.
More: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/damp-and-mould-un...
Downvoters, feel free to explain your position. Being in a place where the air is constantly ~100% water is a con for human health - sorry.
The UK is not particularly humid. This is just poor house construction
The climate in the United Kingdom is defined as a humid temperate oceanic climate.
London will barely momentarily touch below 50% humidity in the next 10 days.