Disturbing E-bike Trends
Yesterday, I had a fella bring In a “budget” priced bike from one of the world’s best selling e-bike mfg’s.This is never a happy occasion for me. Not once have I seen one that didn’t have a safety issue. That, even if they have had it professionally assembled.
This particular bike had a disk brake mount too close to the rotor. Either they ground off part of the adjusting washers or the rotor wore it away without my customer hearing it (highly unlikely). This is a bike that is in every reviewer’s top 10! I see this sort of gerry rigging on a lot of “budget” bikes. I put “budget” in quotes because, let’s face it, no e-bike is cheap.
What is most disturbing is that the people who most need them are buying the least dependable! They’re buying off Amazon or online ads as cheap as they can. With no particular bike repair skills, they assemble and adjust them as best they can. They end up with bikes meant to be toys for riding around the neighborhood, totally disposable. It is not the mfg fault. These “budget” bikes were never meant to be depended upon on a daily basis.
Now, that particular brand tends not to have a lot trouble with the quality of components. Some I work on can take up to six months to get very proprietary parts that seem to fail on a regular basis. That is, if they are still in business!
I’ve mentioned it before. There is a large and growing segment of the population that never again will be able to afford a safe or reliable automobile. E-bikes are a great alternative when busses aren’t running or going to the place you wish. When that place is your job, it has to be reliable. These people can’t afford the $2500+ it costs to get something along those lines.
There is no good reason a simple internally geared 3 or five speed bike, with a powerful mid-drive and popular, if unnecessary, disk brakes, needs to cost more than $1500. You can’t buy a reasonably reliable used car for that kind of money. The person that takes the Henry Ford approach and provides a quality, affordable, no frills, e-bike, is going to earn a fortune!