The future of urban transport is e-bikes

I got my first electric bike for review - the Cowboy 4 ST. It gave me lots to think about the future of e-bikes, bikes and urban mobility in general.

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►►► Attributions ◄◄◄

[kristenburnout]

As a soon to be mechanical engineer, one of the biggest advantages of conventional bikes is that they use standard components. You can swap out handlebars, brakes, pedals, gears, chains, wheels etc. without having to buy a specific brand. While many (usually cheaper) e-bikes luckily still use standard bike components, many (like this Cowboy or Van Moof) try to lock you into their """"ecosystem"""" with their sleek design and app integration features. This means that your bike is much more likely to age quicker and become "obsolete", or at the very least cost much more to maintain.

Bikes were the final mode of transport that had a feeling of longevity about them, and I hope e-bikes won't change that too much.

[kcvv]

Sadly a lot of bike startups use non-standard components which makes repairability much worse.

[POYA]

As someone who searched a lot for an ebike and end up building my own. I kinda find it sad that no influencer that "reviews" these things mention anything about the repairability and availability of spare parts, repair manuals or tools.
Every fancy designer bike like the one in this video that I saw either lacks in performance, range, repairability or all of the above and almost all of them are usually marked up 2 folds compared to the one you can build yourself. Not to mention that you can upgrade and configure every part of the generic of the shelf system in contrast to these glorified theft magnets with big marketing budgets.
They all advertise as having a 250w motor but when you compare the torque figures they are just severely lacking. For example the 45 nm of cowboy 4 vs 80 nm that you get from a fairly cheap bafang motor.
Having only one battery size option is also a downside that no one mentions.

[gcool]

Here in the Netherlands I talked with some bikeshop owners, they told me that 80-90% of the bikes they sell at the moment are electric nowadays. Same for their maintenance workload, which mostly contained workings on E-bikes. This transistion is very interesting to see, and feels like it is happening really fast.

[chchtl]

If you consider an electric bike, please make sure that it uses off the shelf components at least for the brakes and the shifting. This way, you're getting components that work reliably and are repairable by any bike shop. Shimano has 13k employees working mainly on bike components, that just shows mow much engineering goes into them to make them good and reliable.
Vanmoof is especially bad in this, they build everything on the bike themselves (it breaks often and repairing it is hard, according to a few online sources). The brakes on your cowboy also look like a design from them.

[I_THE_ME]

Most "niche" manufacturers like Cowboy, can seem cool due to sleek and unique design, but
they also come with a very high price premium. The bike costs 3000€, which is about 1000€ premium over some other fully rigid electric bikes. Sure this one has integrated lights and wireless charging for your phone, but it's definitely not worth a 50% increase in price.
I've been mountain biking for all my life, and it's commonplace for bicycle price to vary within a category of bikes by 30% even if the bikes have the same components. Electric bicycles are cool, but you should think about if you need an electric bicycle. If you don't need to climb hills and the commute is less than 3 km, it's better to just get a normal higher quality bicycle than an electric one.

[aribier]

I test drove a Cowboy 2 and the lack of gears back in 2019 was sooo annoying. You can basically only use it for city driving and it`s just too expensive for that, because the theft problem is real.

[seraaron]

The biggest sticking point for me against eBikes (and all eVehicles for that matter) is repairability. I don't want to be locked out of replacing a battery because of some greedy company's stupid DRM. I want to own every part of the things I buy.

[ScrapKing]

The problems with start-ups are A) staying in business (I'm looking at you BionX) and B) supporting older models as newer models come out. I'll stick to e-bikes with Shimano and Bosch electric systems myself, two companies which have huge dealer networks and a history of both staying in business and supporting older models as newer models come out. Shimano in particular is about as safe a bet as you can make in this regard.

[sarbjotsingh]

I have been using ebike for food delivery for 2 years now and i rode around 15, 000 kms. I would recommend to an ebike which share parts with other ebikes as those parts are widely available. In Canada, brands such as Amego, Emmo and NCM share 90% of the parts and are easily available online as well as offline. Display, controller, and motor all are connected to each other through connectors which means anyone can replace them at home with minimal effort. Moreover replacing a battery is also cheaper in these bikes as compared to brands like Stromer and Aventor.

[SUSHIlyf]

Wow this is true. I may be too lazy to bike, but yes, I gor myself an electric kick scooter. Not only has it gotten me out of the house, but it has gotten me to explore places I otherwise would have never traveled to. 😁

[palody_en-ja]

I would love to ride a bicycle, but the infrastructure is lacking here in Okinawa. Japan in general has very small roads, and most lack bike lanes, so it's quite dangerous. Hopefully as the global market embraces e-bikes, Japan as a country will in turn embrace more walkable and bikeable paths.

[davefink]

A big picture look at the e-bike revolution . . . that I could actually understand!

One stat really got my attention: how much owners of the E-bikes bikes use them, compared to how much regular bikes are ridden by their owners. That is a growing customer base looking for safe riding lanes, anti theft, parking, storage and weather-protection solutions - and possess the money and/or political activism to acquire them!

[Uncle_Fred]

Where I live, a bike is not really practical, sadly. Thieves drive around looking for student bicycles near the local university. They carry bolt-cutters that can slice through any flexible locks and all but the thickest rigid versions in minutes. If they can't easily slice through your lock, they've smash the bike instead. The police don't pursue bike thefts and they know that. Couple this reality with those American-style multi-lane city roads and large distances between venues. There's also a general hostility towards bicycles as this area was ground zero for the major traditional auto companies.

This is pretty much the most bicycle unfriendly urban area imaginable.

[ergergzbhzefer]

Finally a tech YouTuber who isn’t obsessed with cars! Bikes are the future, for so many reasons

[metacob]

My family just went crazy for e-bikes all of a sudden. My parents and my uncle are all around age 70, and they keep doing these long bike rides of 40+ km and adjust the motor support depending on how they are feeling at the moment. Whether you want to get somewhere or you want some exercise are now two separate questions.

[Hyydrotoo]

It's nice that it's the future n all, but if I can't repair my bike myself with parts I get at my local backwater bicycle store or on amazon then it's pointless.

[Qlorck]

Damn the biggest problem with those bike are thieves

[OmDahake]

E-bikes like these will be a life saver here in Mumbai if they can sell it here cheap enough

[carlosmh]

Must be nice to live in a bike-centric society. I will now go and cry in American