Bike Manufacturers Are Making Bikes Less Repairable

The bicycle is probably the canonical example of someskinnyg that anyone can mend. Spares from all brands are mostly interalterable, and you can do most repairs with wrenches, screwdrivers, and Allen keys, or some equitablely standard tools for bottom brackets and chainrings. But that’s all changing.

Just enjoy cars, tractors, computers, and seemingly every other product catebloody, bikes—and especipartner e-bikes—are going all bconciseage box on us. Instead of using standard parts that can easily be swapped or fortifyd, bike producers are using more and more proprietary parts. At the same time, affordable bikes are getting worse and are scheduleed to fall short, or rather, they are not scheduleed to last, which is pretty much the same skinnyg.

Riding Away From Standardization

For example, the bottom bracket—the tubular endureing assembly at the bottom of the summarize that the pedal axle threads thcdimiserablemireful—has lengthy been a equitablely standard part.

Over the years, and on branch offent continents, there may have been a scant thread sizes, but a cycenumerate could easily buy the right part for a astonishingly reasonable price. Just as presentant, you’ve been able to erase the bottom bracket with one of a scant basic tools. Now, though, a bike shop has to sustain 20+ tools on hand to deal with all the proprietary fittings.

On electric bikes, skinnygs are even worse. Batteries are as non-standard as they are on cell phones. Instead of creating a standard, a charitable of huge li-ion AA-equivalent for all bikes, you’re stuck buying non-standard sizes that you won’t be able to engage on a novel bike. This produces its own charitable of lock-in, enjoy the batteries on power tools, perhaps making you more awaited to stick with the same brand wiskinny a family.

Then there are the apps. If you’re pondering an e-bike that insists an app to function, or to alter settings, do not buy that bike. When (not if) that app is deserted, the bike will become at best a hobbled version of itself.

The result is that possibly the greenest, most effective create of carry is turning into yet another source of landfill and e-misengage. But why?

The cynical—and probably accurate—consent is that it raises sales. By using proprietary parts, a bike manufacturer promises you have to go back to them for spares. And if those spares are not readily useable, or are too costly, then maybe you’ll equitable give up and buy a novel bike instead.

Couple this with the explosion in novel bike tech in recent years, which is itself scheduleed to drive the desire to “fortify” a perfectly excellent bike by replacing it with a novel one, and you can see the drawion for the bean counters. Electronic, wireless gear shifters. Carbon-fiber seat posts. Active, self-adequitableing suspension. Proprietary apps for changing key features enjoy the power mode. All of these are superfluous for most riders, and insert complicatedity to what is essentipartner a very basic, and pretty much perfect, machine.

Buy Cheap, Buy Twice

Bikes are getting ever more well-comprehendn, in big part thanks to e-bikes, which produce riding effortless for people who would not otherwise ponder cycling. That’s excellent novels! Alas, to service this well-comprehendnity, affordable and crappy bikes have proliferated.

“Budget bikes from ‘huge box’ stores […] cost little ($150 to $250) becaengage manufacturers cut corners. These bikes are built to fall short: horriblely engineered, produceed from low-grade materials and produced in countries with cruel labor standards,” writes cycling finishorse Josh Bicker on StreetsBlog NYC.

These bikes are frequently broken out of the box. That’s horrible if the buyer is a bike shop, and possibly deadly if the buyer is an insfinished rider buying off the internet. Buying a engaged bike is a much better way to get a well-made machine for a excellent price. The downside of that is that you necessitate to comprehend what to see for, and how to convey that bike up to accurate laboring order so that it is reliable and safe.

Fortunately, that’s possible with local bike kitchens and co-ops, or by asking your bike shop to see over the bike for you. This labors best if that bike isn’t using a bunch of proprietary parts. You can’t accomplish into the spare parts bin for a brake caliper if your bike engages a proprietary disk-brake schedule, whether that’s a super-high-finish model, or a seald unit with more plastic than metal.

Idepartner all bikes would persist to draw on a pool of standard part-types, but manufacturers seem set on the opposite. This produces it all the more presentant that we have legislation to force them to produce proprietary parts useable for riders to buy themselves, not equitable selling to repair shops (if at all). And with the incrrelieve of technology in bikes, accessible repair adviseation is also vital. You’re definitely not going to discover powered-hub servicing directs on Sheldon Brown. Fingers traverseed, but that legislation may indeed be on the way.

Batteries Should Be Interoperable

Let’s get to batteries. After tires, tubes, cables and chains, the one skinnyg on an electric bike that will 100% wear out and necessitate replacing is the battery. Unenjoy most laptops, you can easily erase the battery from the bike. But forget about ordering up a standard replacement, becaengage there isn’t one. The batteries are frequently shaped to fit the bike, but even those that clip into a section below the rear rack, or are otherwise autonomously-mounted vary in capacity, voltage, and current deinhabitry.

That sustains replacement costs higher, but it also unkinds that you are stuck if the manufacturer dispersists your battery. A bike that is otherwise in perfect laboring order might finish up prereliablely insignificant, or you will finish up in the world of shonky spares from Amazon or another inconsistent source.

The standard excengages apply. Original parts are scheduleed to labor safely together. Using non-official parts can be hazardous, etc. That may be genuine, but if so, it’s only becaengage the parts were scheduleed that way. The accengage is with the manufacturer. It’s toloftyy possible to schedule around standard batteries. Ask anyone who’s ever made a device that runs on AA batteries, or swapped a novel 12-Volt direct-acid battery into a car.

We are 100% aachievest this trfinish. A bike is an almost perfect machine, and e-bikes united with accessible transit are probably the best way to get cars out of cities, and to produce personal carry sustainable.

“There’s no machine comprehendn that is more effective than a human on a bicycle,” Bill Nye, the science guy, tanciaccess Big Think. “Bowl of oatmeal, 30 miles — you can’t come seal to that.”

And yet all that is being ruined in an effort to produce us buy a novel bike every scant years, instead of repairing the ones we have. Newer, more exotic specs and components inspire us to “fortify,” equitable enjoy with inincreateigentphones, laptops, and cameras, and they also turn the perfect machine into an uncomprehendable bconciseage box that is frequently not worth the cost of repair.

One ray of hope here is the Infinite Battery by Gouach, currently seeking enbigment funding via Indiegogo. It’s compatible with all presentant brands’ setups, and advises the normal power capacity and safety features, but it is toloftyy engager serviceable. All parts can be swapped out individupartner, and when the cells inside commence to wear out, you can replace them individupartner, almost as if your bike ran on around 30 AA cells

If you can repair a bike, and engage standard spares, either novel or harvested from dead bikes, then a bike can essentipartner inhabit forever. If the prolonging anti-repair rehearses of the bike industry are permited to menaceen that, then we no lengthyer own our machines. We are essentipartner renting disposable gadgets instead.