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   Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 05-Jul-2026 23:34:17 JST Rich Felker

   Hot take: I'm not opposed to ppl using them, but I hate the concept of an "electric bike" as an overbuilt, heavy af, inefficient, IoT-enshittified, theft-magnet product that's designed with different engineering (or lack thereof) than a normal bike.

   Versus an electric motor and battery pack as something you put on a bike.

   It's the whole VC shithead mindset of it all, vs a solarpunk worldview.

   • Embed this notice
     Empterdose (mrdos@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 05-Jul-2026 23:44:59 JST Empterdose

     in reply to

     @dalias I mostly dislike bikes and bike culture. I severely dislike the extremely expensive, awfully difficult-to-maintain electric bikes that my wife and I own (Shimano STEPS-based). I wish I'd never bought them.

     The weight really bugs me. An electric bike has a higher weight budget, yes, but manufacturers spend it in the stupidest ways possible. I wish they would make the derailleurs more robust by enclosing them. I wish they would make the disc brakes less squeaky and more long-lasting by making all of the contact surfaces larger. But instead, I get all of the compromises you'd find on a regular human-powered bicycle, and my frame inexplicably weighs half as much again before I even mount the battery.

   • Embed this notice
     RealGene ☣️ (realgene@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 05-Jul-2026 23:52:46 JST RealGene ☣️

     in reply to

     @dalias
     My city is overrun by fat-tire overpowered electric motorcycles ridden on the sidewalks by helmetless assholes.

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 05-Jul-2026 23:54:27 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • Empterdose

     @MrDOS Oh I kinda hate (esp. expensive) bike culture too. My bike is a $120 single speed that's light with almost nothing needing maintenance. Bikes should be a solarpunk thing not status symbols.

   • Embed this notice
     maxine 🇵🇸 (maxine@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 06-Jul-2026 00:15:44 JST maxine 🇵🇸

     in reply to

     @dalias i don’t think this is much of a hot take - vertical integration attempts at this failed pretty hard (vanmoof) or nearly went bankrupt (cowboy) while exceeding regular ebike costs and being less reliable. bosch and shimano seem responsible for most of the ebikes i see when cycling, and they stretch from being as simple as “press on button and cycle” to “configure your preferred boost levels or gearing in an app, and then cycle”, and that seems to have by far won with regular bike cos as well as cargo bikes.

   • Embed this notice
     Imran Nazar (two9a@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 06-Jul-2026 00:53:13 JST Imran Nazar

     in reply to

     @dalias Mm, could never make sense of the "integrated e-bike" concept. My own bike is the battered MTB I had as a yoot', 2x5 gears of which 1x3 work any more; threw a front motor conversion on it a couple of years back, and it's seen more miles since than it did in the 20 years before.