Official Coli Bike/Cycling thread
It's amazing how quickly Paris has transformed with some bike-forward/anti-car thinking by the city. This twitter acct (EmmanuelSPV) has a lot of nice slice of life vids, showcasing pedestrian and biking life in Paris. I love seeing how they reclaimed parts of the city for people.
yeah, they're mayor is doign a great job advocating for more cycling infrastructure and car-free areas.
lots of rented bikes in that first clip.
Nigeria’s first electric bicycle manufacturer aims to bring easy mobility to rural, urban areas
Tolulope Olulokun is the founder/CEO of ThinkBikes, the first electric bicycle company in Nigeria located in Ibadan. At the Nigeria Climate Innovation
tribuneonlineng.com
Nigeria’s First Electric Bicycle Manufacturer Aims To Bring Easy Mobility To Rural, Urban Areas
ECOSCOPEBy Paul Omorogbe On Jul 7, 2022
Olukokun and his bicycle
Tolulope Olulokun is the founder/CEO of ThinkBikes, the first electric bicycle company in Nigeria located in Ibadan. At the Nigeria Climate Innovation Centre in Lagos, he met PAUL OMOROGBE and explained what his electric bicycle innovation is all about and the problems it solves.
What is ThinkBikes electric bicycle?
ThinkBikes is the first electric bicycle manufacturing company in Nigeria and one of the few in Africa. We are not talking about retrofitting. Retrofitting means you remove the engine and put in an electric motor. I have done about two electric vehicle conversions of my own. We are manufacturing from scratch. We get raw materials like steel and cut to size. We have our own design. We source some parts locally, but the motor is from China. About 60 to 65 per cent of our parts are sourced locally. And we are the first in Nigeria and part of the few in Africa.
This bicycle is our flagship product. It is a cargo bicycle. It is a bicycle, as we all know, but it is electrically propelled. It assists you to propel. A lot of people confuse electric bikes for electric motorcycles. They are different. Bicycles maintain a pedal. But you are not pedaling with your strength. A motor is assisting you. So you can have 300 kg at the back of the bicycle and you don’t feel it because the motor is assisting you. You have the option to throttle, but throttling will limit your range.
What is the range?
For now it is profiled for 50 km. But we are still road testing and expecting feedback from our clients. On our paperwork, we have 50 km and this will pull 300kg conveniently.
Target users
We had quite a lot of users in mind. But this one here is for waste recyclers. We also had FMCG distributors in mind. We have farmers; we have logistics people; we had quite a lot of people in mind.
How long have you been in business?
The company has been in existence since 2019. We incorporated officially in 2020. Our first product was in December last year. The second prototype came out in February. This is the third generation of our bicycle which we are now selling.
Production plans
We have our production facility where we can produce five of these per day. We are not into full commercialization yet. We are at pilot phase. We are getting feedback from our customers. That’s the level we are right now.
Challenges
The challenge has always been funding because a lot of people don’t see hardware as a scalable business. But in a country like Nigeria, we need manufacturing to put a lot of people to work. If it is about software development and software companies alone, the people they can employ are people who are well skilled. What of the people who are at the bottom of the pyramid? We complain that unemployment is much. But with manufacturing companies, even if it is to assemble things, or carry materials here and there, it is work. We have people we can engage. For me, it is about employment opportunities that we can create, and the impact you can create for small businesses and people. It costs too much to transfer goods from one place to another, especially in rural communities where the roads are bad. Our bikes can go there. Look at the heights, it will go off-road. Many vehicles cannot go there.
Cost
Currently, the cost is about 750,000 naira without VAT. That can change once we scale up.
Prospects
We are trying to talk to some investors. We need investment to scale up business.
Look who is riding with ease, powering electric bicycle sales in Connecticut
By Stephen SingerHartford Courant
•
Jul 07, 2022 at 2:15 pm
BLOOMFIELD — Baby boomers who came of age with color TV, microcomputers and space exploration are driving the popularity of the latest innovation: electric bicycles that graying cyclists can propel without much exertion.
Sales of traditional bicycles soared during the pandemic to fight stay-at-home boredom, but are now slowing. Electric bicycles, however, are enormously popular, providing a source of power other than human effort to move along streets and off-road.
[ E-bikes are having their moment. They deserve it. ]
“We’ve never seen anything as crazy as we’ve seen with electric bikes,” said Mike Wolf, owner of Bloomfield Bicycle & Repair Shop. “Electric bikes have absolutely taken over the market for the older generation.”
He has 100 to 130 e-bikes on display and sold five in just one day. Most customers are in their 50s and older, and he said he recently sold two to a couple who are both 82.
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Mike Wolf, left, owner of Bloomfield Bicycle & Repair Shop, says, “Electric bikes have absolutely taken over the market for the older generation.” (Douglas Hook / Hartford Courant) (Douglas Hook)
Electric bicycles, which can generally travel at about 20 mph, don’t have to be entirely effortless.
“People think if you have an electric bicycle you don’t have exercise,” Wolf said. “If you do it right, you pedal.”
Steve Long, a former Enfield resident now living in Tampa, Florida, is having replacement surgery on both knees and relies on his electric bicycle to get around.
“I could ride the bike all day,” said Long, 66. “The weight is off the knees. It gets you out and gets you active.”
Matt Majeski of Vista, California, who suffers from inflammation that hampers mobility, said an e-bike critic “mumbled that it was kind of cheating.”
“It’s kind of narrow-minded of them,” he said. “They don’t know me.
“I do want to pedal as much as I can. If any part of my body gives out, I can just use the throttle on it.”
Sales of electric bicycles have grown much faster than those for conventional bikes, but are a small percentage of the market, Dirk Sorenson, an analyst at The NPD Group, said in December. Sales of electric bikes were $741 million, with growth of 47% in the 12 months ending October 2021, compared with the same period in 2020.
Revenue for the U.S cycling market in the same period grew just 3% compared with the previous year, to more than $8.4 billion, according to NPD Retail Tracking data.
The single-digit growth “is a bit disappointing, but understandable” following a 45% increase between the 12 months ending October 2020 vs. 2019 that reflected strong consumer demand during the pandemic for outdoor activities, Sorenson said.
Now that “some of these needs are diminished” cycling sales could decline, he said. But growth due to strong sales of electric bicycles “should come as little surprise as these bicycles address the needs of an aging U.S. population, provide easy access to a family-friendly outdoor activity and address some of the need for commuting in denser population centers,” he said.
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Isaac Mullen has been working for Bloomfield Bicycle & Repair Shop since May 2022 in the workshop. He and Larry Von Wilgen repair e-bike customers' battery problems along with general repairs on all bikes. (Douglas Hook / Hartford Courant) (Douglas Hook)
Drawn to a growing industry, European car manufacturers BMW and Porsche are in the e-bike market. Porsche last month bought a manufacturer of light and compact drive systems for e-bikes.
And Rivian, a manufacturer of electric cars, has hired the former chief technology officer at Specialized Bicycle Components, fueling speculation about its plans for the e-bike industry.
Bob Kiernan, owner of Manchester Cycle Shop, said e-bikes sell for between $1,500 and $10,000. A battery that can be recharged overnight has a 50-mile range. Still, bicyclists can pedal “and get some exercise,” he said.
“As we sell more our customers become our best salespeople,” Kiernan said
Electric bicycles reach younger riders in addition to baby boomers. Mark Reynolds, 43, said his $4,000 e-bikes that he bought online from a firm in Saskatchewan, Canada, gets him around “pretty hilly” Stafford Springs. He said he rides at 15 to 20 mph on flat land.
It gives him an opportunity to ride with his 8-year-old daughter. “I had a hard time keeping up with her,” he said.
Kent Nelson of Orlando, Florida, who pulls his 2-year-old son in tow in a trailer, said cyclists may experience “range anxiety” because they’ll run low on power at 20 miles.
“Pedaling a bike sounds dreadful,” he said. “An e-bike is going to get me somewhere. That’s great.”
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Mike Wolf, owner of Bloomfield Bicycle & Repair Shop, started selling electric bikes 15 years ago. (Douglas Hook / Hartford Courant) (Douglas Hook)
Did you get it yet?????
There's a mountain bike trail literally 1 mile from my crib. It's a small park and a 5 mile mountain bike trail with gaps and obstacles, drops, inclines, declines and shyt. It's only the park and mountain bike trail so Ive never gone to it to run or casually ride and the playground doesn't have monkey bars so I can't do an outdoor workout there. Anyway they had a community event there a few weeks back to spur the communities interest. I missed the event but I'm going to hit the trail Friday morning. I'm going to livestream it on YouTube too.
I should probably wait until next week because I have to run in a race Saturday morning so it's probably not wise in case of any falls or injury to ride but fukk it.
I'm excited. I might end up going Thursday evening. It sucks when you have commitments. This should be dope though
I should probably wait until next week because I have to run in a race Saturday morning so it's probably not wise in case of any falls or injury to ride but fukk it.
I'm excited. I might end up going Thursday evening. It sucks when you have commitments. This should be dope though
Self correction.
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DMing you.