Bike Manufacturers Are Making Bikes Less Repairable
Bike Manufacturers Are Making Bikes Less Repairable

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



Just like cars, tractors, computers, and seemingly every other product category, bikes—and especially e-bikes—are going all black box on us. Instead of using standard parts that can easily be swapped or upgraded, bike makers are using more and more proprietary parts. At the same time, cheap bikes are getting worse and are designed to fail, or rather, they are not designed to last, which is pretty much the same thing.


  
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Riding Away From Standardization



For example, the bottom bracket—the tubular bearing assembly at the bottom of the frame that the pedal axle threads through—has long been a fairly standard part.



Over the years, and on different continents, there may have been a few thread sizes, but a cyclist could easily buy the right part for a surprisingly reasonable price. Just as important, you’ve been able to remove the bottom bracket with one of a few simple tools. Now, though, a bike shop has to keep 20+ tools on hand to deal with all the proprietary fittings.



Standard parts make modding and repair easier. Photo Charlie Sorrel.



On electric bikes, things are even worse. Batteries are as non-standard as they are on cell phones. Instead of creating a standard, a kind of giant li-ion AA-equivalent for all bikes, you’re stuck buying non-standard sizes that you won’t be able to use on a new bike. This creates its own kind of lock-in, like the batteries on power tools, perhaps making you more likely to stick with the same brand within a family.



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



The result is that possibly the greenest, most efficient form of transport is turning into yet another source of landfill and e-waste. But why?



The cynical—and probably correct—take is that it boosts sales. By using proprietary parts, a bike manufacturer guarantees you have to go back to them for spares. And if those spares are not readily available, or are too expensive, then maybe you’ll just give up and buy a new bike instead.



Couple this with the explosion in new bike tech in recent years, which is itself designed to drive the desire to “upgrade” a perfectly good bike by replacing it with a new one, and you can see the attraction for the bean counters. Electronic, wireless gear shifters. Carbon-fiber seat posts. Active, self-adjusting suspension. Proprietary apps for changing key features like the power mode. All of these are superfluous for most riders, and add complexity to what is essentially a very simple, and pretty much perfect, machine.



Buy Cheap, Buy Twice



Bikes are getting ever more popular, in large part thanks to e-bikes, which make riding easy for people who would not otherwise consider cycling. That’s good news! Alas, to service this popularity, cheap and crappy bikes have proliferated.



“Budget bikes from ‘big box’ stores […] cost little ($150 to $250) because manufacturers cut corners. These bikes are built to fail: badly engineered, constructed from low-grade materials and fabricated in countries with inhumane labor standards,” writes cycling advocate Josh Bicker on StreetsBlog NYC.



These bikes are often broken out of the box. That’s bad if the buyer is a bike shop, and possibly deadly if the buyer is an inexperienced rider buying off the internet. Buying a used bike is a much better way to get a well-made machine for a good price. The downside of that is that you need to know what to look for, and how to bring that bike up to correct working 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 look over the bike for you. This works best if that bike isn’t using a bunch of proprietary parts. You can’t reach into the spare parts bin for a brake caliper if your bike uses a proprietary disk-brake design, whether that’s a super-high-end model, or a closed unit with more plastic than metal.



Ideally all bikes would continue to draw on a pool of standard part-types, but manufacturers seem set on the opposite. This makes it all the more important that we have legislation to force them to make proprietary parts available for riders to buy themselves, not just selling to repair shops (if at all). And with the increase of technology in bikes, public repair information is also essential. You’re definitely not going to find powered-hub servicing guides on Sheldon Brown. Fingers crossed, but that legislation may indeed be on the way.


  
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Batteries Should Be Interoperable



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



That keeps replacement costs higher, but it also means that you are stuck if the manufacturer discontinues your battery. A bike that is otherwise in perfect working order might end up prematurely useless, or you will end up in the world of shonky spares from Amazon or another unreliable source.



Sure, why not? Photo Charlie Sorrel.



The standard excuses apply. Original parts are designed to work safely together. Using non-official parts can be dangerous, etc. That may be true, but if so, it’s only because the parts were designed that way. The blame is with the manufacturer. It’s totally possible to design around standard batteries. Ask anyone who’s ever made a device that runs on AA batteries, or swapped a new 12-Volt lead-acid battery into a car.



We are 100% against this trend. A bike is an almost perfect machine, and e-bikes combined with public transit are probably the best way to get cars out of cities, and to make personal transport sustainable.



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



And yet all that is being ruined in an effort to make us buy a new bike every few years, instead of repairing the ones we have. Newer, more exotic specs and components encourage us to “upgrade,” just like with smartphones, laptops, and cameras, and they also turn the perfect machine into an unknowable black box that is often not worth the cost of repair.



The Infinite Battery is endlessly repairable, and even looks cool.



One ray of hope here is the Infinite Battery by Gouach, currently seeking development funding via Indiegogo. It’s compatible with all major brands’ setups, and offers the usual power capacity and safety features, but it is totally user serviceable. All parts can be swapped out individually, and when the cells inside start to wear out, you can replace them individually, almost as if your bike ran on around 30 AA cells



If you can repair a bike, and use standard spares, either new or harvested from dead bikes, then a bike can essentially live forever. If the growing anti-repair practices of the bike industry are allowed to threaten that, then we no longer own our machines. We are essentially renting disposable gadgets instead.
    
  