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Local shop won’t work on non-major branded e-bikes anymore. Insurance hazard is the given reason - they can’t store them overnight. For reference, they won’t take RAD.
I’ve been in multiple well-merchandised shops lately with fresh signs that say they won’t work on any bikes older than 8 years, and they will only work on ebikes from brands they sell.
The no-old bikes thing makes me cringe, but I can only imagine how many mechanics in the trenches would love to narrow down which ebikes they need to service.
The 8 year clause might have made sense 10 years ago. These days, going forward, it makes no sense.
It has become pretty common for motorcycle dealers in the US to refuse service for anything older than 10 years. The point to parts availability, liability, and, in a sad state of affairs, not having the knowledge to work on a carbureted bike. You have to do your own maintenance or seek out an independent mechanic willing to chase parts and take a chance.
based on my experience, there's also a need for signs stating "we won't work on bikes you found in the trash"
Usually, there's a point in that conversation where I would end up telling them, "There's probably a reason why it was in the trash..." That almost always included a department store bike found in the trash. A lot of times I would remind them that just because you got the bike for free, it doesn't mean I have to fix it for free..
one of my shop managers used those exact words with a customer right before he threw him out of the shop (he tried being reasonable at first but the customer wasn't having it, and things kept escalating to this point)
I'm pretty sure I got hired as a service writer because I was [am] going grey I know what a cantilever brake is. Our shop rarely turned down an opportunity to make a buck off someone. I did $180 of work on a dumpster BMX once, and the customer was ecstatic [and high on... life]. That said, I agree that hub-motor bikes are largely consumable items since a replacement rear wheel is often most of the price of a new bike.
My other favorite is that people assume a cheap bike is cheap to fix... Even though we, thankfully, can't get the crap parts that come on the bike and those cheap parts take more time to make the work decently.. I make sure I put every little thing in the order so the price would deter them..
A lot of what has been said here sounds like the reason a pal who does vintage moto, moped, and scooter repair absolutely kiboshes anyone coming in with a cheap Chinese scooter. He points out his hourly labor rate alone is worth a healthy chunk of what the scooter's purchase price on Amazon/Ali/What have you was.
The E-bikes over 8 years thing is interesting. From my understanding, battery tech didn't have as many fail safes from thermal run-away as they do now in the first gen of E-bikes. The first gen Turbo series from Specialized did a heap for battery safety.
We as a shop, don't work on bikes systems we don't sell, mainly because we cannot troubleshoot them software wise or get repair parts easily. For example, if we're replacing a dropper cable, and some part of the E-drive system is damaged while we are doing the repair for any reason, the amount of time and cost to get even a wire we don't sell from another place is sometimes up to a month or two if its not a common part, especially mid season. We have gotten burned to many times by someone saying "It's ok, if something gets damaged that you can't fix....." and then it very much not be ok when a wire from the brake lever that shut the motor down when braking was snagged and separated. We were not only unable to replace the wire, but we could not find a replacement brake level, making the bike unrideable. Which we then had to replace the bike. So this is now even for flat repairs in case something happens.
My shop does mechanical work on basically any E-bike brought in, but we won't do electrical work on a lot of them. We'll work on the good names, Bosch, Shimano, TQ, Fazua and we carry aventon, which are surprisingly decent now. The reason typically is that we don't want to break something that we can't get parts for, or can't even find info on, and don't want the potential fire hazard in the shop. It's a pretty good balance of not turning people away out of hand, and protecting the shop.
it does, old shimano shit is hard to get these days.
So you're saying we should be binning 8 year old bikes? Even though they are still perfectly functioning for modern day riding?
We found Microshift to be a decent replacement for old Shimano stuff that is no longer available.
why? CUES is so cheap? we either replace the whole drivetrain with CUES or send them down the street to the vintage bike bike shop
If we can't get parts for them because the company's have moved on from that system, yes. It's brutal, but in my experience the bike industry has always had short product cycles because things change so quickly and demand drops severely after 5 years because those products, such as fork spares, shock spares, even frames because the people who service their stuff regularly have moved on to newer stuff.
Since after care of any type is likely limited to 20-25% of these products at all, with most people ignoring the bikes unless they're using it and have problem, it also limits how much of this stuff is produced in the long run for after support. I would say after 10 years, most products support parts backlog have been diminished enough that that product is no longer able to be repaired.
Most high end bikes after 7 years, with the exception of road bikes, are memories at the back of a shed, and then get pulled out after support time has passed. And even with road bikes, stuff like support for original 10 speed Shimano literally doesn't exist. You cannot purchase 11 speed DI2 or Etap parts, you have to get a whole drivetrain and 11 speed DI2 hasn't even been out of production since 2022
I wish bikes were 90's/00's Rangers where there were millions produced and still need parts to support them on the road, but they aren't and parts start to get pretty thin
Completely disagree.
It's like telling people to not drive old cars because the parts are hard to get.
Good mechanics find a way to keep old bikes running. They aren't that complicated really, there is always a bodge to make things work. I'm not saying the servicing should be cheap, but the idea of don't ride old bikes it's too annoying is just giving up on the history of our sport.
I commute on a 2003 Eddy Merckx road bike with Campagnolo record on it, and still have a Giant AC1 (2003) that I use for vintage rides. My mechanic is stoked when he sees them.
Having also worked as a shop mechanic, on bikes new and old (sometimes very, very old), my experience was that old parts can sometimes be repaired and can sometimes be replaced with a new (but possibly non-matching or lower-quality) replacement. And sometimes neither of those is possible. Managing customer expectations and communicating clearly is extremely important when it comes to that sort of thing.
I have a great appreciation for the companies out there producing affordable replacement parts that can keep old bikes functional and out of the landfill. Even if those bikes are no longer "trail-worthy," many of them can be repurposed for transportation. 1990s mountain bikes make great commuting rigs- - not sure if we'll be able to say the same about today's bikes in 30 years.
I think we're talking about different things. Absolutely, older bikes will keep going and any shop worth going to will be able to keep either of those bikes going for a long time. I regularly see well cared for 40+ year old bikes still going strong. I'm more leaning into critical failure of legacy parts.
If your AC1 (Sick by the way) has a chain stay fail, its done. Unless you can coax one out of someone's basement, its a wall hanger. Or if that Campy group has a shifter fail, parts are now very hard to come by even by campy standards, with Ebay likely the only place to get support parts unless your local distributor is sitting on a pile of gold.
No shop is going to be able to source old fork parts through the usual routes that have been out of production for 20 years very easily if a stanchion gets marred up by a bushing or a damper fails. And you literally cannot replace some Campy 10/11 speed, or the previously mentioned sram and shimano stuff. If your only route is the used market or someone's hoard from E-bay, that product isn't supported any more. We basically have to sell people an entirely new drivetrain in some cases because of compatibly issues. Should we really have to be going to E-bay to support parts that aren't even 10 years old and are still used day to day by lots of people? No, its insane.
So when I'm looking at the history of the industry, where things are going right now as things like shimano dropping most support for all legacy 6/7/8/9/10 speed drivetrains for Cues/Essa being the standard across the board below Deore, and knowing how hard it is already to even get E-bike remotes for bikes that are 6-7 years old, I have very little faith in the ability to support E-bikes for more than 8-10 years unless something changes drastically.
Ok, yeah i totally agree with all of this.
I guess its similar to how european cars are becoming more and more disposable because of the technology included in all the parts these days. Like how if you get in a fender bender in a Mercedes and damage a headlight, the whole light surround needs to be replaced at the cost of thousands because they don't replace individual lights/bulbs anymore. Will those parts be available in 20 years time? Who knows.
Ebikes very much are a tech product, nobody fixes a 5 year old laptop, its straight to the recycling depot for it.
Phelper wasn’t taking shit from anybody. You do have to give some respect to that. From a guy who skated with him and spent a good part of my life respecting him as a gate keeper. There is nobody in MTBing like him, dumb shit can get fucked no matter the amount of corporate money, That being good or bad. Ok enough about that
“STILL WATCHIN”
I have a 13 year old MacBook that doesn’t need much work ever, but when it does, there is no question if they will fix it or not. The only thing that can’t happen now is updating the OS.
You guys are being dramatic and honestly sound like what is wrong with so many bike shops. Treat people like people, each customer bike is unique, manage expectations, and actually try a bit to help someone out. Yes, don’t work on Chinese E bike motors, but to have a sign saying No bikes Older than 8 years? Insane. Who’s to say they aren’t willing to replace the entire drivetrain?
And you guys think Phelps is the core lord…
Where there's a will, there's a way when it comes to standard bikes, and to some degree the same attitudes and techniques will pop up in the Ebike market. I already know a guy who rebuilt the motor on his Serial 1. Granted, he's not your regular mechanic. Engineer and has done some very interesting things to motos he's gotten his hands on where new parts weren't an option and old ones always came with a degree of suspicion. (Yep, I know a lotta vintage moto enthusiasts). Turned out there was a bad wire on a torque sensor on the Brose unit Serial 1 used, and was easier to repair than to try to find an 'approved retailer' to have the job done. Locally, ebike support is in its nascence.
What is keeping me from even entertaining an e commuter is support after warranty expires. Apple is/was terrible about this. Years ago I had a macbook where the charge cable went kaput. No sweat, right? Oh, Apple ceased making that particular cable 3 years prior. Stupefied I asked what I was s'posed to do with a perfectly good laptop and they suggested buy a new one. Somehow spending a grand+ on a new computer over a sub $20 power cord didn't make any sense whatsoever. I found a new off market job of course, but that was my first real dipping of toes in ewaste (and also why I went back to PCs). Maybe Upway comes up with a sourcing solution to keep 'old' ebikes rolling, maybe they develop a technique to rebuild battery packs or make their own. Maybe they develop hop up parts for old worn out4motors. I am doubtful of those as no other consumer electronic I know of has been able to figure out a way to crack that code to profitability. I look at new cars with IFCUs and think no way would I buy one. What do you do once the vehicle's out of warranty and the IFCU crashes out? That's a $5k part (at least), plus labor because you have to have the company's software/diagnostic unit to marry the unit to the vehicle (not exactly available to an end user). This is a future that I definitely don't want to see happen to bikes, and why I am taking a wait n see approach to see what happens in regards to long range support before I pull out the credit card for one.
Cues is fantastic. Converted my gravel bike to a riser bar commuter marauder with a cues drivetrain. SRAM must have aggressive OEM pricing structure, because linkglide and cues is great and should be on mid and low models.
"there is always a bodge to make things work."
there are also countries where you are liable for your work. and countries with high labor costs. do tell me, why should a customer pay us 139 CHF (that's 265 AUD) labor per hour for a bodge job? at some point, fixing up an old beater bike is no longer economically sound.
Switzerland is probably not the country to use when extrapolating out to the rest of the world on any front. It’s nice that you reside there and that it’s your lived experience, but how things work for the Swiss is not really how things work for anyone else.
Jeff, I've given this a lot of thought, and it’s unclear to me whether you’re making a true “Ship of Theseus” argument in this post, or if you’re merely arguing from various component parts of the argument that we collectively refer to as the “Ship of Theseus.”
More like “ship of thieves” amirite?
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that when a ship runs aground losing life and bounty and another captain buys the name, slaps it on a new, smaller ship, hires a few of the same deck hands and sets sail in the same rocky, shark infested waters it is not the same ship but could yield the same outcome. Given the misguided investment this whole used market thing does seem to be someone’s white whale to mix nautical métaphores. Arrrgh.
Independant bike mechanic in France / Toulouse here. I only repair mechanic bikes now. No electric bikes anymore, especially not these shitty chinese nonsenses that people buy thinking they make a bargain. I'm fed up of these. I prefer to repair some old Peugeot or any bike bike from the 90's/2000's. And don't tell me about electric fat bikes...
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