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There are already those issues with the wired in version of AXS and Di2 derailleurs on ebikes, it's actually obnoxious to work on them because of it.
An interesting rhetorical question about CVTs and MGUs coming into this space is when do these "bicycles" stop being "bicycles"? Automatic shifting and the removal of manual control seem to me like the point where bicycles are no longer bicycles. We as a community and as an industry should probably draw those lines before we get too much further from where we are now.
I'll stop my pseudo-philosophical ramblings here
Any thoughts on creating a new thread with to sole focus being DJI/Avinox/Amflow + Future (which can be technology and business)?
I know a number of you subscribe to this looking for a broader range of things to be talked about. I'm happy to start one if you guys want.
For ebike motor manufactures to cross over into the gear box makes sense. They look at the $800 derailleur $600 cassette $150 chain $150 chainring and $200 shifter and see a gap in their profits.
I forgot Pinion uses the name Motor-Gearbox-Unit, here I am thinking everyone was talking about Motor-GENERATOR- Units 😅
I would love to see someone make a crack at harvesting energy from braking or the suspension - I figure it could be a small equaliser for heavier riders who would normally have much less battery range available
And @jeff.brines maybe we do need an Avinox thread, I was reading through all this and thought it was the ebike thread.....😬
Do we need a new thread, or just to move this to the already started e-bike thread?
Back on topic though, @jeff.brines, any sense of general optimism at Sea Otter that you picked up on? The vibe I got from pinkbikes most recent podcast is that everyone was in general feeling less doom and gloom on the business side of things. I know the timing of last year was real tough with the Liberation Day tariffs announced just before the show.
Everything is peachy!!
(Except that Engulf & Devour are getting ready to stomp the rest of the industry players into the dirt)
New thread live here pertaining to all things DJI + eebs - have at it!
Yes, the vibe at Sea Otter was way, way more upbeat than the last three. Why? Marketing folks had new stuff to talk about, salespeople had the latest hype to sell (at full price), and product managers/engineers had new projects in the works. And all of these people still had jobs after years of downsizing, right-sizing, streamlining, strategic leveraging, and synergizing. So, yeah, people felt relief, the weather was good, and (for better or worse) everyone has become desensitized to global turmoil, macroeconomic uncertainty, and the daily onslaught of ridiculous political news.
Mind you, that was not intended to be a cynical take. I was glad the vibe was finally not the IRL equivalent of doom-scrolling.
For those of us living in the land of freedumb who bought bikes or components with inflated pricing, when do we expect refund checks once the brands receive their checks from the treasury? /s
(maybe those tariffs stand, it’s all very confusing)
Zero chance of tariff refunds making their way to consumers. Although I have heard of class action suits being brought against Nintendo NA and Costco to try and force that. I'm STILL waiting on my refund from UPS for an illegally collected tariff (& associated brokerage fees) on a part I purchased last August prior to the de minimus exemption expiration - $180 tariff+fees on a $320 part, bought from Germany.
I get confused why Surrons are even a topic in a mountain bike forum. More of a vital MX topic. It’s a motorcycle
Because as the line between mountain bikes and electric motor bikes continues to blur there are potentially considerable knock-on effects especially (IMHO) wth respect to access and what companies are investing or trying to sell.
Sorry to be off topic in the DJI thread, but this new Raaw has me curious about their distribution. I see a few in North America and they are almost universally loved. I bet they could have an even bigger presence here if shipping them here wasn't such a pain in the ass.
Is there a reason they don't have North American distribution beyond the normal Cheeto tariff uncertainty? Realistically would it be a viable option for a brand of their size to ship some of their frames directly to North America? I am not saying set up an in house warehouse but there has to be someone sending and warehousing bikes on that route that they could glom onto in a way that is viable to expand their presence here. I assume they are (rightfully) hesitant to expose themselves to the growing pains other brands have experienced since Covid.
Data point of one but FWIW my LBS carries RAAW, no idea how they get them though...
It's a great question. My hunch is that the juice isn't worth the squeeze. Selling bikes in North America means supporting bikes after the sale in North America, and that's easier said than done. There have been a ton of cool European brands that have left terrible impressions for NA users because of the distributor they went through. If RAAW wants to guarantee a quality post-sale user experience for their customers, they need to partner with a quality distribution firm in NA, which isn't cheap.
That distributor is going to eat into the margin quite a bit, and if RAAW is having plenty of sales and growth in the EU at higher margins, it might not pencil out to steer limited stock away from the EU to expand into NA. I'm assuming RAAW has limited stock and short-term growth potential, because that's how these things tend to go for smaller firms (capital constrained and production constrained).
[Editor's note: based on that last comment from @dollface I checked and it looks like RAAW does ship to the US. So I guess you were just asking about why RAAW doesn't have a dedicated distributor in the US?]
I'm going to guess money... When you say a company of their size, how big are they?
On the other hand, with a blank check and a commitment to moving product, there might be an opportunity for you..
They do ship directly to the U.S., and it used to be pretty reasonable. I paid around $85 for delivery a couple of years ago.
I checked shipping for the new Madonna R, and it was $300. There’s also a chance you’ll get hit with additional tariff fees once it arrives stateside.
I wonder how big their North American business is and how this is impacting it, as well as the company overall.
Shipping prices are outrageous in general right now. I just paid $200 to ship a frame across the US. $300 from Germany sounds reasonable in that context. Tariffs are the bigger issue I think.
I got a raaw shipped this month. I think it was $280 and then fedex wanted $400 for tariffs. I haven't paid the tariff yet... Not sure how to approach it with how everything is going. A friend of mine in town got a raaw with a shock, I had one for my bike already. Plus he got an extra set of dropouts and I think his was a cheaper tariff than mine. He hasn't paid either but I feel like the customs people are just guessing what it should be and making up random numbers. I got a syringe to bleed my shock off of ebay canada for $65 and ups told me the tariff was $40. Like WTF are you guys talking about this is coming from canada and it was only $65 to start with...
Fuel prices are driving shipping costs lately, and that's only going to get worse. Soon, EU packaging regulations will drive costs even higher. Add tariffs into the mix and it's increasingly difficult for smaller brands to offer physical goods globally, especially large, high-value items.
Just a warning relative to the credit scores / general life harassment field; FedEx will 100% send you to collections if you don't pay a customs / tariff bill. They have already paid those fees on your behalf and you agreed to pay them back when you chose to use them as your customs broker.
As a general "this is how the world actually works" explanation; even if Raaw had a brand new USA distributor, that USA distributor would pay the tariffs, factor that as the landed cost of the frame and price the frame accordingly to USA customers to maintain an acceptable margin.
Re: Americans ITT being upset on having to pay duties/tarrifs/etc when FedEx/UPS brokers their package
As a Canadian, all I can say is welcome to the club. Try to find out what percentage of the money they charge you is actually tarrifs or duties and what is "brokerage fees". Up here in Canada UPS loves to charge a seemingly undefined, inconsistent, but generally large amount of "Brokerage Fees" on anything they import, even if duties, tarrifs, or taxes don't apply.
Yup. I sold a pair of brakes to a guy in Canada a couple years ago before the Cheeto came to power, and even then he got hit with like a $50 tariff/brokerage fee on what I declared as "used bike parts - brakes". I felt bad for him but nothing I could do about it.
I sold a few item to Canada from my side-business, shipped by UPS. The process was ridiculous. They would quote the tariffs just fine, but they couldn't give a quote for Brokerage fees. I kept a spreadsheet of past tariffs and fees from the few times I sold across the border just to estimate costs, but it never really lined up. In the end it just wasn't worth it. Easily added 50% to the cost of the items.
International shipping is just unreasonable unless you plan t use a distributor to handle all of it for you.
UPS Canada charges brokerage fees based on the rate/level of service you choose. If you use Standard shipping you will pay a processing fee per-line-item that is assessed for duties / taxes. If you pay for Expedited or Express they charge a flat fee to assess the entire shipment. If you're importing more than one item is almost always worth it to pay the extra charge to have it shipped expedited as you'll make that saving back by avoiding the extra charges. In most cases a Canadian import / duties bill is just assessing the sales tax you would have paid on a sale of that dollar value, very few bike-related items actually attract any duties and tariffs are even rarer. I would also note that you have no obligation to accurately declare the value of anything you are shipping to a private company like UPS.
If you are shipping stuff across borders with any Incoterm other than Ex-Works, you are 100% responsible legally to declare the correct goods shipped value to the correct national border control agency or else you just advising people to commit fraud.
I believe in your country they call it 'tax minimization' and it's something you should be proud of doing.
They're going to make it nice and hard to get those refunds. I suspect many small to medium size companies won't even bother.
When you add circular foot throttles and motors.
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