How to make the industry more sustainable?

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12/23/2021 4:32pm
Teamrobot

It is hard to as the laws vary so much from state to state. For instance, in Illinois, I owned and ran a race company. In Illinois, there are no limits on compensatory damages for any claim of any type (unless the claim is against a Govt.). From there, a waiver of liability has as much value as used single-ply toilet paper. So, for instance, someone in IL gets a flat and crashes...they sue the race, race director, property owner, and any other person who could have "foreseen" and not had not prevented such an "incident". The lawyers know that in general there will be an out-of-court settlement by the insurance company - this is just the cost of doing business. For that, insurance in IL is about 600% higher in many industries than in neighboring states.

Florida on the other hand has a much more business and property rights mentality. Equine was the first to have laws protecting entities from obvious issues with frivolous suits - that in many areas destroy industries (such as mountain biking). This is why, oddly, FL has some pretty darn cool trails on public and state land,

Political parties aside - until the LAWYERS stop running this nation, well, we will continue to have limits on our desires as the cost of litigation outweighs "fun" for most private and public land (where we build trails).

The premise is of this thread is being a good steward to the planet, well, being a good steward to the people and our peers would be nice as well...if only the lawyers would not be, well, such lawyers.


FL Equine:
Summary: This Florida statute provides that an equine activity sponsor, an equine professional, or any other person shall not be liable for an injury to or the death of a participant resulting from the inherent risks of equine activities. Liability will not be limited by statute, however, where the equine professional or sponsor knew the tack or equipment was faulty, failed to make reasonable and prudent efforts to determine the ability of the participant to engage safely in the equine activity, owns or is otherwise in lawful possession of the land or facilities where the injury is attributable to a known dangerous latent condition, commits an act or omission that constitutes willful or wanton disregard for the safety of the participant, or intentionally injures the participant. Posting of warning signs alerting participants to the limitation of liability by law is also required.
1
2/25/2022 8:57am
I'd love to see efforts to make second hand bikes even more attractive...
The people at NSMB have an article today about transferrable warranty and honestly that would really improve my chances of buying second hand!
1
Primoz
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2/25/2022 2:40pm
At the end of the day, does it matter how many owners owned the bike? A warranty is a warranty.
2/25/2022 7:29pm
Primoz wrote:
At the end of the day, does it matter how many owners owned the bike? A warranty is a warranty.
A warranty is to incentivize buying a new bike from a company. If you make the warranty transferable you would have to charge more for it especially if it is lifetime. I think it generally makes more sense for people to pay for a warranty for something you want for a the period of the warranty rather than pay for a warranty for think will be replaced by something different.

Ultimately if your bike buying habits are such that they are having a measurable impact on the environment there is probably two or three dozen ways you can improve your lifestyle far more significantly. That doesn’t mean the industry shouldn’t make an effort to limit it’s footprint but transferable warranties on bikes aren’t the solution to climate change. If you are replacing a broken frame with a new one the only thing you can really save is the imaginary dollar.

yzedf
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Hebron, CT US
3/13/2022 7:02pm
Dirtbag lifestyle, I just buy frames. Steel hardtail and a lifetime warranty full squish. When I sell the frame if it still has a warranty I tell the buyer that I’ll help them out.
1
jonkranked
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Norristown, PA US
6/29/2022 7:47pm Edited Date/Time 6/29/2022 7:53pm
figured this would be the best place for this....

needed some new shimano brake bads, ordered 2 sets from the shimano store on amazon (ducks for cover). arrived today. open the parcel and something seemed off, i'm used to seeing their brake pads in a plastic clamshell, these parts arrived in a carton, and the pads themselves were in a paper envelope inside the carton (pic below). immediate red flag to me that something is off, and this could possibly counterfeit product (disclosure: i'm a package engineer for a medical device company, and packaging is one common indicator of counterfeit product). shared this with a buddy in the bike industry, and he had the same initial response as me.

so i did some googling, turns out that shimano has in fact changed their packaging, and has eliminated a lot of the plastic & clamshells, and has moved to minimally processed paperboard cartons. found the below link on their website, and sure enough it shows the same carton i received. so not counterfeit, and shimano is making some changes with their packaging. i follow them on facebook, and this is the first i'm hearing of it.

edit: some more googling shows this packaging started rolling out back in march/april. see the road.cc link

https://bike.shimano.com/en-US/technologies/apparel-accessories/footwea…

https://road.cc/content/news/shimano-introduces-eco-friendly-packaging-…




5
6/29/2022 8:12pm
Primoz wrote:
At the end of the day, does it matter how many owners owned the bike? A warranty is a warranty.
Not really. A warranty covers manufacturing defects or workmanship to the original owner. Assuming it came from a reputable dealer, a small part of the profit they made goes towards supporting the product, making sure the correct part is supplied for the intended use, and taking care of any admin required to process a warranty if they need to claim it. Once a part gets sold second hand there is no way of knowing what state it was in or what its being used for?!
Primoz
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SI
6/29/2022 9:56pm Edited Date/Time 6/29/2022 9:58pm
The 'not knowing the state a part is in' logic applies to the original owner as well. The state the part is in or the abuse it is subjected to (either through use or lack of care applied to it) can actually be worse with the original owner than with the second owner.

Regarding the correct part for the correct use, how is that achieved with direct, over-the-net sales that are so prevalent these days? And regarding the admin part, the profit of the seller wasn't returned to the original buyer after it was sold on, so the cost of admin work is still covered. Or, better yet, all of this can be covered by the original manufacturer, where the issue was caused.

The automotive industry could be used to take parallels from for quite a few things. Parts support is legislated in that case (X years after the product is not made anymore, you still need to have spare parts available to fix the car), nobody bats an eye regarding warranties when it comes to different owners, as long as it fits the conditions to be warrantied, as long as the car is not old enough or doesn't have too many kms and as long as it was serviced within prescribed intervals, it's good to go. There are quite a few stories saying that Subaru even replaced blown diesel engines as long as the car was serviced by an official service shop even after the warranty was long expired, as those engines were known to be badly designed in the first few years. Nobody mentioned the requirement for an original owner though.

Actually limiting the warranty to the original owner only would make 1 year old bikes (quite a few people replace bikes every year) worth A LOT less than they are currently. We're in a fairly wasteful industry as is (given the rate of development and changes, though that seems to be slowing down quite a bit now), let's not give that even more food, lets try to keep perfectly good products running for as long as we can.
Stewyeww
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CA
6/29/2022 10:22pm
Pay $20K for a snowmobile and the warranty follows the sled's VIN number, can go through as many owners as you want but if its in warranty its covered. If your paying $10K for a bike than the warranty should follow the bike as well.
2
6/30/2022 3:26am
Stewyeww wrote:
Pay $20K for a snowmobile and the warranty follows the sled's VIN number, can go through as many owners as you want but if its in...
Pay $20K for a snowmobile and the warranty follows the sled's VIN number, can go through as many owners as you want but if its in warranty its covered. If your paying $10K for a bike than the warranty should follow the bike as well.
Heck, these days, with some (Big S) companies it would be nice if they supported even the ORIGINAL OWNER less in the first year of ownership of a lifetime warranty bike!

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