AustinBike

I just saw this on MTBR: This is an interesting take. I had not considered the "finesse" that you can get from a bike that is just not present with an e-bike. So much of my riding over the years has become much more about feeling the bike through tight obstacles, rock gardens, etc. My Orbea Occam is exceptionally adept at helping me finesse my way through features, to the point where I often tell people to give me a little space because I have the ability to slow a climb to insanely low speed to slips through the appropriate line instead of just getting a head of steam and trying to power up something. The singlespeed really taught me this skill but the Occam lets me literally track stand in the middle of a climb or a rock garden and sneak through with the least effort.

We used Klock Electric in Austin when we had a lightning strike to fix some issues in the house, they were fast, did good work, and as I recall, pretty reasonably priced. Also, Mark Bedell who posted on the old Mojo site as "silverback" is an electrician: https://www.facebook.com/mark.bedell1/ I think he works for a solar company these days so I don't know if he is in the service market but if you are friends with him you may want to reach out to him.

They pulled the mask off and it was poison ivy. And he would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those meddling kids.

Well, not to be the downer, but we live in a state where 95% of the land is privately owned. Sadly, this is going to happen. Property owners can do whatever they want with their property and allowing a high risk activity like biking is rarely in the cards.

I have a buddy that has a Kuat Transfer V2 Rack with a 2" receiver. Hardly ever used, probably less than 10 times. If you are interested ping me and I can put you in touch with him. Here's more info on the rack: https://www.rei.com/product/187294/kuat-transfer-v2-2-bike-hitch-rack There is nothing wrong with it, but they have 2 e-bikes and need a heavier duty rack to handle the extra heft of a battery bike.

You say US. You don't say Texas. My guess is that with the way Texas fights to stay off the US grid that any declaration about US plans will have little to no impact on Texas.

I view standards from a higher level. If a bike company is pushing a proprietary standard then there is a lock in - buy brand X I am tied to brand X for some small universe of parts. But my wheel spacing, wheel size, brake mounting, handlebar clamp, bottom bracket, etc. are all standard. I can change components far easier today than in the past. Now, bike component makers might have proprietary parts, but you have the choice. I can choose between SRAM and Shimano because they will both fit on any of my standardized bikes. But when I broke a Shimano brake lever blade like I did earlier this year, I could only buy Shimano. So what. I think the bike industry has gotten much more standardized, the bike component industry is still proprietary but I'd rather have proprietary at the $35 brake lever blade than the $800 suspension fork.

Tires. Hubs and wheels. Drivetrains. Brakes. Handlebars. Grips. Seatposts and seats. The industry has a ton of standardization. Go shop for a dropper and you'll find that you have 3-4 diameters to choose from and no mention of what kind of bike it is going on. Bike companies are very proprietary on their shock mounting, derailleur hangers and small spare parts. I would say that the industry is incredibly standardized. The biggest outlier always seemed to be Cannondale with their Lefty and their Headshock. The industry brought them in line pretty quick. Those are still products per se, but mostly from an ego perspective.

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I would suggest that there is a bigger determinant out there: modularity and standardization. If I were investigating an e-bike, one of my top criteria would be the modularity of the batteries. My wife has an Electra Townie Go e-bike and she loves it. But the battery is integrated into the downtube and not really user accessible. I also have some friends with REI city e-bikes that have modular, removable batteries - a much better design. But what the industry needs is some standardization. That will drive adoption faster than anything. Additionally, while it is not optimal, if you had a removable battery you could actually carry a spare with you on an overnight trip if you needed to. Sure, its not optimal because of the weight, but it would be a consideration.

I have an Occam - carbon. This is the best bike I have ever owned. And I have owned a bunch. Maybe it is overkill, but there are times when overkill beats almost enough. Highly recommend it. Also, I have hammered on this one a lot, bought in September of 2019 and it is still going strong. I have broken frames on just about everything else I have owned, except for my Santa Cruz Blur. And I am not a big jump guy, I just ride a ton.

I have dropped a bunch of tires off there and have more on the shelf. I am slowly cleaning out the garage and when I hit the bike area I will have another big shipment to drop off.

No, you are not being too cheap. Check out swapping the front and back. I have a a regimen for my tires, the good bike gets the new ones, passing down its tires to the singlespeed, and then the singlespeed tires go to the urban bike for the final grinding down. I get years out of a set of tires across multiple bikes.