Every "urban" city has at least one bicycle co-op in it full of used bicycles for sale that are lighter, easier to repair, fit better, far cheaper, and best of all already exist and do not need to be manufactured.
Reduce and reuse come before recycle for a reason. This is greenwashing, not environmentalism.
A nearly all (">90%") plastic bike is interesting, and I guess if you're a plastics company that wants to create a bike it makes sense, but the end product does not seem very compelling to me. 17 kg, 1200 EUR, one size, proprietary parts, and only 50% recycled. A comparable aluminum bike beats it in every metric except maybe fatigue life(?).
Post-consumer aluminum has been in common use for wheels for ages, and some major brands (like Trek) are also transitioning their aluminum frames to use recycled material.
My first bike bought with my first salaries (about 2-3 months) just turned 20 years old. It's a basic aluminum hardtail MTB. Still going strong - I do about 2-3k kms per year.
You can recycle via depolymerization (see the various plastic-to-oil conversion refineries), although that's a more expensive process than simply melting and recasting.
"A regular e-bike battery can take several hours to charge completely, but the H2’s hydrogen cylinder requires just six minutes at a hydrogen filling station." Of course the company wanted to run the filling stations.
Building the wheels and frame out of plastic is a fun gimmick, but they're selling this as a low maintenance option that "doesn't rust or require lubrication".
If they really have an all-plastic drivetrain that competes with carbon steel, that seems like a wonderful advance in materials science or mechanical engineering and we'll soon be seeing plenty more applications of this miracle material.
Idk about the chemical thing but yeah, throw plastic away.
Recycling plastic is just greenwashing to get more people to use more plastic.
Throw plastic in the trash where it belongs. That's where it's gonna wind up anyway. At least this way you know where it's going instead of thinking it's going off to be magically recycled into magic pixie dust that saves the planet.
It's a terrible bicycle. If it was extremely affordable because it's mostly recycled plastic acquired for cheap, then it would make sense as a product but the 1200 EUR price tag is absolutely demented.
I don’t get this. Marketing this as an urban bike makes no sense. It’s heavy, looks like it’ll be awful to maintain because so much is custom, and it’s relatively expensive. I rode fixed gears for years because they’re light, easy to carry up stairs, and can take being knocked about or banged up by other cyclists locking their bikes up next to one.
Even something of equal weight like the legendary Surly Long-Haul Trucker is going to last longer and be more practical in every possible application. Maybe if you live somewhere costal and salt will corrode the steel or something it makes sense? I have a hard time believing this would fair better though.
I would think this is for rental fleets or bike share. The weight and design would seem to make sense for that. Though the single speed seems like and odd choice for that.
Reduce and reuse come before recycle for a reason. This is greenwashing, not environmentalism.
reply