Calling all cars, calling all cars. Be on the lookout for an e-bike rider who ran a light and fled police at high speed:
And here he is, putting a foot down to do a high-speed tripod turn and everything:
Perhaps the Monmouth County police should come to the Bronx where this is EVERY SINGLE RIDER ON AN EBIKE, because I see that guy twelve times before I even get to the corner.
Meanwhile, in other e-bike news, Rad Power is facing “significant financial challenges:”
Awww…
I mean sure, that nice family who participates in their local “bike bus” uses one and all, but seriously, what the hell are we even doing here?
As the global electric bike market exploded, Rad took on another $150 million in 2021 from big-name investors such as Counterpoint Global (Morgan Stanley), Fidelity Management & Research Company, The Rise Fund, the global impact investing platform managed by TPG, and funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates.
Later that year, as ridership surged, Rad raised another $154 million.
In April 2022, the company began a series a layoffs, slashing 100 jobs from its 725-person workforce as part of what it described as a restructuring. Another 63 employees were cut in July, and more followed in December.
Are you kidding me?!? This isn’t the automotive industry. It’s BIKES! How are we even talking about numbers like this?!? A bike should just be some metal tubes welded together and some pulleys, levers, and cables. THAT’S IT! It should not be possible to blow through over $300 million in four years if you’re one company in the business of selling bicycles. Fine, I guess you need bigger companies to make stuff like derailleurs and shifters, and of course the business of getting metal out of the ground in the first place and turning it into tubing is a whole other thing, but once that’s done all you really need is a few people to put the things together, and then you need a few more people to sell the things. Really, once the raw materials are refined and the components forged and drawn and extruded or whatever else they do, the biggest single entity in all of this should be the bike shop, and that’s only because customers are idiots and it’s hard to explain bikes to them and repair their bikes and work a register in order to finally take their money (while they complain about having to give you money) at the same time, especially on that first nice spring weekend when they all drag their piece-of-crap bike out of the basement and expect you you to make it rideable for them, and so of course you need a staff of people with a high school education to make this work.
But to blow through $300 million and have nothing to show for it? That requires someone with real business experience:
Though it looks like he got out while the getting was good, which I suppose is where the business experience comes into play.
Fortunately I don’t have to worry about that stuff, when it comes to bikes all I do is ride them and mouth off about them:
And with temperatures dipping into the 40s on the American Freedom Scale™ I’m now seeking shelter amongst the trees:
That’s of course the Platypus:
And it’s sporting an earlier prototype of the OM-1 derailleur:
Because course I was instrumental in its testing and development:
I wonder what Rivendell could do with a funding round of $150 million…