eBike battery tech direction, cycle fleets and more in new Cycling Industry News magazine
What direction is eBike battery tech heading? Can regular bike workshops also service the fleet market? It’s all in the latest issue of Cycling Industry News is now available to read online and in the post to print subscribers.
In this issue:
- The future of electric bike batteries? Our correspondent visits Gallop’s factory in China
- Market Data – What do shops want from manufacturers? And are brands listening?
- Got Botl – steel is dominating the commute and gym hydration markets. Is it heading to cycling too?
- Good optics – Coast Optics talks sustainability and good fit in the cycle eyewear sector
- CIN hits the road and hears from one bike workshop servicing the leisure and cycle fleet markets
- Enter the matrix – Bike Matrix’s expansion continues, with more products joining the compatibility database
- And much more…
It’s all online now. Not a subscriber but want a print copy – or an email notification when new mags go live? Then head to our subscription page (print mags FOC for UK trade, digital notifications are FOC wherever you are, as we’re generous souls).
From the Editor…
CONFUSING THE HELL OUT OF THE GREAT BRITISH PUBLIC
As I passed through the barriers at CIN Towers’ nearest train station while commuting home, the ticket barrier staffer asked whether my folding bike was electric. Given recent news stories, my internal alarm bells started jingling. With some justification, it turned out.
I confirmed my bike was electric. He said it was hard to tell, the battery was hidden away… he then told me the bike wasn’t allowed on the train. No electric bikes were.
I took a deep breath and calmly argued that wasn’t the case. I have a lot of sympathy for staff on ticket barriers. I suspect they regularly see the worst kind of human behaviour, and the finer points of electric bike policy probably aren’t top of their list of stuff to remember. But it took a prolonged discussion and minutes of me scrolling through train operator policy on my phone (whilst nervously eyeing whether my train was about to depart) before I found the bit on Great Northern’s website that said folding electric bikes were allowed and I was duly let through to the platform.
It was a stressful experience, and a stark reminder that electric bikes confuse the hell out of the Great British public. Is it too much to say this is the greatest modern challenge the cycling industry is facing?* The more time goes on, the more it seems so.
Jonathon Harker
[email protected]
*not me getting home from the office, but confusion over what is a legal electric bike, where you’re allowed to take them and generally conflating legal electric bikes with illegal or illegally modified ones
