9 ms·

Can we make bicycles sustainable again?

56 points by dragonsh 3y ago

vrglvrglvrgl 3y ago
[dead]
throwaway22032 3y ago
Okay, so they calculate that the worst produced bicycle produces 250kg co2 equivalent. That's about 2 months worth of my diet. Maybe less. Like, if I cycle for an hour I'll burn enough calories to produce approx 1kg co2e from the foods I eat. This is "switch off your LED light bulb" levels of daft.
ggm 3y ago
There's nothing wrong with continuous improvement but when you are trying to fine tune something in the flat portion of an exponential scale, and lets face it, even the most expensive bike shown here is 1/2 the burden of an ICE engine car, you have to ask yourself: is this optimisation really the core problem? I argue: it's not. It's polishing. It's functionally a bit time-wast-y compared to reductions in the cost, and price of ebikes. I tell you what I'd like as a bike rider: I'd like the post evergiven/covid supply chain behind my brake fluid fixed. It's insanely expensive to replace brakes and gears and wheels on a street bike these days: I ride a Movida 200 which is a pretty average, low end disc-brake unit with fluid breaklines, and I am up for a horrendous cost in parts to replace: the labour I can understand, this isn't a zero-work job. But the supply chain fragility in bicycles is truly scary: I paid twice the base cost of my (admitedly secondhand) bike, repairing it these last 2 years. I know: I should learn to do this myself. I did once long ago last century take apart a sturmy-archer 3 speed hub gear, and remake it, and I did have no left over parts. Amazing. Some of the springs were like fairy-floss. Now, I have old person shakey hands and to be frank I'd rather pay a hipster to do it for me, but the parts cost is just obscene. I'm not paying his tattoo costs, this is some anonymous bike part warehouse in the cloud, which is ripping us all off worldwide.
- hammyhavoc 3y ago
  Oh no, not his tattoo costs.
- samstave 3y ago
  There is a bike shop in Marin that does some custom bike work, one of which is replacing these famous brakes which cost $1,500 PER brake, and one of the things he needs, which they dont manufacture any longer is a single washer that is specific to that brake - and since you cant get these parts any longer, the brakes are nuts expensive...
- Gigachad 3y ago
  Low Tech Magazine has always been more of an entertainment blog with creative and unusual solutions. Their stuff rarely seems to be practical or reasonable but it is a fascinating read anyway. >I paid twice the base cost of my (admitedly secondhand) bike, repairing it these last 2 years. Because the base price of a bike is just about nothing. So it makes sense that skilled labor quickly overtakes the cost. And you usually get a hefty discount on the price of the bike when you buy it second hand considering just about everything on the bike excluding the frame is a consumable item.
- midoridensha 3y ago
  What kind of weird brakes do you have on your bike? I can easily buy Shimano Ultegra (which is pretty high-end) brake calipers on Amazon for roughly USD$65, and a big bottle of brake oil is less than $15. Cheaper-brand or lower-end calipers are of course, cheaper, easily less than $50 each. And brake calipers aren't something you normally need to replace anyway. Pads are easily available too, both name-brand and Chinese knock-offs that probably last 1/3 as long for 1/10 the cost. What supply-chain problem are you referring to? I don't see any.
  - mnky9800n 3y ago
    Also I don't really understand what the difference between the tiagra and Ultegra brake levers are except in comparison to like bottom rung stuff. But to each other I can't seem to tell a difference.
htag 3y ago
Are there any brands that are specifically known for having highly compatible parts of long lifespans of products?
- Gigachad 3y ago
  At least some of the big name bike brands have lifetime warranties on the frames. Everything else can be considered a consumable item. Not because it's designed poorly but because you'd rather your bike weigh 10kg less than increase the lifespan of some parts from 5 to 50 years.
  - snotrockets 3y ago
    Proper maintenance and quality parts last 50 years (my commuter bike and most of its components are 40 years old. Tires, chains, cogs, brakepads, saddle and bartape are the exception). Anything but the cheapest of components would last years with proper maintenance (which has cost in service charges: good bike mechanics don't come cheap)
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - newaccount74 3y ago
      If you ride your bike a lot, and some point the bearing races in the hubs will wear out and you'll need new hubs, same for the bottom bracket, the rims will either get ground down by the brakes or get a dent that requires them to be replaced, fenders will get bent and / or rust off, screws corrode, brake / shifter cables need to be replaced every few years... Bikes that get ridden a lot are like the ship of Theseus...
      - snotrockets 3y ago
        Maybe that's the problem, I only ride 15,000km a year or so (used to ride more when I was racing, but life came in the way)
mitchbob 3y ago
Discussed recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34981363 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34981363
xiphias2 3y ago
From the graph: yes. Just compare electric bikes to cars instead of old bikes, and they are relatively sustainable.
thenoblesunfish 3y ago
All the numbers given here seem tiny in comparison to the emissions from manufacturing or using a car. It seems like premature optimization at best, and might even be counterproductive by implying that because some bikes are more sustainable than others, bikes are somehow unsustainable as a whole.
- jxramos 3y ago
  I read recently someone call something like this a hyperoptimization https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35431391 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35431391
  - gnarbarian 3y ago
    it's not really that either. it's a misoptimization. where you are optimizing the wrong part. which is why premature optimization is bad, because you are wasting your time optimizing something that doesn't matter. hyper optimizing something implies all low hanging fruit has been picked.
- scythe 3y ago
  >Reynolds, a British manufacturer known for its bicycle tubing, found that making a steel frame costs 17.5 kg CO2, while a titanium or stainless steel frame costs around 55 kg CO2 per frame – three times as much. For the uninitiated: that is less than one tank of gas (ca 70 kg CO2) in my Toyota Prius.
  - DeRock 3y ago
    To drive the point even further, I ride a steel frame road bike that’s older than me (1987 team miyata) and hope to have it last for many decades to come.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
ck2 3y ago
You think this generation is going to be riding more bicycles? Likely far far less, the roads are insanely dangerous and toxic now. I don't know what it is like in other cities but in mine at least one out of ten vehicles is now one of those new ridiculous monster sized trucks that not only cannot see you, they wouldn't care if they did. The bicycle lane line is now something to cruise over for these drivers while they look down at their phones. It's only going to take one more generation for people to stop even trying to bike anywhere, people don't want to be that stressed out.
- JambalayaJim 3y ago
  In my city they are massively increasing the bike lane network, along with the city run bike service. The result is that bike ridership has been increasing steadily with each passing year. I absolutely expect more people to be riding bicycles in this generation. It would be a complete failure on urban planners / municipal governments if that were not to happen.
- dumpsterlid 3y ago
  [dead]
- toss1 3y ago
  Yup. I used to be an avid road biker, 10-40mi rides multiple time per week, hopping on 80mi day trips, Tuesday evening time trials, racing, etc. But it has been over a decade since my road bike has seen pavement. I keep it to mountain biking on trails now because the traffic everywhere has gotten too insane, and the drivers just seem less and less aware/alert/smart/skilled. And I've noticed in the last few month bad news of almost a half dozen champion bike racers killed on roads, the most memorable one in Italy, and one in San Francisco last week. The risk just doesn't seem manageable anymore. This is the opposite of the direction we should be going, but it is what we have.
  - jmoak3 3y ago
    In a car dependent society such as our America, how do we expect a humongous and rapidly aging demographic to handle their loss of motor skills? By simply staying inside and becoming entirely dependent on kids they never had? They’ll be out on the roads - get a bigger car and don’t bike. I’m sad about it as well but I don’t see many options unless you’re in a unique area. For context, 1/3rd of Americans today are over 55. Due to exponential growth and innovation everything any of us have ever known is one of a series of crazy experiments. I don’t think car dependency will turn out to be a good one.
renewiltord 3y ago
Bicycle is only unsustainable because the probability of theft is high. I switched to Baywheels. Massive QoL improvement.
cyclotron3k 3y ago
I view my carbon bikes as a form of carbon sequestration. Esp. when I ask to be buried with them.
newaccount74 3y ago
I think some of their numbers are a bit misleading. The paper that calculates the CO2 usage of e-cargo bike vs e-van compares a huge 4-wheeled electric cargo "bike" (sum-x) with the smallest van they could find (nissan e-nv). The kinds of cargo bikes that people get for home use are much smaller and presumably use a lot less CO2 than the commercial transporter with pedals they looked at in the paper.
diebeforei485 3y ago
I feel like modern bicycles seem to be optimized for light weight over ease of maintenance and longevity. Modern bicycles (except new e-bikes with chain guards and internal hub gears) require degreasing and lubing every two weeks, These are not going to be very attractive to people who use other means of transport, because cars don't need this sort of frequent maintenance.
- leemailll 3y ago
  urban commute with bicycles never need such high frequent maintenance unless you spend a lot time on unpaved road
- svorakang 3y ago
  I must be doing something terribly wrong. I've had my bike for 7 years now, use it every second day, in all kinds of weather, and I lube it twice a year at best. It ought to be falling apart! What's your basis for your claim of such frequent maintenance? Also, what do you mean by a modern bike?
  - cowmoo728 3y ago
    They will still function but a 12spd Ultegra / Force road bike will eat the chain and cassette and lose shifting precision if they're not maintained regularly. And high end road bike cassettes and chains are expensive to replace. But when I had a basic hybrid bike I similarly just cleaned it every few months at most when it got dirty from wet rides. Worked fine for years.
- cowmoo728 3y ago
  I have my high maintenance carbon road bike, but I also have a belt drive commuter bike. Belt drive bikes with hydraulic disc brakes and internal gear hubs rarely need maintenance, basically just an annual checkup on brake pads, tires, and maybe a brake bleed.
- harha 3y ago
  Internally geared hubs solve that problem if you’re not looking for a anything specialized like a road or mountain bike
deafpolygon 3y ago
Hello from the Netherlands!
pfych 3y ago
This website offers a lighter weight version of itself if anyone would prefer that[1]. It's so slim the author runs it on a computer running entirely off solar power. It's good to see more of their articles being posted! [1]: https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2023/02/can-we-make-bicycles-sustainable-again.html https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2023/02/can-we-make-bicycl...
nmpennypacker 3y ago
I ride a titanium bike with rim brakes. It was custom made, and relatively expensive ($5,000 USD), but it is the only bike I ride, and it will last my entire lifetime, and more (it will require occasional component upgrades, just like any other bike). Plus, the ride quality is superb. I've found that, as with most things, investing in quality over quantity is the way to go. My bike may have been slightly 'less green' to manufacture, but I only need one, ever.
- abrookewood 3y ago
  Can I ask what model you got? I've been looking at titanium for ages, but can't commit to anything.
  - nmpennypacker 3y ago
    Absolutely! I have a Litespeed T1SL, and I'm very happy with it. I've heard great things about Moots bikes as well, but they're about twice the price and they don't make a rim brake model. The main reasons I went with the Litespeed were the rim brakes (I can fix mechanical components myself), and the fact that you can peel off the decals, so the bike looks like fairly generic, minus a badge behind the seatpost and one on the stem tube.
    - abrookewood 3y ago
      Thanks - Litespeed are on my shortlist.

56 points by dragonsh 3y ago

[dead]

throwaway22032 3y ago

Okay, so they calculate that the worst produced bicycle produces 250kg co2 equivalent. That's about 2 months worth of my diet. Maybe less. Like, if I cycle for an hour I'll burn enough calories to produce approx 1kg co2e from the foods I eat. This is "switch off your LED light bulb" levels of daft.

ggm 3y ago

There's nothing wrong with continuous improvement but when you are trying to fine tune something in the flat portion of an exponential scale, and lets face it, even the most expensive bike shown here is 1/2 the burden of an ICE engine car, you have to ask yourself: is this optimisation really the core problem? I argue: it's not. It's polishing. It's functionally a bit time-wast-y compared to reductions in the cost, and price of ebikes. I tell you what I'd like as a bike rider: I'd like the post evergiven/covid supply chain behind my brake fluid fixed. It's insanely expensive to replace brakes and gears and wheels on a street bike these days: I ride a Movida 200 which is a pretty average, low end disc-brake unit with fluid breaklines, and I am up for a horrendous cost in parts to replace: the labour I can understand, this isn't a zero-work job. But the supply chain fragility in bicycles is truly scary: I paid twice the base cost of my (admitedly secondhand) bike, repairing it these last 2 years. I know: I should learn to do this myself. I did once long ago last century take apart a sturmy-archer 3 speed hub gear, and remake it, and I did have no left over parts. Amazing. Some of the springs were like fairy-floss. Now, I have old person shakey hands and to be frank I'd rather pay a hipster to do it for me, but the parts cost is just obscene. I'm not paying his tattoo costs, this is some anonymous bike part warehouse in the cloud, which is ripping us all off worldwide.

hammyhavoc 3y ago
Oh no, not his tattoo costs.
samstave 3y ago
There is a bike shop in Marin that does some custom bike work, one of which is replacing these famous brakes which cost $1,500 PER brake, and one of the things he needs, which they dont manufacture any longer is a single washer that is specific to that brake - and since you cant get these parts any longer, the brakes are nuts expensive...
Gigachad 3y ago
Low Tech Magazine has always been more of an entertainment blog with creative and unusual solutions. Their stuff rarely seems to be practical or reasonable but it is a fascinating read anyway. >I paid twice the base cost of my (admitedly secondhand) bike, repairing it these last 2 years. Because the base price of a bike is just about nothing. So it makes sense that skilled labor quickly overtakes the cost. And you usually get a hefty discount on the price of the bike when you buy it second hand considering just about everything on the bike excluding the frame is a consumable item.
midoridensha 3y ago
What kind of weird brakes do you have on your bike? I can easily buy Shimano Ultegra (which is pretty high-end) brake calipers on Amazon for roughly USD$65, and a big bottle of brake oil is less than $15. Cheaper-brand or lower-end calipers are of course, cheaper, easily less than $50 each. And brake calipers aren't something you normally need to replace anyway. Pads are easily available too, both name-brand and Chinese knock-offs that probably last 1/3 as long for 1/10 the cost. What supply-chain problem are you referring to? I don't see any.
- mnky9800n 3y ago
  Also I don't really understand what the difference between the tiagra and Ultegra brake levers are except in comparison to like bottom rung stuff. But to each other I can't seem to tell a difference.

htag 3y ago

Are there any brands that are specifically known for having highly compatible parts of long lifespans of products?

Gigachad 3y ago
At least some of the big name bike brands have lifetime warranties on the frames. Everything else can be considered a consumable item. Not because it's designed poorly but because you'd rather your bike weigh 10kg less than increase the lifespan of some parts from 5 to 50 years.
- snotrockets 3y ago
  Proper maintenance and quality parts last 50 years (my commuter bike and most of its components are 40 years old. Tires, chains, cogs, brakepads, saddle and bartape are the exception). Anything but the cheapest of components would last years with proper maintenance (which has cost in service charges: good bike mechanics don't come cheap)
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - newaccount74 3y ago
    If you ride your bike a lot, and some point the bearing races in the hubs will wear out and you'll need new hubs, same for the bottom bracket, the rims will either get ground down by the brakes or get a dent that requires them to be replaced, fenders will get bent and / or rust off, screws corrode, brake / shifter cables need to be replaced every few years... Bikes that get ridden a lot are like the ship of Theseus...
    - snotrockets 3y ago
      Maybe that's the problem, I only ride 15,000km a year or so (used to ride more when I was racing, but life came in the way)

mitchbob 3y ago

Discussed recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34981363 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34981363

xiphias2 3y ago

From the graph: yes. Just compare electric bikes to cars instead of old bikes, and they are relatively sustainable.

thenoblesunfish 3y ago

All the numbers given here seem tiny in comparison to the emissions from manufacturing or using a car. It seems like premature optimization at best, and might even be counterproductive by implying that because some bikes are more sustainable than others, bikes are somehow unsustainable as a whole.

jxramos 3y ago
I read recently someone call something like this a hyperoptimization https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35431391 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35431391
- gnarbarian 3y ago
  it's not really that either. it's a misoptimization. where you are optimizing the wrong part. which is why premature optimization is bad, because you are wasting your time optimizing something that doesn't matter. hyper optimizing something implies all low hanging fruit has been picked.
scythe 3y ago
>Reynolds, a British manufacturer known for its bicycle tubing, found that making a steel frame costs 17.5 kg CO2, while a titanium or stainless steel frame costs around 55 kg CO2 per frame – three times as much. For the uninitiated: that is less than one tank of gas (ca 70 kg CO2) in my Toyota Prius.
- DeRock 3y ago
  To drive the point even further, I ride a steel frame road bike that’s older than me (1987 team miyata) and hope to have it last for many decades to come.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

ck2 3y ago

You think this generation is going to be riding more bicycles? Likely far far less, the roads are insanely dangerous and toxic now. I don't know what it is like in other cities but in mine at least one out of ten vehicles is now one of those new ridiculous monster sized trucks that not only cannot see you, they wouldn't care if they did. The bicycle lane line is now something to cruise over for these drivers while they look down at their phones. It's only going to take one more generation for people to stop even trying to bike anywhere, people don't want to be that stressed out.

JambalayaJim 3y ago
In my city they are massively increasing the bike lane network, along with the city run bike service. The result is that bike ridership has been increasing steadily with each passing year. I absolutely expect more people to be riding bicycles in this generation. It would be a complete failure on urban planners / municipal governments if that were not to happen.
dumpsterlid 3y ago
[dead]
toss1 3y ago
Yup. I used to be an avid road biker, 10-40mi rides multiple time per week, hopping on 80mi day trips, Tuesday evening time trials, racing, etc. But it has been over a decade since my road bike has seen pavement. I keep it to mountain biking on trails now because the traffic everywhere has gotten too insane, and the drivers just seem less and less aware/alert/smart/skilled. And I've noticed in the last few month bad news of almost a half dozen champion bike racers killed on roads, the most memorable one in Italy, and one in San Francisco last week. The risk just doesn't seem manageable anymore. This is the opposite of the direction we should be going, but it is what we have.
- jmoak3 3y ago
  In a car dependent society such as our America, how do we expect a humongous and rapidly aging demographic to handle their loss of motor skills? By simply staying inside and becoming entirely dependent on kids they never had? They’ll be out on the roads - get a bigger car and don’t bike. I’m sad about it as well but I don’t see many options unless you’re in a unique area. For context, 1/3rd of Americans today are over 55. Due to exponential growth and innovation everything any of us have ever known is one of a series of crazy experiments. I don’t think car dependency will turn out to be a good one.

renewiltord 3y ago

Bicycle is only unsustainable because the probability of theft is high. I switched to Baywheels. Massive QoL improvement.

cyclotron3k 3y ago

I view my carbon bikes as a form of carbon sequestration. Esp. when I ask to be buried with them.

newaccount74 3y ago

I think some of their numbers are a bit misleading. The paper that calculates the CO2 usage of e-cargo bike vs e-van compares a huge 4-wheeled electric cargo "bike" (sum-x) with the smallest van they could find (nissan e-nv). The kinds of cargo bikes that people get for home use are much smaller and presumably use a lot less CO2 than the commercial transporter with pedals they looked at in the paper.

diebeforei485 3y ago

I feel like modern bicycles seem to be optimized for light weight over ease of maintenance and longevity. Modern bicycles (except new e-bikes with chain guards and internal hub gears) require degreasing and lubing every two weeks, These are not going to be very attractive to people who use other means of transport, because cars don't need this sort of frequent maintenance.

leemailll 3y ago
urban commute with bicycles never need such high frequent maintenance unless you spend a lot time on unpaved road
svorakang 3y ago
I must be doing something terribly wrong. I've had my bike for 7 years now, use it every second day, in all kinds of weather, and I lube it twice a year at best. It ought to be falling apart! What's your basis for your claim of such frequent maintenance? Also, what do you mean by a modern bike?
- cowmoo728 3y ago
  They will still function but a 12spd Ultegra / Force road bike will eat the chain and cassette and lose shifting precision if they're not maintained regularly. And high end road bike cassettes and chains are expensive to replace. But when I had a basic hybrid bike I similarly just cleaned it every few months at most when it got dirty from wet rides. Worked fine for years.
cowmoo728 3y ago
I have my high maintenance carbon road bike, but I also have a belt drive commuter bike. Belt drive bikes with hydraulic disc brakes and internal gear hubs rarely need maintenance, basically just an annual checkup on brake pads, tires, and maybe a brake bleed.
harha 3y ago
Internally geared hubs solve that problem if you’re not looking for a anything specialized like a road or mountain bike

deafpolygon 3y ago

Hello from the Netherlands!

pfych 3y ago

This website offers a lighter weight version of itself if anyone would prefer that[1]. It's so slim the author runs it on a computer running entirely off solar power. It's good to see more of their articles being posted! [1]: https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2023/02/can-we-make-bicycles-sustainable-again.html https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2023/02/can-we-make-bicycl...

nmpennypacker 3y ago

I ride a titanium bike with rim brakes. It was custom made, and relatively expensive ($5,000 USD), but it is the only bike I ride, and it will last my entire lifetime, and more (it will require occasional component upgrades, just like any other bike). Plus, the ride quality is superb. I've found that, as with most things, investing in quality over quantity is the way to go. My bike may have been slightly 'less green' to manufacture, but I only need one, ever.

abrookewood 3y ago
Can I ask what model you got? I've been looking at titanium for ages, but can't commit to anything.
- nmpennypacker 3y ago
  Absolutely! I have a Litespeed T1SL, and I'm very happy with it. I've heard great things about Moots bikes as well, but they're about twice the price and they don't make a rim brake model. The main reasons I went with the Litespeed were the rim brakes (I can fix mechanical components myself), and the fact that you can peel off the decals, so the bike looks like fairly generic, minus a badge behind the seatpost and one on the stem tube.
  - abrookewood 3y ago
    Thanks - Litespeed are on my shortlist.