Taipei Cycle Online is the interactive digital version of this year’s cancelled Taipei Cycle Show. The online version is running for most of March, and mainly caters to the bike industry rather than consumers. Still, the expo has plenty of good, bad, and just plain odd. Last week’s ‘Randoms’ article from Taipei Cycle Online is available here.
Gogoro EeyoThis urban e-commuter is strange and sleek. Made by Gogoro, a Taiwanese company that primarily makes electric scooters, the Eeyo is powered by what the company calls it Smartwheel, which incorporates a motor, battery, and sensors into a disc on the rear wheel. The bike is controlled by a smartphone or Apple Watch app and has an auto-locking feature that locks the rear wheel to impede theft.
Ultra-Short Travel Fork for GravelSuntour’s GVX 700C ultra-short travel fork was on display as an option for gravel riders who want a bit of suspension with a minimal weight and efficiency penalty. Like dropper posts on XC bikes and disc brakes on road bikes, this fork is an example of mountain bike technology becoming less prohibitively heavy, even for gram counters. It has 32mm stanchions and is available with 40mm, 50mm, or 60mm of travel.
FSA Flowtron 27.2 Dropper PostSimilarly, FSA has introduced a 27.2 mm option for its Flowtron dropper post, meaning that it is compatible with many drop bar bikes. The post has two options for lever style: one that is meant for flat MTB bars and one that is designed for gravel or cyclocross drop bars. It’s likely that we will see more 27.2 dropper posts on the market in coming years. The drop bar version is part of FSA's new AGX product line, which includes handlebars, wheels, and other products for gravel bikes that blur the lines between mountain and road technology.
Response Handlebar Plug Repair ToolTaiwanese company Response has introduced yet another nifty repair solution to the market. This tire plug is reminiscent of the Genuine Innovations' bacon plugs, but the tool doubles as a handlebar plug.
On the other hand, some gravel riders are progressively following the trend that make their bikes more and more complicated with suspended forks, dropper posts... giving them some good reasons to buy a mountain bike at the end when they will figure out that a gravel bike does a bit but not that much, especially without all-terrain skills.
The execution seems lackluster though. At nearly 500€ it costs the same as a Rockshox Yari and 1725g makes it as heavy as a Fox 34.
If I had a gravel bike, I would concider buying this, if they shaved off 150€ or 400g.
It's just common sense economically really, if you have a mine thats giving you gold, you're going to have an easier time getting gold out of it when it's right by your house vs on the other side of the country.
If that ore mine down the street that I rely on is disrupted (strike, poor management, local policy) I need to have a total equivalent that I am concurrently using so it may pick up the slack.
I maintain strong supply chain management is not about keeping it in your backyard. It is about sourcing from a portfolio and managing it through analytics and forecasting.
And really the issue we are in now for bikes is more an effect of bike companies managing risk one year ago and not predicting their industry would be a heavy winner in this but expecting to lose heavy.
I agree with everything you're saying but it doesn't change the fact that with a greater distance to travel/commute freight, as well as differing time changes, port of entry policies, and economic sanctions, you are MORE at risk for disruption than if the supply chain was consisting of several viable options all within your area.
Per example, if I want to source low cost aluminum for wheels, why would I consider someone in Taiwan offering something that I can get domestically, likely sooner, for the same price? I get it that this isn't the case right now, but people need to understand that by supporting outsourcing to China, India, Mexico, you're also supporting their current labor and environmental practices/laws, which in most cases are insanely f*cked.
As altruistic as this site likes to pretend they are, most of the "do gooders" who claim to want a better world are actively keeping the shitty status quo in check by vehemently opposing tariffs and economic sanctions, and continuing to support countries with undeveloped economies, environmental agencies, and labor laws, so that they can have cheaper toys.
anyone who supports the CCP is an idiot or an evil a*shole, end of story.
I'm all for a better system though so if you think yours works, keep at it. Just make sure your logic is consistent and unbiased so we can actually get somewhere.
After 3months you will beg Taiwan company to sell you one fullsus frame for little money, just to put your sticker on. Hand build in US by the cheepest supplier in Taiwan...
or you can be dentist.
For instance I guess hundreds of factories spread around having to hire a couple more employees is much more possible than 1 giant factory having to hire the same total load of employees.
It's like carrying a massive load with one huge chain or many smaller ones, if one link brakes, the 2nd solution is much more resilient, the 1st one isn't.
Efficient, maybe, but the more efficient, the less resilient. As I said, we have to stop buying a price and look at what's behind.
Without overseas production we can't just ride ? How did we do before full globalization ?
That's probably why it was built tough, to last, and why we used to repair things rather than throw them away.
And it's not just the frame, what if all components were made locally, what would be the total cost of a bike ?
Well in fact I'm not sure, an Intend fork will cost you 2000 but it's made one by one, if Intend were to increase production but still produce locally maybe it could reach more affordable prices.
Same for Trickstuff brakes.
With local production we only have the high grade product left, we've lost track of what the "in-between", locally mass-produced price would be, but it was all over just 30 years ago.
When I was a kid, toy cars were still made locally, now they've moved the production overseas, are they any cheaper ? I'm not sure.
Because else, the current world is but a mirage, that will last as long as cheap oil allows us to buy overseas mass produced things, then it will disappear.
At 100 millions barrel / day of world consumption, well it's about 74 days for this field.
Also the giant Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia has an estimated 88-104 billion barrels, so initially much more than Dakota, though it supposedly peaked in 2005.
If Dakota has more oil with 74 days than Saudi Arabia, we're in some serious shit.
Also IEA has said conventionnal oil peaked in 2005.
And while there may be a lot of non-conventional oil (fracking, tar sands) it doesn't mean it's worth it as it only becomes worth it when the barrel price is high enough, but then if barrel price gets too high it's not worth anymore as no one can afford it anyway.
And the peak of non-conventionnal oil may be for this decade.
So I agree the "peak" won't be as we imagined first, it'll be more like a plateau or top of a hill, then will go down.
Also no matter what we do, burning more oil means for CO2, more climate change. A very grim equation.
Also capitalism and free market have always ignored the laws of physics (infinite growth) so I wouldn't trust "them" to sort my future.
"capitalism and free market innovation would likely develop even cheaper forms of power"
But what if they don't ?
What if oil and coal are a single occurrence in the history of the earth (which it seems to be) and we don't ever find something remotely close to their energy output ?
"(if more isn't discovered/cheaper ways to extra(ct) the expensive stuff aren't developed)"
"What if oil and coal are a single occurrence in the history of the earth (which it seems to be) and we don't ever find something remotely close to their energy output ?"
Oil and Coal are being produced as I type this. It simply isn't a static, one time thing. it's a continuous process. Are we currently using it faster than it is created? likely.
also, we already have a source of energy thousands of orders of magnitude more powerful than all the oil on the planet. Just need to figure a cheap way to harness it. remember, Oil and Coal have been known for thousands of years, but only in the last 200 have we figured out how to harness it on an industrial level.
What if more ISN'T discovered ? We may have looked about everywhere but the poles by now.
What if we DON'T find cheaper ways to extract the expensive stuff ? If the EROI is just never worth it ?
"Oil and Coal are being produced as I type this. It simply isn't a static, one time thing. it's a continuous process. Are we currently using it faster than it is created? likely."
Likely ? That's one likely that I agree with, but I would go with absolutely. Oil and coal are considered "fossil" because that's what they are. What we are using was produced for the most part (99.99% ?) millions of years ago. "I gotta fil the tank, I'll be there in 85 millions years, see ya!"
And as I said, it's still more CO2 and so more climate f*ck up.
What's the source of energy you're talking about ? Sun ? Wind ? Seems to me we're not quite there yet.
What living beings live thanks to the sun ? Plants, with photosynthesis, but it's pretty slow. "I'm charging my e-bike, see you in 2 centuries".
You pretty much waste all the benifits for the "unique" design, just to end up with a flexi and heavy, yet expensive bike.
Just take a look at AL woman city bikes and you see how much material you need to use a beam construction compared to triangles.
grinduro.com
To do Downgravel properly, people want to see action like this:
Downhill 90 er Jahre (This vid always cheers me up.)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzZkKE9Z35g
www.sahmurai-sword.de
Gravel bikes are for gravel, I know the industry keeps pushing them as "fun on boring trails" they aren't. If you ride on gravel trails and ride a gravel bike you will have a good time, because that's what they are for. It isnt road, it isnt mtb.
Im a believer that if you want suspension and a dropper, then you probably want an xc bike. Once you get into 2" tires and moving parts you start getting into xc weight anyway, now you have curly bars on an mtb.