hotpotato

I'll play along. This patent and other activities like it are precisely WHY all of the components and bikes you see coming out are so expensive. Nobody wants to get left behind in the dark ages, so everybody is staffing and funding projects for e-development and the burden of that R+D cost falls on the whole business. E-bikes are costing all of us money, whether we try to opt out or not. It's inescapable because even small builders who aren't involved rely on giant component makers who ARE involved. It feels like a bullet train headed towards the industry having an identity crisis and wreaking havoc as some companies pivot towards powered personal mobility and recreation over time and others cling to bicycles. Wasn't Honda's first vehicle a pedal-assisted bike? Now they build cars and jets and other companies build bikes. Maybe in the future SRAM will be an electric motor supplier for the military and have a line of madmax motorbikes, and TRP or ZTTO will supply all the bicycle parts. IDK.

It saddens me that you're currently downvoted 3:1 for suggesting that we have productive discourse on a topic that people are interested in, and disagree on; presumably for the purpose of understanding it better and making progress collectively.

@kevinturner12: It's a bold move. Sometimes it pays off and sometimes it doesn't. Just don't hold the line unless you want to find out if widgets can replace doo-dads entirely. As the famed economist Milton Friedman definitely once said: F*** around and find out.

@emwooldridge: I suspect that those who control budgets are not trying to accurately guess what the exact output of a male sponsored rider is over a female sponsored rider and more-so looking at participation data and concluding that since more men buy high end bikes than women, they need to tailor their efforts in that direction. To be clear, they may in fact be wrong... women might actually sell bikes to men better than men sell bikes to men. But marketers are often times not that sophisticated in their understanding of consumer psychology (especially in niche markets like this where there is under-developed data) Also to be clear, I think men sell bikes to men better, but that's just an opinion that I personally hold. I could also be wrong. I think the whole point that's worth making is that this isn't a personal attack on women. At worst, it's a miscalculation in total impact. At best, it's an accurate asseessment that the economics don't support the request. And I think JustAnother makes a fair point. Why should Woman X make more than Woman Z? The fact that woman X is more valuable has nothing to do with the amount of woman she is. It's all impact. 1s and 0s. Data. There are no feelings here. As they say....don't hate the player; hate the game.

Jim and I work together. Jim builds widgets and I build doo-dads. Widgets and doo-dads are similar, but slightly different and widgets happen to be more profitable with a bigger TAM. Jim makes more money than me - say about 30% more. One day, I approach my boss and say - I would like to be paid fairly; like Jim. My boss kindly reminds me that I build doo-dads and Jim builds widgets. Now I'm at a crossroads. Here's some options for my next move: 1. Start building widgets exactly like Jim, achieve equal pay 2. Find another company or industry who will pay me more to do either the same thing or something else that I'm qualified for 3. Help my company grow the market for doo-dads, and be compensated accordingly 4. Continue to ask my boss for more money, even though she doesn't have any more to give me without negatively impacting the company's balance sheet I choose option 4. And even though my boss values me, her hands are tied because she has corporate overloards pulling her strings. I am sad. I mistakenly think that I am not as valuable as Jim but I am wrong. It is simply my work that is not as valuable as Jim's work. I have chosen to leave my fate up to destiny and activism, rather than taking control of it myself. The world continues to turn.

Female mountain bikers aren't paid less than male mountain bikers. Women's mountain biking is paid less than Men's mountain biking. People commonly commit the fallacy of equating a categorical market truth with a personal attack. Nobody values Susie less than Tom. They value the impact of Susie's marketing and the audience she speaks to less than Tom's. These are things that are valued, NOT people. People are valued the same. It's not personal; it's business. And if you would like it to be different, then start a brand and sponsor women only or sponsor women more than men. This is how the free market works. If you'd suggest that some company should be a visionary and beat the market to it, then you may just be right... it may pay off for them. But expecting the market as a whole to shift on command because "fairness" is a little obtuse. Life will be a lot easier for you if you make an effort to not be so offended over everything. Standard disclaimer: women doing the same job with the same results of course deserve to be paid both fairly and equally to men in the same job with the same results. And vice versa. Of course.

Let me edit that for you. "If you're gonna do that; don't" I'll take the standard routing instead of the cost savings. :)

Bold move. I doubt it works out for them. But I don't much care.... this is the free market working. They'll either get the bag or they'll regret ever biting the hand that feeds (doesn't feed?) them. Separately, I think their chosen specialty is kinda silly to expect to be a big financial opportunity. Cool stuff that's fun to do usually doesn't offer a career path. Demanding that it should is kind of like yelling at the clouds.