Vanmoof pauses sales

mschwett said:
there are a lot of custom parts, for example in the cockpit, the integrated brake levers, which fit totally flush, the boost button, etc
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Also the kick lock is part of the motor and needs the phone app talking to the bike controller to unlock, presumably if/when the controller fails disabling the alarm that part could be removed/drilled out. If the e-shifter fails I think a new IGH hub is required to use a manual shifter. Presumably the VM solid brake rotors could be replaced with perforated rotors - 140 rear, 160 front on the S3.
 
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Dewey said:
Also the kick lock is part of the motor and needs the phone app talking to the bike controller to unlock, presumably if/when the controller fails disabling the alarm that part could be removed/drilled out. If the e-shifter fails I think a new IGH hub is required to use a manual shifter. Presumably the VM solid brake rotors could be replaced with perforated rotors - 140 rear, 160 front on the S3.
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rotors are easy to replace, standard bolt pattern.

all the e-shifter does is move a cable pull, not sure if the pull is standard but you could probably retrofit a regular SA shifter somehow. but a new IGH wouldn’t be disastrous.

the kick lock can be disengaged from the bike without a phone, or you could not set it. it’s absolutely not part of the motor, it’s a little pin and socket on the rear hub assembly.
 
welp, a lot of people saw this coming. personally i thought it might be a bit further out, or someone would swoop in sooner!

IMG_5194.jpeg
 
mschwett said:
welp, a lot of people saw this coming. personally i thought it might be a bit further out, or someone would swoop in sooner!

View attachment 158022
Click to expand...
That was quick.

Their website still allows you to book an appointment for repair or test ride (at least at the Seattle brand store). They really should disable that while they figure their path forward.
 
Journalist Mark Sutton reports that rival brand Cowboy has launched a “bikey” app which enables Vanmoof owners to save their digital key to their phones to keep riding their bikes on basic settings if Vanmoof’s servers go dark. Mark tweeted that overnight it has become the most downloaded app in the Netherlands
Source: https://www.cyclingelectric.com/news/cowboy-keep-vanmoof-e-bikes-on-road
 
"with industry sources telling Cycling Electric that the bill to Asian suppliers could be as much as $50 million and that the brand’s main supplier is withholding a significant volume of parts until a resolution is found."

Ouch. More Van M-ooof... Dunno if they are going to come back from that, if true. $50M is not small change. I must admit I always preferred Cowboy of the two. The bikes looked similar, both urban, slick, black but Cowboy had decent third party components like a belt drive, not just a chain guard/cover/disguise, for some reason that felt cheap. Good looking bikes or at least interesting looking. But was surprised how heavy for an urban fast bike. It was an interview with one of the Van Moof head honchos who boasted of a silicon valley approach and re inventing the bike with propreitary parts kind of talk and I wondered what reason was there in designing their own components other then forcing buyers to be locked in to Van moof spares a la Apple infrastructure. But I felt they probably couldn't do enough r&d on parts to be as reliable as Shimano or Sram, or even Microshift or Box, there are plenty of reliable third party components so why as a start up spend all your time and resources trying to reinvent the wheel (excuse pun) other then some Silicon valley plan to lock us in. That put me off. But my god the fan boys on the message boards, the silicon valley message worked, the fan boys were so cultish in their adoration of the van moof bike and culture. They sounded like people who'd never owned a bike before or heard of Campagnolo or Colnago or say Gary Fisher or any of this industry's genuine designers or innovators.
 
Dewey said:
Journalist Mark Sutton reports that rival brand Cowboy has launched a “bikey” app which enables Vanmoof owners to save their digital key to their phones to keep riding their bikes on basic settings if Vanmoof’s servers go dark. Mark tweeted that overnight it has become the most downloaded app in the Netherlands
Source: https://www.cyclingelectric.com/news/cowboy-keep-vanmoof-e-bikes-on-road
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Speaking of Cowboy, I just looked at their web page and was noting their price, €2.990 . Don't those Europeans know basic math symbology? (I was a math teacher.) In mathematics, everything to the right of a decimal is fractional (less than 1). Thus, I should be able to buy a new Cowboy for less than 3 euros! 🤣 Someone needs to teach Europeans the difference between a decimal point (2.990) and a comma (2,990)! :p
 
Rexlion said:
Speaking of Cowboy, I just looked at their web page and was noting their price, €2.990 . Don't those Europeans know basic math symbology? (I was a math teacher.) In mathematics, everything to the right of a decimal is fractional (less than 1). Thus, I should be able to buy a new Cowboy for less than 3 euros! 🤣 Someone needs to teach Europeans the difference between a decimal point (2.990) and a comma (2,990)! :p
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You know very little of regional number formats. Read about the decimal separator. It is comma in Europe, and different countries use different thousand separators (dot, or space, or no separator).
 
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Stefan Mikes said:
You know very little of regional number formats. Read about the decimal separator. It is comma in Europe, and different countries use different thousand separators (dot, or space, or no separator).
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It's not that I don't know about euro-region number format, it's that I am making fun of it! 😘
 
Rexlion said:
It's not that I don't know about euro-region number format, it's that I am making fun of it! 😘
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If that were funny?
I could say a similar joke, too. I am a chemical engineer. The only temperature unit of the SI system is Kelvin (K) with degrees Celsius (°C) allowed for convenience. Under pressure of 101.325 kPa, water freezes at 0°C and it boils at 100°C. Don't these Americans know about it? It seems they don't.

Hahaha so funny.
 
Stefan Mikes said:
If that were funny?
I could say a similar joke, too. I am a chemical engineer. The only temperature unit of the SI system is Kelvin (K) with degrees Celsius (°C) allowed for convenience. Under pressure of 101.325 kPa, water freezes at 0°C and it boils at 100°C. Don't these Americans know about it? It seems they don't.

Hahaha so funny.
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I used to take the temperature of a European chemical engineer quite often... but never when she had her period (.)
Now that was fun

As far as I'm concerned... you can keep most proprietary everything, especially if it appeals to those with more money than sense.
 
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Gionnirocket said:
I used to take the temperature of a European chemical engineer quite often... but never when she had her period (.)
Now that was fun

As far as I'm concerned... you can keep most proprietary everything, especially if it appeals to those with more money than sense.
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In my opinion there isn't much out there of higher quality that isn't proprietary. Every automobile, name brand motorcycle etc.is proprietary except the Chinese who buy various parts and pieces, put them together to make an item and put their brand name on it. It makes it cheaper in more ways then one.
 
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