cudak888 

mkeller234

SurferRosa

Pic assist



Strange they called it quits over a faulty belt.

madpogue 

So in what language is "Slaada" the word for "ugly"?

non-fixie 

I wasn't aware of their existence, and seeing @SurferRosa's pic I now know why.

But since I am a bit of an Ikea fan, I did some reading up on local forums, and the general consensus seems to be that the Sladdas aren't bad bikes and the only reason that Ikea chose to recall is that they simply do not have the facilities for any other course of action.

The owners that have chosen to keep them seem to be converting them to Gates CDX belts. FWIW.

Tamiya

Wanted to buy one but procrastinated at A$800 price... and that rear coaster brake.

madpogue 

Then TV Lenny can sell them. Or give them away....

non-fixie 

One professional tester here in Holland liked the ride and the belt drive, but not the disk brake (it dragged) or the two-speed hub (either too slow or too fast). He stated that "with just a coaster brake and a single speed it would have been a very nice city bike". Again, YMMV.

52telecaster

I bought the slaada trailer. Its excellent.

cudak888 

Thanks. Posted this during a break at work and didn't have time to attach a pic.

It may not be pretty, but I've come back into the bike scene with a newfound appreciation for city / utility bicycles, ugly as they may be. I even went out of my way to get one of these OFOs from the city when the company left the US last year. It's about as quirky as the Sladda, if not more so:



Any links to that Gates belt mod? I'm not well up on belt drives, and Google isn't helping (at least as it applies to the Sladda).

Though they were $400. $800 is just bloody ridiculous from a value standpoint.

Full disclosure - I've never seen the drive up close person (and apparently, I can't spell it right; just realized this), so I'm not sure how much of it would require refitting. Crankset looks like it'll take a normal chainring, no idea about the rear hub - pretty much assumed it's either a 3-pin w/circlip or disc brake type bolt-on.

-Kurt

Darth Lefty 

I think Priority did it better for less.

No, that's overthinking it. When I had my Priority I was considering a chain conversion because I wanted the ratios to be lower than the 45-60-80" it came with. (Their newer model is lower and has a better Gates drive.) The Priority that I got came with a Shimano rear hub and the crank had a 4x104 bcd like any mountain bike. The 3-speed hub takes a standard 3-spline cog. So conversion would have been a ring, a cog, and a chain. The Sladda had a centrifugal 2-speed from SRAM, which takes the same cogs, and it looks like the crank is 5x110 bcd. So, same deal.

thumpism 

The IKEA at Potomac Mills VA where I saw the Slaada also had a display of panniers that looked interesting, mostly single-compartment shopping bags for bike mounting.

noglider 

@cudak888, that's a bike share bike? What fun. Or is it? The Citi Bike bikes here are 50-lb tanks. Some have NuVinci continuously variable ratio hubs. They're fun but many don't work properly and thus don't give the upper ratios.

I haven't equipped any of my bikes for winter because the Citi Bikes are the best winter bike I could hope for. It's heavy, it has wide tires and drum brakes, and the upright position helps with slippery conditions.

cudak888 

Yes - OFO dockless bike. Heavy, but exceptionally well built. Shimano Nexus 3-speed with highly effective band brakes, Panasonic 6V front dynamo and LED front headlight, and small battery-operated rear taillight (which I think has a solar panel on the PCB; not 100% sure. The rack is the most rigid headset-attached unit I've ever seen. Seatpost is gas filled and goes up or down like an office chair. Riding position is comfortable too. Spokes are 13g, I believe.

Probably the worst bit of it - but necessary - are the solid rubber tires. Contributes to the weight and a harsh ride.

It may not be light, but in most other respects, it's admirably practical. Drivertrain is like any other bike; one could change the rear cog if they wish...provided they have five-point sockets

Got a pic of the CitiBikes in your area? The designs differ; I know ours aren't the same as NY's. They were previously Deco Bike down here - they used a much more pronounced step-through design. Those were all retired when Citi took over.

-Kurt

noglider 

Solid tires? That's awful.

I'll get you some pictures.

All the bikes have dynamo powered front and rear lights and pneumatic tires, Schwalbe Marathon somethings. They don't get flats often, though I once got one.

V1 have Shimano 3-speed hubs, Shimano drum brake hubs, and barely acceptable lights. Brakes are acceptable but not great.

V2 have Sturmey Archer 3-speed hubs and Sturmey Archer drum brake hubs and good lights. The brakes are excellent. V2 also have new frames, as the original maker went out of business.

V2.5 have Nuvinci hubs and are otherwise like V2.

(This is my modeling scheme, not the company's. For all I know there are more revisions I don't know about.)

Now we have bikes we call Cit-E-bikes which are e-bikes. They are pedal assist with no throttle. I estimate they weigh about 70 lbs. The motor kicks out somewhere between 16 and 19 mph. I have to admit, they are genuinely fun to ride. Annual members don't pay extra to use them until April 27. Thereafter, it's $2/ride. I'm not sure what I'll do. I'll probably keep using them because they're fun and the other ones are not.

Citi Bike here is huge and growing steadily. Some very style conscious people ride them. The system has many problems, and they all stem from greater than expected usage.

cudak888 

I figured it must have had something conventional behind that belt drive. Easy enough to change the drive system, or even re-lace the entire Automatix hub too, if one so wished.

Pretty sure the type you describe as V1 is all we get. Decobike uses these in some other areas too. Shimano Nexus 3-speed with drum hubs. Photo via: https://twitter.com/CitiBikeMiami/st...6317677359105:



(On a side note, it's bloody ridiculous how much the @CitiBikeMiami Twitter feed is obviously non-drive-side biased)

These are the Miami Beach Decobikes that preceded the CitiBike takeover. I'm almost willing to bet that they're a custom variant of the Sun Streamway. They're ugly, but wouldn't mind digging one up. These were sold long ago though, so a decent one ought to be next to impossible to find.



I've heard that the JUMP E-bikes are among the best of the electric bunch, right down to their Francophile brake levers. No such beasts here in Miami, but I have seen one JUMP scooter. Lime and Lime-E's were common down Miller Rd. last year until the County chased everyone out in their usual, forward-thinking (not) manner.

Speaking of which, Lime has at least three variants here. One has green plastic wheels, and the other two are the same variant of frame, but differing with either a Nexus 3-speed or a singlespeed. Transferring some photos from the phone now; I'll post them later.

-Kurt

madpogue 

And somebody else's maintenance job, to boot.....

Kuromori

They have all of those here. It can be rather terrifying to see how inexperienced road users use any of those. Salmoning, left turns from the bike lane, no signaling, not even slowing for stops, full speed in pedestrian areas, etc.

cudak888 

Speaking of which, OFO uses some kind of huge tri-wing style key to tighten the seatpost and saddle adjustment. Much bigger than the ones available in little kits. Would love to find this thing; its the only service tool I seem to be missing.

Bike facilities that were made for safe, everyday cycling (e.g., protected intersections) tend to cut down on those bike lane left turns - not everyone feels safe or thinks its intuitive to merge into traffic to get into the left turn lane, E-bike or otherwise. I'm not saying everyone is a good rider, but some behaviors emanate from streets that are unsafe, nonintuitive, or a combination thereof. (Case in point, nowhere else on the road is any vehicle legally expected to breach a solid white line to make a left turn other than a bike lane).

Granted, it should be possible to geofence the speed of these things if they're on the sidewalk, as with scooters. No wheeled vehicle should be going over 3mph on a sidewalk (just as no city should be bullheaded enough to fight protected bike micromobility infrastructure in the 21st century).

-Kurt

madpogue 

If they're using electric assist, they shouldn't be in the bike lane.

Tell that to wheelchair (granted, not a "vehicle" per se) users going 6-8 MPH. Shoot, I WALK at 4-5 MPH. Throw in joggers, runners, etc. and at 3 MPH, you're almost the slowest thing on the sidewalk.

DiegoFrogs

It seemed to me like the Släda was overly ambitious for a first attempt in the industry. All the changes I think I would have made would have made it functionally like every other city-style bike you see here in Sweden, though, so I guess they wanted to differentiate themselves. I do like the idea of mounting the rack to mounts on the headtube.

Consequently, I only saw one in the wild one time at a train station.

cudak888 

noglider 

I haven't seen the JUMP e-bikes yet. They are only in the northern Bronx and on Staten Island. I think those areas were chosen because they are the farthest from the Citi Bike service area.

Your Citi Bike bikes are different from our V1 bikes for sure. Ours are extremely rugged-ized, and there are virtually no exposed nuts or bolts. We have a chain drive whereas you have a shaft drive, which is pretty interesting. Our Shimano drum brake hubs are true drum brakes, not those add-ons on the side. One odd thing about the V1 bikes here is that the gearing is much too low. Even with V2, it's low, but seeing the intended audience, I'm cool with that. They went too far in gearing down the V1, and they corrected it.

cudak888 

noglider 

Interesting. It says it's 24 lbs. It looks heavier than my kiddie trailers but I think mine weigh about 20 lbs. I'll check. It looks great.