A nearly all (">90%") plastic bike is interesting, and I guess if you're a plastics company that wants to create a bike it makes sense, but the end product does not seem very compelling to me. 17 kg, 1200 EUR, one size, proprietary parts, and only 50% recycled. A comparable aluminum bike beats it in every metric except maybe fatigue life(?).
Post-consumer aluminum has been in common use for wheels for ages, and some major brands (like Trek) are also transitioning their aluminum frames to use recycled material.
My first bike bought with my first salaries (about 2-3 months) just turned 20 years old. It's a basic aluminum hardtail MTB. Still going strong - I do about 2-3k kms per year.
You can recycle via depolymerization (see the various plastic-to-oil conversion refineries), although that's a more expensive process than simply melting and recasting.
"A regular e-bike battery can take several hours to charge completely, but the H2’s hydrogen cylinder requires just six minutes at a hydrogen filling station." Of course the company wanted to run the filling stations.
Every "urban" city has at least one bicycle co-op in it full of used bicycles for sale that are lighter, easier to repair, fit better, far cheaper, and best of all already exist and do not need to be manufactured.
Reduce and reuse come before recycle for a reason. This is greenwashing, not environmentalism.
Building the wheels and frame out of plastic is a fun gimmick, but they're selling this as a low maintenance option that "doesn't rust or require lubrication".
If they really have an all-plastic drivetrain that competes with carbon steel, that seems like a wonderful advance in materials science or mechanical engineering and we'll soon be seeing plenty more applications of this miracle material.
Idk about the chemical thing but yeah, throw plastic away.
Recycling plastic is just greenwashing to get more people to use more plastic.
Throw plastic in the trash where it belongs. That's where it's gonna wind up anyway. At least this way you know where it's going instead of thinking it's going off to be magically recycled into magic pixie dust that saves the planet.
It's a terrible bicycle. If it was extremely affordable because it's mostly recycled plastic acquired for cheap, then it would make sense as a product but the 1200 EUR price tag is absolutely demented.
I don’t get this. Marketing this as an urban bike makes no sense. It’s heavy, looks like it’ll be awful to maintain because so much is custom, and it’s relatively expensive. I rode fixed gears for years because they’re light, easy to carry up stairs, and can take being knocked about or banged up by other cyclists locking their bikes up next to one.
Even something of equal weight like the legendary Surly Long-Haul Trucker is going to last longer and be more practical in every possible application. Maybe if you live somewhere costal and salt will corrode the steel or something it makes sense? I have a hard time believing this would fair better though.
I would think this is for rental fleets or bike share. The weight and design would seem to make sense for that. Though the single speed seems like and odd choice for that.
A nearly all (">90%") plastic bike is interesting, and I guess if you're a plastics company that wants to create a bike it makes sense, but the end product does not seem very compelling to me. 17 kg, 1200 EUR, one size, proprietary parts, and only 50% recycled. A comparable aluminum bike beats it in every metric except maybe fatigue life(?).
Furthermore, aluminum can be recycled with a lot less greenwashing required.
Post-consumer aluminum has been in common use for wheels for ages, and some major brands (like Trek) are also transitioning their aluminum frames to use recycled material.
My first bike bought with my first salaries (about 2-3 months) just turned 20 years old. It's a basic aluminum hardtail MTB. Still going strong - I do about 2-3k kms per year.
If we take this as an experiment, it's a useful experiment, showing how expensive and hard this path is. A negative result is a valuable result.
Pretty much. I thought that maybe this is an electric bike, in which case the weight might be OK, but no, this is unusable anywhere with hills.
As a quick reminder, metals can be recycled indefinitely. Plastic cannot, you always have to include some virgin material.
You can recycle via depolymerization (see the various plastic-to-oil conversion refineries), although that's a more expensive process than simply melting and recasting.
Reminds me of the hydrogen-powered bike from 2015, which totally made sense if your company is also a leader in hydrogen products. https://www.bikeradar.com/news/this-e-bike-is-powered-by-hyd...
"A regular e-bike battery can take several hours to charge completely, but the H2’s hydrogen cylinder requires just six minutes at a hydrogen filling station." Of course the company wanted to run the filling stations.
Plastic recycling is dumb. All it does is keep plastics in the environment and encourages people to use more plastic.
This is just a dumb token gesture to get people to buy a product that doesn't need to exist. This solves a problem nobody has.
Every "urban" city has at least one bicycle co-op in it full of used bicycles for sale that are lighter, easier to repair, fit better, far cheaper, and best of all already exist and do not need to be manufactured.
Reduce and reuse come before recycle for a reason. This is greenwashing, not environmentalism.
Can confirm:
Cleveland, OH: Ohio City Bike Co-op https://ohio-city-bicycle-co-op.shoplightspeed.com/
Boston, MA: Bikes Not Bombs https://bikesnotbombs.org/
Somerville, MA: Somerville Bike Kitchen https://somervillebikekitchen.org/
Burlington VT: Old Spokes Home https://oldspokeshome.com
And many, many more.
Chicago, IL: Working Bikes https://workingbikes.org/
Their poor little servers aren't coping well with the attention. The worst is a 1,004kb image so it's not excessively large.
Building the wheels and frame out of plastic is a fun gimmick, but they're selling this as a low maintenance option that "doesn't rust or require lubrication".
If they really have an all-plastic drivetrain that competes with carbon steel, that seems like a wonderful advance in materials science or mechanical engineering and we'll soon be seeing plenty more applications of this miracle material.
It has a Gates belt drive, which has been getting pretty popular with electric bikes due to the very low maintenance requirements.
I'm gonna be honest, it's really ugly and expensive. €1200, singlespeed and weighs 17 KG...
Also if you trade it in when it breaks, they only give you €50?
Weight, price, drivetrain all are terrible as others have said you would be much better off spending much less on a simple al bike.
Recycled plastic concentrates phthalates and other toxins. The best place for plastic is modern landfill.
Idk about the chemical thing but yeah, throw plastic away.
Recycling plastic is just greenwashing to get more people to use more plastic.
Throw plastic in the trash where it belongs. That's where it's gonna wind up anyway. At least this way you know where it's going instead of thinking it's going off to be magically recycled into magic pixie dust that saves the planet.
You can also burn it for energy, this is what Sweden (and probably our neighbors) do. Yet we're at 0.7x global average CO2 per capita.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
Do more with the shit you have is a good idea, this bike isn't.
That looks like HDPE, which normally requires no plasticisers. Better learn some chemistry before spouting hysterical nonsense.
Plasticised PVC, which is where phthalates are used, is not suitable for structural applications like this.
Edit: care to refute? Or do you just want to parrot ignorant talking points without thought.
Great stuff, cities definitely need more microplastics.
I grind up my 3d printing waste and sprinkle it out my window as I drive down the road, so I got you covered.
It's a terrible bicycle. If it was extremely affordable because it's mostly recycled plastic acquired for cheap, then it would make sense as a product but the 1200 EUR price tag is absolutely demented.
I don’t get this. Marketing this as an urban bike makes no sense. It’s heavy, looks like it’ll be awful to maintain because so much is custom, and it’s relatively expensive. I rode fixed gears for years because they’re light, easy to carry up stairs, and can take being knocked about or banged up by other cyclists locking their bikes up next to one.
Even something of equal weight like the legendary Surly Long-Haul Trucker is going to last longer and be more practical in every possible application. Maybe if you live somewhere costal and salt will corrode the steel or something it makes sense? I have a hard time believing this would fair better though.
I would think this is for rental fleets or bike share. The weight and design would seem to make sense for that. Though the single speed seems like and odd choice for that.
https://web.archive.org/web/20250912174820/https://rcyl.bike...
Added to toptext. Thanks!