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from the I've-never-had-functioning-brakes,-I-don't-oil-my-chain-and-my-derailleur's-out-of-adjustment dept.
Brakes that are too effective have led Lyft to remove thousands of its electric pedal-assist bicycles from New York City (Citi Bike), San Francisco (Ford GoBike), and Washington, D.C. (Capital Bikeshare):
A month ago, Jordan Wyckoff was riding an electric Citi Bike to work in Brooklyn when he slammed on the brakes to avoid a minivan that swerved in the bike lane. But when he hit the brakes, the front wheel locked up, sending Mr. Wyckoff over the front of the handlebars and onto the pavement.
The same thing happened to Dominik Glodzik when he tried to brake before a stop sign in Astoria, Queens about two months ago.
William Turton flipped over the front of an electric Citi Bike while trying to brake before an intersection on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn.
In recent months, dozens of riders have reported injuries while riding electric Citi Bikes, prompting the company on Sunday to pull all of the approximately 1,000 electric bicycles from New York City's streets amid safety concerns about the brakes. Lyft, which owns Citi Bike, took similar precautions with its other bike-sharing services in Washington and San Francisco.
Motivate, a subsidiary of Lyft since 2018, operates bicycle sharing systems in several cities.
Previously: Uber May Try to Buy Citi Bike Parent Company Motivate
Lyft Acquires America's Largest Bike-Sharing Company, Motivate
Related: New Electric Bikes, Scooters, and Dockless Bicycles Hitting U.S. Streets
Uber Buys Electric Bicycle-Sharing Startup JUMP Bikes
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 16 2019, @08:06AM (4 children)
If you can't lock up the wheel when you slam the brake, your brake is too weak. Learn to ride a bike.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ledow on Tuesday April 16 2019, @08:15AM (1 child)
Yep. And if you do lock a wheel, lock up the rear brake, not the front (if you get the choice).
P.S. Also, don't go so fast that you can only stop in time by locking the wheels. Same rule applies in cars. Yes, sometimes you need to. But 99.999999% of the time, it's better to just slow down and look ahead, and be very careful where things can leap out in front of you.
You drive to what you can see is clear, and what you can brake inside... if you can't see round the corner, can't see through the fog, see that the gap to the vehicle in front of you is shrinking, or an obstacle presents itself, you slow down rather than carry on going at the same speed and hope your brakes will stop you in time.
If you can't come to a full controlled (i.e. not emergency) stop before the thing in front of you does, you're in for a world of hurt, no matter what you're driving.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 16 2019, @02:40PM
I wish that drivers of cars that run over pedestrians in the city would serve jail time and not get out of trouble by calling it an accident - as you mentioned, they need to slow down when changing direction or when driving close to slower people or vehicles
(Score: 5, Insightful) by rigrig on Tuesday April 16 2019, @09:09AM (1 child)
Yes, but because these people decided they needed to tell the Press about how it was all the bike's fault, it became a "well-known problem", so it's only a matter of time before the next inept cyclist decides to sue for even worse PR.
People like this are why we can't have nice things.
No one remembers the singer.
(Score: 2) by dry on Wednesday April 17 2019, @01:55AM
I assumed these bikes had electronic assisted brakes or such that was defective as I thought everyone knows what happens if you jam on the front brakes on a bike.