I hacked into the worst e-bike and fixed it [video]

If you're not familiar with this channel, do yourself a favor and watch your way through his backyard trail build videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAsuk8OndHs&list=PL5S7V5NhM8...

They're so well done. Sadly, he doesn't do them anymore because Youtube's algorithm doesn't make it worth his while. Evidently, he gets the same traffic & revenue from a 10 minute video reviewing "stupid bike gadgets" into the camera as he does for spending a month building a cool bike jump and editing together one of those amazing videos on the playlist.

If youtube rewarded evergreen stuff like that instead of cheap "reaction" videos, it'd be a much cooler place.

I don't have that model but I can very confidently say :

- do NOT buy an e-bike with custom parts, no matter how "cool" it is!

I bought a CowBoy years ago and honestly, it was great. Until it wasn't. Inexorably, it does not matter how good the parts are, how well designed it is, wear and tear WILL create problems. You WILL need to replace parts. If nobody but the company making the bike sell them you will get in trouble. It's the same with the App, if it's not open source relying on standard AND with existing, not upcoming, GadgetBrige support they will stop supporting your bike and brick it.

Please, pretty please, as consumers who expect to keep on maintaining your bike over years, ASK your repair shop what THEY think is a good bike to fix. Not what is a good bike to ride.

PS: I now ride a Fixie because screw CowBoy and all those e-bike startups who believe they are the new Apple. They aren't and I was the one paying for their delusion.

Absolutely insane how people could have bought a bicycle that will become (partially) useless if they don't connect it with a mobile app. Even if this bike have the build quality of a spaceship I wouldn't even touch it with a stick.

Kudos to Seth for cracking the control on the bike, just so we can reclaim control of an appliance that we paid for with our own money, one that won't work because the maker can't be arsed enough to make it work without a mobile app.

Related: Cory Doctorow's [Unauthorized Bread](https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-...)

A bit of a tangent, but I hate the way this channel uses AI. There's moments where the creator doesn't really know what they're talking about so they ask AI which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, I don't mind it! However, the way it's repeated verbatim mimicing the speech style of the creator is so offputting I don't really know how to describe it, sounds like someone trying to speak a language they don't know is the best way I can describe it. Might just be me though.

edit:

Actually the comment the creator left on the video is almost purely AI and is just as yuicky to read: "There are lots of questions about runaway Reevo mode, and it's a fun topic. Let's go deeper. First of all, I did add a "PAS Timeout" that turns off PAS after a few minutes, and is selectable in the menu. If you set this up from my Github repo, that feature is active. A lot of you also suggested a weight sensor on the seat, but that would disable pedal assist if you stood up out of the saddle, which is when you would need it most. Another suggestion was the dead man switch. That one would work! This is all fun to think about, so keep the ideas coming. I just MIGHT get another Reevo for myself."

Can anyone explain why in the world they would use an electroluminescent light instead of a simple LED?

I have a red one and a blue one. In storage at the moment.

I guess I won't be riding them anytime soon. But I am glad to know there is a way to resurrect/improve them!

ok AND

I hate how he’s doing the kind of project a ton of people would like to help with, for free and on their own time, yet he’s making an LLM do all the interesting work. He can’t code so he vibecodes the whole frontend. He can’t reverse engineer so he leaves Claude with the uart connection. He doesn’t understand something so he makes an LLM explain it.

With his platform he could easily find a person (or a couple) who could do this work themselves, not only saving him money, but nerdsniping someone into hacking a bike. A win-win for everybody.