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Cycling has a weight problem: a call for the industry to be more transparent about its weight limits
(www.cyclingweekly.com)
this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2024
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micromobility - Ebikes, scooters, longboards: Whatever floats your goat, this is micromobility
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"Transportation using lightweight vehicles such as bicycles or scooters, especially electric ones that may be borrowed as part of a self-service rental program in which people rent vehicles for short-term use within a town or city.
micromobility is seen as a potential solution to moving people more efficiently around cities"
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"Fatphobic" (because that's what we call social health consciousness these days) rant incoming:
It's been an issue for a while across all facets of life now and no one is brave enough to be the first voice to say "hey, these things literally were not made to support people as heavy as you." In the past year, a horseback riding trail in my hometown had to close because there were not enough customers whose weight didn't pose a serious risk of injuring the horses. A few years ago I had to install a steel support beam in the crawlspace under the master bedroom of a morbidly obese couple. Together, they probably pushed a half a ton and spent easily 16 hours a day on that bed. The framing had become so sunken that you could see the subflooring through the gaps that appeared between the flooring.
Just the other week my roommate invited an old school friend over, the guy probably weighed about 300lbs at 5'8" and broke a stool (Lyra by Magis, very nice, one of my favorites) in my kitchen. How anyone can be that big and so unaware of the strain their weight is putting on the things underneath them is beyond me.
But bigger people deserve to be able to bike too! It’s just the reality of the world we live in, plus many people have genetic issues that make it fairly difficult to lose weight. They shouldn’t be locked out of basic things like being able to survive without a car. I admit horses are a different story because they’re live animals, but bicycles are human-made and can and should be designed to handle more weight, especially with how many people are bigger.
I agree that there should be options for bigger people, but that doesn't mean that there shouldn't be bikes as light and high-performing as possible made for those who can use them, and if that's the focus of a given manufacturer, that's not an ethical issue. It's just their specialization, and there's plenty of room for other designers to focus on bikes for heavier riders as that market becomes viable.
Everyone deserves to ride bikes, and bike designers deserve to focus on the types of bikes they want. 7-foot NBA players deserve to be comfortable in cars, but it's not Ford's fault or responsibility that finding a car is more difficult for them than for those between the 10th and 90th height percentiles. No less unfortunate, but changing the design of all cars or expecting app major manufacturers to design for outliers isn't necessarily a solution.
I don't read the article as an attack on building high performing bikes.
Just about manufacturers giving a better idea of what a bicycle or wheel set can stand up to by including some maximum supported weight information that is not just available in a manual (which most people don't see until post-sale)
We can pretty easily infer the weight of an overall build down to how much the spokes weigh before buying... why can't we be given more information about what a rim or frame can stand up to with regards to weight?
100% agreed with this point. I don't think the article attacks bike makers for their specialization, but I think a lot of the people reacting to pieces like this take it there or read active/intentional fat-phobia into brands' current practices.