TV, or not TV: the story of our bike box (2019) | Hacker News Reader

TV, or not TV: the story of our bike box (2019)

vanmoof.com

137 pointsEvgeniyZh52 comments

Clever idea, but I wish they would put this much thought & problem-solving effort into their bikes themselves. Their bikes have an auto-shifting system with hub gearing that is very prone to breaking. On a normal bike to avoid putting unnecessary strain on the drivetrain you learn to not shift under heavy load, in the middle of a heavy pedal stroke. With a bike that just decides to shift on its own you have no control over that so it will inevitably sometimes shift at the worst time. I don't understand how that design even makes it past the whiteboard stage, much less into the production product that has been shipping for years.

I guess maybe it's a fine bike for riding the bike paths of Amsterdam which is very flat, if you're very careful to never pedal hard and always let the motor do all the work. But in a more chaotic environment riding on the roads in a place that has hills, it's unusable. I had to return my bike after the shifting broke twice within a couple of weeks, and the internet is full of many, many stories from people with the same issue.

Google is sponsoring employees to lease Vanmoof S3 and X3. Anecdotally I've seen a huge increase in the number of S3 owners in the south bay area. I'm leasing the X3 myself.

I also agree on the auto shifting. I'm an experienced cyclist and own a number of bikes and do regular weekend rides in the mountains. The auto shifting on vanmoof bikes is absolutely awful for me and caused horrible janky shifts while I was putting torque through the system. The gearing is also all wrong, since the cadence is way too low in most gears and at the top speed. Thankfully vanmoof added manual shifting into a fairly recent update.

But on the other hand, my non cyclist wife loves auto shifting. She rarely puts power into the pedals and likes the low cadence for easy cruising. She just uses the turbo button whenever she wants to accelerate. So it's clearly designed for flat roads and easy riding for non cyclists.

If the gearing range is universally too high for the kind of riding you do, you can get any bike shop to swap the rear cassette to a larger one, or the front chain ring(s) to smaller ones. The chain may need to be shortened.

> you can get any bike shop to swap the rear cassette to a larger one

That's less likely to happen with the vanmoof. They have a custom-made chain guard which is integrated into the bike, and would not fit larger cogs.

They also have an internal hub, not a typical cassette and derailleur setup, so modifying the drivetrain is a more involved affair.

I think most local bike shops would tell you to have vanmooof do it out of fear of voiding your warranty.

If there's auto shifting there's a computer somewhere, and so you'd think a firmware update that made it so that it wouldn't auto-shift under heavy load could be applied (call it semi-auto mode or something); then you could leave it in auto but if you wanted it to shift when pushing hard just let off the pedals a bit and it'd do so.

Only if it has the sensors for it. There's a decent chance it just has a cheaper cadence sensor on the pedals, not a torque sensor or other way to tell if you are pushing hard.

I can’t speak for VanMoof but the Bosch ebike motors definitely have a torque sensor (+), and my old Douze had one, too. You can’t do proportional assist without a torque sensor. I would consider it probable that VanMoof has one, too.

(+) some folks on a German forum reserve engineered the can bus protocol for the Bosch motor and it exposes torque https://www.pedelecforum.de/forum/index.php?threads/bosch-ac...

Nope, Van Moof uses a cheaper cadence sensor not a torque sensor. Bosch ebike motors are amazing and a huge step up, but bikes that use them generally sell for $5000+ and the Van Moof S3/X3 are half that price.

Hmm I would have thought it had the equivalent of regenerative braking and could detect how much "power" you were creating, but ... it seems that's not how it's designed.

Regenerative braking on bikes is a bit harder than it is on cars - you can’t easily combine regenerative braking with a freewheel - if the rider stops pedaling that‘s not a sufficiently good signal to start regenerative braking. With cars, the signal is there - the driver stops depressing the accelerator.

Additionally, with middle motors (which most ebikes today have), you‘d need to have the chain run continuously to transfer the power from the wheel back to the motor, and you likely could not do that with a derailleur shifting setup.

That said, I‘ve seen (but not tested) one model that had regenerative braking, so that does (or at least used to) exist.

I can see the middle motor problem (though the company here claims to have solved it by using a front motor instead) - but there is a signal available to the bike; the brakes themselves.

I'm not sure that cars even begin regenerative braking until you actually hit the brakes as opposed to just letting off the accelerator.

The electric cars I have tried all started regenerative braking when you let go of the accelerator. As an additional problem for bikes: they are rear-wheel drive and the primary braking power comes from the front wheel for normal bikes (load distribution shift to the front when braking). Cargo bikes and tandems are a bit of an exception here. I’m not saying it’s impossible - as I wrote above I know it exists. It’s just a lot of effort for comparatively little gain, and so it’s pretty rare.

I think that's the main thing - the amount of energy lost by bringing a bike to a stop is nothing compared to that of bringing a car to a stop from 60 MPH.

And they're probably better off just adding a generator in-line with the pedals (in fact, I'm surprised these things have "direct drive" at all and aren't just a generator on the pedals with a wire to a motor on the front/rear hub).

> But in a more chaotic environment riding on the roads in a place that has hills, it's unusable

I ride my vanmoof in Seattle (very hilly and urban) and to say the auto-shift is "unusable" is a huge exaggeration IMO. It occasionally catches me out when I'm pedaling hard but for the most part it works OK.

Also, they've supported manual shifting for almost a year now: https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/31/22649901/vanmoof-s3-x3-au...

The manual shifting is a big improvement at least, I didn't realize it was officially supported. Back when I had the bike almost 2 years ago there was the 3rd party Moofer app that supported it but Van Moof the company was very adamant that even installing this app would void your warranty. Which was another decision that makes me feel negatively towards the company overall.

What I find interesting about this is that if you were to show typical folks a TV (out of the box) and an assembled bicycle, and ask which is fragile and which is not, essentially everyone would say the TV is fragile and, importantly, the bicycle is not fragile. After all, bicycles are meant to be ridden outdoors, in the rain, through all manner of conditions, bumping over curbs, falling over, etc.

When a TV is packed for shipping it actually becomes somewhat more durable. But it seems that when a bike is packed for shipping it seems it becomes more fragile than when assembled.

I don't think it's that the bike is more fragile when shipped, but it's susceptible to different kinds of damage. Bike frames are optimised to be extremely strong in certain directions whilst using the minimum amount of material and certainly with carbon fibre, the frame "tubes" are incredibly strong to riding bumps, but can crack horribly when bumped from the side. Metal frames tend to be more resilient to sideways knocks, but the principle still applies.

When shipped in a large rectangular box (the most practical shape for a bike), there's more chance that the impact is going to be on the large face and that's the direction that bike frames are not optimised for.

We can hope for the future where TV companies are printing bicycles on their boxes.

the necessity of this hack always makes me angrier than it should.

I actually feel pretty good about it.

All the faceless individuals who are involved in moving parcels probably have to throw them around constantly, stacking them, lifting them, moving them, taking them off, putting them on different pallets, trucks.

With no idea what's inside them, they probably don't care so much about being gentle. Or they might think "It must be well packed, people would know better".

Yet suddenly? The box has "fragile" written on it, indirectly, and people care. People take the time, they make the effort, and they genuinely try not to smash your (presumably new) TV.

The box had already stickers that prove the cargo is fragile, even before putting TV images on the boxes. It is just that the handlers do not care at all if the cargo is fragile or not, but they probably receive quite a lot of heat for improperly handling TVs and monitors, as the damage to those items are quite visible.

What does fragile mean? Does it mean you can’t drop it? I’ve seen people poorly pack a box so you can’t drop the box without something breaking and then they slap “FRAGILE” on it. People put fragile on all sorts of boxes that shouldn’t have it and so the meaning of fragile on a box has been weakened.

Whereas with a TV, everyone knows what a TV box can sustain and can’t.

> It is just that the handlers do not care at all if the cargo is fragile or not

Why should the underpaid and overworked handler care? In the US, handlers at hubs earn minimum wage and are expected to process a certain number of packages per shift - so they may not provide the care you'd expect. Drivers earn more than minimum wage, but still are pressured to deliver quickly - so packages get tossed a lot. The handlers incentives are not aligned with the shippers - and this for the unionized courier (UPS) - I imagine FedEx and DHL may be more demanding on throughput.

They likely also know better that televisions in boxes are fragile than that bicycle frames are before they have even handled one professionally.

Even if they don’t they will likely learn that televisions in boxes are fragile sooner than that they learn that about bicycle frames, as they’ll handle a lot more of them.

I also suspect most televisions crack sooner than bicycle frames.

Also, bikes are certainly assumed to be durable objects that can take a beating.

"Fragile" stickers are overused and on way too many boxes that aren't. They can't be careful with everything with their expected level of productivity.

Most things that are marked "fragile"-- if they end up with a big gouge in the front of the box-- will probably be OK. But everyone knows that's super, super bad for a TV and whomever gets that TV is going to refuse delivery.

The world isn’t perfect mate, don’t let small things like this make you angry :)

What's the incentive structure for careful handling of packages?

E.g., I think delivery drivers have quotas for speed and completeness. But those are also easily measured by existing systems.

But with shipping damage, is there currently a good way to assign blame? Seems like you'd need a way to attest that everything was okay prior to each handoff.

I know shock sensors, etc. exist. But I'm guessing they're reserved for expensive items?

They do exist and are usually used for expensive items or pallets - https://www.uline.com/Grp_332/Damage-Indicators

For truckload pallets, you either contract with the shipper end-to-end or you require them to allocate blame. The term FOB comes in here - you want stuff "FOB destination" which means it's the sellers problem until you receive it (FOB origin means it is your problem once it leaves the seller's warehouse).

This is why truckload shipments always tell you to examine the pallet before the driver leaves.

For things shipped UPS, etc, they're often smaller and the shipper just eats damage, not worth filing claims.

Note that the stickers from Uline are to show you that the pallet has been jostled/hit even if it physically "looks good".

If you people want to do Dutch bikes because of esthetics, consider other brands like Cortina or BSP. If they are available abroad, that is. I had a lightweight but sturdy Gazelle for some time. Now a BSP. Both matte black, strong frame, etc.

Vanmoof has beautiful bikes, but one of the things I don't like about it is the sitting position. The steer is basically not higher than the frame. Very bad for back, shoulders and wrists. It even pains me when I only see people riding that bike here. That position is not maintainable for a longer time, especially if you're a desk worker.

What I did with my bikes - which had a slightly higher steer, but not enough - is turn the steering pen towards the saddle and then put the steer back and turn it slightly upwards with the ends. I also had a longer re-adjustable steering pen, which was perfect. See here for a pic: https://www.theredpanther.org/?module=timeline&link=1&title=...

> The steer is basically not higher than the frame. Very bad for back, shoulders and wrists. ... That position is not maintainable for a longer time, especially if you're a desk worker.

A slight forward lean is desirable. Sitting bolt upright on a bike makes it very hard to engage your biggest, most efficient muscles: your glutes and hamstrings. This is also why the "athletic position" is universal to just about every physical activity; the slight crouch is similar to the natural position on a bike. Those larger muscles help stabilize your pelvis, reducing the force on your shoulders, arms, and wrists. https://www.pedalpt.com/upright-bicycling/

(There are other benefits too—the bike's handling improves as weight is balanced between the front and rear wheels and the center of gravity is lowered—but I'll assume we're talking about purely recreational/daily needs riding where such concerns are secondary.)

I was at the post office the other day and there was a big flat box that said: "IT'S A FRAME. DO NOT BEND"

It's like the people working with boxes like to reshape things.

Try to cram as many as you can on a truck, and then unload them and stack them somewhere, and resort, and cram as many of those as you can onto a different truck. See if you end up applying weird loads to boxes.

Boxes have symbols that show how to stack them, where the center of gravity is and a bunch of other things, if you are interested: ISO 780

I know about ISO 780. :D I also know about the constraints logistics companies work under. If you think package handlers are looking at all the symbols at the box and carefully considering how to best meet them for an entire shipment...

My buddy who worked at FedEx once told me that "fragile" was a french word that means "to drop kick".

These symbols are much more effective in manufacturer and retailer-controlled portions of the supply chain. Once your goods are mixed with goods from many other customers, and individual accountability is lower... bad stuff is gonna happen.

Can't find the story (I think it was on an Imgur post of a similar box), but in that one the sticker says "BEND ME NOW!" Reverse psychology.

I've had friends complain about USPS bending vinyl records to fit them in a mailbox, for example.

Clever idea but I wonder how long before the shippers figure out those are really bike boxes.

I would guess the way they treat the boxes is likely subconscious, rather than based on an actual considered belief on whether they contain a TV or not.

This is why this hack tells a lot about our society. We value television so highly that we take care of it as soon as we subconsciously think it’s a television.

Television is such a symbol that we start to abuse that symbol.

Pretty sad when you think about it.

They're just a common large item known for being expensive and fragile and they have a distinctive box shape. Not sure it goes any deeper than that.

> We value television so highly

I don't think we do - television viewing has dropped off a cliff over the last decade or so. Many people don't own one any more.

Modern shipping warehouses are so frenetic and fast-paced, there is literally zero time for conscious minds to register what is shown on any box.

It's almost certainly well known now. I don't know if they have time to look at the sender on every box though.

You would think that would be a good idea but my last TV arrived with a whole in the box.

They didn't claim it reduced damages to 0, but down 70-80% from before.

You should tell Samsung to print "Nuclear bomb" on their boxes...

*hole I guess. Was the tv ok?

D'oh!

Yeah, there was a mark on the screen but everything was fine.

That doesn't seem fine!

you can edit comments to fix typos...

I wonder why whole bothers me more than then/than your/you're would of/would've ? lol

that's a good question. i think it has to do with the the first/last letters being more important to match a word.

as long as those match you can guess the content easy enough: https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/human...

and i am guessing the first letter is even more important.

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