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Comment by qwertox | Hacker News Reader

Hazard: The rim strip on the tires can be misaligned, causing the tube to pop and damage the tire. Additionally, the tires with a ribbed sidewall can unexpectedly go flat, risking serious injuries from loss of control and/or crash.

This is something a beginner can repair. This is normal stuff for those who ride bikes and don't go to a shop for little repairs. Replacing a tube (and fixing it with a small vulcanizing kit) is biking 101, and there they're not even expecting you to repair that. Just check how to replace the tube of a wheel in a youtube video and while at it, check if your strip needs alignment. Tyres often go flat but you normally feel that something is off because it feels "smeary".

The warning is just for those who are not the slightest bit technically inclined and don't feel like doing any of this. To avoid lawsuits.

I bet in the Netherlands any 10 year old kid could check if your wagon is affected and if it is, align the strip.

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It’s quite dangerous doing work on the rear wheel. It takes a lot of equipment to get the bike into a stand (ramps, trestles) or on its back. The rear wheel has the motor in it and is very heavy.

Rad designed the drop outs nicely and there’s only a cable tie and a power cable to undo, but I had still had to use a rope as a winch to hold and then lower the wheel out of the frame.

If you’ve done a lot of bike work you’ll know about the danger of crushing your finger between the rear axle fastener and the derailleur body. Now imagine that with a 10lb wheel falling out of the rear dropouts. It’s a pretty dangerous job if you don’t take your time and do things safely and it made me really appreciate how easy it is by comparison to work on a simple, light, mechanical pedal bike.

Yeah, the level of repair for mine is swap a wheel and tire. This is nothing for someone with any mechanical repair abilities at all. As you said, fixing flats on a bike was something I've done since a kid. I have a couple thousand miles on my bike, and I've done all of the maintenance myself. I have tools for it, but for some of these hipster Seattle types that bang out code all day and have never had grease from anything other than their hair on their hands, it might be a bit daunting.

Do you always confidently speak about issues you have no knowledge of? The tires are being recalled and destroyed due to defects. But you think anyone with any mechanical repair abilities can repair them? Why is the company spending millions of dollars on the recall and burning goodwill when they could have owners just pop down to a local bike mechanic(which is something they will have them do regardless with the new tires)?

Do you always talk confidently about emails discussing the recall procedure that you haven't read?

As part of the recall process, they will ship me the replacement parts. I don't live in Seattle for them to make the repair for me. I am free to install these myself, or if I'm mechanically challenged, they will arrange for a local repair shop to make these repairs for me. I'm not repairing the friggin recalled tire. What a moron to make that assumption. I'm making the repair taking the recalled part off, and then placing the corrected part on.

>Yeah, the level of repair for mine is swap a wheel and tire.

What kind of thick skulled imbecile can't understand that?

You responded affirmatively to qwertox who is saying basically you can fix the issue by yourself. The issue at hand with the radwagon4, which is the topic, is the current tires are unsafe, which is why there is a recall and the tires are being destroyed. There is not a recall on the wheels, and there is no need to swap a wheel.

So I still have no idea what you're talking about. But I do have some idea that you're an absolute cock.

Yes, in a response to you acting like you know what your talking about while telling me I have no idea what I am talking about, I was a cock to you.

In my emails, I was told I would be receiving a new wheel as well as tires. So, I have no idea why you would feel necessary to suggest I won't be needing to swap a wheel when they are sending me a wheel. That's okay, sense I don't know what I'm talking about and you do. Have a good life being better than everyone else though.

You must be getting different emails than literally everyone else then. Maybe you should check again.

> the tires with a ribbed sidewall can unexpectedly go flat

If this is the problem you're putting so much weight on, where's the issue with buying new a tire? If you know the parameters, which are printed on the tire itself, you can buy a new one. Once your bike is ready for recall, I'd put on the original set and have it replaced for a new one.

But I myself wouldn't have an issue with just removing the tube once to take a look at it and the tire, then either replace something or just reassemble it and wait until it breaks due to wear, as it will do anyway sometime down the line.

The only difference will be that it will break because of wear (not the companies fault) or because it was of low quality. But I would never assume that this would cause some kind of harm which puts any life in danger, specially because it has 4 wheels.

It must be more than that, since they are recalling the tires and destroying them. They're doing a new run of tires, and having local bike mechanics swap them out.

And.. what's taking so long? We are not talking about some custom-made part to fix some frame defect or another. Rim strips and tires are plentiful. They could pay neighborhood bike shops a flat fee to get this recall out of the way for their customers.

What takes anything in today's world to take so long?...It's manufactured in China.

They discovered the problem. Waited long enough to see how extensive the problem was. After whatever investigation process there was, it was determined that they were just manufactured poorly. Design error or manufacturing error? More testing. Now that the true issue is understood, how to fix it. Iterate changes to make new replacement better than original design. Cool. Now, find a factory and get in their queue to manufacture the thing. Receive shipment via literal slow boat from China. Distribute parts, arrange repair mechanic appointments, etc.

I'm not defending the situation I find myself in, but if you honestly can't think of "what's taking so long", then I'd suggest you're just not trying at all. Maybe you have no experience manufacturing something, so that might be out of your wheel house. It's not like someone can just say 'git clone bicycle parts' or 'npm update bicycle parts'

You are kidding, right? As the poster above already noticed, this is a common as mud problem on bicycles and you should be able to replace these parts (and just about any non-electrical part on it) with a variety of choices from a variety of vendors. And "you" being "any bike shop" given this is a recall the vendor is expected to perform (or delegate) and pay for.

If you can't, the reality is you didn't buy a bike, you bought a bicycle-shaped object with proprietary components designed for the landfill.

It's the Juicero of bikes.

Overall, I'm quite happy with my bike. It does exactly what I wanted it to when I purchased it. However, it's the company itself that just seems to have it's head insert fully up their backside. It seems to be a Seattle thing, but I feel it would fit in perfectly inside the SV VC world of "disruptors" where a concept that is as ubiquitous as a bike gets updated to be the VC darling of a thing only to realize the updates are so stupid that it devalues the entire thing. Rather than using stock component parts, let's custom design everything!! What could go wrong?

To those who don't know, Juicero's juice pressing machines were notoriously complex and expensive due to extensive use of custom components. https://blog.bolt.io/juicero/

How should I know? But I imagine with the popularity of the radwagon4, they would get this out of the way quicker if they could and continue selling them. I think they used some weird/rare type of tire - there's talk in radwagon forums of replacing the tires with "moped tires", but I never looked into it. But if this was just a case of sending people to their local bike mechanic who would take a new tire off the wall, I'm sure they would do that, since their process has you going to a mechanic(eventually) anyway once the new tires are in.

The tires literally are custom for the RadWagon 4. It uses 22" wheels and tires, which is a non-standard size. You can't buy 22" tires from anyone except Vee Tire Co, which makes them specifically for Rad Power Bikes.

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