More bike delays

Thu, 25 Jun 2020 02:02:41 GMT

So, I got all excited on Monday when I got the news that my Juiced Bike battery was finally ready to ship, after a month and a half of waiting. But the excitement may have been premature.

When I checked up on the FedEx tracking number they gave me, the status never changed. It just said "Shipment information sent to FedEx" and was never updated. Finally, today at lunch I called Juiced again, and they checked and found that the battery was being sent back to them by FedEx, due to a lack of documentation. I checked in with them again shortly before closing time there, and the rep said she'd passed it on to her manager to see that it got corrected and shipped back out again. There hadn't been any further updates by the time they closed at 8 eastern, but hopefully I will hear something tomorrow.

At this point, it seems highly dubious that the battery will arrive on Friday as originally projected. It's got to come all the way from Chula Vista, California to Indianapolis, Indiana, and it will have to come by ground because that kind of battery cannot be air-shipped. But on the other hand, I went ahead and took all of next week, plus the following Monday, off work, to have plenty of time to ride it, so hopefully I'll still get a good few days in before I go back to work.

Assuming something else doesn't go wrong. Like, my bike's motor refusing to work once the new battery's connected to it (it has sat idle for a couple of years, after all), or my charger not being compatible, or something else like that. With as many things as have gone wrong already, I can't help but think that maybe something more is right around the corner. Argh!

Meanwhile, I've been looking ahead to accessorizing. The cargo rack is nice, but not exactly convenient to strap stuff to sometimes. But there are bike trailers. This one on Amazon looks potentially useful, but the hitch looks like it's made for normal bikes, not ones like my ODK II that have a huge cargo deck behind the seat. Maybe something with side-hitches, like this one, would be a better bet. Well, I'll keep looking. It's not like I'll be investing in it any time soon. My new phone, smartwatch, and whatever the other repairs to my bike cost will have depleted my savings considerably for the next little while.

Hopefully I'll get some good news about shipping time tomorrow. Will just have to wait and see…and give Juiced another call at lunchtime.

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Getting juiced on an e-bike?

Fri, 29 Aug 2014 18:55:33 GMT

So I called the local e-bike dealer and chatted with him about my requirements. He's basically one of those dealers who works out of their home rather than a showroom. I can respect that. Among other things, means he'd keep the overhead down and hopefully cut me a better deal on the bikes. He doesn't carry any of the type of e-bikes I mentioned in my previous post, and he's hesitant to order them because if I didn't like them, what would he do with them?

However, he does have some of last year's model of an electric cargo bike called the "Juiced Rider" that he might be able to cut me a deal on—including cargo panniers he could throw in. It wouldn't be in the $500 to $700 range, but given that the bike costs like $2,000 brand new, I'm hoping it'll be around $1,000ish. I might even swing $1,500ish or more if he lets me pay on installments. I'll have to carve a chunk of money out from the amount I'm going to be paying down my debts with, but on the other hand this will let me stave off needing a car even further. And I'm going to have to have some kind of alternate solution for getting around when winter hits. Sub-freezing temperatures and trying to pedal a bike any great distance just don't mix.

Judging from this review and this other review, the Juiced Rider looks like it would be exactly the sort of thing I need. Designed from the ground up as a car-substitute, it can carry 330 lbs of rider plus cargo, and has an estimated 35 mile range. Not only would that be great for getting to and from work every day, it would even let me go down and visit Alex in Greenwood and come back without having to wait for it to recharge. I could do my Trader Joe's shopping without having to wrestle my cart onto the bus or pay extra for a Zipcar rental. And since it weighs the same 70 lbs as the other bike, I could easily bring it up to my room at night.

I'll be taking the bus and then bicycling up to Carmel on Monday afternoon to take a test ride, at which point we'll see how it goes. Would be interested to hear from anyone else who's had experience with e-bikes.

In other news, I bought a small window air conditioner unit off a fellow apartment building tenant who's moving away, and it's now cooling my bedroom. I slept very well last night, and look forward to another good night's sleep tonight.

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robotech_master

More bike delays

Getting juiced on an e-bike?