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.
4ndr3vv 2 hours ago [-]
He put a video up about this a couple of weeks ago, and rather than YouTube's algorithm being to blame, it was more him struggling to keep up with his audiences constant demand for more progress with more super sketchy features that he was basicly building constantly.
"the Algoirithm" often gets sited, but it's often a youtuber's interaction with thier audience, the pressure to keep up with demand, rising success and not wanting to miss out.
freetime2 8 hours ago [-]
Is it the YouTube algorithm's fault? Or viewer preferences? I think YouTube would be happy to recommend the videos to more people if more people watched them.
I watch photography videos on YouTube, and camera review channels consistently have far more subscribers than channels who make content about taking photos. (Or at least they did in the past - in recent years camera tech has really matured and interesting releases are much less frequent, and reviewers seem to have taken a hit).
I think people just like gear. Should YouTube not show people what they like to see?
I've watched some Berm Peak videos in the past and I mostly know the channel for its videos about builds/repairs, or his video about the history of valves. The mountain biking videos are good too, but only hold my interest for so long. If I want to see mountain biking I'm more likely to look at some of the stuff Red Bull is putting out.
tripdout 11 minutes ago [-]
I remember seeing a video where someone was talking about how from someone on the YouTube team said that their goal is for you to to replace the word “algorithm” with “audience”.
Whether they achieve that goal or not is a different story.
jonplackett 7 hours ago [-]
I’m gonna say it’s YouTube. They are obsessed with pushing short form shit videos to me despite me never wanting to watch them. I hate YouTube shorts so much
seb1204 5 hours ago [-]
I'm with you on not liking shorts. I read there is a new option to limit time spent in shorts, if you set that to 0 they do go away. Have not tested it.
marysol5 6 hours ago [-]
In what context do you get Short Form videos? I've never once been pushed to them.
jonplackett 5 hours ago [-]
In the Home Screen it is always completely full of shorts. In my recommendations, full of shorts. There’s no way to just never be shown shorts. It’s very clear from the layout that they REALLY want you to watch shorts. I assume it’s because they are more addictive = more views = more ads. But I pay for YY premium! So why do they still insist on putting shorts everywhere? If I want shitty short videos I’ll use TikTok
Groxx 22 minutes ago [-]
Subscriptions and even viewing history(?!) pull shorts out of order and place them at the top.
Hell, many times I launch YouTube and it immediately starts playing a short, no interaction required. And I have "show touches" on, so I know it's not a phantom tap or something, it's doing it all on its own.
YouTube pushes shorts insanely hard.
rob74 5 hours ago [-]
I don't get them on desktop either, but on the mobile app they're very hard to avoid. Seems like YouTube doesn't want to be YouTube anymore, it wants to morph into TikTok. We don't need more TikToks, having one TikTok is already bad enough thankyouverymuch!
reddalo 6 hours ago [-]
I also hate YouTube Shorts. Just put them out on another website.
Luckily I use uBlock Origin and ReVanced, and I blocked all Shorts from even appearing.
pjc50 5 hours ago [-]
> show people what they like to see?
The thing is, "what people enjoy while watching", "what they derive lasting benefit, memory or happiness from", and "what they click on in a thumbnail" are three different things, and youtube optimizes for the latter. Which is why youtube face is a thing.
freetime2 3 hours ago [-]
Click-through rates are indeed very important, but that's not all they optimize for. They are also looking at watch time, what you do after watching the video (do you watch more videos from the same creator, or on the same subject, something totally different, or do you leave the site), whether you interact with the video by liking or commenting, channels you have subscribed to, things you have searched for, etc.
And I think that when you spend a significant amount of time watching videos on a certain subject or from a certain channel - or when you repeatedly decline to watch videos of a certain type when they are suggested - you are signaling a very clear preference.
Are the videos the algorithm serves up something that people will "derive lasting benefit, memory or happiness from"? Probably not - but I also don't think that's what most people are looking for from YouTube. Sometimes, maybe, but more often they are just looking for mindless entertainment. Engaging with media on a deeper level requires effort. YouTube is where people go when even finding something to watch on Netflix is too much effort, let alone doing something healthy.
To keep this all in context - the parent comment was complaining that the algorithm doesn't promote videos of a guy building bike jumps in his back yard enough. I like Berm Peak - but is that something that most people would "derive lasting benefit, memory or happiness from"? No, it's not.
Anyone who hasn't seen those videos hasn't lost out on very much. And for anyone who has spent any amount of time watching videos about bicycles on YouTube - they probably have been recommended Berm Peak videos on numerous occasions. I know I have. The guy has 2.77 million subscribers and 787 million total views on his videos. Whether or not people actually watched the videos when suggested is more likely a matter of personal choice than the algorithm doing him dirty.
ben_w 5 hours ago [-]
Yes, modulo only that "what people like enough to keep going through the adverts" isn't exactly the same as "what they click on in a thumbnail", and the latter combines with "did these ads convince someone to get the paid ad free experience" is what YT optimises for.
2muchcoffeeman 5 hours ago [-]
>* Is it the YouTube algorithm's fault? Or viewer preferences? I think YouTube would be happy to recommend the videos to more people if more people watched them.*
I always got garbage even if it suggested things I wanted to watch too.
The best way is to disable suggestions completely and then just make a note of your favourite channels. That way you get a completely blank landing page and are forced to search out exactly what you want every time.
orrito 5 hours ago [-]
You can disable suggestions and still subscribe to channels, I'd argue that's the easiest path while still keeping what you're actually interested in. If you have 200+ subscribed channels over the years it's less good, I'd just unscribe if you're not interested in it.
ryandrake 2 hours ago [-]
A huge percentage of people who say they are into a particular hobby are really just collectors of that hobby’s gear. Photography is an easy example, but this applies to a LOT of hobbies.
bluGill 52 minutes ago [-]
I have long ago realized that I cannot buy more gear for my hobbies unless I commit to using it. I want a lot of cool gadgets, but using what I have needs more time than I put into the hobby. (I need to play mandolin several hours a day to get better, in reality I often skip days or only put in 15 minutes). It is one thing to say "I need X tool for the next step and buy the tool, but I only buy that tool if I really do use it, not because it is a gadget that looks cool (and then I have the tool). I've also found great fun in asking "how did they do this before modern tools" - often I can find an alternate path without the gear.
Yup and he talks about how it was unsustainable, and how his priorities have shifted now that he has kids. He does mention the algorithm and the introduction of shorts as something he had to compete with - but mostly he just frames the bike park as an idea that has run its course and he has grown out of.
smallerize 24 minutes ago [-]
YouTube mainly rewards people who are doing unsustainable things. It chews them up and spits them out, and when creators either go back to doing something sustainable or crash and burn, the algorithm just stops sending them traffic.
atoav 6 hours ago [-]
As a young film student my Prof asked me whether I wanted to go to a talk to which he was invited. It was on the genres shown in German public television.
There the summary of the discussion was: Our core demographic are 60 to 70 year olds which is why we only make shows that appeal to 60-70 year olds and our core audience watches TV while doing household chores, so it needs to be simple to follow, so they can do household chores while watching.
I told them that to me this sounds a lot like circular logic, where they justify the things they are doing with the outcomes that produced. It is obvious there are other markets targeting different audiences (e.g. the likes of Netflix have been explicitly mentioned) and these markets are growing based on the way demographics shift.
A bit like a drug dealer that says he can't do honest work since all his customers are drug addicts, they are using the status quo as an excuse to persist the status quo.
The real way to think about these things is to consider them feedback loops. If all your content targets a specific demographic of course you're gonna have more audience members of that demographic, which again leads you to make more content for said demographic, which leads to more audience members of that demographic which... Until you hit some systemic limit, e.g. you have saturated the market or it turns out your content isn't that appealing to begin with in comparison to other stuff.
That means if you want to be strategic about this you need to give incentives to creators to produce stuff for audiences you don't already have. Even better: you need to become a partner these creators can and want to trust in.
These are the levers YouTube needs to pull if they want to stay a relevant platform that people enjoy spending their time on.
anukin 6 hours ago [-]
Do you have some recommendations for photography channels on YouTube?
freetime2 5 hours ago [-]
I like Thomas Heaton for landscape photography. For gear reviews I like PetaPixel. And for tips/tutorials I think Simon d'Entremont is good.
There are a bunch of other channels out there too that I watch from time to time, but I think the above are the best in their respective categories.
close04 6 hours ago [-]
I think it's the algorithm. Occasionally I get recommended videos that are 5-8+ years old (so old in terms of Youtube years) with no new comments so presumably not getting a lot of recent views. But soon comes a wave of fresh comments wondering why they never discovered this video before. So the algorithm starts the cycle, not the organic user preferences.
For this particular channel, I watched a bunch of his videos on this Reevo bike In January 2025, and a lot of bike/cycling related videos in general. Despite this clear preference to guide the algorithm, Youtube stopped recommending this channel to me. It disappeared from my feed.
I always suspected Youtube "motivates" creators to pay for promotion by giving them a taste for free, how it looks like to be on everyone's feed, and then takes them off.
freetime2 20 minutes ago [-]
Old videos suddenly being heavily promoted again on YouTube is interesting. Sometimes there are obvious reasons, like this 6 year old video about the Straight of Hormuz that is recently making the rounds again [1]. Other times I think it's just the chaotic effects and constructive interference of 2.5 billion users interacting with 15 billion videos - like a rogue wave forming in the ocean.
There are two ways that I've noticed though that YouTube tends to consistently suggest older videos. One is when you first discover a new channel that you like and watch a few videos from that channel, YouTube will start recommending older videos from that channel until you've exhausted the back catalog (or lost interest).
The other way I've noticed is that when I hit the like button a video, YouTube will recommend it to me again after some time has passed. This also seems to depend on the type of video. Music videos are almost always recommended again after some time, while news videos almost never are.
I think these mechanisms are effective at driving traffic to older videos. If I look at my home page right now, most of it does tend to be newer content, but I'd estimate about 25% of it is more than a year old.
In response to your complaint about Berm Peak videos disappearing from your feed - obviously I don't know for certain, but is it possible that YouTube did suggest other Berm Peak videos after you watched a bunch of Reevo videos - but you didn't watch them? And that YouTube might have interpreted that as a lack of interest in the channel?
I've got a couple of channels that I consistently watch whenever they put out a new video. And I find that YouTube is really good about putting their videos at the top of my home page whenever a new video comes out.
> Is it the YouTube algorithm's fault? Or viewer preferences?
I didn’t read the rest of your comment but it’s the fault of the algorithm because that tail wags the dog. It’s physically impossible to watch all videos so we are all at the mercy of the (a) algorithm.
ramgine 2 hours ago [-]
I’ve been a fan of his for years (have stickers and a hoodie for berm peak). In the past couple years I stopped watching his channel because he stopped trail building. His new stuff is for entry level people and I’m sure it gets tons of traffic, but watching him make use of his old back yard and his new one was inspiring and fun.
Gigachad 8 hours ago [-]
Youtube seems to regularly suggest old videos to me so I think it's less a problem with evergreen content and more that youtube pays for minutes watched so someone who does cheap reaction content can produce more minutes to watch than someone who spends a long time on one video.
rob74 5 hours ago [-]
I only saw his previous video on the Reevo that he now fixed (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPe3cY3oeu4 - just in case YouTube doesn't list it under suggested videos when you watch this one) and it was hilarious.
Xylakant 3 hours ago [-]
Or pay for a nebula subscription and watch there.
utopiah 7 hours ago [-]
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.
jjice 15 minutes ago [-]
I think it's a generally good place to start when buying anything, especially anything of high value. You want to be able to truly own it, which includes maintaining and repairing it.
Now of course there are areas you can make trade offs. A lot of people like MacBooks despite them not supporting other operating systems very well and Apple still mostly being hardasses about outside repair, but they come with good performance and battery life.
Making sure to keep maintainability in mind when making a product decision is critical to making an informed purchase.
freetime2 2 hours ago [-]
I have been riding a Panasonic "Gyutto" [1] for about 10 years. I bought it when I had young kids, as it's designed to hold two child seats (one on the back, and one on the handle bars). Now that they've grown up I've replaced the child seats with baskets and use it for commuting every day and grocery shopping.
The thing is an absolute tank - the only parts I've had replace are the tires and brake pads. And the design is really simple with all of the consumable parts being easy to replace. At about $1,400 USD, it's not cheap, but I'm shocked at how long it's lasted and how little maintanence it's needed.
Definitely not "cool" - but one of the best purchases I've ever made.
When building my bikes I quickly found out that are no standard parts.
antran22 4 hours ago [-]
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.
Can anyone explain why in the world they would use an electroluminescent light instead of a simple LED?
kvdveer 1 hours ago [-]
In the video you can see that the LED lights the logo less evenly than the EL lighting. While that's not important at all, this might be the reason behind this odd choice
himata4113 10 hours ago [-]
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."
ehnto 10 hours ago [-]
I've been watching Seth for years, that comment is pretty in line with his writing style. I expect he's using AI, but I don't think he would be lazy with it. I would expect him to prefer not replying at all over using AI to reply.
wolttam 10 hours ago [-]
If you know Seth you know he kind of talks like that comment reads, and has for quite a while
himata4113 9 hours ago [-]
As a very very very long time viewer I've only noticed this in last 10 videos where there's verbatim reads like this from time to time. Ironically where you can notice this the most is the same kind of video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPe3cY3oeu4
ak217 10 hours ago [-]
You don't know much about Seth do you? That's not "AI", it's called a script.
himata4113 9 hours ago [-]
I've seen a pretty big percentage of his videos, dropped off past few years or so, but the writing style is heavily influenced by AI in some parts of the script. It might sound like Seth, but AI cannot replicate it perfectly and it just sounds very off.
red75prime 9 hours ago [-]
It seems to be Claude that was doing the majority of the work on the software, so I find it appropriate that Claude responses (as in Claude-in-a-harness-with-the-task-context-available responses) were passed through. Attribution should be clear though.
caconym_ 9 hours ago [-]
This comment doesn't seem obviously AI-written to me.
_def 10 hours ago [-]
Maybe the trick is to own it - are AI vtubers already a thing?
I can’t imagine having such a functional view of “consuming content” in my life that I’d ever want to watch that.
Nevermark 8 hours ago [-]
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!
bdamm 7 hours ago [-]
If anything this video is kicking off a storm of amateur hacking enthusiasm for these wild bikes. Do us all a favor and sell yours!
shymasen 2 hours ago [-]
ok AND
nrabulinski 8 hours ago [-]
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.
alistairSH 53 minutes ago [-]
Throwing shade at somebody for doing a project with the tools they had at hand is so weird.
This sort of thing exactly aligned with the promise of AI (and every "automation advancement" since the dawn of time)! It's another layer of abstraction that allows less technical people to do the thing.
antran22 4 hours ago [-]
Imagine after mowing your own lawn with a petrol-powered lawnmower, you got some shades from the neighbors for "Robbing the kids in the community a chance for some honest labor. If you don't know how to use the gardening shear, ask the kids to do it instead of using the automatic lawnmower. Would be a win-win for everybody".
nrabulinski 3 hours ago [-]
Except with an automatic lawnmower you’re still doing the work yourself. In the video he literally said he left Claude overnight. He did no reverse engineering and no coding
atsuzaki 30 minutes ago [-]
He used to be a web developer before doing youtube fulltime, so "he can’t code" is a false premise.
nickserv 2 hours ago [-]
It shows that you don't need to know how to code to succeed in this type of project.
As someone who does know how to code, I find the approach to be great, as it can motivate others to try similar projects.
fnands 6 hours ago [-]
I'm pretty sure if he did that someone would complain that he is using people as free labour to increase his youtube revenues.
It's impossible to do anything on the internet without someone in the peanut gallery telling you you are doing something wrong.
globular-toast 7 hours ago [-]
Yep, we're becoming further and further apart by the day.
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.
"the Algoirithm" often gets sited, but it's often a youtuber's interaction with thier audience, the pressure to keep up with demand, rising success and not wanting to miss out.
I watch photography videos on YouTube, and camera review channels consistently have far more subscribers than channels who make content about taking photos. (Or at least they did in the past - in recent years camera tech has really matured and interesting releases are much less frequent, and reviewers seem to have taken a hit).
I think people just like gear. Should YouTube not show people what they like to see?
I've watched some Berm Peak videos in the past and I mostly know the channel for its videos about builds/repairs, or his video about the history of valves. The mountain biking videos are good too, but only hold my interest for so long. If I want to see mountain biking I'm more likely to look at some of the stuff Red Bull is putting out.
Whether they achieve that goal or not is a different story.
Hell, many times I launch YouTube and it immediately starts playing a short, no interaction required. And I have "show touches" on, so I know it's not a phantom tap or something, it's doing it all on its own.
YouTube pushes shorts insanely hard.
Luckily I use uBlock Origin and ReVanced, and I blocked all Shorts from even appearing.
The thing is, "what people enjoy while watching", "what they derive lasting benefit, memory or happiness from", and "what they click on in a thumbnail" are three different things, and youtube optimizes for the latter. Which is why youtube face is a thing.
And I think that when you spend a significant amount of time watching videos on a certain subject or from a certain channel - or when you repeatedly decline to watch videos of a certain type when they are suggested - you are signaling a very clear preference.
Are the videos the algorithm serves up something that people will "derive lasting benefit, memory or happiness from"? Probably not - but I also don't think that's what most people are looking for from YouTube. Sometimes, maybe, but more often they are just looking for mindless entertainment. Engaging with media on a deeper level requires effort. YouTube is where people go when even finding something to watch on Netflix is too much effort, let alone doing something healthy.
To keep this all in context - the parent comment was complaining that the algorithm doesn't promote videos of a guy building bike jumps in his back yard enough. I like Berm Peak - but is that something that most people would "derive lasting benefit, memory or happiness from"? No, it's not.
Anyone who hasn't seen those videos hasn't lost out on very much. And for anyone who has spent any amount of time watching videos about bicycles on YouTube - they probably have been recommended Berm Peak videos on numerous occasions. I know I have. The guy has 2.77 million subscribers and 787 million total views on his videos. Whether or not people actually watched the videos when suggested is more likely a matter of personal choice than the algorithm doing him dirty.
I always got garbage even if it suggested things I wanted to watch too.
The best way is to disable suggestions completely and then just make a note of your favourite channels. That way you get a completely blank landing page and are forced to search out exactly what you want every time.
There the summary of the discussion was: Our core demographic are 60 to 70 year olds which is why we only make shows that appeal to 60-70 year olds and our core audience watches TV while doing household chores, so it needs to be simple to follow, so they can do household chores while watching.
I told them that to me this sounds a lot like circular logic, where they justify the things they are doing with the outcomes that produced. It is obvious there are other markets targeting different audiences (e.g. the likes of Netflix have been explicitly mentioned) and these markets are growing based on the way demographics shift.
A bit like a drug dealer that says he can't do honest work since all his customers are drug addicts, they are using the status quo as an excuse to persist the status quo.
The real way to think about these things is to consider them feedback loops. If all your content targets a specific demographic of course you're gonna have more audience members of that demographic, which again leads you to make more content for said demographic, which leads to more audience members of that demographic which... Until you hit some systemic limit, e.g. you have saturated the market or it turns out your content isn't that appealing to begin with in comparison to other stuff.
That means if you want to be strategic about this you need to give incentives to creators to produce stuff for audiences you don't already have. Even better: you need to become a partner these creators can and want to trust in.
These are the levers YouTube needs to pull if they want to stay a relevant platform that people enjoy spending their time on.
There are a bunch of other channels out there too that I watch from time to time, but I think the above are the best in their respective categories.
For this particular channel, I watched a bunch of his videos on this Reevo bike In January 2025, and a lot of bike/cycling related videos in general. Despite this clear preference to guide the algorithm, Youtube stopped recommending this channel to me. It disappeared from my feed.
I always suspected Youtube "motivates" creators to pay for promotion by giving them a taste for free, how it looks like to be on everyone's feed, and then takes them off.
There are two ways that I've noticed though that YouTube tends to consistently suggest older videos. One is when you first discover a new channel that you like and watch a few videos from that channel, YouTube will start recommending older videos from that channel until you've exhausted the back catalog (or lost interest).
The other way I've noticed is that when I hit the like button a video, YouTube will recommend it to me again after some time has passed. This also seems to depend on the type of video. Music videos are almost always recommended again after some time, while news videos almost never are.
I think these mechanisms are effective at driving traffic to older videos. If I look at my home page right now, most of it does tend to be newer content, but I'd estimate about 25% of it is more than a year old.
In response to your complaint about Berm Peak videos disappearing from your feed - obviously I don't know for certain, but is it possible that YouTube did suggest other Berm Peak videos after you watched a bunch of Reevo videos - but you didn't watch them? And that YouTube might have interpreted that as a lack of interest in the channel?
I've got a couple of channels that I consistently watch whenever they put out a new video. And I find that YouTube is really good about putting their videos at the top of my home page whenever a new video comes out.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udtVdDmSSoo
I didn’t read the rest of your comment but it’s the fault of the algorithm because that tail wags the dog. It’s physically impossible to watch all videos so we are all at the mercy of the (a) algorithm.
- 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.
Now of course there are areas you can make trade offs. A lot of people like MacBooks despite them not supporting other operating systems very well and Apple still mostly being hardasses about outside repair, but they come with good performance and battery life.
Making sure to keep maintainability in mind when making a product decision is critical to making an informed purchase.
The thing is an absolute tank - the only parts I've had replace are the tires and brake pads. And the design is really simple with all of the consumable parts being easy to replace. At about $1,400 USD, it's not cheap, but I'm shocked at how long it's lasted and how little maintanence it's needed.
Definitely not "cool" - but one of the best purchases I've ever made.
1. https://cycle.panasonic.com/products/gyutto_croomr_ex/
With a conversion kit? ^_^
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-...)
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."
I guess I won't be riding them anytime soon. But I am glad to know there is a way to resurrect/improve them!
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.
This sort of thing exactly aligned with the promise of AI (and every "automation advancement" since the dawn of time)! It's another layer of abstraction that allows less technical people to do the thing.
As someone who does know how to code, I find the approach to be great, as it can motivate others to try similar projects.
It's impossible to do anything on the internet without someone in the peanut gallery telling you you are doing something wrong.