videos
Breadtube if it didn't suck.
Post videos you genuinely enjoy and want to share, duh. Celebrate the diversity of interests shared by chapochatters by posting a deep dive into Venetian kelp farming, I dunno. Also media criticism, bite-sized versions of left-wing theory, all the stuff you expected. But I am curious about that kelp farming thing now that you mentioned it.
Low effort / spam videos might be removed, especially weeb content.
There is a cytube that you can paste videos into and watch with whoever happens to be around. It's open submission unless there's something important to commandeer it with at the time.
A weekly watch party happens every Saturday (Sunday down under), with video nominations Saturday-Monday, voting Monday-Thursday. See the pin for whatever stage it's currently in.
view the rest of the comments
I'm trying my best to get a sense of the options and I can't seem to get a lock on trustworthy info. Everything on youtube about ebikes seems to be either paid barkers or random people doing their first ride - very little of people talking about how their ebike is holding up ten years later, or getting into repairs, overhauls, upgrades, or diy mods. Where are the wonky charts of longitudinal stats? Even old posts on forums never seem to have follow-ups saying how the posters' choices went. Nothing seems to get me closer to the confidence that I can distinguish something proven from a lemon. What is the AK-47 of ebikes, and how would I know? I wish I had more time to figure it out.
At least I overhauled my old road bike before the only bike shop in my town went under recently. I wish I could determine my spoke guages and get a supply of spares; I wish I'd thought to ask the guy before he went out of business. I do at least have plenty of inner tubes and lubricants.
dont forget about mopeds. a honda ruckus retails for 3000. i own one and have saved so many miles on the family car ( recession has already reduced us to a one car family) and it gets over 100 miles a gallon.
Reputable existing high quality bike brand (they made bikes before ebikes were even a thing) standard non-e-bike then add to that a reputable brand conversion kit and either do the work yourself or pay a shop to do so. Use the top name brand components (like Shimano for the motor for example). Problem is with the bike itself unless you're buying a used bike and get a good deal you're probably looking at $3000-$4000 or more for this set-up.
Upside is because it's entirely off the shelf components there's nothing proprietary and you should be able to repair it indefinitely short of major damage to the bike frame. Downside is it's costly and involved. Also because it doesn't come in a preassembled package you need to either find a bike shop you trust to recommend components or do a lot of individual research per part.
Aside from that I guess Aventon is supposedly pretty cheap and okay. Other decent brands are going to be closer to the custom built bike in terms of costs.
I hate that about the industry. Almost every article and video is astroturfed, while most sales are fake unless a model is being phased out. So far the closest I've found to an AK-47 is a Tern cargo bike. The components in those are solid enough to last upwards of a decade. I expect 3-5 years of reliable heavy use from a brand like Aventon or Velotric in the budget tier, but in 3-5 years I expect those brands to have much more capable bikes worth upgrading to while donating my old one. The brand-specific subreddits gave me a good sense of each model's problems while I cross-referenced videos to judge comparisons between them.
Argh, of course I would have to wade back into Reddit. On the bright side, it's not Discord.
I appreciate the tips!