Speaker 1: Technology with tech Stuff from dot com. Hey there, everyone,
Speaker 1: welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host Jonathan Strickland, executive
Speaker 1: producer here at how Stuff Works dot com, and of
Speaker 1: course I love everything technological and today I have a
Speaker 1: special treat for you guys, because we have a guest
Speaker 1: here inside the studio. It's not someone over the phone,
Speaker 1: and someone I can actually look at in person. In fact,
Speaker 1: he's a very good friend of mine because he let
Speaker 1: me ride on his bicycle. Ryan Hirsch, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: What's up guys? Honored and obliged to be here. It's great. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: we uh, we made sure that there was a direct
Speaker 1: obligation for him to appear on tech Stuff. So Ryan,
Speaker 1: you you've the founder of Edison Bikes, and Edison Bikes
Speaker 1: is located right here in Atlanta, and uh, you were
Speaker 1: very generous with your time and you brought some of
Speaker 1: the Edison bikes here the office. Uh. Multiple people here
Speaker 1: at hell Stuff Works have had a chance to write
Speaker 1: it as in bikes are electric bikes, pedal assist bikes,
Speaker 1: which I've talked about a couple of times on tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: But it's so great to actually have someone who developed
Speaker 1: one of these right here, so we can even talk
Speaker 1: about what that process was like from the point where
Speaker 1: you thought of it to the point where you started
Speaker 1: kind of just getting your hands dirty and work shopping
Speaker 1: this to getting to an actual shippable product, something where
Speaker 1: you can actually put it together. People can order it
Speaker 1: by it right it you see them around Atlanta. So
Speaker 1: we're gonna go all through that journey. But before we
Speaker 1: jump into your personal story, I thought, in order for
Speaker 1: people to really kind of understand, uh, some of the
Speaker 1: things that inspired you to do this, it's good to
Speaker 1: sort of talk about the city. We live in Atlanta. Now,
Speaker 1: this podcast goes all over the world, and there are
Speaker 1: a lot of cities out there that are similar to Atlanta.
Speaker 1: I would say Atlanta is like cities like Houston, Texas,
Speaker 1: where tipically, the way people get around is by car.
Speaker 1: It's slowly changing in Atlanta. We're starting to see more
Speaker 1: pedestrian walkways. We're starting to see more bike lanes, which
Speaker 1: is fantastic, But traditionally cars were the way the way
Speaker 1: of the world. For places like Atlanta. You just public
Speaker 1: transportation while it exists, it just cannot measure up to
Speaker 1: cities like New York or Chicago. Right, So that means
Speaker 1: that we've live in a in a city that has
Speaker 1: been plagued by traffic problems. We're constantly in that top
Speaker 1: ten in the United States for worst traffic cities. And
Speaker 1: so seeing a that as the backdrop, we're in this
Speaker 1: world where a commute is easily forty minutes or more,
Speaker 1: even if you're living relatively close to where you need
Speaker 1: to go. Uh, that gives a very strong impetus to
Speaker 1: come up with alternative solutions. And as I understand it,
Speaker 1: that's kind of where your story begins ends. Right, absolutely,
Speaker 1: absolutely nailed at, Jonathan. And it's it's a little bit embarrassing,
Speaker 1: right that we're always on the top ten for worst traffic. However,
Speaker 1: when you look at our population, we don't have that
Speaker 1: many people, right, it's the five point five million people. Uh,
Speaker 1: and we're being compared to cities that are, you know,
Speaker 1: almost ten times our size. It's like, what in the
Speaker 1: world are we doing wrong? Right? Yeah? And and I
Speaker 1: mean yeah, the solutions tend to be We've seen it
Speaker 1: over and over, let's build more roads or let's make
Speaker 1: the roads more wide, and that just doesn't that's that's
Speaker 1: just not how the world works like if you make
Speaker 1: a here's the secret. If you add more lanes to
Speaker 1: a road, what you have just done is just added
Speaker 1: more cars to that road. At that one time. It
Speaker 1: feels like you're increasing capacity, but it just means that
Speaker 1: there's just more cars there during rush hour. It really
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to help. The best way to get rid
Speaker 1: of traffic is to remove the need for using cars
Speaker 1: in the first place. So the more you can reduce
Speaker 1: that need by giving alternatives, the smoother everything is. It's
Speaker 1: not just the people who are actually using the alternative
Speaker 1: forms of transportation, for the people who are still clinging
Speaker 1: to dear life to their cars. There are fewer cars
Speaker 1: on the road. Absolutely. So you were you were tell
Speaker 1: me the story about why you started thinking about going
Speaker 1: with this route, this sort of electric bike pedal assist route.
Speaker 1: So back in I took a job with Emery and
Speaker 1: uh I was living O t P at the time,
Speaker 1: which is a dirty, dirty word. Yeah, that means outside
Speaker 1: the perimeter. For all of you folks who are not
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, there is a highway called two eight five
Speaker 1: and it's circles. Uh, not just the city of Atlanta,
Speaker 1: but some of the little surrounding areas like Decatur, and well,
Speaker 1: I could go on forever, localizing this podcast and alienating
Speaker 1: all of my listeners who don't live in the A
Speaker 1: t L. Yeah, but no, it's no, no, it's important
Speaker 1: for this story. Uh. There is also not that it's
Speaker 1: directly related to this somewhat of a stigma for those
Speaker 1: of us who live inside the perimeter or I t
Speaker 1: P and those who live outside the perimeter or O
Speaker 1: t P. There's some snooty nous involved. And I admit,
Speaker 1: though I was born O t P, now that I'm
Speaker 1: an I t P person, I have been known to
Speaker 1: be snooty. So you were living O t P. So
Speaker 1: I was living an ot P. I took a job
Speaker 1: at Emery and the commute was like twenty two miles
Speaker 1: at the time, and it was just impossible by the car.
Speaker 1: If you're O t P, it's impossible to get an
Speaker 1: I t P. So um, So I did what anyone
Speaker 1: would do. I moved closer to work, and I moved
Speaker 1: to a cool little neighborhood called Kirkwood. It's about four
Speaker 1: miles south of where I worked, and believe it or not,
Speaker 1: my commute times were still just about exactly the same.
Speaker 1: It was taking me an hour to get to my desk.
Speaker 1: And this is ridiculous because it's like, it's only four miles, right,
Speaker 1: I could I could pretty much walk that speed, right,
Speaker 1: But by the time I found a parking space, fought
Speaker 1: for that space, paid twelve bucks a day for that space,
Speaker 1: it was still taking me the same amount of time.
Speaker 1: So that involved in uh, evolved into riding a normal
Speaker 1: pedal bicycle, which I would call an analog bicycle. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: and my commute time dropped from an hour down to
Speaker 1: twenty minutes. And that was great. But frequently I have
Speaker 1: to give presentations and stuff, I have to wear a tie,
Speaker 1: and uh, I would you know, on a day like today,
Speaker 1: even in October it's super hot outside, I would show
Speaker 1: up sweaty, and a sweaty guy wearing a tie is
Speaker 1: like the worst thing ever, right, You're immediately immediately everyone's like,
Speaker 1: this guy is not confident, he doesn't know what he's
Speaker 1: talking about. He's sweating it too much. Very I'm a sweater,
Speaker 1: he's got something to hide this. We're gonna we're gonna
Speaker 1: nail this guy to the wall with our questions. So
Speaker 1: Atlanta is a very I mean we're in the southeast.
Speaker 1: Our climate, especially like late spring all the way into
Speaker 1: late fall, you can get really high temperatures, really high humidity.
Speaker 1: I've I've experienced I walked to and from work, and
Speaker 1: I've experienced the same issue where by the time I
Speaker 1: get to the office, I have to have a change
Speaker 1: of clothes with me because otherwise I'm just roast. Yeah. So, uh,
Speaker 1: I'm now riding my bike to work getting sweaty. Quick
Speaker 1: Google search, it turns out that electric bikes is a
Speaker 1: thing because I I loved, you know, being liberated from traffic,
Speaker 1: but now there's this new set of challenges showing showing
Speaker 1: up to work sweaty. Now I gotta find showers, all
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. So electric bikes was a thing
Speaker 1: back in twelve and um, you know, looking back on
Speaker 1: on bikes back then, Um, they were always like a
Speaker 1: standard bicycle frame that was outfitted with three components. You've
Speaker 1: got three components to an electric bike. You have a battery,
Speaker 1: a motor, and a controller. And we can geek out
Speaker 1: about those later, but um, you know, so you have
Speaker 1: a bike and you could clearly see those three components
Speaker 1: connected to the bike, and the result was not very pretty,
Speaker 1: um uh. And I actually test road a bike at
Speaker 1: a shop, and I fell in love with the feeling
Speaker 1: of riding a bike. It's it's addicting, it's empowering, and um,
Speaker 1: I didn't care how the bike looked. It fixed my problem, right.
Speaker 1: So I get back from this test ride only to
Speaker 1: learn that that bike that I was riding was Bucks.
Speaker 1: And I've always been like a tinker throughout school. I
Speaker 1: was that guy that could fix your router or I
Speaker 1: could fix your boat like I just love taking things
Speaker 1: apart and making them better. So after that test ride
Speaker 1: and really being discouraged by the price tag, I was like,
Speaker 1: I know, one, I can build something that's better looking
Speaker 1: than this bike, but two, and definitely more importantly, I
Speaker 1: knew that I could build something that was more affordable.
Speaker 1: So that's exactly what I did. Fast forward about six months,
Speaker 1: and I didn't really achieve the better looking part. I
Speaker 1: had imported a bike from Canada bicycle like um you know,
Speaker 1: standard fixie frame, and I outfitted it with those three
Speaker 1: components that I was telling you about. And it wasn't pretty,
Speaker 1: but boy didn't work great, and um people started to notice,
Speaker 1: right I'm showing up to where early, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm in a better mood because I'm not sitting behind
Speaker 1: the wheel. And uh, I was more than obliged to
Speaker 1: start building bikes, you know, for my coworkers, colleagues, friends, family,
Speaker 1: and you know that's when like the little light went off, right.
Speaker 1: I started getting feedback from these people that I had
Speaker 1: built bikes for, and uh, it was just it was
Speaker 1: really encouraging, right, I mean it was something that was
Speaker 1: born out of pure selfish needs. I was just trying
Speaker 1: to fix the problem that I have, and now all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, I'm fixing problems for for all these folks.
Speaker 1: And um, a few months after that, I'm looking at
Speaker 1: my iPhone and I get inspired by it because like
Speaker 1: I've always just been like a clean lines kind of guy,
Speaker 1: and um, you know, when you look at an iPhone,
Speaker 1: it's just it's a beautiful product. Apple Apples nothing if
Speaker 1: not amazing with their aesthetics. There they are and even
Speaker 1: if you open one up, it's like it's like opening
Speaker 1: the hood of a catillact. Just everything is so tightly
Speaker 1: tightly packed. Everything fits precisely, like there's not, uh, not
Speaker 1: a millimeter of spare space. It's all very neat how
Speaker 1: it all fits exactly. So I was like totally inspired
Speaker 1: by that. I was like, all the electrical bits that
Speaker 1: make this thing work are inside of the product itself.
Speaker 1: That's what I want to do with a bike because
Speaker 1: I'm not seeing that. Uh. So that's exactly what we did. Uh.
Speaker 1: Instead of starting with a bicycle frame, we started with
Speaker 1: those components. We started with the battery pack, which is
Speaker 1: forty They're called eighteen six fifty battery cells about the
Speaker 1: size of your index finger, and our packs have forty
Speaker 1: of those in them. And then on top of that,
Speaker 1: we have a controller, and we wanted to design a
Speaker 1: frame that would accommodate UM those two key components. Those
Speaker 1: are also some of the most expensive components, right, so
Speaker 1: by uh integrating them inside of the product, you're protecting
Speaker 1: it from crashes, from the elements from a pack of wolves.
Speaker 1: You know. Like however, right, it's all the expensive stuff
Speaker 1: is inside the frame. Uh. And then that third component,
Speaker 1: which is the motor, is actually sealed. It has a
Speaker 1: waterproof ratings, so it will work underwater. Um because it's
Speaker 1: totally sealed, that means that it's self lubricating. Uh. They
Speaker 1: rated at fifty miles without needing any kind of service.
Speaker 1: So we really spent money on the parts that make
Speaker 1: these bikes electric because we figure if you're buying an
Speaker 1: electric bike, you're gonna be using them pretty hardcore. Um.
Speaker 1: So then, uh, speaking of money, UM, we're trying to
Speaker 1: make these things affordable. Right, that was like the biggest
Speaker 1: barrier for me. Right, I found a solution, but I
Speaker 1: can't afford it. And um, you know this isn't this
Speaker 1: isn't a toy. This isn't uh for someone you know
Speaker 1: that's just gonna park this next to their tesla and
Speaker 1: their garage. And you know, like this is for the
Speaker 1: guy who, um, he has two jobs and he's got
Speaker 1: a twenty five year old car that he can't afford
Speaker 1: to keep running. And all of a sudden, this becomes
Speaker 1: a more viable means of transport. We're spending less than
Speaker 1: two thousand dollars on a bike, and um, you know
Speaker 1: that's you don't have. It costs ten cents to charge
Speaker 1: one of these things, right. You get twenty to thirty
Speaker 1: miles on a single charge. So you talked about half
Speaker 1: of any per mile. You don't have to ensure it. Um,
Speaker 1: you know you don't have to pump it full of gas.
Speaker 1: You don't really have like maintenance and oil changes and
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. Um. So if we could
Speaker 1: actually get people to like pull the plug on on
Speaker 1: their cars, right, that frees up a lot of funds, um,
Speaker 1: you know, for uber and left on those rainy days. Right. So,
Speaker 1: and like that's we're all about. Like if we were
Speaker 1: really honest with ourselves on how much money we spend
Speaker 1: on car ownership, uh, speaking of which Georgia actually leads
Speaker 1: the nation um in cost of ownership on cars. Uh,
Speaker 1: then we can really like start to um you know,
Speaker 1: see transportation in a new light. Absolutely so. And this
Speaker 1: is a ripple effect. I talk about ripple effects all
Speaker 1: the time on this show, about how a change in
Speaker 1: one area ends up having further effects out from that
Speaker 1: immediate source. So, for example, you talked about how this
Speaker 1: was originally a personal project for you. You were literally
Speaker 1: trying to solve your own issue of getting to work
Speaker 1: not being all sweaty, you know, not having to deal
Speaker 1: with traffic the way you had been doing, uh with
Speaker 1: classic engineering issue. Right, You you have a problem, you
Speaker 1: start asking yourself what does it take to solve this problem?
Speaker 1: You then go forward the steps to solve that problem.
Speaker 1: You test it, you throw out anything that doesn't work,
Speaker 1: you keep everything that does work. And then from there
Speaker 1: you say, all right, here's here's mark one. If we're
Speaker 1: gonna use like Iron Man suit technology, so mark one
Speaker 1: right here. It's like, it's not the finished product, but
Speaker 1: this is the thing that does what I needed to do.
Speaker 1: Then you have your classic second step, which is that
Speaker 1: other people take notice. This, by the way, reminds me
Speaker 1: your story is remarkably similar to the story of the
Speaker 1: guys who founded the PC gaming company alien Ware. Now
Speaker 1: they build like those crazy gaming rigs that cost a
Speaker 1: couple of thousand dollars, and they when I had them
Speaker 1: on the show, it was the same thing. It was
Speaker 1: people who were they were building these rigs in the
Speaker 1: nine indies when all these crazy graphics cards are coming out,
Speaker 1: and it just was difficult to build a system that
Speaker 1: could run the brand new games, the ones that were
Speaker 1: just coming out with three D graphics. It was hard
Speaker 1: to do that because there were just so much, so much,
Speaker 1: so many different products on the market and it was
Speaker 1: very confusing. So what they did was they built one
Speaker 1: for themselves and then they had all their friends say, hey,
Speaker 1: what if I if I paid you, would you be
Speaker 1: able to build one for me? And it became a
Speaker 1: little boutique industry which eventually grew into what it is today.
Speaker 1: So you're and you're you're talking about the hacker ethos,
Speaker 1: the idea of taking things apart and then seeing how
Speaker 1: they work and then make it work better than it
Speaker 1: did before. I mean, that's totally a hacker thing. That
Speaker 1: is hacking. So, like you're talking the language of tech
Speaker 1: stuff all throughout this already. The ripple effect I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about is how you get to the point
Speaker 1: where for personal savings point of view, uh, it becomes
Speaker 1: clear if you're able to say, like, this is actually
Speaker 1: a replacement uh in and many of the use of
Speaker 1: where you would rely upon your vehicle, this could be
Speaker 1: a replacement for that for the majority of those. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, obviously some things being outside of that, if
Speaker 1: you're taking like a long road trip or whatever, those
Speaker 1: are obviously outside of it. But for daily commutes, it's
Speaker 1: it's easy to say, all right, this is a transportation solution.
Speaker 1: This isn't just recreation, right, This isn't just I've got
Speaker 1: a bike that I want to ride on Saturdays, so
Speaker 1: I can ride around the park. I mean, you could
Speaker 1: do that if you wanted to, but this is more seriously,
Speaker 1: you could you could use this to get to where
Speaker 1: your work going. You can use this instead of a car.
Speaker 1: So that's the direct one. But the ripple effect is
Speaker 1: that again it starts to relieve traffic congestion because you're
Speaker 1: taking a car off the road during those peak travel times.
Speaker 1: It begins to relieve other issues that are related to
Speaker 1: traffic congestion, like pollution. It is taking off more wear
Speaker 1: and tear on city infrastructure. It's crazy to think about
Speaker 1: when you start looking at big, big picture, but you
Speaker 1: begin to realize that this is a much larger uh
Speaker 1: influence than just I got to work way faster and
Speaker 1: I'm not sweaty. Uh. So now I don't like to
Speaker 1: get grandiose necessarily, but I do like to to acknowledge
Speaker 1: the fact that sometimes UH things that you're looking at
Speaker 1: like in a narrow focus, while they are true, it's
Speaker 1: not the whole story. And if you start peeling back,
Speaker 1: you realize this has potential to make truly transformative changes
Speaker 1: in various communities. We're starting to see that again in
Speaker 1: Atlanta and I think it's largely because we have companies
Speaker 1: like Edison that are leading the way into providing actual
Speaker 1: alternatives that work within a city. And now we're starting
Speaker 1: to see communities say we want to have that, So
Speaker 1: we want to build more bike lanes, we want to
Speaker 1: build more dedicated pathways. The belt line that Pont City
Speaker 1: Market is right off of has not existed for very
Speaker 1: long at least, especially the stretch that goes by Pont
Speaker 1: City Market. It hasn't been opened for very many years.
Speaker 1: It used to be disused railroad tracks. So we're starting
Speaker 1: to see those kind of transformations In Atlanta, that's just
Speaker 1: one city where we're starting to see that happened. So, uh,
Speaker 1: let's kind of dive into some of the tech of
Speaker 1: the Edison bikes and like sort of how they actually work.
Speaker 1: If you were to ride one, and and I had
Speaker 1: the opportunity to ride one, I will admit I was
Speaker 1: doing the equivalent of training wheels. I did not go
Speaker 1: above the assist level one and it goes up to five.
Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit about what you can
Speaker 1: do on one of these bikes and and how that
Speaker 1: pedal assist actually works on a practical level. So first
Speaker 1: I want to kind of set an expectation of, like
Speaker 1: what kind of power, uh could you expect because I've
Speaker 1: sold bikes to like people who ride Harley Davidson's and um,
Speaker 1: I got a big guy get on a bike and
Speaker 1: he goosed the throttle and he's like, why aren't I
Speaker 1: going Ryan? Come on man, And I'm like, come on, dude,
Speaker 1: this is a pedal assist, uh, a penal assist thing.
Speaker 1: Um it produces five watts this motor, and uh it'll
Speaker 1: run it five dred watts. Uh. So if you ran
Speaker 1: this thing like full blasts, it would go just over
Speaker 1: an hour. Top speeds about twenty five miles an hour,
Speaker 1: so you're looking at a range between twenty and thirty miles. UM. So,
Speaker 1: like if I started, I wagh a little over two
Speaker 1: hundred pounds. If I started at the base of a
Speaker 1: hill and I goosed the throttle, it would give me
Speaker 1: to the top. I'd probably be only going ten miles
Speaker 1: an hour or so. But if I pedaled along and
Speaker 1: just helped out that motor like ten percent of what
Speaker 1: I would like on a normal bike, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: just very gently penalting. I can easily carry twenty miles
Speaker 1: an hour up any hill in Atlanta. Right, So I
Speaker 1: just want to be clear with the list, or is
Speaker 1: it like we're not selling like a motorcycle or a scooter.
Speaker 1: This is a bicycle that weighs forty five pounds, rides
Speaker 1: very much like a bicycle. You just feel superhuman when
Speaker 1: you're riding. Right, Yeah, you you hit one of those
Speaker 1: hills that normally, if you're riding a regular bike, you
Speaker 1: just feel your heart sink and you think, by halfway up,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be off of this. I'm just gonna be
Speaker 1: I'll be pushing. I'll be pushing the bike because I
Speaker 1: won't be able to make it all the way up.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna get to a point where I'm at
Speaker 1: a standstill. But pedal assist because you have that that
Speaker 1: electric motor that can kick in and provide additional power
Speaker 1: so that you can keep on powering through something like
Speaker 1: that means that you you know, you don't have to
Speaker 1: you don't have to sweat it literally in this case.
Speaker 1: So uh yeah, I mean this is one of those
Speaker 1: technologies that um I love because it allows you to
Speaker 1: augment your experience, but it doesn't replace it. As you
Speaker 1: were saying like, it's not like it's an electric motorcycle.
Speaker 1: It's about augmenting so that things that might have previously
Speaker 1: been a challenge, maybe it would even be a barrier
Speaker 1: to you adopting a bicycle are no longer a hurdle. Right,
Speaker 1: You don't know if you're sitting there and thing like
Speaker 1: I've got four hills between me and work, it's not
Speaker 1: so big a deal if you've got something that can
Speaker 1: kick in so that you're peddling just you know, you
Speaker 1: don't have to peddle any harder than you did on
Speaker 1: the level stretches as you do on the inclines a
Speaker 1: thousand percent. That actually reminds me on the way home,
Speaker 1: I want to take an Instagram photo where I'm holding
Speaker 1: up a dime and I'm holding it up to our city, right,
Speaker 1: because like, with a range of twenty to thirty miles,
Speaker 1: that's how far we could go on a single dime. Right.
Speaker 1: These bikes, they really provide like a key, uh to
Speaker 1: your city. It really unlocks your city. Um, we're investing
Speaker 1: so much. Um when I say we um talking about Atlanta. Um,
Speaker 1: but we signed off on a bill of a billion
Speaker 1: dollars to make our bike and pedestrian infrastructure better. Atlanta
Speaker 1: is striving to be one of the best bike communities
Speaker 1: in the world. Um, however, Atlanta is not going to
Speaker 1: be any flatter, right, but we have some pretty serious
Speaker 1: topography out there, right, So this kind of removes that
Speaker 1: final barrier, um for somebody you know that that is
Speaker 1: thinking about maybe riding a bike or like, you know,
Speaker 1: alternative transportation. This takes that last barrier around, you know,
Speaker 1: and really it makes it easy, and it makes it
Speaker 1: something fun, right like um, and and everybody's you know,
Speaker 1: kind of grown up riding bikes, right. Uh. I know
Speaker 1: you said you haven't ridden in fifteen years, but perhaps
Speaker 1: you wouldn't know if we were a flatter area, right right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: if if we were definitely that and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's again like when I first moved into Atlanta,
Speaker 1: it was early before anyone had really seriously started looking
Speaker 1: at putting in bike lanes. But over the years that
Speaker 1: i've I've been living in the city of Atlanta, that
Speaker 1: has been it's been. It's yeah, it's changed very quickly.
Speaker 1: And like I said, there are a lot of communities
Speaker 1: that they jumped on board that early. Right. There's certain
Speaker 1: ones that you know, you just saw that immediately, and
Speaker 1: other ones are following suit all the time. Even places
Speaker 1: where traditionally, you know, you would never expect to see it,
Speaker 1: You're starting to see bike lanes pop up. So it's
Speaker 1: now at a point where maybe back when I first
Speaker 1: moved into Atlanta, I wouldn't have considered it. But now,
Speaker 1: I mean, I've talked about it a couple of times
Speaker 1: and I just haven't jumped on it right. Uh. And
Speaker 1: part of it was that I had never had the
Speaker 1: experience of actually writing one of the electric bikes. I've
Speaker 1: I've seen them, I've Yeah, it was great. It was
Speaker 1: great to have a chance to do it. So let's
Speaker 1: let's talk about the different levels and kind of how
Speaker 1: that translates into experience. So someone gets an Edison bike,
Speaker 1: they get on it, they see that they've got this
Speaker 1: digital controller, a digital readoubt that that gives them information. So, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, let's let's start with the levels first. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So what that looks like. You hop on the bike
Speaker 1: and you have five different levels of assists UM, and
Speaker 1: you have like a controller UM on your left hand.
Speaker 1: It's all very intuitive, like you have a power button
Speaker 1: in the middle and then you have up arrow in
Speaker 1: a down area and um, like on level one, Uh,
Speaker 1: you hop on the bike and you start turning the
Speaker 1: pedals and it's gonna feel like you're riding down wind.
Speaker 1: You're still doing most of the work. Um, probably of
Speaker 1: the work. And um, you know level one is really
Speaker 1: something more like if if you're wanting to exercise, or
Speaker 1: let's say, um, you're going on a sixty mile ride.
Speaker 1: So um, my uncle he just turned sixty recently and
Speaker 1: he was like, I want to ride in Edison sixty miles.
Speaker 1: I was like, dude, I don't think you could do it,
Speaker 1: Like that's that's a long way, and uh, I'll be darned.
Speaker 1: You know. He stayed like on assists level one and
Speaker 1: two and his average pace was about ten miles, so
Speaker 1: he wasn't going very fast. But um he got back
Speaker 1: and he still had half a battery left. So um.
Speaker 1: You know, when I talk about range, I like to
Speaker 1: set expectations low because I always ride this thing like
Speaker 1: a madman, like I want to be going twenty you know,
Speaker 1: like I want to be passing those Spandex riders and
Speaker 1: I want my tie to be flapping in the wind
Speaker 1: at them, you know, saying uh so, um, so you
Speaker 1: have that lower level of assists and then you can
Speaker 1: arrow that puppy all the way up to level five.
Speaker 1: And like I said, level five is like superhuman mode.
Speaker 1: As soon as you start turning the pedals, you're gonna
Speaker 1: take off. Um. So then on top of that, um,
Speaker 1: when you feel comfortable with the power and everything, you
Speaker 1: also have a small thumb throttle on your left hand. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's similarly placed to like which you would find like
Speaker 1: on a four wheeler or like some motorcycles have thumb throttles,
Speaker 1: and um, that thing is just totally variable. So you
Speaker 1: push it a little bit, it goes a little. The
Speaker 1: hearty push it, the faster you're gonna go. And like
Speaker 1: I said, five watts is um to give you a
Speaker 1: perspective on power. Um, like those Tour de France right
Speaker 1: tis they're averaging Now you know they're going a long way,
Speaker 1: but they're averaging about two fifty watts of output and
Speaker 1: usually a question I get, Well, you know they're like
Speaker 1: going twenty five plus miles an hour, but they those
Speaker 1: guys also weigh like a hundred pounds in their bike's
Speaker 1: way like literally nothing. Um, so you know, just to
Speaker 1: kind of give you a perspective on power. These are
Speaker 1: putting out twice as much as that, right, And I
Speaker 1: can tell you from experience. When I was taking this
Speaker 1: for a spin, I used that throttle. Uh. It is
Speaker 1: an exhilarating feeling. It's It's interesting because again I had
Speaker 1: never experienced that, having only ever written traditional bicycles or
Speaker 1: analog bicycles, as you said, I had only ever ridden those.
Speaker 1: And so to have that experience where I knew what
Speaker 1: was going to happen, but knowing it and feeling it
Speaker 1: are two different things. And that first time you feel
Speaker 1: it where you can feel the acceleration and you're that's
Speaker 1: all coming from your thumb, right, You're not peddling harder
Speaker 1: at all, You're just suddenly going much faster. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that could that I could get used to that too,
Speaker 1: because it was a really fun experience. And uh, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the one of my fondest memories as a
Speaker 1: kid is riding bikes. Like I lived on a hill
Speaker 1: and so going down the hill was great. You know,
Speaker 1: you just said that exhilarating feeling. Going up the hill
Speaker 1: not as great, but going down the hill was fantastic.
Speaker 1: And so being able to ride a bike where you
Speaker 1: could have that same sort of experience whether you're going
Speaker 1: up or down the hill. It's kind of cool. Uh.
Speaker 1: So you got to the point you you developed all
Speaker 1: the technology, You've got the batteries. Um, how long does
Speaker 1: it take typically to to charge one to full? Once
Speaker 1: you have four hours? Not bad at all, not too bad.
Speaker 1: And the charger is very reminiscent of like a mid
Speaker 1: nineties laptop charger, and it's it's all intelligent, right, so
Speaker 1: that the charger, it's got a light on there, the
Speaker 1: illuminates red when it's charging, and guess what, it turns
Speaker 1: green when it's done, so like people don't have to
Speaker 1: worry about overcharging it or anything like that. And then
Speaker 1: on on off of that, we also have what's called
Speaker 1: a BMS or battery management system, and that won't let
Speaker 1: the cells discharge below ten percent or overcharge above ninety uh.
Speaker 1: Tesla does the same thing. I think their numbers are
Speaker 1: eight twenty, but kind of keeping the cells in those
Speaker 1: in that butter zone, if you will. That's how we're
Speaker 1: able to get so many charge cycles out of a
Speaker 1: single pack, which is about a thousand charge cycles right now.
Speaker 1: So if you use this bike every day for three years,
Speaker 1: you could expect to see about a degradation in performance. Right.
Speaker 1: And then the million dollar question that I always get
Speaker 1: after I say that is how much does a replacement
Speaker 1: pack costs? Bucks? So it's not terribly expensive. Um, We
Speaker 1: basically just charge what it costs us to produce the pack. Um.
Speaker 1: You guys know eighteen six fifty battery cells are very expensive.
Speaker 1: We use ones made by Panasonic. They're the same ones,
Speaker 1: uh that Tesla uses. Um. You can find them in
Speaker 1: your MacBooks. Uh, they're ubiquitous. Um, So we don't make
Speaker 1: any money on those. We figured. You know, if you
Speaker 1: buy one of our bikes, you're you're coming into our family.
Speaker 1: We're not in the battery business, right. We just want
Speaker 1: to get more butts on bikes, right. So Uh, and
Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought up the degradation too, because that's
Speaker 1: something we've chatted about on tech stuff as well. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a chemical reaction in batteries, and over time that
Speaker 1: chemical reaction, Uh, it just becomes less and less potent.
Speaker 1: I mean, you you lose your technically, you're running out
Speaker 1: of the chemicals that are reacting over time, over the
Speaker 1: course of of hundreds of charge cycles and so having
Speaker 1: those limitations built in so that you don't more rapidly exhausted.
Speaker 1: It makes a lot of sense. Then I want to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about what the experience has
Speaker 1: been like once you've got to that final form factor,
Speaker 1: you've got your own business. How how was that? What?
Speaker 1: What was that experience like? Because it's one thing to
Speaker 1: develop a product, right, It's one thing to go through
Speaker 1: all the engineering and to figure it out, and then
Speaker 1: to even go further and say, all right, well this
Speaker 1: was good for me, but how can I make this
Speaker 1: something that that a person would want to buy? You know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't look like it's going to be a conversion
Speaker 1: kit for a normal bike. It's its own thing. Clearly,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of parts, like literally a lot
Speaker 1: of parts that you have to deal with to go
Speaker 1: from concept to prototype to shippable product to manufacturing. Can
Speaker 1: you talk a little bit about what what that's been
Speaker 1: like and maybe some of the learning experiences. Absolutely so absolutely,
Speaker 1: like developing the product um was was an incredible experience, right,
Speaker 1: Like I've I've grown up on two wheels, um so
Speaker 1: I feel like I've brought the product a pretty long
Speaker 1: way right. Um. And then when I actually came to
Speaker 1: the point where I'm like trying to um like give
Speaker 1: it deliverable right to someone else and fix their problem,
Speaker 1: It's like I'm this is my design, and I take
Speaker 1: it like very personally, and I wanted to be perfect,
Speaker 1: like I'm a perfectionist. Um. And I was is building
Speaker 1: these things in my house, Like my house smelled like
Speaker 1: sawder Uh. We had like taken over like a bedroom
Speaker 1: in our formal living room and we're expecting a baby
Speaker 1: on the way. It was pandemonium. Um. But I was
Speaker 1: selling these things off of my front porch, right, and
Speaker 1: like that was kind of like validation um to my design. Um.
Speaker 1: I I have like a spreadsheet, uh, and every single
Speaker 1: person that rides the bike, I just write their name down,
Speaker 1: you know, their contact information, and um, of the people
Speaker 1: that ride the bike buy it right away, because when
Speaker 1: you ride it, you get it. And um, I always
Speaker 1: tell every single person that buys a bike from me,
Speaker 1: I say, uh, we'll always consider ourselves to be in
Speaker 1: research and development. Like if there's anything anything like that
Speaker 1: bugs you or just doesn't feel right or sound right,
Speaker 1: I want to know about it. About a month ago,
Speaker 1: I had a lady come into the shop and she
Speaker 1: was like, Ryan, I get this weird noise. I think
Speaker 1: it's coming from the motor and it's only when I'm
Speaker 1: going for twenty miles an hour and only when I'm
Speaker 1: going into the head wind. And I was like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: I gotta see this, Like what could that possibly be?
Speaker 1: So like we we uh, you know, I couldn't replicate
Speaker 1: the issue, and We're like going back and forth and
Speaker 1: she's like, no, no, I hear it, I hear it.
Speaker 1: It turned out that it was her helmet strap, so
Speaker 1: when her helmet strap felt like a certain amount of wind,
Speaker 1: it would buzz in her ear a little bit. But like, um,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm just always like I'm always curious and
Speaker 1: like I said, I'm a tinker, right, and I want
Speaker 1: these things to be perfect. I think the biggest challenge
Speaker 1: for me was actually branding this company. There's a ton
Speaker 1: of technology that goes into these bikes, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to kind of convey like a technology feel to our company. Um.
Speaker 1: So I designed our logo and I'm not a designer
Speaker 1: by any means. Uh and uh. I thought it looked
Speaker 1: very cool. Um most of my friends did too, But
Speaker 1: I think it's because they like me for some reason.
Speaker 1: But uh so, we actually we partnered with like a
Speaker 1: marketing team and they were like, Ryan, we've been to
Speaker 1: your house, like we've seen your bikes. You like clean lines,
Speaker 1: Like you're a clean lines guy. We got to clean
Speaker 1: this up. Uh So, Um that's actually like if you
Speaker 1: go on the website Edison Bicycles dot com, you can
Speaker 1: see they did a really good job cleaning it up though,
Speaker 1: and it's like it's just it's very nice. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a little lightning bolt is our signature, um, and
Speaker 1: it's it's just, um, it's like a really good feel
Speaker 1: to it. It's it's a personal feel and um, like
Speaker 1: when I sell bikes to people, like I said, you're
Speaker 1: buying into a family, right, this is a community, and
Speaker 1: it's like we're all figuring this thing out together. Um
Speaker 1: So I think personally, the biggest challenge for me wasn't
Speaker 1: developing the bike or figuring out logistics and um technology,
Speaker 1: like I love that. I'll stay up all night playing
Speaker 1: with that, but it was getting the company to where
Speaker 1: it felt human and felt good cool. Yeah, It's see
Speaker 1: it's interesting because I never really get the opportunity to
Speaker 1: talk to people who have gone from an idea all
Speaker 1: the way to the point it's crazy. It's crazy, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: because because it's interesting to see where challenges present themselves.
Speaker 1: Right Like, for a lot of us as consumers, we're
Speaker 1: thinking about, oh, it must have been hard to come
Speaker 1: up with that idea and some and then you'll chat
Speaker 1: with someone like, oh no, the idea part was easy.
Speaker 1: The hard part was this other thing that you hadn't
Speaker 1: even thought about. So as another example, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we were chatting before we came in here just about
Speaker 1: how unpredictable things that are outside of our control can
Speaker 1: sometimes have a big impact. Uh. So we were talking
Speaker 1: about how a hurricane could disrupt a supply chain in
Speaker 1: a way that you just there's no way to plan
Speaker 1: for it. And so like when you're sitting I imagine
Speaker 1: when you were sitting there in two thousand twelve and
Speaker 1: you were tinkering around, and maybe even at this point
Speaker 1: people are actually saying, hey, I would like one of
Speaker 1: those bikes too, if you ever would think about building one.
Speaker 1: I imagine that there was no point where you were thinking,
Speaker 1: one day, a hurricane will hit and disrupt my entire
Speaker 1: supply chain. Thus making it a challenge to get things
Speaker 1: to put bikes together. Absolutely, that's definitely been a challenge
Speaker 1: to or Like I used to use Samsung um as
Speaker 1: d I battery cells, and like I think that they're
Speaker 1: very good, Like I got Samsung TV all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff, and not to throw any shade, but like
Speaker 1: then they had all those phones that come right and
Speaker 1: this was right around this time when all the hoverboards
Speaker 1: were catching on fire, right right, I was like, this
Speaker 1: would not be a good time to advertise that we
Speaker 1: use Samsung cells, right, So, um we had since jumped
Speaker 1: over to Panasa, so you started sourcing other possible But
Speaker 1: I mean there's a million unforeseeable like that that we've
Speaker 1: you know, come into and it's just, uh, it's it's
Speaker 1: a wild ride. It's fun though again taking the engineering
Speaker 1: approach where you're like, you know, you look at every
Speaker 1: every problem as an opportunity to find a solution. Um.
Speaker 1: It's one of the reasons why I love talking to
Speaker 1: engineers because when I chat with them, if I present
Speaker 1: them with some something that is in the minds of
Speaker 1: a lot of people, a problem, they're immediately just thinking
Speaker 1: how would I go about solving this? How would I
Speaker 1: what would be my approach, and it it to me.
Speaker 1: It's very telling about that individual person, you know, the
Speaker 1: the pathway that they take. And again it gets into
Speaker 1: that sort of hacker ethos, the idea of I need
Speaker 1: to know how this works so that I can make
Speaker 1: it work better, because the way it works now is
Speaker 1: not as good as it could be. I am convinced
Speaker 1: to that. And every time I talk to hackers, whether
Speaker 1: they are software hackers, hardware hackers, bike hackers, I know
Speaker 1: a few bio hackers. Those guys are crazy. Yeah. They
Speaker 1: also call them grinders. Grinders who will oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: people who will implant um magnets under neath their fingers
Speaker 1: so that they can feel electromagnetic fields because it vibrates.
Speaker 1: You know, you have an electromagnetic field and magnet comes
Speaker 1: in contact with it. The the attraction starts to tug
Speaker 1: on the magnet which is under the surface of your fingertip,
Speaker 1: which means you can actually sense when you pass through
Speaker 1: an electric field. Yeah. There are people who think that's awesome,
Speaker 1: and then there are people who realize, if I ever
Speaker 1: have to have an m R I, this is going
Speaker 1: to be a problem. I'm going to have the skin
Speaker 1: of my finger is going to be ripped off, but
Speaker 1: doesn't stop them from trying. UM. So, to me, it's
Speaker 1: always exciting just to to meet folks who have that
Speaker 1: kind of mindset because it again gives us an insight
Speaker 1: as to how some of these products come to be.
Speaker 1: UM and do you have big plans for Edison? Is Edison?
Speaker 1: Or is this is this something where you're you're really
Speaker 1: let's focus on Atlanta or is this something where eventually
Speaker 1: we're going to see this expand to who knows where?
Speaker 1: That's a great question. It's kind of top secret. No,
Speaker 1: I think right now, I just want to I want
Speaker 1: to perfect our model here and like I wanna because
Speaker 1: like right now, you know, we have like bike shops
Speaker 1: and stuff courting us like wanting to carry Edison bikes
Speaker 1: and uh, we really like controlling the buying process, right
Speaker 1: because like we like if you come into our shop
Speaker 1: at Kirkwood. Have you heard of Warby Parker Glasses company?
Speaker 1: Super cool? I love them. But like if you walk
Speaker 1: into a Warby Parker, um there's two things. One like
Speaker 1: you're you're greeted and it's just a cool place where
Speaker 1: like you can put your hands on their product. It's
Speaker 1: the opposite of sales e right, and to they're they're affordable, right.
Speaker 1: So like I wanted to create like an environment like that, um,
Speaker 1: which is again not to throw any shade, but like, um,
Speaker 1: like have you ever been into a bike shop and
Speaker 1: like you just kind of get this feeling like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, a technician be like what you don't know
Speaker 1: what a drail your cable is or something like that.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be the opposite of that, so approachable
Speaker 1: and not and no pressures as opposed to you are
Speaker 1: stupid because you don't know as much and you need
Speaker 1: to buy this exactly. So like you know, like if
Speaker 1: you're going into our shop, you're gonna find comfortable couches,
Speaker 1: you're probably gonna smell some good coffee brewing, and it's
Speaker 1: just like a place where like we can just geek
Speaker 1: out on the bikes and and have fun with them,
Speaker 1: like we're right on a bike path, and like we'll
Speaker 1: never we'll never push anyone like to to purchase a
Speaker 1: bike because like we want this to be like a comfortable,
Speaker 1: fun place to be, right, Like we don't have price
Speaker 1: tags hanging from the bikes or anything like that, right,
Speaker 1: So um, like that's our model, right, and like I
Speaker 1: wanna really try my best to control that, and I
Speaker 1: just don't know how I feel about, you know, just
Speaker 1: seeing Edison's you know, like in a in a bike
Speaker 1: shop next to a bunch of other bikes. Um, So
Speaker 1: of course we want to grow, right, I mean, like
Speaker 1: there's plenty of other cities that have identical logistics issues
Speaker 1: to ours, right, Um so what that will look like,
Speaker 1: we're not quite sure yet. Sure, We just we really
Speaker 1: want to focus on ground zero right now, and that's
Speaker 1: gonna obviously present all new challenges. Right. There's always there's
Speaker 1: always issues with scaling, like what works on one scale?
Speaker 1: You know? It's again one of those things that I think.
Speaker 1: I mean honestly, I as a consumer never really considered
Speaker 1: it until I started really doing research into tech manufacturing.
Speaker 1: But it's never as simple as you know that thing
Speaker 1: you're doing, do more of it, right, Like you know, like,
Speaker 1: oh you've got that, You've got this way to build
Speaker 1: those just add more people. And that's not how that
Speaker 1: works typically, you don't. You don't scale up just by
Speaker 1: throwing more resources at it. There's a lot more that
Speaker 1: goes in and h the reason why I even bring
Speaker 1: that up is just again looking at that ripple effect,
Speaker 1: you have to think of the bigger pictures. So we
Speaker 1: hear about technology all the time that big companies even
Speaker 1: will have shortages of products because manufacturing is hard. It
Speaker 1: is not a simple thing. And whether you're talking about
Speaker 1: a bike or you're talking about I don't know an
Speaker 1: S and E S Classic that you can't buy anywhere
Speaker 1: because they're all gone. Even Nintendo has these issues. So uh,
Speaker 1: but I'm glad you were able to answer that honestly,
Speaker 1: because you know, the desire to grow, obviously is something
Speaker 1: every business owner has at at some level. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know you clearly have ambition to even get into
Speaker 1: something like this in the first place. But it's also
Speaker 1: good to know that it's gonna be uh, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be a challenge, and that you have to gather as
Speaker 1: much information and weigh all your options as best you
Speaker 1: can before you jump into it, because otherwise you're just
Speaker 1: gonna end up making promises that will be really difficult
Speaker 1: to deliver upon. This has been fascinating. I thank you
Speaker 1: so much for coming in here and chatting about this,
Speaker 1: and um uh, I do recommend if you get a
Speaker 1: chance to try the experience of writing a pedal assist
Speaker 1: bike in general or in Edison in particular. If you're
Speaker 1: in the Atlanta area, definitely come by and check it out.
Speaker 1: Because it was my first time. I had been talking
Speaker 1: about these for a while. I actually did a podcast
Speaker 1: with Scott Benjamin who is the co host of Car Stuff,
Speaker 1: and we talked about pedal assist bikes in the technology
Speaker 1: behind it, and various implementations and approaches to it, including
Speaker 1: things like conversion kits or there are some that are
Speaker 1: like the self contained wheels that you can attach to
Speaker 1: an existing bike frame. Um. Clearly you can't control the
Speaker 1: whole experience that way because you're really just selling one
Speaker 1: element to it, which is a little different from your
Speaker 1: approach where you've got the whole package. Um. But this
Speaker 1: was the first time I actually got a chance to
Speaker 1: experience it, and uh, it was kind of ideal situation.
Speaker 1: Beautiful weather, not too many people on the belt line,
Speaker 1: for which I was very thankful I was there. Was
Speaker 1: there was a moment early on not gonna lie, where
Speaker 1: I was getting real close to the edge of the
Speaker 1: belt line onto the what would have been like maybe
Speaker 1: an inch drop, not enough to maybe make me worry
Speaker 1: except of the fact that I was my confidence issues
Speaker 1: were not kicking in yet, or rather they were kicking in.
Speaker 1: My confidence had not kicked in. But after after a
Speaker 1: little WOBBLI start due to the fact that I am
Speaker 1: so out of practice. Uh, it was. It really was
Speaker 1: an interesting experience, that feeling of being able to do
Speaker 1: more than what you typically would be capable of doing. Um,
Speaker 1: it's very compelling and uh. And also just as a
Speaker 1: way of getting from point A to point B, the
Speaker 1: idea of cutting down my commute. I like walking to work,
Speaker 1: but it's an hour and getting forty five minutes of
Speaker 1: that back a day, it was an hour and a half.
Speaker 1: When you look a look at both ways. Um, that's
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a that's kind of a hard argument
Speaker 1: to shoot down significantly. Yeah. No, I mean an hour
Speaker 1: and a half. I mean, that's that's so much more
Speaker 1: Halo time. Man, I can, I can. I can be
Speaker 1: a bullet sponge for an extra hour and a half. Awesome.
Speaker 1: But Ryan Hirsh, thank you so much for joining us
Speaker 1: on text stuff. I really appreciate it. Pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1: Excellent guys. If you have any suggestions for future episodes
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