Cycling has a weight problem: a call for the industry to be more transparent about its weight limits
Cycling has a weight problem: a call for the industry to be more transparent about its weight limits
Cycling products’ weight limits are typically hidden deep within owner’s manuals or not listed at all. This is a problem.
Weight limits for bicycles need to be higher and more transparent, especially if the majority of people want to use them.
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There is one major issue with this article:
Yet, many bikes and bike equipment are still manufactured with only the other 26% in mind.
No. They are made with the majority in mind, since the European and Asian bike market, where significantly fewer people are overweight or obese dwarve the American market.
Projected North American bike market revenue (2024):
$10.44 billionProjected European bike market revenue (2024):
$27.89 billionProjected Asian bike market revenue (2024):
$42.13 billionOn an international market, if you don't matter enough you won't get special treatment.
Just imagine if 74% of Luxembourgians decided that their smartphone must have a USB-A port, as an essential requirement. How many major manufacturers would accommodate them instead of continuing to sell "normal" phones? Sure, they could put a USB-A port onto all phones globally sold, but why bother? It's more expensive and nearly nobody outside of Luxembourg would want that feature.
Edit: Source for the numbers (you can switch the displayed region)
where significantly fewer people are overweight or obese
Hey, not sure if you're getting your numbers from the article, but you may want to double check.
40% of Asia is overweight or obese and over 50% of Europe is overweight or obese, with USA at 75%. (Sourced from WHO)
Also, just an aside: the USA is the smallest of these three by population, so the total number of overweight or obese people in Europe vs USA (240-250M)is fairly close even though the percentages are higher.
A good point, but from the article it sounds like the demographic for which this would be a problem is 300lbs+. The proportion of people meeting the criteria for being overweight is in the same ballpark, but I wonder if maybe there's a more skewed distribution of people who are overweight enough to exceed the safety margin of a standard bicycle.
I think it starts to be more of a problem around 230-250lbs. Like they mentioned in the article, the bikes are often listed at a total weight capacity, meaning rider + cargo, with most brands at or below 300lbs. If the rear rack is meant to hold 40lbs and maybe 5lbs of accessories and water bottles then add 20lbs for a front rack/panniers; your getting into the close to the rider weight limit by being anything more than a little overweigh.
It’s worse than that, even. Some brands (like Tern) go by gross vehicle weight, meaning rider + cargo + bike. And their most popular bike is 75 pounds.
It’s not as much of a problem for Tern specifically because their bikes are rock solid (I’m very big and tall and don’t have a problem with mine) but still a confusing way to measure.
I think the article is mostly advocating for the weight limit to be on the technical specificationd of the bikes, which seems a fair argument to me.