I was under the impression that a speed wobble (if that’s what it was) is mostly due a magically bad combination of load weight and frame dynamics. Somehow I thought low trail made that less likely?
I think it is important to keep in mind that most (all?) Rad bikes have a throttle button. I think there are a lot of situations like wobbles etc that on a normal bike you are probably going to stop pedaling immediately and that sort of helps even things out (feel like the engineers and physicists are about to tell me how wrong I am here lol). On a throttle bike you might actually go faster if the handlebars start jerking around.
I’ve been thinking about this lately now that I’ve seen some e-bikes marketed specifically at kids. I think little redneck children can ride little motocross bikes because a) they are somehow sized appropriately + restrictor plate and b) it’s usually flat, closed course antics to start. I sort of imagine a little kid could handle some pedal assist but I don’t know that even teenagers should have throttle-activated bikes (e or ice) on public roads.
Reminds me I actually had a little 4-wheeler when I was a kid and we were living in Arkansas (redneck father who loved Honda 3-wheelers and was lucky not to die on one). I had a restrictor and a closed course and I still managed to flip the thing over a few times.
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I think most bike share bikes are meant for 13 or 16+ according to guidelines. If the mfg didn’t set it then yeah they’re vulnerable to a lawsuit.
My 3 yo can definitely handle handbrakes and a pedal bike, but he still has spectacular crashes. The combination of inexperience with bikes, improper passenger loading, hills, shit bikes, throttle ebikes/motorcycle, and kids being kids may clearly be deadly. Change one of those factors and the kid might still be alive.
Low trail bikes shimmy more, that’s why people want fancy headsets for them. My old nordavidnen was a shimmy machine.
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my xtracycle shimmies hands-free and it’s a little disconcerting but it still goes in a straight line. Should probably throw a viscoset on there eventually.
Maybe the nordavinden might shimmy but it heads for the bushes as soon as I take my hands of the bars so I haven’t found out yet.
Some of the points mentioned in that article are dumb (steep hill only accessed because it was an e-bike… I remember walking my bike up the steepest hills for the speeeed)
But at the end of the day it’s a shitty accident and I think the bike company has some fault in this (rear-biased weight with low trail geometry is pretty hard to handle, at the very least)
My low trail bike does not shimmy.
My polyvalent doesn’t shimmy with low trail.
The nord has VERY low trail and noodle tubes. And I weigh a lot. I think trail is definitely one of several factors that can lead to shimmy. Bikes are dangerous.
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a) their parents are dumb. Those things are damn dangerous and I’m willing to bet kids crash and seriously hurt themselves all the time. They probably just aren’t wealthy or knowledgeable of the court system to the extent they feel suing the motorcycle company is a good idea.
b) the moto kids are probably more likely to wear protection gear commensurate with the speed they’re traveling.
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Also when it happens in a field, it’s a lot nicer than pavement, in my experience.
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that’s pretty classist; in my experience with redneck families the kids are often very resilient and used to things like farm labour from a young age. they understand and accept inherent risk in dangerous and fun activities like riding dirt bikes, archery, or shooting BB guns and when they crash a dirt bike they recognise that it isn’t the motorcycle company’s fault, unlike more coddled urban kids and their litigious families
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This.
My wife grew up in rural southwest Virginia and this was 100% her experience. Just replace dirt bikes with horses. No shortage of broken bones. Even in “rural” northern Va where I grew up this was the case. The kids just had more expensive stuff to get hurt by.
It’s funny, both of my parents are smarty pants college graduates in stem and definitely protected (coddled) us quite a bit from this kind of thing. Definitely some classist BS wrapped up this sort of thing.
To be clear I was one of those punk ass kids.
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Yeah, I think the point is that the kids were in over their heads, and no one had the knowledge to say “maybe this shit ebike is something we should not have our kids ride” rather than what happened which is a low probability tragedy.
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There was a 4yo kid killed in rural MN a month back when the 700cc quad bike he was driving flipped and crushed him. There was a 6yo riding with him that managed to jump clear. Lots of great parenting decisions there 
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Which is why I’m ultimately in the middle of this. I think there are ways to ease kids into “dangerous” activities by making the stakes low to start. I’m pretty sure I could wreck my own shit on a 700c anything.
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Hopefully without flexing the “I seen it all” thing too much:
Shitty things happen to kids sometimes. To my mind the process of accepting and dealing with it is fucking hard, and a lawyer may or may not be the best tool for the job. Preventing harm to other kids is an easily stated goal but what the fam needs (and the relationship between that and what their access or lack thereof to the resources to pursue those needs), is a tough, tough thing to consider.
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There’s “kids need to be able to take risks” but there’s also “kids can steer a 3 wheel ATV but don’t have the mass to keep them from rolling and getting crushed”
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Yeah, I should have said something like that. But I also didn’t want to imply that redneck kids are just more resilient or redneck families are less litigatious.
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