You’ve probably encountered an e-bike in some form or another. Maybe you’ve ridden one. Perhaps one has buzzed passed you on the street, in a bike lane, or on the sidewalk. We’ve seen your requests and we’re glad to finally dedicate an entire conversation to this topic. What’s fueling the e-bike revolution? Is it just a short-lived fad? E-bikes are selling more quickly than cars, according to the Light Electric Vehicle Association, and our guest this week points out that e-bikes aren’t going anywhere. Mike Radenbaugh is the founder and chairman of Rad Power Bikes, the largest e-bike company in the U.S. He built his first e-bike when he was just 15 years old. Radenbaugh joins WITHpod to discuss the distinctions between e-bike classes, how they are reshaping urban transportation, the energy savings case for using them, the need for improved infrastructure, the importance of more safety education and more.
Note: This is a rough transcript — please excuse any typos.
Mike Radenbaugh: The e-bike is here to stay, and it is going to be a savior for this planet. Transportation is the number one source of greenhouse gases. So we need electric bikes just because of that, but they also happen to have just amazing product fit, people love to ride them.
Chris Hayes: Hello and welcome to “Why Is This Happening?” with me, your host, Chris Hayes.
So in the fall of 2020, we came back, we’d been upstate for the sort of most intense part of the pandemic, and we came back to the city because the kids were starting school even though it was a remote school, but wanted to be in the city. And that meant that I was going to go into the office every night to do the show.
Now, I was staying out of 30 Rock as much as I could because I didn’t want to be in a big office building. This is obviously pre-vaccine. Then there’s a question of, well, how should I get to work? And generally I take the subway, but I was feeling a little oogy (ph) about the subway.
I think in retrospect, to be honest, based on the totality of the data I’ve seen that, like, people masking with good, high-quality masks in the subway is actually probably pretty low risk. But I was not really psyched about that idea.
I don’t really like taking cars, and there’s also COVID exposure possibility there, of course. You’ve got a driver in close quarters.
And so, for the first three months, the solution I came up with was I bought an e-bike. E-Bike manufacturer that I bought this one was a company called Tern. It’s a foldable e-bike. So what it meant was I would leave my house, I would bike to work.
And here’s the key thing about the bike to work because, in earlier years, I would bike to work with a regular bike and people would say, why don’t you just bike a regular bike? True, but not to go too TMI on the podcast, but I am a sweaty man. I sweat a lot.
And so, if you show up on a nine-mile bike ride to work, you’re about to do a television show, like, you don’t look good. So you need to take a shower. The gyms were closed at 30 Rock. So this was the sort of perfect solution because I could get to work, it would take me as much time. Honestly, it was about the same as the subway.
It would be beautiful. I’d get exercise. It’s not like you’re just coasting the entire way. I was pedaling, it was a pedal-assist bike. I then fold my bike up. I bring it upstairs. And this e-bike commute became my favorite commute I’ve ever had in my life, anywhere, anytime.
Now, you’re biking in New York City. You got to keep your head on a swivel. You’ve got cars. You’ve got, you know, protected bike lanes, and I’m making air quotes, that include during the COVID era a sidewalk, a protected bike lane, and then the other side of the bike lane, like the shacks that restaurants were in with waiters crossing through the bike lane with drinks and food, which is a completely ludicrous situation from a design standpoint. That’s true on both First and Second Avenue going uptown or downtown, depending on what part of the day it was.
So, you know, it was a video game. And it could feel, at night sometimes, a little dangerous. But it was just, I don’t know, it’s my favorite commute I’ve ever done. And now, I still do it, you know, for basically the three months of fall when it’s nice, three or four months of the spring when it’s nice. I tend not to do it in the winter because I’m a little bit of a wimp about the cold.
But one of the things I noticed when I started this commute was, all of a sudden, the bike lanes were full of all kinds of new forms of mobility. There’s those weird one-wheel things. There’s the hoverboards. There’s the electronic scooters with battery scooters. There’s a ton of different e-bikes. There’s e-bikes that are pedal-assist. There are e-bikes that are throttled. There are e-bikes that are built out of kits. There’s the delivery workers who were on e-bikes.
And after what felt like a long time in which there was, like, two or three different ways to get around, there’s like you can bike, you can take your car, I guess you can take like a Vespa or a motorcycle, maybe you can rollerblade or skateboard, it seems like we’re living through a kind of like transportation revolution right now.
That’s really exciting because there’s lots of different ingenuity going into different ways to get people from point A to point B that isn’t a car and isn’t necessarily public transportation, but there’s a lot of distances in life that are between those two.
There’s a lot of distances, a lot of errands you can run, things you can go, picking up your kids, picking up something at a store or at a pharmacy that might be a mile and a half, they (ph) might be two miles. It’s like, taking your huge multi-ton car seems ridiculous. Walking takes too long. And the e-bike is one way of solving that problem, but there’s a whole bunch of others.
And so, I’ve been super. I am like, anyone that knows this from watching the show or watching me on Twitter knows, I’m a big e-bike evangelist, and I’ve been wanting to do an e-bike episode of the podcast. And today is that day. And we’ve got a great guest for it.
Mike Radenbaugh is the Founder and Chairman of Rad Power Bikes, which is the largest e-bike company in the U.S. And as you’re going to hear, he got his start, he comes by very honestly, as an early pioneer in this space. We’re going to talk about the e-bike revolution.
Mike, it’s great to have you on the program.
Mike Radenbaugh: Hey, thank you, Chris, for having us on, really excited about the chat today.
Chris Hayes: Yeah. So you are from the Pacific Northwest. You’re from Seattle, is that right?
Mike Radenbaugh: Yeah, the company is headquartered in Seattle, but we got our start in Northern California, in the rural part of the country. So all of our approach to e-bikes has been about building e-bikes for Americans.
Chris Hayes: What do you mean by that? As opposed to who?
Mike Radenbaugh: Well, we think of an electric bike sort of like the smartphone of transportation. It sounds like you’re surely seeing that effect take hold in New York City, where the smartphone changed the way that we communicate.
And the e-bike is changing the way we move about the world. And to have that kind of an effect in North America, we felt like we need to go about it a little bit of a different way than you might in Europe.
And our products have bigger tires, and bigger batteries, and throttles, and cargo-carrying capacity, and you’ve seen that become the standard now. Even incumbent brands and automotive companies, as they start to enter the e-bike category, are thinking about e-bike is a little bit differently now, which I think’s really encouraging.
And the reason we did this is to draw people out of their cars, to bring some of the comfort and convenience of an automobile, and blend that with the benefits of a bicycle.
Chris Hayes: I see. So when you say “for Americans,” what you mean is we have very different built environments, different streetscapes. We do not have the super bike-friendly pedestrian and friendly infrastructure of, say, a major European capital. We don’t have, like your modal American is not living in the walkable neighborhood that I live in, Brooklyn, for instance.
So when you’re talking about for Americans, you mean building an e-bike that is easy to use, safe to use, convenient and comfortable in the built environment as it exists in America right now, which is often not that hospitable to things that are not cars.
Mike Radenbaugh: You got it exactly right. And just speaking to the tastes of Americans, bigger cars with bigger tires, and we want to do something similar. And I think that’s the e-bikes that you see on the streets today en masse are the ones that look a little bit different. And the tires, for example, like having big fat tires are amazing on potholed streets and rough roads or in inclement weather. And to give people that comfort that they’re used to experiencing in their 5,000-pound gas guzzlers.
Chris Hayes: That is really fascinating. There is that psychological aspect to it, right. So for me, I’m a person who’s always been, well, not always been, but from right after I graduated college, like a pretty avid cyclist. That’s how I got around Chicago, which is a great biking town. Mostly, Kate and I, we would get around through biking.
So I got very used to biking in traffic. And this is back, you know, 20 years ago, before. Like, there weren’t a ton of bike lanes. There were certainly no protected bike lanes, but it’s scary and intimidating to just take a person who’s not used to that and be like, hey, go out into the road with a bunch of cars.
Mike Radenbaugh: Yeah, people called me the e-bike guy back when I was a teenager tinkering with electric bikes. And so, I realized I’m early on in this movement, but you’re also early on in this movement.
And e-bikes are now selling faster than electric cars, so it’s really exciting. It’s like, Chris, you’re early, and thank you for advocacy these last few years through the pandemic. It’s making a difference.
And at the same time, it’s just the tip of the iceberg of what’s happening here because people still are programmed that the automobile is the default way of getting around. And they’re made sexy through, you know, billions and billions of dollars of advertising. And it’s almost like a cultural expectation that you own a car. And we have to, as a culture, undo that.
And I saw, you know, an article a couple months back about the Netherlands. The Netherlands used to be a total car-centric culture. The streets were clogged with automobiles and the related pollution. And they undid that through smart infrastructure designed for bikes and for people rather than for cars.
Chris Hayes: Yeah, this is the thing that I think is important to know is that a lot of places, Copenhagen, which I visited recently, many of the places you think of as very bike and pedestrian-friendly now, weren’t. And they have been made so through design and infrastructure inventions as opposed to, I think, when you think about, you know, the streets of Paris which, you know, famously was, you know, remade (ph) in the, you know, mid to late 19th century in the way that it is; when you think about, you know, winding streets in say Rome or Florence, like those were all sort of built pre-car.
But there’s lots of places that had American-style infrastructure and then undid it or redid it in a more bike and pedestrian-friendly fashion.
Mike Radenbaugh: Yeah, they sure have. And you know, it’s interesting you brought up Paris because they took one of the boldest moves of all major cities through the pandemic. And they reduced their street speeds to 30 kilometers an hour citywide to reduce both pollution and accidents and promote active transport like e-bikes.
And that’s the kind of move we need. We need bold moves like that. And if you’ve been to Paris before and after that change, it is a lot nicer to spend time outdoors on the streets and moving about.
Chris Hayes: That’s interesting. I want to get to the sort of regulatory questions. Thirty kilometers an hour, let me just do the math in my head.
Mike Radenbaugh: That’s 18 miles an hour.
Chris Hayes: Yeah, that’s what I thought.
(LAUGHTER)
Yep, you and Google agree, Mike.
(LAUGHTER)
Yeah, so that’s 18 miles an hour. And they have 18 miles an hour for everything now?
Mike Radenbaugh: That’s right, citywide, yeah.
Chris Hayes: That’s wild. So cars, too?
Mike Radenbaugh: Absolutely, and so, it’s driven a huge, tremendous shift. And —
Chris Hayes: Wow.
Mike Radenbaugh: — I think Rad wasn’t alone in this, but sales of our cargo bikes in that market really skyrocketed as soon as that change was made. And it’s just so encouraging.
But another stat I pulled together ahead of this chat was on Salt Lake City. They converted nine blocks of parking to protected bike lanes and all the stores along that area saw an 8.8 percent increase in sales in that area. So it’s also —
Chris Hayes: Yes.
Mike Radenbaugh: — good for business.
Chris Hayes: So let’s talk about your specific origin story here. Where did you grow up?
Mike Radenbaugh: I grew up in Humboldt County in Northern California. And I grew up as a tree-hugger, parents that were back-to-the-landers, so I grew up in a very contrarian way and connected to the environment. And at that time, electric vehicles just started to become a thing.
And we hit some sort of a tipping point back then around lithium batteries for consumer electronics becoming available for use in non-consumer electronics, like transportation devices, so whether it’s electric cars, or motorcycles, or electric bikes.
And I built my own electric bike to get to school because my old busted up car, I couldn’t keep it running. It was costing me too much money to switch out head gaskets and keep the gas tank filled. And I always felt bad about the environmental impact of internal combustion engines because of the way I was raised.
So you can imagine me back then sitting, listening to, you know, NPR in the evenings. We didn’t have a, you know, HVAC in the house, so we’d be, you know, sitting by the fireplace. And I was thinking about electric vehicles from that early age.
Chris Hayes: So how long was it to school?
Mike Radenbaugh: My school was 16 miles away. And —
Chris Hayes: What?
(LAUGHTER)
Mike Radenbaugh: — so, yeah. And so, this is very rural Northern California.
Chris Hayes: Well, I mean, that also, I think, it also explains because sometimes, I think, sometimes you get this thing from, like, hardcore non, you know, regular cyclists, like non-electric cyclists that, like, there’s something sort of untoward or cheating or unnecessary about the “e” part of e-biking that the bike is the perfect technology.
It’s true, a bicycle is an incredible piece of technology. You know, it’s an amazing thing. And I love biking and bike all the time. But this is a perfect example, right.
So even as an in-shape 16-year-old, like a 32-mile round trip a day is, that’s a haul.
Mike Radenbaugh: It’s impossible to do and have a girlfriend because I’d show up to school totally sweaty, and just very similar to your experience trying to commute to work. So yeah, I had to get to work to kind of create my own solution.
And after that first ride on an e-bike, I was totally smitten. And I think that’s —
Chris Hayes: Wait, you’re skipping too many steps though.
(LAUGHTER)
Well, let’s take this slow. OK. How old are you at this point?
Mike Radenbaugh: I was 15.
Chris Hayes: OK, I’m a 15-year-old with back-to-lander parents in Humboldt County, which, for (ph) people don’t know, Humboldt County is one of the most fascinating places in the country. It’s kind of God’s country. It’s beautiful. It’s lush. It’s wild. It’s where (ph) all kinds of contrarian and interesting figures. It’s far from expressways. It’s quite remote.
People go there who maybe want to like get off the grid because, like, the law is looking for them. There’s like hippies. There’s communes. There’s, you know, people growing huge amounts of marijuana.
So you’re a 15-year-old. You got 16 miles to go to school. Your car is just basically on its last legs. Where does the idea come to strap a motor to your bike? Where does that come from?
Mike Radenbaugh: I had been racing mountain bikes because that’s what you did back there. You know, the football team and baseball teams were smaller than the mountain bike team. You know, I think that speaks a little bit more than what that area was all about.
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
Mike Radenbaugh: And so, I lived on a bike back then. And I had an old busted-up mountain bike. And I was falling in love with electric vehicles.
I had ridden in an early Tesla Roadster at that time at, like, a solar energy convention and was just fascinated with it. And I didn’t have $100,000 for a full-sized electric vehicle, so I need to create a solution that was accessible in price.
And so, I got to work with parts I could find at the local RadioShack, rest in peace, and also ordering parts from Europe and Asia, and hobbling them (ph) together in my parents’ woodshed.
So I’d do this work at night. And God knows how much solder I’ve inhaled over the years, but we got through a lot of those early bikes, which I called frankenbikes (ph). You know, they were crazy concoctions, very high speeds, very powerful. And the reliability wasn’t great either. This was the tinkering phase of Rad.
But within a just a few years, the company had a name. We were selling bikes. I was selling bikes on Craigslist by word of mouth. And it all started because I was in town riding this contraption around, and people would stop me, neighbors, or friends, or passerbys.
And the first bike I built really left an impression on me that, wow, this isn’t just for me, there’s something bigger here. And that was a customer that had Lyme disease, and they wanted to get back on a bike, and get out of their car, and save money and also have a lower environmental footprint.
So I built this person a bike specifically for them, for their needs, with some of the comforts and attributes that they really wanted. And the next 50 bikes all had similar themes. And that came to 2015 when we launched the Rad Rover, which is the bike you got, which is our real flagship product.
Chris Hayes: So how old were you? What year did you build your first one?
Mike Radenbaugh: 2006, and then 2007 was when the company was founded.
Chris Hayes: So you started the company at the age of 16?
Mike Radenbaugh: I was still 15, I believe. And we named it Rad Power Bikes because my mom walked by and said, wow, these things are so cool, and we should call it Rad Power, honey.
Chris Hayes: Uh, mom —
Mike Radenbaugh: And it stuck.
(LAUGHTER)
Chris Hayes: — cringe, and then it worked. That’s amazing. But I’m sorry to obsess about this, but I can’t subjectively relate to this, like at 15, I wouldn’t have known. Were you a handy person generally? Did (ph) you know how to do this kind of thing?
Mike Radenbaugh: I did, but it was definitely an underdog story. You know, like I grew up going to auto shop and metal shop and —
Chris Hayes: OK.
Mike Radenbaugh: — tinkering around the property, but it’s definitely an underdog story. I mean, these initial bikes were not the curated, the, you know, dialed-in engineering marvels of (ph) our modern-day e-bikes.
Chris Hayes: And they didn’t have kits at that point. Because, you know, here on the East Coast, like my association is there’s been a fairly long time that New York City delivery folks, you know, you buy a used bike for 30 bucks, and then you can buy kits that you could turn it into an e-bike. But this was before kits existed basically, right?
Mike Radenbaugh: The kits that did exist were really early on and very unreliable. And then the other segment of e-bikes was the bikes coming over from Europe. But, like we kicked off today, those were not conducive to the roads in the United States, and the pricing was also untouchable.
Chris Hayes: So maybe I’m going to (ph) walk people who are listening through, like, the mechanics of an e-bike basically, like e-bikes 101, right. So the way regular bike works, of course, is there’s, you know, a crankshaft and you pedal, and that pulls on a chain that, you know, rotates both wheels, right. And you can shift gears to make the gears larger or smaller depending on whether you’re going on an incline or decline. So where is an e-bike, how’s an e-bike powered and how does it work?
Mike Radenbaugh: So the modern-day electric bike, the best way to think about it is that you can have a bike-like experience when you want to, and you can also have assistance when you want to.
And so, like, we’ll use (ph) Chris’ commute as an example, I bet one direction is less hill, you know, more downhill than the other. And on the downhill, you might not use much power at all and be cruising along at 20 miles an hour.
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
Mike Radenbaugh: And on the uphill, maybe going home after work, you can use more assistance. And a lot of e-bikes have throttles which make them even more helpful and accessible. And so, you can twist the throttle or just use the pedal-assist feature. And then when you’re heading back up the hill, you can still go about 20 miles an hour. So it’s really a great equalizer to really flatten people’s commutes.
Chris Hayes: Yeah, so just to speak from first person, so the bike I have actually, it doesn’t have a throttle and it’s just pedal-assist. I have two different bikes. So the Rad Rover that I have has a throttle and pedal-assist. The Tern bike I have is pedal-assist.
(LAUGHTER)
I’m laughing at, you know, me talking about my multiple e-bikes. My joke is that my aspiration is to be like the Jay Leno of e-bikes, like this is, I’d (ph) like to have like a garage someday with like 40 e-bikes.
So one thing I’ll say, so the pedal-assist is really a cool feeling. It feels like how I imagined the future would feel if you had like a robotic suit or like a jetpack because you’re doing the thing, but you’re just getting this energy from somewhere that’s not your body, but you’re also doing it. So it does have this kind of very cool superpower feeling or like bionic man feeling when you’re pedaling.
And for me, like, it’s not very hilly, but there is one big bridge, right. So the bridge is the big hill because you go up over the, in my case, Manhattan Bridge and down on the other side.
And when you’re going up, that feeling of the pedal-assist is just a very cool feeling. And it’s also, you know, saving you from sweating like crazy.
Mike Radenbaugh: This brings me, like one of the areas that I love around this whole idea of e-bike advocacy, and accessibility is crucial. So we talked a little bit about infrastructure. We were talking a little bit about the technology, but the bike design is just so crucial.
And pedal-assist is amazing for that superhuman-type feeling, a traditional cycling feeling, but with a real boost. But throttles are also hugely helpful for a lot of people that have ailments or —
Chris Hayes: Totally.
Mike Radenbaugh: — even myself, I like to be able to switch between pedal-assist and switch back to the throttle. And there’s just tons of applications where (ph) allowing people to choose is super important, similarly with the bike’s, like, frame design.
One thing I’ve been so encouraged to see across this category is that more and more brands are coming out with step-through bikes. And that for folks that don’t know, a step-through frame is one that’s easy to step in and out of rather than having a high top-tube, a high tube along the top, so another way to just make it easier for people to step on and get riding.
Chris Hayes: Yeah, the traditional bike, you know, frame is a triangle. And that bar on the top, which is the horizontal bar, you have to, you know, get your leg up and over, which is really challenging for a lot of folks for whatever reason, mobility, flexibility.
The step-through is more like what we used to call, like, a girl’s bike, which didn’t have that bar there. But anything like a Vespa, for instance, you don’t step-through Vespa, you just get into it, right. It’s right there. And that does make a big difference.
So just to go back to the mechanics though, because there’s an interesting engineering problem to solve for here, right. You got to get the motor on. The motor can go either in the crankshaft or it can go on the rear wheel, there are different models and different types.
And then you got to get the battery. The battery, you can just affix somewhere, right.
But then you also got to make sure that, like, you know, you want to hide all the casing and wiring and all that stuff. You want to make sure it works. You want to make sure that the brakes can break the speed that the motor can go, right.
So I guess the question is, like, how long did it take you from an engineering perspective to like work out those kinks and get something that you could reliably reproduce?
Mike Radenbaugh: Eight years, nine years. So in 2015 —
Chris Hayes: Oh, wow. OK.
Mike Radenbaugh: — the brand was really relaunched on crowdfunding.
Chris Hayes: So you’re doing like a garage custom/bespoke version for your teenage years for a decade basically, almost, where you’re building these one by one.
Mike Radenbaugh: 2015 is when we hit a tipping point. And I was sitting in my uncle and aunt’s living room over Thanksgiving. And one of those moments when you’re traveling, and you just have a breakthrough as you put yourself in a new setting.
And I remember spending, then (ph) probably ruining Thanksgiving, but I spent all of Thanksgiving asking my uncle and aunt, hey, what do you think about this color of bike? Or what do you think about this, you know, seat or handlebar?
That was a tipping point moment, and it was a timing thing and also the setting that I was in where I just saw so clearly what became the Rad Rover, which was this like accessibly priced, accessible design, comfortable, powerful, and scalable electric bike.
Then we launched our crowdfunding campaign within, I think, six months after that. And that continued the word-of-mouth growth of Rad. And that’s what you see across this whole category is that e-bikes pro by word of mouth. And so, the crowdfunding campaign was a success because of the pricing, and the design, and the timing.
And I know you had Cathie Wood on, and you were talking a little bit about some of these turning points in various technology revolutions. And that was definitely a moment, in 2015, when the pricing, the viability, scalability, some of the supply chain, we’ve had to build a lot of that now since, but some of the supply chain was ready for us to kick this thing off into high gear.
Chris Hayes: Talk about the battery part of that in terms of sourcing that, in terms of being able to get that at a reasonable cost and be able to reliably acquire them because, obviously, when we talk about, you know, electronic transport, like those batteries are really important. And there’s lots of questions about the sourcing. There’s lots of questions about lithium mining.
We don’t have to get into all of that stuff. But from your perspective, like, what has that journey been like to make sure that you can get batteries for your bikes?
Mike Radenbaugh: We’ve exclusively used industry-leading batteries from Samsung, and Panasonic, and LG for all of our e-bikes going back in time.
And we were lucky because, in 2015, you started to have really high-quality cells being produced by these major suppliers. So we were able to start off with the lithium-nickel-manganese-cobalt chemistry, which is known for high-reliability across (ph) cell-to-cell and high energy density. So you can pack a lot of range and do an e-bike battery back.
You know, 10 years prior to that, the whole battery category was just figuring itself out. So we went through all different types of chemistries and formats. And so, for the folks on the show, that means, like, the shape of the cell and the type of material that’s in the cell.
But it all became clear and scalable for the electric bike side when the pricing crossed over some threshold. And that was largely driven by the number of cells that were going into consumer electronics, like, namely laptops.
Chris Hayes: Oh, that’s interesting, so that’s all driving. They’re getting more efficient and driving down the price of these things. So it’s laptops that they’re really focusing, that’s the application they’re focusing on, but that’s having the sort of spillover effects to produce reliable lithium batteries you can put on your bikes.
Mike Radenbaugh: And since that time, that’s changed. The drivers are now becoming more and more electric bikes, maybe power tools, automotive, where you start to see some of the transformations happening now in cell chemistries and formats.
Chris Hayes: More of our conversation after this quick break.
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Chris Hayes: Is it still a live area, it seems like a really important area, of innovation and research to get batteries more energy dense, cheaper, and also not light on fire?
(LAUGHTER)
Which seems like a more important point.
Mike Radenbaugh: I think overall on the fire point, it’s like all these batteries, including what’s in consumer electronics and cars, the makeup can be volatile if the batteries are of low-quality or if they’re not used in a safe way, properly stored, properly used.
And when it comes to the advancements, I think you’re seeing the commercialization side is usually the main gating item.
And so, commercialization, every year there’s a new, amazing chemistry out. And we’re big believers that there will be additional breakthroughs, but commercialization has (ph) tended to take time and be driven by larger cell suppliers, building out the equipment, facilities, capabilities.
And today, most e-bikes travel 30, 40, 50 miles on a charge. And so, range anxiety is not a gating factor to e-bike adoption already, and it’s only going to get better.
Chris Hayes: No, I mean, I don’t think it is. The one thing is the fire question, right? You know, all lithium batteries have some tail risk associated with them of combustion. You know, they have to be stored certain ways. You’ll see the warning, of course, if you ever get something shipped with it.
There has been concern this has happened in bike rooms in New York City and other places where there have been battery fires. And that has even led some landlords to, you know, ban e-bikes.
So what is your sort of read on the battery fire situation? Is that, like, the product of, like, low-quality batteries? Can it happen to any battery? How concerned people should be about that?
Mike Radenbaugh: It can surely happen to any battery if it’s not properly charged and operated, and if it’s subjected to tough elements or be in an abusive environment. So it’s really crucial for this movement, for this e-bike movement, to urge every rider to follow manufacturers’ recommendations.
And I know Rad, as an example, we have extensive recommendations around the safe use of our batteries.
The other side, I think, too, like maybe you see this more in New York City, it is an epicenter of still some e-bikes being put together in a hodgepodge way —
Chris Hayes: Oh, totally, yeah.
Mike Radenbaugh: — because it’s required to do a lot of essential work there.
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
No, the essential workers and the delivery folks are just like, I mean, they’re amazing. I jumped my chain on my bike, and then like had a chain rail on it that had a weird, funky, like, hex screw that I didn’t have on my bike tool. And so, I couldn’t get the chain guard off to get my chain back on. And I was like midway home on my commute. It was like 9:40.
And this delivery dude, God bless him, like rolled up and just helped me. And then he had, like, a weird hex thing on his. And he, like, we flipped the bike over. He, like, helped me. And then like before I could even be like, thanks man, he was like on his way with his (ph), like, just Samaritan in him (ph).
(LAUGHTER)
But point being that, like, those folks, they’re constantly patching and repairing. And I think, you know, they’re trying to do this at the lowest possible cost because their overhead is like nothing, and they’re not making any money.
So I think there’s a lot of stuff floating out there in the battery space that, like, lord knows where it came from.
Mike Radenbaugh: So essential workers are very inventive. And one of the things, like the hand covers that they have over there —
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
Mike Radenbaugh: — they’re called bar mitts. And so, Rad now carries a bar mitt as well that we sell for winter riding. And that was inspired partially by some of our teams’ trip into New York.
But yeah, on the battery topic, the other thing, just an important callout on the efficacy side here is like making sure you’re using manufacturer-supplied equipment, not making modifications to the electronic wiring harnesses and the powertrain, keeping the bike from being subjected to crazy salt water, salt air —
Chris Hayes: Right.
Mike Radenbaugh: — riding on the beach or, you know, roads that are treated during huge winter storms. There’s a whole smorgasbord here of things that —
Chris Hayes: Right.
Mike Radenbaugh: — consumers really need to take into account to ensure a sustainable, you know, expansion of this movement.
Chris Hayes: So I’ve got some other questions I want to ask about, sort of, you know, safety concerns that people might have about bikes. But let’s talk about, so 2015 tipping point, what did the pandemic do? Because I feel it was like that was another moment where things really changed for the e-bike.
Mike Radenbaugh: Yeah, the e-bike growth was skyrocketing before the pandemic, but this definitely pulled more groups into the e-bike revolution, and especially in major cities where people migrated from public transportation to an electric bike. So we saw a huge spike in demand.
And “The New York Times” was quoted as saying, just as a category overall, e-bikes saw a, you know, 145 percent increase in growth from 2019 to 2020 —
Chris Hayes: Wow.
Mike Radenbaugh: — which is, you know, that’s really something.
So I think the pandemic also, it created obviously immense suffering for so many, but we also had a glimpse into what empty streets could do and especially when paired with an electric bike. And it really makes for a joyful, you know, experience from point A to point B.
So it was, I think, all these things kind of combined, and then you had the obviously safe and socially distanced transit need.
But you know, the one thing I’d highlight is the pandemic has been big for e-bike growth. But every year, there’s another thing that comes along. And last year it was the increase in fuel prices in the first half of the year. And we had tons of people coming into our stores citing the high fuel prices and them (ph) looking for some relief.
Chris Hayes: And do you see that in your sales when fuel prices spike up like that?
Mike Radenbaugh: Certainly, certainly, and just through the survey data and just talking to customers in our stores.
Chris Hayes: How big is the market now?
Mike Radenbaugh: Well, one is there’s more electric bikes sold than electric cars every year, so I think that’s an important thing is that the humble electric bike is not only electrifying more people, but it’s giving those people 1,600 miles per gallon energy equivalent —
Chris Hayes: Wow.
Mike Radenbaugh: — you know, movement. And so, if a car (ph) —
Chris Hayes: That’s amazing.
Mike Radenbaugh: — is 28 as the corporate fuel, you know, average —
Chris Hayes: Right.
Mike Radenbaugh: — at 28 in a gas car, 80 to 120 with an electric car, and 1,600 miles per gallon equivalent on an e-bike. And so, not only is it more people but it’s an order of magnitude better energy efficiency when people do pick an e-bike over an electric car.
Chris Hayes: And how do you think about use cases, I mean, for people that are listening to this?
Like, so I have one. I have two different ones. It’s the Rad that I own I use for recreation when I’m upstate and there’s a trail, and it’s got the big fat tires.
It also is great for, you know, we live four, five miles from town, so it’s the perfect run errands and not get in a car vehicle. You know, go, oh, I got to pick up these things from the grocery store, just like some stuff for salad for dinner. I don’t want to get in my, you know, again, like multi-ton vehicle and park. I can just hop on the bike, the commute that I have into the city.
Like, when you talk to people about this, how do you think about the use cases for it?
Mike Radenbaugh: I think the best e-bike products that have been developed over the last, you know, decade or two, they tend to be either really specific and niche, like front-loaders in the Netherlands where people have big gardens in the back of their homes to be able to park these big box bikes. And if people haven’t seen those, these are the bikes that have like literally a big box in front of you. Or stuff like in North America, where we’ve rebuilt things that kind of feel a little bit more like a pickup truck in their design.
So I think what’s important is word of mouth and listening to the consumer’s needs. And not being tied to an electric bike needing to look like a bike, that an electric bike should be something totally new.
And I think you saw this with the launch of the iPhone when you went from, you know, a phone, and a music player, and an Internet search device. You kind of combined these things together to make something net-new that changed communication forever. And that’s what we’re seeing with electric bikes a that really blank slate opportunity right now.
Chris Hayes: Then there’s this question, so let’s sort of zoom out, as more people adopt these, right. So the first big thing you get a lot of, and I get this from folks and I’ve gone on my e-bike evangelizing, including from my loved ones, a shout-out to my aunt and my mom who both have brought this, like (ph), and I get this because I think largely this is an infrastructure problem, but people are freaked out by them.
Everyone in New York, I think, has had an experience of like being buzzed by someone throttling on an e-bike going really fast. And they feel like they’re unsafe and they’re in the sort of middle space between pedestrian and car.
Now, people have these same complaints about bikes bikes, so it’s not even that e-bike-specific, but sometimes it can be e-bike specific. And then the bike people sometimes don’t like the e-bikes in the bike lane with them. So like how do you think through these, sort of, safety questions and sort of regulatory questions of like, what space does this occupy and how do you have it as a thing that isn’t causing problems for other folks getting around?
Mike Radenbaugh: This is a moment of a revolution underway. And with that is going to come continued controversy because it’s a lot of change happening. After 100 years of car culture, we now found a better way to go back to the horse effectively, but this horse just happens to be electric and you don’t have to feed it.
(LAUGHTER)
And so, people are flocking to it because it’s like your experience, right?
And then, so now we have to do the hard work of building out the infrastructure, the awareness, the training, the safety that we have done for the automotive category.
And when we do that, the safety rating, and rate of accidents and the severity of those accidents, it’s going to be, you know, so much significantly lower than that with these, you know, huge cars, cars getting bigger street, speeds getting faster, drivers getting more and more distracted by more and more screens in their cars.
And the problem is not electric bikes, the problem is all the money that is poured into the automotive category. A fraction of that is required to build out the e-bike infrastructure required to, you know, make everybody feel safer on the streets.
Chris Hayes: So there’s two ways that I think about this. So one was Copenhagen was really a revelation. You know, Copenhagen is sort of famously next to Amsterdam, probably the best biking city in the world, at least some sort of design perspective.
And what you have there that you don’t have in any American city, even good biking cities, is there’s three levels. There’s a pedestrian sidewalk. There’s a biking lane, and the biking lane is at a different grade than the pedestrian sidewalks. You are separated, like, physically. And then there’s a car area which is on yet another grade.
There’s three different areas. And the bike area also has all of the street signs. Like, it has red lights and green lights, and people obey them. They act like they’re in (ph) cars in a way that they don’t, and frankly, just between us (ph) chickens, sometimes I don’t when I’m on my bike in New York, although I should. But they obey those street signs. They act like they’re in cars. And that really transforms things (ph). That’s huge. I mean, again that’s not e-bike-specific, that’s more just about bikes.
But then the other thing that strikes me, to go back to the Paris example, right, the issue isn’t the method of locomotion, the issue is speed really. Like the Paris example is interesting because that just says, hey, everyone, does it matter how you look (ph), you can pedal. Someone on a fast bike, you know, going around Prospect Park without an e-bike can go 30 miles an hour, like, for sure. That’s really fast. And if you get hit by that, you’re in trouble.
So the speed is really the issue to regulate, it seems to me, when we’re thinking about how to make all this safe.
Mike Radenbaugh: I think the mass is also really crucial and the —
Chris Hayes: OK, interesting.
Mike Radenbaugh: — level of distraction built into the design of the vehicle. And so, I don’t know, personally I feel really intimidated e-biking around large vehicles with large screens inside of them, and usually multiple screens. So that’s kind of a concern. But I think the answer here tends to be protected bike lanes.
And New York City, like the stat I heard recently was, in areas where protected bike lanes were installed, the accident rate for all road users, so that’s car drivers included, decreased 40 to 50 percent. So it’s a really actionable tool that a lot of cities are doing. So shoutout to the local city transportation agencies that are driving this change, because it’s not being driven as hard at the national level as it is at the city level. We’re seeing real gains.
Chris Hayes: We’ll be right back after we take this quick break.
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Chris Hayes: On the speed question, right, that’s also an engineering thing, like you could, I guess, presumably probably engineer e-bike that goes like super, super fast. That would be dangerous, right.
I mean, I imagine if I gave you the task of giving me an e-bike that goes 35 miles an hour, you could probably do it, right?
Mike Radenbaugh: Well, I mean, one of my first e-bikes went 55 miles per hour —
Chris Hayes: OK. So (inaudible) —
Mike Radenbaugh: — but this is back before this, you know, was a commercialized product in this way. And nowadays, like, maybe we could talk about the three-class system a little bit.
Chris Hayes: Yeah, we should, because my point here is that the governor on this and the limiting capacity is not an engineering problem, right. It’s actually, like it’s a regulatory question, right. And it’s a question of: how fast do you want these things going? And what is the speed that is, you know, compliant with either local law or just the general safety of everyone else who’s moving through the streets?
Mike Radenbaugh: That’s right. So would it be good for me to provide a little bit of background on speeds —
Chris Hayes: I mean —
Mike Radenbaugh: — and regulation in e-bikes.
Chris Hayes: — le’ts do Class 1, Class 2, Class 3, buddy.
(LAUGHTER)
Mike Radenbaugh: All right. Well —
Chris Hayes: If anyone is still with us here, the e-bikes nerds will be a —
Mike Radenbaugh: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: — if anyone else is still with us, they can stick through this, too.
Mike Radenbaugh: OK, yeah, geek alert everybody, sorry.
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
Mike Radenbaugh: But, so maybe we’ll just talk about like globally. Europe, the speeds are restricted to 25 kilometers an hour to 16.5 miles an hour on an electric bike.
Chris Hayes: Oh, wow, that’s lower than what we have here.
Mike Radenbaugh: It is, and that’s driven through some things that happened in the ’90s, and maybe —
Chris Hayes: Huh.
Mike Radenbaugh: — isn’t as applicable to today and maybe slightly faster electric bikes would be responsible in Europe as well in the future.
But in the U.S., it’s 20 miles an hour as the top speed for Class 1 and Class 2.
There’s a third class, which goes up to 28 miles per hour and can be used in, you know, a setting that’s more like with traffic maybe or more of a wide-open road.
But we only build bikes that go 20 miles an hour, and they’re Class 2. And you can think about Class 1 electric bikes a little bit more like a traditional bike with some assistive power, but there’s no throttle included. So that’s the difference across the three categories.
Chris Hayes: Yeah, so the Class 1 is what I have and I commute with it. There’s no throttle, but it’s pedal-assist. The Class 2 is the Rad Power Bike that I have upstate. That has pedal-assist and a throttle, and again tends to be used on a trail, not in urban commuting.
And then right, the classes (ph), I see them, Instagram, of course, feeds me a million ads for this because they know I’m a sucker and they’ve intuited my desire to be the Jay Leno of e-bikes, and they all look nifty.
(LAUGHTER)
But yeah, that really is the thing. And I think it’s the same thing I always say to my folks, who, even before e-bike, were always like, the bike, the cyclist and the city are out of control. I hate the people on the bikes. Is that, like, it’s about creating uniform standards and rules of the road for everyone as opposed to just a sort of free-for-all chaos.
So I think people don’t like, understandably, folks going 25, 30 miles an hour throttling down a bike lane because it’s disruptive and feels dangerous. Or the same way I don’t like the Vespas going over the Manhattan bridge, God bless you with three people who are doing that and have somewhere to go, but like it’s not OK.
So that, to me, is like there’s a comprehensive question of how you design safe streets for all these different modes that that sort of loons overall this.
Mike Radenbaugh: That’s right. I think that because it’s such an emerging new category of transportation right now, and it’s growing faster than that of electric vehicles, which is the thing that gets the most attention in major press and media, I think, that there’s a sense of wow, e-bikes are growing so fast, we need more regulation.
And I would ask people to just think deeply about that statement because we already have a three-class system in the U.S. Our e-bikes are limited to 20 miles an hour. The products weigh 60 to 70 pounds.
And meanwhile, you have 500-plus horsepower vehicles with nearly unlimited top speed. And there’s no regulations over those, you know, new and pending regulation, despite the sheer number of road deaths and catastrophes created by these four-wheel weapons, effectively.
Chris Hayes: Yeah, I will say just on the other side of that, that’s true, although, you know, New York City, for instance, which has had this Vision Zero, which has been was sort of successful, then it’s got much less successful. But you know, there’s ways that you can, we’re talking about cars, you can put in speed cameras and lights. You can up ticketing of people that break the speed limit.
And, you know, there’s some enforcement that has to happen of bicycles, too, as they grow more common. And this isn’t just e-bikes. Like I said, if you’re going 30 miles an hour on a regular bike, you’re going 30 miles an hour. Like, you can still really, really hurt yourself or someone else at that speed on, say, a crowded bike lane and going up, you know, First Avenue.
I mean, the thought of getting pulled over for a bike ticket, like, makes my blood boil because I have the same sort of feeling you do of, like, what about the cars?
But it’s also like, OK, well, I’m on the road, too, and there does have to be enforcement mechanisms for all of this stuff to keep the road safe. So you know, like I don’t think there’s specific more regulation we need for e-bikes, but part of that, and I can say this as someone who rides on one, is (ph) like there’s going to have to be some enforcement at the sort of, you know, point of the street to keep things orderly.
Mike Radenbaugh: There’s no question. And just this year, the learning curve involved here is like re-educating the masses about using, you know, bikes and electric bikes as, you know, forms of active mobility for transportation.
Chris Hayes: Right.
Mike Radenbaugh: That’s a big lift, and that can be riding with hand signals and wearing visible and reflective clothing and —
Chris Hayes: Totally. This was the thing about Copenhagen that were such relations, that you didn’t need enforcement there because the design was so good and the norms are so strong. So like everyone, you had streetlights, and everyone obeys them. So you’re all together obeying them. And then you just don’t have that sort of sense of wildness that you have in a New York City biking experience or a Chicago biking, a lot of places.
And again, this is no shade on bikers. It’s just like the difference between, you know, if you have a light that says, like, red light, OK, now you can turn left, now you can turn right, OK, now it’s green, now it’s yellow. That does go a long way to producing collective behavior, you know, along the way that you would want.
Mike Radenbaugh: I couldn’t agree more. And I think there’s a huge responsibility both in the public and private sector to really continue huge investment here. But there’s also things inherent in the design of the vehicles that can really help. And so, one of those things is electric bikes just in general, I believe people are more likely to stop at a stop sign rather than roll a stop sign or go through a red light, like you were talking about, because it’s easy to get going again.
Chris Hayes: It’s easier, yes. That’s a great point, yeah, that feeling of like, oh, I don’t want to stop on your bike.
So what does your growth trajectory look like at Rad? I know you guys have grown a ton. And what happens when a product is popular, it invites competition. So I imagine there’s a lot happening in the e-bike space from a business perspective right now.
Mike Radenbaugh: It is. It is. But Rad, we’ve always been focused on having a very curated lineup, so we have fewer types of products. And we focus on high volumes. That’s how we get the price down compared to a lot of the incumbent folks in the category. And so that’s what we kind of urge in the categories. People try to focus on products that can become ubiquitous, produced in high volumes with a high safety level, and then supported easily because there’s fewer variations of spare parts or replacement parts.
Chris Hayes: That’s a really big question, too. The service question is a big one. You know, the great thing about the bike, right, the bicycle, the humble bicycle, is that it’s a very standard and universal technology. You can walk into a bike shop just about anywhere in the world, right, and like here, I need to replace the tire. Like here my brake pads are worn out, right.
So if you walk into a regular bike shop with an e-bike, sometimes they’re like they’re worried, right? They don’t want to void a warranty. If the motor itself is housed in the back-wheel casing as it is on the Rad Rover, they get a little skittish about taking that wheel off. Even if they’re going to replace the tire, they’re not doing anything invasive.
So how do you sort of deal with that service question?
Mike Radenbaugh: This is also another area where there’s a big learning curve is building the infrastructure on the back end, on the support side, that there will be a lack effect to a degree.
Chris Hayes: Totally.
Mike Radenbaugh: And so, you know, you’re a part of this early adopter wave. We’re now getting into what I believe as the early majority soon. And with that, I think Rad is not alone in this, is (ph) we’ve been expanding the types of services offered.
I think this is crucial because early adopters can do a lot of their own service, and the more progressive early adopter bike shops are available, there’s hundreds of them across the country that love working on every type of electric bike. And that’s becoming more and more the case is that more and more bike shops are coming online that are seeing the wave, and learning the skills, and being trained by the brands, and coming on board.
There’s been new technology tools launched, so now on our website and other e-bike brands, you can see the integrated bike shops. You know, by entering your ZIP Code, you can see which shops are ready to support you.
But then something we took on, which is unusual, because we’re direct-to-consumer about our omnichannel because we own our own retail stores as well. And that retail store has been a way to provide services curated from the test ride experience all the way through to (ph) service and having a long life with your e-bike for people that aren’t as comfortable finding their own bike shop, people that aren’t as comfortable doing their own service.
So I think it’s crucial that we have a smorgasbord of all these types of offerings. Just like you would with, you know, your car today, you can have your neighbor do some repairs for you, you can bring it to the dealership, that kind of thing.
Chris Hayes: Where do you build your bikes?
Mike Radenbaugh: We build on five countries now, so now all around the world, including Taiwan, Southeast Asia and Europe.
Chris Hayes: And the design is here in the U.S.?
Mike Radenbaugh: That’s right.
Chris Hayes: How have the supply chains been through the pandemic? And how, sort of, reliable are they?
Mike Radenbaugh: Well, we certainly weren’t immune to all the things that every, you know, hard goods manufacturer experienced in the pandemic. So there was a (ph) long periods where we’ve been out of stock of crucial key products for customers, even say, you know, a chain or an innertube —
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
Mike Radenbaugh: And so we’d be out of stock for a month or two on some of these key parts.
And the Rad teams fought hard to work through this time period, and we’re now getting in a much better place on inventory across all the different SKUs.
So I think across the whole category, we’re seeing much better levels of inventory. Inventory went from shortage to elevated last year, and now normalized. So folks that maybe we’re getting deals last year on e-bikes that were overstocked in their local bike retail shop, that might not be the case anymore in 2023 because inventory levels are more normalized now.
Chris Hayes: You know, I was an early, not adopter, but fascinated with the Segway, of course. And this was, you know, going to remake urban transportation. This was, for the youngins (ph) listening, this was the sort of gyroscope scooter balance. You know, the hoverboards that my son has one now, that basically has the technology that was in this, you know, multi-thousand-dollar Segway back in the day.
Do you ever worry, I guess, that it’s a fad, right? Or that this is, like it’s in now, in fashion now. It’s like roller blades, which there’s a certain point where, like, everyone needs to get roller blades. And then it’s like, did people really use roller blades to get around New York City? Like, not that much.
You know, how much do you think this is sort of customer fad or whimsy or fashion, and why you think that there is something more durable than that out past whatever booms there might be?
Mike Radenbaugh: I mentioned there’s always something new driving adoption each year, and so the pandemic, the rising cost of living, having more selection, consumers’ increased focus on sustainable transportation, it’s all these things continue to come, and ridership continues to grow for net-new reasons every year. So that’s why I think this has never been a boom-and-bust kind of business or category is there is incredible product market fit.
There’s now more options available to consumers, from whatever walk of life you are, you’ve (ph) got a solution. It’s like we just launched an electric tricycle just a few months back, and it was one of the most requested products we’ve ever had. And so, it’s like all these things are colliding just sort of say the e-bike is here to stay, and it is going to be a savior for this planet.
Transportation is the number one source of greenhouse gases. So we need electric bikes just because of that, but they also happen to have just amazing product fit. People love to ride them.
Chris Hayes: Can you imagine a world where they really take a serious chunk out of carbon emissions?
Mike Radenbaugh: Oh, without a doubt. And so, if people in the U.S. would replace one half of their trips under one mile, it would replace 400,000 cars —
Chris Hayes: Wow.
Mike Radenbaugh: — in the U.S., which is like some absurd amount of CO2.
(LAUGHTER)
Chris Hayes: One-half of under one mile, yeah. I love the fact that there’s all this innovation generally in the transportation space. I saw someone with, like, someone’s working on some, like, shoes that have wheels in them or something that I saw (ph).
(LAUGHTER)
It’s like, that’s wild.
Mike Radenbaugh: Hey, count me in.
Chris Hayes: But yes, I mean, I guess, like that, the under two-mile trip, right, there’s so many trips like that. And we just so routinely use our cars in America for them. Even in the highly dense, you know, public transportation.
Like, there are things that I have to do that are mile and a half away that the subway line just doesn’t quite work for. And again, if it’s nice out, I’ll bike. I often walk because I just really like to walk. But like that really, there’s much low-hanging fruit there of getting people out of their cars for those trips.
Mike Radenbaugh: This reminds me of your episode with Aaron Gordon on the “Back to the Future of Transportation.” And he said there are, you know, three of four people are commuting in single-occupancy vehicles.
Chris Hayes: Yeah, right.
Mike Radenbaugh: And like, so that figures sort of like, I think we all kind of knew that. When you look around, if you’re stuck in traffic, most cars just have one person in them. But the one stat here that I think it’s just staggering is that 77 percent of car trips are less than 10 miles —
Chris Hayes: Right.
Mike Radenbaugh: — something like 60 percent of trips are under five.
Chris Hayes: Right.
Mike Radenbaugh: So people are using cars irresponsibly to go pick up a cup of Joe. And, you know, with their, again, this huge car they could easily do with an electric bike, but even maybe another important stat to call out here is, like, electric bikes can carry a lot of stuff —
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
Mike Radenbaugh: — on them, too. And it’s sort of surprising to (ph) people at first, but you can tow trailers and have kids seats on the back, and passengers, and carry your pets, and dogs, and animals, and all your groceries. I can fit six bags of groceries on my cargo bike, as an example.
Chris Hayes: The thing I say, because I can hear someone listening to (ph), you know, cup of coffee responsibly and getting their back up (ph), you know, there’s a huge range of health and physical ability in the U.S., right. And there’s lots of folks like that, you know, an e-bike isn’t going to be right for them for whatever reasons. They just don’t want to do it. They physically feel intimidated by it.
The thing that I always say to folks about that is like, if you’re a person for whom really a car is going to be the way you’re going to get around, particularly let’s say seniors, it is better for you to get the other cars off the road that don’t need to be there. I mean, that really, and this is through New York City. It’s like there are some people who are going to need for mobility reasons, need to take carts, need point-to-point pick up and transportation. And there’s going to be lots of those folks.
For those folks, it’s better for them to be going through streets that have fewer cars on them because the other people who don’t have to are using alternate means of transportation. And that’s like, to me, that’s the win-win I’m always trying to sell people on when I talk about this. Because I have few in my life for like, are you out of your mind, like, of course, I’m never getting on an e-bike.
(LAUGHTER)
Like, that’s not going to happen. And I’m like totally, I get it. I’m not telling you should, but I’m saying there’s some people out there right now who are in front of you in traffic who could not be in the car.
Mike Radenbaugh: Thanks, Chris, for the callout here. And I can say, nobody likes to sit in traffic. And the average American, they lost 51 hours to sitting in traffic in 2022. And that was up 15 hours from 2021.
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
Mike Radenbaugh: And so, people are seeing more and more traffic. So the answer isn’t wider car lanes, and because that’s been proven time and time again it will create more —
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
Mike Radenbaugh: — congestion because more people are incentivized to drive. So I couldn’t agree more. And we’re not, e-bike people like myself, are not asking for everybody to drop their cars completely. And you don’t have to be a super-user of an electric bike either. Like I just saw a post from one of our customers that they rode 20,000 kilometers on their e-bike. And —
Chris Hayes: That’s a lot.
Mike Radenbaugh: — not everyone has to do that either.
Chris Hayes: Yeah, that’s a lot.
Mike Radenbaugh: But — there’s a sweet spot here I’ve always believed in, which is that the e-bike can replace some of your second car’s miles at first.
Chris Hayes: Yes.
Mike Radenbaugh: Then can replace your second car all together and then —
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
Mike Radenbaugh: — maybe start edging into your primary car.
Chris Hayes: Yeah, and I know a lot of folks who have. I’ve started to see it both on social media, not just here in New York and other places like, you know, there’s a lot of kid-shuttling around that happens in in those sort of in between two mile trips that they can be really perfect for just speaking for parents out there that are moving little kids around, and sort of 5, 6-year-old, and you got to take one for this place. And to not deal with traffic is just an incredible blessing.
Do you think you’re going to be doing this? Is this like your life’s calling, e-bikes?
Mike Radenbaugh: It is. Yeah, all my other friends in, you know, similar roles in other companies always ask me that. And they’ve moved on with their second or third company. You know, I’m all-in on e-bikes, and I always have been.
So I’m lucky in that way that I found my calling at an early age and been able to obsess over this, I think, very important space where a lot of change is needed.
Chris Hayes: Where do you live now?
Mike Radenbaugh: In Seattle, Washington.
Chris Hayes: In Seattle. Seattle is a great e-bike place, too, because it’s so hilly. You know, you can get around it, but there’s some monster hills in that town.
(LAUGHTER)
You’re (ph) going down in a normal bike.
Mike Radenbaugh: Yeah, and it’s inclement weather in the winter, as people know, so good rain gear is crucial.
And I always share with people my favorite saying from our Dutch colleagues, which, if they’re worried about riding in the rain, I always say the Dutch saying is, you’re not made of sugar. So you’re not going to melt. And you know, a good pair of rain gear and a good set of gloves and riding in the rain can actually be really quite joyous.
But I think this comes back to the prior points we were chatting on, which is like we have to untrain ourselves from every time you go from point A to point B having the convenience and heaters and —
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
Mike Radenbaugh: — heated seats, and heated steering wheels, and just live a little more. Like, I guess, I just feel whenever I get on my e-bike and it’s inclement weather, you feel a little more live afterwards.
Chris Hayes: There’s something to that, for sure. I remember there was one winter I told myself I was going to bike for the whole Chicago winter, and I did it. And that’s an undertaking. And then I look back on that and think like, I don’t really have that in me anymore.
But this is making me think like, maybe I should just try to push my e-bike commute like a month further into the winter. You know, I usually ended around, like Thanksgiving is about as long as I go. Maybe I should try a few more weeks in the winter. I am, after all, not made of sugar.
(LAUGHTER)
Mike Radenbaugh: That’s right.
Chris Hayes: Mike Radenbaugh is the Founder and Chairman of Rad Power Bikes, which is the largest e-bike company in the U.S. He built his first e-bike, as you heard, when he was 15.
Mike, this was a great pleasure. Thanks a lot.
Mike Radenbaugh: Thank you, Chris.
Chris Hayes: Once again, great thanks to Mike Radenbaugh of Rad Power Bikes.
Since we talked about safety, I feel that I should note that there is currently a lawsuit that’s been filed by the parents of a 12-year-old girl who died after an e-bike accident in 2021. It’s a wrongful death suit against Rad Power Bikes arguing that they engaged in, quote, inappropriate marketing of e-bikes to children.
In a statement, the Rad Power Bikes team acknowledged they’re aware of the lawsuit, but they do not comment on pending litigation, which is why I didn’t bring up in the conversation because they weren’t going to say anything about it. But just worth noting that, obviously, because safety is such a paramount concern, I wanted to flag that at the end of our conversation.
I’d love to hear your feedback on e-bikes and all modes of transport, your experience, what’s on your mind about them. You can e-mail us at WITHpod@gmail.com. Follow the conversation on TikTok using the hashtag WITHpod and tweet us with the hashtag WITHpod.
“Why Is This Happening?” is presented by MSNBC and NBC News, produced by Doni Holloway and Brendan O’Melia, engineered by Bob Mallory, and featuring music by Eddie Cooper. You can see more of our work, including links to things we mentioned here, by going to nbcnews.com/whyisthishappening.
Tweet us with the hashtag #WITHpod, email WITHpod@gmail.com. Follow us on TikTok by searching for WITHpod. “Why Is This Happening?” is presented by MSNBC and NBC News, produced by Doni Holloway and Brendan O’Melia, engineered by Bob Mallory and features music by Eddie Cooper. You can see more of our work, including links to things we mentioned here, by going to nbcnews.com/whyisthishappening.