Cycling UK in favour of banning e-bike private sales on ebay

Electrically assisted bikes, trikes, etc. that are legal in the UK
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LinusR
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Cycling UK in favour of banning e-bike private sales on ebay

Post by LinusR »

Screenshot from 2024-10-12 08-05-54.png
If you are looking to sell your ebike on ebay you'd better be quick as ebay are banning the sale of them from the end of the month. And Cycling UK is pleased about this.

Under a "good news" story in Cycling UK's latest members' email it welcomes the policy by ebay. In other words, if you are intending to sell your perfectly road legal, consumer compliant ebike then you won't be able to sell it on one of the most popular market places. You'll have to sell it elsewhere or sell it to a shop at well below its market value.

This is a very poor show from Cycling UK who ironically are promoting the many advantages of ebikes. Sales of electric motorcycles (passing them off as e-bikes) should be clamped down on. But this is not the way to do it.

Article here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5ywq8xgkkyo
Carlton green
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Re: Cycling UK in favour of banning e-bike private sales on ebay

Post by Carlton green »

I don’t ride an e-bike so aren’t currently effected, however I do regard the reported stance by Cycling UK as un-reasonable and at some point in the future I might want to privately buy a second hand e-bike form one of the many genuine sellers that there are on eBay. To my mind eBay’s stance, as reportedly supported by Cycling UK, is a catch all that will penalise genuine sellers of good second hand products. Ironically a lot of stuff has been and will be purchased new off of eBay that really should never have been sold in the first place (like iffy batteries and motors that aren’t legal to use on the road in the UK). Some suppliers of new goods have questionable regard for anything other than shifting stock.

I’ve not been able to find the policy statement on CUK’s website. A link would be good.
Don’t fret, it’s OK to: ride a simple old bike; ride slowly, walk, rest and admire the view; ride off-road; ride in your raincoat; ride by yourself; ride in the dark; and ride one hundred yards or one hundred miles. Your bike and your choices to suit you.
Jdsk
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Re: Cycling UK in favour of banning e-bike private sales on ebay

Post by Jdsk »

I’ve not been able to find the policy statement on CUK’s website. A link would be good.
viewtopic.php?p=1875261#p1875261

Jonathan
PH
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Re: Cycling UK in favour of banning e-bike private sales on ebay

Post by PH »

If you have a look on Ebay you'll see plenty of established business sellers offering just the sort of cheap E-bikes that pose the greatest risk. I'm not going to speculate why they've done this, but if it was for safety reasons, they've gone the wrong way about it. Cycling UK, should be making this point.
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LinusR
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Re: Cycling UK in favour of banning e-bike private sales on ebay

Post by LinusR »

Carlton green wrote: 12 Oct 2024, 10:41am I’ve not been able to find the policy statement on CUK’s website. A link would be good.
No actual policy statement yet. But that image is from their members' email. And this from their Twitter/X account: "eBay’s new policy limiting e-bike sales to approved sellers is a win for safety, with many fires linked to dangerous e-bikes bought via online marketplaces." https://x.com/WeAreCyclingUK/status/1844331426705178894

That statement is an unequivocal endorsement of what ebay is doing. So tough luck if you want to sell your perfectly legal e-bike on ebay. It's an odd thing for CUK to be supporting. They clearly haven't thought about this despite their promotion of e-bikes.
Carlton green
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Re: Cycling UK in favour of banning e-bike private sales on ebay

Post by Carlton green »

LinusR wrote: 12 Oct 2024, 12:53pm
Carlton green wrote: 12 Oct 2024, 10:41am I’ve not been able to find the policy statement on CUK’s website. A link would be good.
No actual policy statement yet. But that image is from their members' email. And this from their Twitter/X account: "eBay’s new policy limiting e-bike sales to approved sellers is a win for safety, with many fires linked to dangerous e-bikes bought via online marketplaces." https://x.com/WeAreCyclingUK/status/1844331426705178894

That statement is an unequivocal endorsement of what ebay is doing. So tough luck if you want to sell your perfectly legal e-bike on ebay. It's an odd thing for CUK to be supporting. They clearly haven't thought about this despite their promotion of e-bikes.
Thank you for the clarification, much appreciated.

Yes, I’m inclined to think that CUK has applied nowhere near enough thought to their response and that before going further they really need to backtrack and have a really good look at the wider implications.
Don’t fret, it’s OK to: ride a simple old bike; ride slowly, walk, rest and admire the view; ride off-road; ride in your raincoat; ride by yourself; ride in the dark; and ride one hundred yards or one hundred miles. Your bike and your choices to suit you.
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LinusR
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Re: Cycling UK in favour of banning e-bike private sales on ebay

Post by LinusR »

This is a quote from the latest Cycling UK magazine which has a feature about e-bikes.

"While the headlines are alarming, statistically these fires are very rare. Some estimates say there are more than two million e-bikes in the UK. Battery fires occur at the rate of less than one a day, meaning the chances of it happening to you are statistically insignificant." (my emphasis) See page 41 of the magazine.

While that is not an official policy statement by Cycling UK, it is an article in their official magazine. So to only a week later jump on the bandwagon of alarming headlines means there is something seriously amiss at CUK HQ.
Anthony-C
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Re: Cycling UK in favour of banning e-bike private sales on ebay

Post by Anthony-C »

So what's our best alternative to eBay for privately selling an electric bike?

Gumtree is owned by eBay, Facebook marketplace seems difficult to search and well, dodgy. After 25 years Ebid's still an echo chamber and CUK presumably requires membership to post an advert so that'll remain niche too.

With riders facing the prospect of struggling to get a good price for their last ebike to sanction the next, new retail sales could plummet. The cycling bodies are bemoaning the impact of adverse media coverage but don't seem to be helping themselves.
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gaz
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Re: Cycling UK in favour of banning e-bike private sales on ebay

Post by gaz »

Anthony-C wrote: 19 Oct 2024, 12:33amCUK presumably requires membership to post an advert so that'll remain niche too.
This forum, including placing personal small ads on the for sale boards, is open to all. Whether Cycling UK instructs the moderators to delete ads relating to used e-bikes and their batteries remains to be seen. It remains a niche sales space.
Jdsk
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Re: Cycling UK in favour of banning e-bike private sales on ebay

Post by Jdsk »

Gumtree UK isn't owned by eBay:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gumtree

I can't see any relevant current (!) restrictions:
https://help.gumtree.com/s/policies?cat ... on-Gumtree

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Re: Cycling UK in favour of banning e-bike private sales on ebay

Post by Bonzo Banana »

Jdsk wrote: 19 Oct 2024, 9:02am Gumtree UK isn't owned by eBay:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gumtree

I can't see any relevant current (!) restrictions:
https://help.gumtree.com/s/policies?cat ... on-Gumtree

Jonathan
Thats nice to read that Gumtree isn't owned by ebay anymore. I didn't know that. I wish they would move to doing online sales more and perhaps run auctions too.

As for dangerous ebikes, it feels to me that many of the reported incidents are related to gig economy riders who clock up huge miles on their ebikes often doing something like 10 miles an hour and often doing two 5 hour shifts a day and working 6 days a week. Which is 500 miles or more a week and over a year could be 25,000-30,000 miles. This is extreme use of an ebike and not something it was probably intended to do. It's no surprise such heavily used battery packs fail when the cells have some extreme use.
Anthony-C
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Re: Cycling UK in favour of banning e-bike private sales on ebay

Post by Anthony-C »

Thanks for setting me straight. If the used electric bike market fragments a lot I think that sector as a whole would suffer, so I'm keen to gravitate to eBay's leading / largest ebike competitor. Is there a concensus emerging yet on the best choice?
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Re: Cycling UK in favour of banning e-bike private sales on ebay

Post by Anthony-C »

I met one gig economy rider on a hub motored bike whose entire drivetrain had seized with wear, they'd taken the chain off to keep it moving. Cells lose capacity with heavy use but I read that usage reduces dendrite formation and the expectation seems to be that old cells fade away benignly. However if these riders are using the correct fast charger but wear the battery down to 50% capacity the effective charging C-rate will have doubled, maybe that's an issue and one that some BMS's overlook?
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Re: Cycling UK in favour of banning e-bike private sales on ebay

Post by LittleGreyCat »

I am assuming that the ration of (illegal hacked together):(original main stream manufacturer) is such that the suffering of the few (like myself) who bought mainstream off the shelf bikes is justified by the prevention of suspect and dangerous sales.

I suppose what is needed is a central point which will certify used electric bikes for onward sale.

This is going to impose an additional cost but would allow a trusted sales channel.
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Re: Cycling UK in favour of banning e-bike private sales on ebay

Post by Bonzo Banana »

Anthony-C wrote: 19 Oct 2024, 2:07pm I met one gig economy rider on a hub motored bike whose entire drivetrain had seized with wear, they'd taken the chain off to keep it moving. Cells lose capacity with heavy use but I read that usage reduces dendrite formation and the expectation seems to be that old cells fade away benignly. However if these riders are using the correct fast charger but wear the battery down to 50% capacity the effective charging C-rate will have doubled, maybe that's an issue and one that some BMS's overlook?
I don't know where that expectation came from but old heaviliy used cells are much more likely to fail and lead to fires, the hot/cold cycles of use gradually wears out the material and the cell struggles more with charging and can get hotter and hotter. The BMS should monitor the failing cells and charge them less or bypass them I believe but I don't think this is guaranteed to work. An old heavily used battery pack is far more likely to fail and lead to fires. However there are other factors like the discharge rate of each individual cell and the charge rate too. Discharging cells well within their specification will mean less heat, more charge cycles etc.

Thinking about your first comment 'seized with wear' I sort of wondered if the truth was seized with lack of wear and use. Hub motor ebikes massively reduce the wear rate of the drivetrain as they work independently of it however if you are the type of ebike rider that just uses the throttle all the time then perhaps that drivetrain literally just seizes because of lack of use. High powered mid-drive ebikes are the type of ebikes that massively accelerate the wear rates of the drivetrain as often they are pushing through 4-5x the power of a normal rider through the drivetrain. If you have one of those direct drive hub motor ebikes and de-restrict it then often you can't even pedal fast enough to assist the motor if the ebike is capable of something like 28mph on its own power. You'd look pretty nuts having to pedal to assist the motor unless you have very high gearing which typically ebikes don't have as your cadence would need to be really high. You know many of these gig economy riders have no intention of doing much cycling themselves as they often make them single speed ebikes so absolutely no chance of assisting the motor except when the motor is bogged down on the steeper hills.
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