Transcript exported from the video version of this episode - Note that it has not been copyedited

00:00:00:02 - 00:00:21:19
Josh Hon
You know, very simply and I've seen this in my own life. What I would say is, you know, four, four trips that are shorter than start easy, right? Shorter than three miles, five kilometers. Think about doing that on a bike instead of in a car and see how it feels. See how you know, Do you enjoy it more?

00:00:21:27 - 00:00:37:27
Josh Hon
Is it faster? Are you getting a bit of work out? You know, like like tonight, for example, I you know, my my commute to work is about ten kilometers. But it's a great way to get a workout in without actually having to separately set out time to do a workout.

00:00:38:10 - 00:01:05:15
John Simmerman
Hey, everyone, welcome to the Active Towns Channel. I'm John Simmerman and that is Josh Hon with Tern Bikes, one of my favorite bike brands. Just because they are so awesome, they're comfortable, easy to use and I just love my GSD, so it's an absolute honor to connect with Josh and talk bikes with him and the potential that electric assist and cargo carrying capacity can have on our society.

00:01:06:03 - 00:01:17:03
John Simmerman
It's a good one, so let's get right to it with Josh on. Josh, thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast. Welcome.

00:01:17:20 - 00:01:18:04
Josh Hon
Thanks, John.

00:01:18:21 - 00:01:25:19
John Simmerman
He just I love to have my guest just give a quick, you know, 32nd introduction to themselves. So who is Josh on?

00:01:27:17 - 00:01:55:24
Josh Hon
Well, born in L.A., grew up in L.A., went to school and lived up in the Bay Area for a while. And then at the age of 25, moved over to Taiwan to help parents with a bike business. And so now I've spent more than half my life in Taiwan a little bit, you know, between cultures. I'm a at this stage of my life, I'm a very passionate cyclist.

00:01:57:00 - 00:02:35:08
Josh Hon
More for transportation, I would say. Yeah. You know, I started a company with with an amazing team of people. It's called turn bicycles. We design, manufacture, sell at urban transportation vehicles. So that's that's how we think of the bikes that we sell. And, you know, our mission is to get people out of cars for short trips. You know, anything under five miles basically can be done a lot better and more enjoyably on a bicycle.

00:02:35:17 - 00:02:40:11
Josh Hon
And our goal is to design bikes that let people make that switch easily.

00:02:41:10 - 00:03:09:03
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah, I, I love that story, too. And, and before we hit the record button, we were, you know, just talking about the fact that, yeah, we've tread some of the same ground. I have my roots there in Los Angeles as well. And I don't know about you, I mean, but having, having that connection to L.A. and experiencing car culture the way that that we both have, it's really influenced my approach to life now.

00:03:09:03 - 00:03:18:03
John Simmerman
And I try to spend as much of my time as possible on a bike and away from a car. And I think it's I think it's part of the L.A. influence about you.

00:03:20:17 - 00:03:43:20
Josh Hon
Yeah, I think absolutely right. So growing up in L.A., it was basically you turn 16, you need your driver's license that was like mandatory. And if you got a little bit lucky, you had a car as well. Right. So, I mean, that was like every 16 year old kind of you know, that was like your mission in life was to get a car, you know.

00:03:43:20 - 00:04:13:21
Josh Hon
And I lived on the West Side. I went to school in North Hollywood. That commute, if you think about it, right. Sunset for off four or five over the hill into the valley and then the 1 to 1 across. You couldn't do that commute today. And then I had, you know, sports practice. Right? So imagine like you finish practice and you're driving that route home at five in the evening, literally, you couldn't do that drive.

00:04:14:16 - 00:04:26:07
Josh Hon
And every time I go back to L.A., you know, traffic is worse, right? Yeah, Every single year it's worse. And it's like, Oh, my God, yeah, this is this is so brutal.

00:04:27:15 - 00:04:48:25
John Simmerman
So I have a I have a love hate. I have a love hate relationship with Southern California and Los Angeles. I mean, fourth generation. So I have deep, deep roots there. And, you know, I've got I've got great, great, great grandparents buried there. So it's it's one of those situations where I do miss it. But at the same time when I'm there, it's so crazy.

00:04:48:25 - 00:05:18:18
John Simmerman
I'm like, I can't wait to get out of here. But I will say this. It is getting better slowly. It's getting better with it is more. Well, yeah, in the sense that what we are seeing is with the build out of the transit system and and I have noticed that being able to travel to LAX with my travel bike, my folding bike and be able to, you know, get off and jump on the metro system and be able to get onto the rail.

00:05:18:25 - 00:05:46:22
John Simmerman
I can get all the way out to where my family was over in the Glendora area very, very easily and never stepped foot in an automobile. And that's a huge, huge improvement over what it was like in the eighties when when I was there in college. So it is getting better. Still a lot of work to be done and and they are there are some really good people who are working hard to create more livable communities in that area because they know they've got a problem.

00:05:47:05 - 00:05:51:10
John Simmerman
But as you and I both know, it's good enough whether you should be able to ride all year round.

00:05:53:15 - 00:06:17:04
Josh Hon
Yeah, absolutely. So I mean, it is I think I guess the infrastructure has not reached quite, you know, the places that I that I'm in. But yeah, it's, it's you have to start someplace right. You don't go from 0 to 100 in one shot. You have to get from 0 to 10 to 20 to 30. And you know, seeing that transit line in Santa monica, for instance.

00:06:17:04 - 00:06:19:27
Josh Hon
Yeah, that was exciting. My last trip back.

00:06:20:04 - 00:06:50:11
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's what I am encouraged by, is that it is getting better over time and it needs to get better because it's, it's, it's a mess. It's been a mess. It's been a mess for a while. But really the key is, as you were mentioning, this is this is this is the the key thing that we need to be thinking about is, you know, how do we take those steps to integrate bikes into every day trips and, you know, part of your everyday lifestyle.

00:06:50:18 - 00:07:22:15
John Simmerman
And what I love about the turn brand and the way that you guys have positioned yourself is that these are very comfortable, very functional utilitarian bikes that, you know, people of all ages and abilities can take advantage of and utilize. And to me, there's no beautiful, more beautiful picture than what we have on screen here right now is know just just a lady with her dog and they're off on a utilitarian trip.

00:07:22:15 - 00:07:27:19
John Simmerman
I mean, this to me speaks volumes as to what the Turn brand is really all about.

00:07:28:02 - 00:07:51:25
Josh Hon
Yeah. You know, we we think about, you know, what are the barriers to cycling more right And we want to design bikes that that gradually get rid of those different barriers. Right and you know you know one of them is safety. Right. And that's that comes down to infrastructure. And so that's something that, you know, we have to just, you know, work with people for bikes and we have to lobby for.

00:07:52:05 - 00:08:15:22
Josh Hon
But there are there are a lot of other things like just you're worried about theft. Right. So what kind of locking mechanisms do you have on your bike? Um, you know, back to safety. You know, what kind of lights do you have on the bike? You know, I remember, you know, this was years ago, but biking with the family would involve 30 minutes of me running around the house looking for bike lights for for bikes.

00:08:16:03 - 00:08:33:19
Josh Hon
Are they charged? Then I need the locks. Then I need to look for the helmets. And then. And it was really like 30 minutes of just running around the house. And so, you know, one of our things is, you know, we should design bikes where the locks, the lights. Right. All of the safety equipment, you know, the trunk.

00:08:33:27 - 00:08:49:21
Josh Hon
Right. The trunk is already on the bike and your helmet is in the trunk. And so really, when you want to go ride a bike, all you have to do is walk over to your bike, sit on it and ride away without spending all of that time looking for all of the different stuff.

00:08:50:04 - 00:09:11:03
John Simmerman
Yeah. And I love this photo, by the way, is is that this is a great photo that really exemplifies the fact that you're selling a complete bike, that the you know, that that light is already on there and and I have a GSD, you know, and so I love the fact that, you know, I also have not only a tail light but also it's a brake light too.

00:09:11:04 - 00:09:38:12
John Simmerman
So because it actually is actuated so that when I'm squeezing on the blade brake, it actually has that light. So I love the fact that that's one of the things that you all are doing as a brand is to sell bikes that are pretty darn close to complete. I mean, yes, there are some other accessories that you can, you know, that you can accessorize with, you know, depending on your cargo carrying desires, whether or not you need a seat in the back, etc., all those sorts of things.

00:09:38:12 - 00:09:56:05
John Simmerman
And we can get to that when we get in, dive deeper into cargo carrying capacity. But I love the fact that you have thought about that because there's nothing more irritating to me than, you know, trying to encourage people to get out and ride and that they're like excited. They go and they go to a bike shop to try to pick up a bike.

00:09:56:05 - 00:10:18:08
John Simmerman
And it's like it's like it seems like they have to buy all these additional accessories to be able to even ride the bike. And, you know, if you go to a shop in the Netherlands or you go to a shop in in Denmark or someplace Sweden and go in to buy the utilitarian bike, it's got the fenders, it's got the lights, it's got everything that you need to be able to ride.

00:10:18:08 - 00:10:23:28
John Simmerman
You're not having to like add on a whole bunch of extra stuff. So Annabel too, by the way.

00:10:23:28 - 00:10:50:03
Josh Hon
Annabel Yes, yes. Yeah. No, I mean, we are, we are users of the product, right? So we are the customer. And it's pretty easy for us because we go, What do we want? Well, we don't want to battery keys. We want a single battery key that also operates the frame lock. Right? These things cost more money. But if you are a daily user of the product, you just want these conveniences.

00:10:50:14 - 00:10:58:16
Josh Hon
And in the end, you know, I think a lot of people are willing to pay a little bit extra for lots and lots of convenience, comfort, safety, etc..

00:10:59:11 - 00:11:12:07
John Simmerman
Now you mentioned safety, and so I decided to let's let's dive into safety a little bit. You know, currently how many of your bikes, how much of the fleet is actually e-bikes these days?

00:11:15:07 - 00:11:22:10
Josh Hon
Um, well, a lot of what we sell is electric. Okay. Yeah. I mean, um.

00:11:22:29 - 00:11:25:12
John Simmerman
It's really the wave of the future, so. Yeah.

00:11:25:21 - 00:11:49:15
Josh Hon
Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think going forward, right, Especially if you think about it in terms of transportation with passenger or cargo, electric just eliminates and basically gets rid of a lot of those barriers. Right? I'm tired. It's windy, It's hilly. It's a little bit far right. It gets rid of all of those barriers to cycling.

00:11:50:06 - 00:12:18:12
John Simmerman
Yeah. And the reason I wanted to go to this is because obviously, especially in New York, there's been a lot of talk about e-bike fires and battery issues and all of that. So I want to make sure we get to this right away and talk about how important it is that if you are going to head down the road of purchasing an e-bike, how important it is to make sure that you're getting a product that's safe.

00:12:19:18 - 00:12:37:27
John Simmerman
I've had representatives from Bosch on the podcast in the past, and so we've talked about the e-bike systems and all that, but why don't you just pause to take a little bit of time to reflect on the importance of both of these aspects of safety, both the battery system and also the frame testing system?

00:12:38:10 - 00:13:08:16
Josh Hon
Yeah, we look at safety too, too big kind of areas. One is the the battery drive train system, the other is kind of the frame fork chassis. Battery is incredibly important to make sure that that is safe because if my math is correct there, there's the power of six hand grenades in a in a four or 500 watt hour battery pack.

00:13:08:25 - 00:13:37:08
Josh Hon
So that's a lot of power. And the manufacturing process for a battery is it's not easy, right? You you take all these cells, you have to weld them together. Then you take these small bundles and you pack them into a case. It needs to be protected from water. It needs to be protected from shock, if any of those welds breaks, you have a thermal event, a fire.

00:13:37:27 - 00:14:12:27
Josh Hon
So if anything goes wrong right in the manufacture of this, this battery pack, you have a very, very serious fire danger. And I think working with Bosch lets you have, you know, let's you know, that there's a there is a manufacturer that literally makes hundreds of millions of lithium ion devices per year. Right. All all different kinds. And they have safety standards for for every step.

00:14:13:02 - 00:14:38:17
Josh Hon
Right. So it's even, you know, the battery management system, like all of these things, you know, the charger, how the charger interacts with the battery, it's incredibly important. And when you when when people want to sell lower cost product, the way you do that is you cut corners. And when you cut corners, maybe the welding is a little bit different, maybe the waterproofing is a little bit different.

00:14:38:17 - 00:15:00:25
Josh Hon
Maybe in the cases, you know, like so there's there's so many ways you can cut corners. And so when you're getting cheaper and cheaper and cheaper, that's why, unfortunately, you see a lot of fires in New York City caused by electrical vehicles. I don't want to say all you know, some are scooters, some are motor mopeds and some are e-bikes.

00:15:01:14 - 00:15:29:14
Josh Hon
Unfortunately, it's it's almost always vehicles that gig workers. Right. So these are the, you know, kind of less advantaged people in our society. They have to buy kind of cheap product and that's where you have problems. So I think, yeah, and there have been so many fires now that New York has basically signed into law a requirement for e-bikes to be able to it.

00:15:29:14 - 00:15:56:18
Josh Hon
14 certified. We think that certification is important. We agree with it. And I think, you know, the consumer ultimately will get a safer product. You have to have regulation, right? If you know, if you didn't regulate cars, if you didn't regulate medicine, if you didn't regulate the quality of food. Right. Imagine if there is hey, there's no regulations on the quality of chicken.

00:15:57:06 - 00:16:13:28
Josh Hon
Anybody can sell anything right. We would have a lot of issues. But essentially e-bikes have been like this. It's been a wild West and everybody charges towards the lower price points. And because, you know, the consumer doesn't realize it, but there have been a lot of safety issues.

00:16:14:18 - 00:16:41:17
John Simmerman
I'm glad you pointed out, too. It's not just bikes. It's really it really is. All of these electric mobility devices that came out and we did see early on, you know, a few years ago even the demise of some electric mobility devices that, you know, ended up having a bad reputation for for catching fire. They were banned. Yeah, they were hoverboards.

00:16:41:17 - 00:17:03:10
John Simmerman
They were banned from from airplanes. And very, very quickly, you know, that that got tamped down. But I'm so I'm really glad that you mentioned that. Yeah. It's it's it's not just it's not just e-bikes. It's it's the fact that any of these devices, if they don't have proper testing, proper certification, things could go wrong very quickly.

00:17:04:06 - 00:17:28:20
Josh Hon
So yeah, yeah, yeah. And when they go wrong they go really wrong because it's not easy to put out a it's not like you get a fire extinguisher and you just spray it and the fires out like that battery just keeps on going, right, that fire. So the other thing I we think is incredibly important is frame fork chassis testing.

00:17:28:20 - 00:18:05:24
Josh Hon
And and I think this is another area where they're effectively now there are no standards there. There there is a there is this Europe has the best standards, but even Europe does not have a cargo bike standard for really bikes that are carrying more than 120 kilograms, which is I think what is that, 200, 262 to £64. So that and that's rider plus bike plus cargo.

00:18:05:24 - 00:18:38:04
Josh Hon
Right. 264 total gross vehicle weight. So they're they're the only standard that exists now is a draft German cargo bike standard which we think is very good and it basically you know the people who drafted it basically said look, you know, there are more and more cargo bikes coming out now. We need some standards to test the product because, you know, the GST, the GST came out, we basically tested it to the draft German cargo bike standard.

00:18:38:13 - 00:18:38:22
John Simmerman
Right.

00:18:39:05 - 00:19:08:14
Josh Hon
But it is incredibly severe because we tested the bike to 200 kilograms and so it took us, I think three or four tries to get our fork to pass because we were putting we were putting so much force in the braking test that we were actually bending the rotors, uh, 1.8 millimeter rotors. We were, we were bending them before we were reaching full kind of full force pushing on that fork.

00:19:08:23 - 00:19:46:02
Josh Hon
And, and so we made the the fork tubing thicker and thicker and thicker to the point where our supplier just said, look, Josh, you guys want to go thicker, We might as well just use solid aluminum rods here. I mean, we've never used tubing. The stick. And then we we turn around and we we see a lot of cargo bikes in the market, especially, I would have to say, lower cost ones where it looks like you've got these skinny little forks that look like they're off, you know, a department store, mountain bike, and they are claiming 200 kilograms of capacity.

00:19:47:08 - 00:20:11:21
Josh Hon
And I think what's happened is that everybody says, hey, there's a GST. They claim 200 kilograms, hey, we're going to claim the same thing. But I think that testing is so critical because what happens when you're going down a hill, your kid is on the back, you're riding 25 miles an hour, 30 miles an hour, 40 miles an hour, and you break and something goes wrong with your fork.

00:20:12:05 - 00:20:38:15
Josh Hon
Bad things happen. So I feel like, you know, the testing for anybody claiming more than 120 kilograms or £264, they need to say, hey, what did we test it to? What standard do we tested to and who did the testing? Because traditionally in the bike industry, the person who made the fork or made the frame will say, Hey, I have test equipment, I can test it for you.

00:20:38:25 - 00:21:08:08
Josh Hon
But yeah, there's a slight conflict of interest when a company that manufactures that component is also responsible for testing it. So we insist on third party lab testing. We use a company called Efb in Germany. And so, you know, every one of our frames, forks handle post seatpost. They have to get tested. Third party to the weight and we use the German cargo bike standard as kind of a minnow.

00:21:08:13 - 00:21:37:05
Josh Hon
Actually. But I think that is so important that people need to realize that there are no mandatory test standards for cargo bikes in the United States. So when somebody claims some weight that's over £300, you have to ask what test standard did you test to? Who did the test write those two critical questions. You know, and I think you can also take a look at the bikes, right.

00:21:37:05 - 00:21:57:07
Josh Hon
When you look at a and a at a GST or a let's say a recent Mueller write, you can look at the construction of the bikes and you can say, okay, those are pretty sturdy. But if the fork looks like a department store fork, you have to seriously ask yourself, was that actually tested? Yeah, to any sort of standard.

00:21:58:05 - 00:22:02:02
John Simmerman
And I brought this photo up because we've we've got precious cargo.

00:22:02:08 - 00:22:02:15
Josh Hon
Yeah.

00:22:02:27 - 00:22:30:10
John Simmerman
Yeah. So I mean there's a reason for wanting to, to go for safety is because we do have we've got precious cargo when we're talking about trying to get more people riding more often for utilitarian trips, everyday trips, this is what we're talking about. Let's see if we can replace some car trips with bike trips. And there's going to be that expectation that we've got a safe and reliable and comfortable ride.

00:22:30:27 - 00:22:38:03
Josh Hon
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, those are kind of minimum, right? Minimum requirements, right. Don't people riding more? Yeah, Yeah.

00:22:38:21 - 00:23:14:27
John Simmerman
And, and I love the the images that that we have, you know here because this really starts to normalize what we can do with bikes. It's no longer this vision that you have to be wearing special clothing doing special things. You know, you can just be, you know, doing work, running errands. I'm not sure if this person's on a shopping trip or what they're doing, but I see a rake in the back and vegetables in the front, and maybe they were at their community garden.

00:23:15:27 - 00:23:16:15
John Simmerman
Good stuff.

00:23:17:00 - 00:23:31:00
Josh Hon
Yes. Yes. Yeah. Well, it's a it's a model. But of course that's that's the idea is that yes, you don't have to be dressed. You don't have to be dressed in spandex, you know, to to use a bike for transportation. Yeah.

00:23:31:15 - 00:23:54:01
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. Absolutely Love it. And the other thing that this really does is I think it opens up and reframes how you know, what we think about. We're both, you know, L.A. based, you know, kids. You grew up in car culture and like you said, you know, at 16, you got to get your driver's license. And there's that expectation.

00:23:54:13 - 00:24:00:08
John Simmerman
You know, if you're going on a date, you know what it would be like, Or guess what? Maybe a date looks like this now.

00:24:00:16 - 00:24:35:28
Josh Hon
Yeah. You know, I. I wish I had this bike in college, man. This would have been a fun bike to have in college. But, yeah, I mean, again, that's the, you know, our our distribution partner in Italy, he was telling us that one time he and his wife went to the opera, you know, and all their friends, you know, arrived in nice high end cars and he and his wife got dressed up, but they rode a GSD to the opera and everybody was, you know, looking at them like, Oh my God, you're crazy.

00:24:36:06 - 00:25:09:24
Josh Hon
Yeah, But, you know, he enjoyed it. You know, I think, I think this is what you know, what, what we're trying to do is change behavior. Change habits. Even, you know, there's a, you know, there's a gym that that I've been going to for, you know, 20, 20 some years. And in the past, it was always I would always drive because it's you know, you have to cross a couple of bridges and, you know, but now with the GSD, it's easy to you know, it could be by myself, it could be be with my wife, it could be with my son.

00:25:11:00 - 00:25:33:19
Josh Hon
It's it takes almost the exact same amount of time to go by bike as to go by car. And every time I'm in the car now on that trip, it's like, Oh God, this is so bad. But, but it's changed a 20 year habit for me that now when I can go to the club and work out, but I get there by bike instead of by car.

00:25:34:03 - 00:26:05:29
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. And you mentioned, you know, dressing up for the opera, but you know, also just, you know, wearing everyday clothing, doing some commutes. Great images here and again, exemplifying the fact that you all are building some some bikes that are not necessarily electric, but also just incredibly practical utilitarian tools for everyday life. And in this image, obviously, the, you know, the models exemplifying the fact that, yeah, we can take transit, too.

00:26:06:21 - 00:26:13:16
Josh Hon
Yeah, absolutely. This is our B-1B. It's our most compact folding bike. Yeah, it's pretty exciting. Little bike.

00:26:13:28 - 00:26:25:13
John Simmerman
Yeah. Now is was, is folding bikes. Is that part of the DNA of your experience with, with, with bikes and with this industry.

00:26:26:02 - 00:26:48:00
Josh Hon
Yes. So, you know, I got my start at two horn. That's where a lot of the team came from. So a lot of you know, we we have kind of a deep love for things folding, but also a lot of experience with making things fold. It's not it things get a lot more complicated when they kind of move in a 3D space.

00:26:49:06 - 00:27:13:15
Josh Hon
So that was kind of our original expertise. But but our, you know, with turn, we've always been about urban transportation. So it's not about, you know, we have an expertise in folding, but our interests, you know, are a lot broader. We're actually interested in, you know, getting people to switch out of cars onto bikes. And so folding is one way to do that, right?

00:27:13:15 - 00:27:36:10
Josh Hon
If you're going to combine a trip with public transport like you do to get to L.A.X., then folding is perfect. But in some cases, you know, it's it's a five or ten mile trip and it could just be electric whole way, right? So there's a lot of different ways or a lot of different types of vehicles, you know, that you could use.

00:27:36:10 - 00:27:40:02
Josh Hon
And so our interests are for all of them, actually. Yeah.

00:27:41:02 - 00:28:14:29
John Simmerman
The other thing that I'm very encouraged to see, you know, your brand and many other brands doing is starting to really embrace an all ages and abilities sort of ethic and trying to encourage, you know, people of literally of all ages and abilities to be able to get out and ride. This particular model, which came out recently, you know, features a much lower step over, you know, frame size and really encouraging, I think, people to be able to ride with that electric assist, you know, into their later years.

00:28:15:29 - 00:28:27:11
John Simmerman
I applaud you guys on this is absolutely brilliant and and if we have safe infrastructure in our communities we can get people riding longer into into their later decades.

00:28:27:29 - 00:28:51:25
Josh Hon
Yeah I mean right when if our goal is to get more people cycling, it can't just be hey you have to be between five to and and six for fit right. It can't just be that because hey there's a lot of people shorter than five feet, two inches. There are people with mobility issues. There are people who are less confident on a bike.

00:28:52:10 - 00:29:13:02
Josh Hon
So we actually had a prototype of this, the spike, and we had a friend's wife. We were trying to convince her to go on a on a three day bike tour. And and so we said, hey, you're but she's she's afraid of biking. First of all, she's a little bit petite, so she's shorter than five feet, I believe.

00:29:13:16 - 00:29:34:15
Josh Hon
And she's afraid of cars and traffic. And so she was very unsure of herself cycling. And so we got her on this bike and she took off and all of a sudden she was like, Oh my God. And she circled back around and she was like, I feel so comfortable on this bike. How come I never felt like this on a bike before?

00:29:35:01 - 00:29:55:16
Josh Hon
Right? And and, you know, she's sub five foot. And the reality is, if you're shorter than five feet, you walk into a bike shop. There aren't a lot of bikes that that fit you very well. So, you know, I think, again, this is how we think about getting people onto bikes is you have to you have to appeal to the the edges, right.

00:29:55:27 - 00:30:24:12
Josh Hon
Whether it's physical ability or physical height or age. And so we were this is this bike is called the MDG and it stands for New Bike Day because everybody who gets a new bike, you experience this burst of joy. And our goal is for even if you're a little bit older or you haven't written a bike in a while, you're a little bit afraid that you can experience that same joy, that right that you and I have every time we get a new bike.

00:30:25:00 - 00:31:02:08
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. No, I love it. And I think it's so incredibly important and I talk about this a lot on the Active Towns Channel is that we should be transforming our built environment into all ages and abilities facilities and this matches quite well with that of being able to say, Oh and by the way, increasingly we've got some options that are, you know, quite friendly to people who may be a little less confident out on their bike or maybe, you know, they're they've aged out of that typical bike riding scenario in situation.

00:31:02:08 - 00:31:21:12
John Simmerman
And they're like, you know, hey, I'm I'm in my eighties now and I kind of feel like I need to be a little closer to the ground and, you know, and a little bit more comfortable. So I really applaud that. I mean, I think it's really visionary because when we think about the our aging population and it's just really, you know, quite beautiful.

00:31:21:18 - 00:31:41:20
Josh Hon
Yeah. I think the other thing that we are trying to do is to, you know, have diversity in models, right? We you know, your typical right, your typical bike ad, you know, there's a guy skidding on a trail, there's dirt flying up. It's a guy, right? Usually it's a guy.

00:31:41:29 - 00:31:42:18
John Simmerman
It's a guy.

00:31:43:00 - 00:31:58:22
Josh Hon
And it's a dude. Yeah, we we, you know, so we really make a point of having diversity in models, diversity in situations, you know, body types, ages. Yeah, because I think that's important, right?

00:31:59:19 - 00:32:27:04
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it has to be a reflection of the communities, the environments that we're in. And so images like this I think are really, really powerful. And it helps to speak to the fact that, yes, what we're talking about here is trying to get more butts on bikes and and if we are able to appeal, appeal to a broader audience, that helps a great deal.

00:32:29:08 - 00:32:30:13
Josh Hon
Yeah, absolutely.

00:32:31:09 - 00:33:09:27
John Simmerman
So the other thing that I wanted to make sure that we talked upon and we we briefly brushed over it during the hour discussions about the really about the safety and the and the technology and the framing, but is really about this opportunity that we have to try to shift more motor vehicle trips over to bikes. In specifically I'm thinking about utilitarian bike logistics and being able to leverage, you know, this the cargo carrying capacity.

00:33:10:09 - 00:33:36:26
John Simmerman
And I can't remember if it was in on your website here or in another location, but it really drove home the fact that a well-built cargo bike can carry up to like five x the amount of weight of what, you know, the weight of the vehicle, whereas a delivery van is only like 0.8 times the, you know, the cargo carrying capacity.

00:33:37:09 - 00:33:42:23
John Simmerman
I mean, that's efficiency of resources, of materials to be able to build said vehicle.

00:33:43:02 - 00:34:13:08
Josh Hon
Yeah. I mean, if you look at and you could look at an electric cargo bike, right. Well the GST is one example, but the electric cargo bike is really the most efficient way to get cargo from point A to point B and you can look at that in terms of, you know, cost per mile, cost per kilowatt. I mean, you can look at it a whole range of things that is on every single one of those ranges.

00:34:14:04 - 00:34:35:11
Josh Hon
It is the most efficient way to move stuff. It's the most efficient in terms of, like you said, the use of Earth's resource is. But even, you know, in in crowded urban cities, you can actually do more deliveries per hour. So if you're a company and you don't care about your carbon footprint, although I'd have to say that most people now are beginning to care.

00:34:36:04 - 00:34:57:23
Josh Hon
But you if even if you didn't care about your carbon footprint and you just do it for pure economics, you can actually do more deliveries per hour. Your cost of labor is a little bit lower because you don't have to have a person with insurance driving a truck. You're maintenance costs are lower, your storage costs are lower. So like all there are so many benefits just from pure economics.

00:34:58:12 - 00:35:21:17
Josh Hon
And that's something that we we want people to realize is that it makes sense. And so, you know, one of our projects is with Whole Foods, Amazon in in New York. And so if you order delivery for anything from Whole Foods, chances are very good that it gets delivered to you by a turn. Bicycle or pulling a trailer.

00:35:21:27 - 00:35:50:05
Josh Hon
And that's in Manhattan. And it and it just it makes so much sense, right? You get trucks off the road, you improve air quality, you reduce noise pollution. I think there are I think the number I recall was something like there's like 100,000 delivery vans in the New York area. Imagine if you could slow 5%, 10% convert those to electric cargo bikes like this.

00:35:50:24 - 00:36:00:15
John Simmerman
Well, you just mentioned the trailers. So, you know, here's here's the GSD, you know, pulling the trailer. What's the trailer's name again?

00:36:01:01 - 00:36:08:00
Josh Hon
It's koala cargo. It's made in Germany. It's it is the best in class trailer. It's a workhorse.

00:36:08:15 - 00:36:38:28
John Simmerman
Yeah, well, you know, I'm I'm within easy biking distance of H.Q. for for Whole Foods so I would love to see that, you know happening here as it is right now. My groceries are delivered by GST because I just ride my GSD there. It's like a two mile ride. So it's easy to get there. And I have the luxury of an all ages and abilities facility essentially from my doorstep, you know, to the grocery store and back.

00:36:38:28 - 00:37:08:27
John Simmerman
So again, I'm privileged in being able to live in a in a city that is really working hard to build out that infrastructure. Let's talk a little bit about, you know, the bike industry role in trying to encourage, you know, cities to be able to adopt policies, to be able to build out the infrastructure, but also be able to to, you know, kind of take advantage of of this type of commercial delivery.

00:37:08:27 - 00:37:43:10
John Simmerman
Because one of the things that I think about is policies that cities can implement to be able to say, to incentivize or encourage, you know, more delivery companies and more delivery situations to take place via last mile situations with cargo bikes versus trying to shove massive, you know, vehicles into our, you know, downtown congested, you know, areas and frequently blocking or protected bike lanes.

00:37:45:08 - 00:38:25:10
Josh Hon
Yeah. You know, I am a believer in economics driving human behavior. Um and, so, you know, I think incentives are great, right? We'll take them, right. You know, electric. You know, if I want to go buy a Tesla from Elon Musk, I can get an incentive for doing that. We should have incentives for for e-bikes. Right. But, but the reality is, I think if cities could just focus on infrastructure, make cycling safe, give us separated bike lanes.

00:38:25:15 - 00:38:51:12
Josh Hon
Right. I think then companies acting selfishly will naturally gravitate towards the type of vehicle that is cheaper to operate, that does more deliveries per hour. I mean. Right. They all just naturally go in that direction. If you can build that infrastructure. So, you know, for me, I really think, you know, incentives are nice and but they're kind of the cherry on top.

00:38:51:25 - 00:39:14:03
Josh Hon
But the thing that we really need from cities just give us infrastructure where a mom or a kid can bike where you or I, you know, our kids could ride to school and that we could go, okay, you can go yourself, because I know the entire route is a separated bike lane. But in many cities it's not like that.

00:39:14:03 - 00:39:32:27
Josh Hon
And so you wouldn't let your kid ride to school by themselves. You'd have to ride with them. Um, so I would, you know, I, I, we put our focus really on just infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure, because that everybody else will act selfishly and people will ride more.

00:39:33:12 - 00:40:13:08
John Simmerman
Yeah, well and I think it's important to to, to point out to especially when we look at say, you know, this this the GST and or the HST and and seeing some of the, you know, cargo carrying capacity that we end up having here in the wider footprint, it's also good to point out to to cities that when you are building your all ages and abilities protected and separated cycle infrastructure network as you should be, think about the size of it too, because we're going to start seeing even more pressure on that space if we're running some of our, you know, our cargo bikes on there.

00:40:13:16 - 00:40:36:09
John Simmerman
And so we're already seeing that happening in some countries like in the Netherlands, where they're changing their standards and saying, you know what, we need more even wider cycle paths because we're running out of space, especially when we see everything from, you know, the Daily Mail being delivered, you know, by by cargo bike as well as our Amazon packages.

00:40:36:18 - 00:41:07:07
Josh Hon
Yeah, Yeah. No, I mean, you know, bike infrastructure is so cheap relative to anything else, right? It's so cheap like per, per mile. It's so cheap to build a bike lane, you know. But, but you know, you know you're, you're right with, with cargo bikes, you know, another project that we are it's not actually a project. It's we are supplying GSD to New Zealand post So we have a, there's a fleet of about 200.

00:41:07:15 - 00:41:37:15
Josh Hon
The GST is running around New Zealand deliver post and that fleet so that initial 250 bikes that the the reaction from male carriers has been very positive. So they're expanding the fleet. But I think businesses are gradually coming to realize that hey, E-cargo bikes make sense and we should use more of them. It's, it's slow and we need cities to to help with the infrastructure.

00:41:37:28 - 00:41:41:03
Josh Hon
But it just makes so much sense from so many different angles.

00:41:41:29 - 00:42:10:01
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned that. You know, with the New Zealand Post and especially given the fact that we just recently here in the United States put in a fresh new order for for new mail carrying capacity, the, the, the Jeeps or whatever they're, they're driving these days now and they, they ended up putting it in a massive order for gas guzzling vehicles.

00:42:10:01 - 00:42:39:05
John Simmerman
And I'm like, no, eventually that that order got stopped and changed a little bit to encourage some more electric postal carrier vans, etc.. But I'm like, please, you know, what do we have to do to be able to recognize that, you know, we can equip, you know, the these these types of bikes with the proper carrying capacity to be able to do those sorts of deliveries.

00:42:39:05 - 00:42:55:05
John Simmerman
And it's not this is not earth shattering. I mean, it's it's we're seeing more of it now. But I mean, it's been the mail has been delivered by bicycle for literally decades in countries like Sweden and Denmark and other locations.

00:42:55:18 - 00:43:26:23
Josh Hon
Yeah, you look at a you know what your typical at least in my neighborhood, the typical mail truck is, you know, it's it's it's double parked. It's blocking some traffic. Right. And it's and it's moving, you know, 20 yards at a time down the street. The picture of inefficiency, basically. I mean, wouldn't you have much more efficient mail delivery if you had a big truck driving to maybe a central location and then five e-cargo bikes coming up.

00:43:26:23 - 00:43:42:07
Josh Hon
So it's really kind of a hub and spoke model. And then each of those cargo bikes go down a different street. You know, I'm betting that, you know, you would do way more deliveries per hour using that model and your your costs would go down.

00:43:42:23 - 00:44:00:08
John Simmerman
Yeah, it sounds like that's there's also some fleet management types of services and software that you all are helping provide to some of your turned business bike customers of being able to, you know, be able to manage their fleet of their delivery bikes as well.

00:44:00:14 - 00:44:21:16
Josh Hon
Yeah, This is so for us, this is a little bit early days. You know it starts with an Iot box where you can track, you know, track the vehicle, speed your location, you know, all of those things. And then now once you have that data, you can then start to write. You can calculate stops per hour and, you know, optimize routes, those sorts of things.

00:44:22:06 - 00:44:22:13
Josh Hon
Yeah.

00:44:23:10 - 00:44:28:23
John Simmerman
Josh is there anything that we haven't yet covered that you really want to share with the the audience here today?

00:44:29:14 - 00:45:01:24
Josh Hon
Uh, I, I can't think of anything offhand just because I'm talking and thinking bikes all day, every day. But, you know, I look, I think, you know, very simply and I've seen this in my own life, what I would say is, you know, for trips that are shorter than start easy, right? Shorter than three miles, five kilometers. Think about doing that on a bike instead of in a car and see how it feels.

00:45:02:00 - 00:45:21:01
Josh Hon
See how you know, Do you enjoy it more? Is it faster? Are you getting a bit of a workout? You know, like like tonight, for example, I you know, my my commute to work is about ten kilometers. But it's a great way to get a workout in without actually having to separately set out time to do a workout.

00:45:21:01 - 00:45:41:29
Josh Hon
So I think, you know, for for anybody out there, it's just like, look, if you have a trip that's only three miles, try it on a bike and see how how it makes you feel. Because, uh, you know, in a lot of cases you're going to say, well, took about the same amount of time I got a little bit of a workout in, and it was kind of fun.

00:45:41:29 - 00:46:01:16
Josh Hon
And especially things like the school drop off right where you are sitting in a traffic jam for ten or 15 minutes to drop your kid off and on a bike. If you hadn't if you had a cargo bike, you could actually just zoom right up to the front of the school and be off to your next errand. You could probably actually save time.

00:46:01:19 - 00:46:07:04
Josh Hon
So start small. Start with easy trips, but try it out. What I would say.

00:46:07:20 - 00:46:33:11
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. And I went to this photo to, to, to close this out just because, well, there's a puppy in it, so that works. And, and, and it also it also sort of exemplifies the fact that Yeah, grab a friend, take a friend along with you as you're trying to add some of those additional rides to your life and do what you can in your neighborhood to talk with your neighbors.

00:46:33:20 - 00:47:03:11
John Simmerman
Get together as a community, really start making it known that this is something that is important to you so that your elected representatives know that you know, it is important that we have safer places to ride safe routes to school. You just mentioned, you know, taking the kids to school, having a safer drop off situation by schools. You know, a school zone should not be a place that is, you know, chock full of motor vehicles.

00:47:03:11 - 00:47:18:29
John Simmerman
It should be a place where kids can be to walk and bike, to be able to access their schools. So speak up. Let your let your elected representatives know. And and again, just thank you so very much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast. It's been an absolute joy and honor.

00:47:19:17 - 00:47:20:28
Josh Hon
Thank you, John. It's been great.

00:47:21:20 - 00:47:39:12
John Simmerman
Hey, thank you all so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Josh Hahn from Turn by Cycles, and if you did, please give it a thumbs up. Share it with a friend that you think might get inspired to ride a little bit more frequently for some everyday activities. And if you haven't done so already, be honored to have you subscribe to the channel.

00:47:39:12 - 00:48:02:29
John Simmerman
Just click on that subscription button down below, ring the notifications bell so that you can customize your notification preferences and I'll be back real soon with another episode. So until then, this is John signing off by wishing you much activity, health and happiness. Cheers. And again sending a huge thank you to all my active towns Ambassadors supporting the channel on Patron Buy me a coffee YouTube super.

00:48:02:29 - 00:48:14:15
John Simmerman
Thanks. As well as making contributions to the nonprofit and purchasing things from the active towns store, every little bit adds up and it's much appreciated. Thank you all so much.