 Hey, welcome back everybody. Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We're in Reno, Nevada at the Inner Bike Show. It's a big show all about bikes and mountain bikes, but we're here really to talk about e-bikes, because e-bikes is this new class of really transportation, not really new. Turns out that Gazelle's been making them since 2002. So we're at the Royal Dutch Gazelle event, an adjunct event next to Inner Bike, and we're excited to see they're releasing a bunch of new bikes, and really dig into what are these e-bikes all about. We've been told that the United States is a little bit behind. You're starting to see them show up. Is it a last mile vehicle? Is it a primary vehicle? What are the laws and regulations? And we're really excited to have our first guest. She's been dealing with this for years and years and years. It's Karin Wiener. She is a co-owner of the new wheel. Karin, great to see you. Thanks, thanks for having me. Absolutely, so give us a little background on the new wheel. Where are you guys? How long have you been around? What's your focus? Yeah, the new wheel is located in San Francisco and Marin County in Larkspur. We opened in 2010, so about eight years ago. Excuse me, out of our apartment, because we realized that nobody was really seeing the opportunity in this transportation alternative. And so we were seeing what was happening in Europe, which, like you said, has been happening for a while. And we realized that, gosh, San Francisco is the perfect place. It's an obvious match. An electric bike, which basically amplifies your pedaling power, acts exactly like a bicycle, except for you're always in your best shape and having your best day and having the most fun. And so we started with basically one bike, or three bikes, and we had a mobile shop that we would ride from farmer's market to farmer's market. Then we opened our first store in 2012, and we're still in that location in Bernal Heights in San Francisco, and we focus on curating high-quality electric bikes that are gonna work really well in San Francisco, which, as you know, is a really rugged, especially in terms of elevation gain environment. So what if we could talk about some things, some myths or not myths? So one thing is, while we came here as we were really looking at e-bikes is really a last-mile vehicle. And that's kind of in the line of smart cities and kind of this multimodal transportation. Do you have a Lyme scooter to the Caltrain? Maybe it's your car, maybe you've got your own bike. But what I'm hearing here is these things are a lot more than last-mile vehicles. These are actually substitution vehicles for a significant amount of car rides, not just the two miles run down to the store to get some milk or to get some cereal or to get some coffee, but a much heavier load on these things. Yeah, it's very, very interesting. So if we look to Europe, the e-bike started as a replacement for bicycle trips in kind of urban environments for people who are maybe getting older or whatever. And the bike, and an e-bike works really well for just intercity transportation. There's been an interesting kind of development in Europe in the last, say, four or five years, which is the rise of the speed electric bike. You can, with a very small battery, you can ride 40 to 60 miles. 40 to 60 miles. Yeah. And that means that you can ride from one city to another. So now what we're seeing is across the Netherlands, actual bicycle superhighways that cover maybe, you know, five to 20 miles, and that becomes a reasonable bicycle ride on the daily basis. And that's really exciting. It's something that is unlike basically any other form of transportation. It's not a motorcycle. It's not that heavy duty. You don't need a license or insurance or anything like that. You're still getting exercise and you're getting where you need to go. Right. So let's talk about the speed because the speed is an interesting thing and I think the speed is what dictates some of the regulations. So we see in San Francisco got inundated with the Lyme scooters and there's boosted boards and one-wheels and all sorts of kind of contraptions with these great high capacity batteries and these itty-bitty little motors. So the form factors are numerous but all of them seem to be gated around 20 miles an hour, which I think is the regulation to keep them from being considered a scooter, you know, internal combustion scooter. So you're talking about speed bikes. So they've got bikes here today that one goes like 28 miles an hour. So how are the regulations keeping up with a bike that goes 28 miles an hour? So it's developing slowly. It's developing based on models that have already been tested and used in Europe. In California, there was actually a model legislation passed, I think three years ago. Which defined three types of electric bikes and defines them as bicycles. So type one is a bicycle that goes to 20 miles an hour and basically you have to be pedaling. Type two is a bicycle that also goes to 20 miles an hour but can have a throttle. Now this is a very Asian type of electric bike. It's not quite as polished but usually they're lower cost. And then type three is this 27 mile an hour type. Still a bicycle, you're required to wear a helmet. And there are some places that you're not allowed to ride them like on shared pedestrian paths. And so what's good about this is it's creating a model for different local and regional governments to create rules. It's taking time. But what's exciting is that there is a model. So the scooters and the one wheels are all operating under kind of this DMV law that is kind of type one. It is kind of type one but it's also kind of like it seems really unclear. I think there's an opportunity in electric bikes for it to be very clear. And I think we're on the way to that. It's just going to take some time. Now in terms of the actual utility, obviously this is a Dutch company. They don't have great weather in Holland as we know. San Francisco as you mentioned is a rugged place. Not to mention the fact it's about as rough as it gets for parked cars getting broken into. So what do you see from your customers in terms of the actual utility? Carrying stuff home from the store, survivability in the streets, not getting stolen. I mean these are not inexpensive pieces of gear. So what's kind of the experience you've seen with your kind of long history in this space in the city? So what I've seen is that what you use matters a lot. So the type of bike that you choose out of the gate is going to dictate first of all how well it's going to last. And second of all, how well it's going to work in the first place. The other thing is that the way, it's not only the bicycle. You also have to have the right lock and you have to have the right bag and the right setup to give you the actual full utility potential of the bicycle. And that's where specialists and retailers really come in. You also need service. So most people have owned bicycles in their lifetime and have maybe stretched one train. Stretching a chain takes about 2,000 miles on a bike. An e-bike rider usually stretches a train in a little under a year because suddenly your bicycle is your preferred mode of transportation for thousands of miles of errands and urban duties and pleasure that you never had before on a bicycle. So it's a switch in terms of how people understand the maintenance that they need on their bike but also what kind of tools they need. Like a great lock. And it turns out that you actually can lock a bike safely. Not overnight on the street, but at any time of day, there are locks that work really, really well to keep a bike safe. So next thing on touch basis is kind of the evolving technology. So we're hearing over and over that really the battery technology is getting this just huge boost from autonomous cars because now there's huge investments in battery. You've probably seen tremendous developments both in the batteries and the propulsion systems and the technology in these bikes since you've been at this for eight years. How's that kind of changing? And how's that opening up, maybe the opportunity to people that maybe didn't want a shorter range, a six, a 10, a 12, a 15, wherever the older kind of range models were. Battery technology that originated in laptops and now is being used in cars and autonomous vehicles totally changed the potential for electric bikes and it changes, it will change so many things about your bicycle. For example, not too far down the road, I believe that there will be anti-theft devices on every electric bicycle that you buy. You're gonna be able to track your bicycle, you're gonna be able to track your heart rate, you're gonna be able to do all these things seamlessly just as part of your life. So when you put a battery on a bike, it changes everything about what it can do. Right now it's assist, in the future it will be many things. There was this switch about eight years ago from old, very heavy, very polluting batteries to lithium ion batteries. And it means that you can have a bicycle that is, that you can lift, you know, that weighs between maybe 35 and 60 pounds that will take you anywhere from 25 to 100 miles. And that's a game changer. So last question for you, what is like the biggest surprise when somebody comes in the store, you know, you sit them down, they sell them an e-bike and they come back for their first maintenance, whatever, that they say how this thing has really impacted their lives? Integrating activity into your life can change your life in all sorts of ways. It can reduce stress. The funniest one was this guy came in, this family had had a baby like six months ago. Guy comes in, buys a bike, and he comes back for his new tune up and he goes, Karin, my wife owes you a big one. She's a much happier woman now. So I mean all sorts of things happen. People love their bikes. What surprises them I think the most, most often is just how many miles they're accruing on their odometer. And that makes them excited from a health standpoint, from an environmental standpoint. And just from a joy in your daily life standpoint, when we all live with a lot of stress and a lot of multitasking and taking 20 minutes on your bike and just having a great relaxing time is unbeatable. Right. Well thanks for, Karin, take it a few minutes and sharing the story and nothing but success for the store. Thank you very much. All right, she's Karin, I'm Jeff. Thanks for watching theCUBE we're at the Royal Dutch Gazelle bike event outside of Interbike in Reno, Nevada. Thanks for watching.