Cycling has a weight problem: a call for the industry to be more transparent about its weight limits

A good point, but from the article it sounds like the demographic for which this would be a problem is 300lbs+. The proportion of people meeting the criteria for being overweight is in the same ballpark, but I wonder if maybe there's a more skewed distribution of people who are overweight enough to exceed the safety margin of a standard bicycle.

Fat people are pretty common, they’re not a rare body shape or disability that should require a custom bike.

Bikes are, in general, designed to be as light as they can be for their price point. The reason behind this is that a lighter bike is less weight to move, meaning for the same effort one can potentially go farther or faster than they would be able on a heavier bike. So when a company is designing a bike, they think about the person they believe will buy it and design a bike that will support that rider.

Heavier people weigh more, obviously. Larger loads require more structural strength. Making a bike that can carry a 300lb+ person without breaking involves a redesign if you initially designed for lighter loads. Similarly, building it requires change to your manufacturing processes.

People who have health problems due to their weight, in general, do not buy as many bikes as people whose weight does not negatively impact their health. A company isn't going to go an make a big production run of an expensive product if they don't think there's a market for it, which means it becomes a custom job to get one done.

Want cheaper bikes that can handle 300lb+ riders? Do a kickstarter and see how many customers will put down dollars.

A custom bike sounds expensive, I really wish there were more east-to-buy prebuilt options.

Yes, it can be expensive, but being obese is expensive. Some people have to go out of their way to buy "big and tall" clothing (at a premium), special beds or chairs, modifications to their car, etc.

Fat people are pretty common, they’re not a rare body shape or disability that should require a custom bike.

Fat people may be common, but heavy-duty bikes are not. For a bike to be stronger, you either have to sacrifice on cost, the weight of the bike, frame materials, or hard-to-find/custom gear.

It becomes a problem when someone is looking for a cheap bike, because none are going to be built to carry an enormous amount of weight.

And I do wish higher weight limit tires were more common, I’m not overweight myself but I sometimes heavily load my electric bike with cargo (and a trailer that pushes down on the rear axle), and occasionally I have problems with spokes breaking already.

They are... for a price. You can get tires and wheels built to handle more weight, but you'd have to pay a premium for them, and be willing to sacrifice their size/weight.

You also have to be realistic of what you're getting. If someone weighing 300lbs wants to get a small folding bike, they aren't going to have much luck with anything.

I fitted new wheels on my MTB turned touring-capable bike, and had to get 36 spokes and very beefy schwalbe tires to accommodate the load. I spent a lot more than someone who doesn't have to worry about carrying weight.

I wish heavy wheels were more standardized for both heavy people and cargo bikes.

They will be. E-cargo bikes in particular have really jumped in popularity, and that will be followed by cargo-specific tires, wheels, and accessories.

But to circle back to the original article. Yes, weight limits and all relevant specs should always be listed and easily available. I personally hate having to dig through stuff to find something as important as torque specs for bolts, as an example.

Custom bikes are actually cheaper if you have like $50 worth of tools.

Yeah I just don’t see the solution that a lot of people are pushing for.

I think it's two-fold.

Yes, in fairness to everyone, manufacturers need to post weight limits (and all other specifications) in an accessible way.

That said, prospective riders should realize that what they need will likely be at a category/size/weight/price they weren't expecting.

I agree that there should be options for bigger people, but that doesn't mean that there shouldn't be bikes as light and high-performing as possible made for those who can use them, and if that's the focus of a given manufacturer, that's not an ethical issue. It's just their specialization, and there's plenty of room for other designers to focus on bikes for heavier riders as that market becomes viable.

Everyone deserves to ride bikes, and bike designers deserve to focus on the types of bikes they want. 7-foot NBA players deserve to be comfortable in cars, but it's not Ford's fault or responsibility that finding a car is more difficult for them than for those between the 10th and 90th height percentiles. No less unfortunate, but changing the design of all cars or expecting app major manufacturers to design for outliers isn't necessarily a solution.

I agree with most of what you said but not It’s just the reality of the world we live in, plus many people have genetic issues that make it fairly difficult to lose weight.

It’s not just the reality of the world we live in. People were not this fat 30 years ago, let alone 50 or 100 years. And it is something we can change, if we cared to.

“Genetic issues” are too much of a crutch or a lame excuse. Yes that makes it more difficult, but it doesn’t make it impossible or justify not trying to get to a more reasonable weight.

But there absolutely should exist a segment of bicycles for almost every range of weights.

Cycling is extremely low impact, and getting exercise on a bike can be a lot easier on the joints than walking or running.

Genetic issues have always been around, but the rise in obesity is strictly modern. Throughout eons of history, people have been at a severe calorie deficit. Your body has many amazing background processes to help you survive famines (your body will try to retain as much fat as possible when starving over longer periods of time), avoid accidentally killing yourself due to excess calorie burns while foraging (your body builds in an automatic efficiency curve into repetitve exercise to conserve calories), and even some genetic changes for those that endured exteme famine conditions, which were passed down between generations after calamities like the irish potato famine, making people more likely to survive. These are great during civilization collapses, but really bite us in the ass in modern times.

However, the rise of ultra processed foods (UPFs) and other calorie dense foods make it extremely easy to take in far more calories than one could ever burn though exercise alone. As more jobs transition from labor intensive (bricklaying, farming, digging trenches, and laying roads by hand and pickaxe), we have created a more sedentary lifestyle at the same time, compounding the issue.

We definitely need to factor in larger people into stuff like biking, but biking alone will not address the root cause of the problem: 1. the proliferation of UPFs coupled with their low costs, 2. a sedentary lifestyle due to cars and office jobs, and 3. the collapse of third places where people can hang out, swim, play outdoor games, sports, etc.

Nip those three problems in the bud, and you improve the health outcomes for generations of people.

Stuff like urban density, lowering the cost of healthy foods while improving signage on UPFs, making it easy to walk, bike, bus, or commute via rail instead of drive, and improve free or low cost social spaces will help. :)

There are no genetic issues which violate the laws of thermodynamics

Deserve to bike and "deserve to force bicycle manufacturers to make mass-produced models that super serve the super-sized even though they're a significant minority of the actual and probable global customer base" are very different things.

If you want a bike for someone 300+, get a used, big steel frame and start assembling. Same for weight weenies the want bikes as light as a feather: customization is on you. Mainstream, pre-assembled bikes are going to be made for the majority of people that are likely to buy them, because otherwise they won't sell.

Again, to emphasize: AT EITHER END--super comp or super weight--bikes are specialized (not the company) bicycles that require parts selection and piece-by-piece assembly. It's not "unfair" to morbidly obese people anymore than it is unfair to someone that wants a super light bike or a super durable, weight-bearing, bike-packing ride.

My friend is 6'5 and all muscle, idk how much he weighs but it's got to be a lot. He had to build a bike from scratch as well. He would pop spokes and mess up frames. It's not about fat it's about weight. Less than 2% of the population in the United States weighs more than 300 pounds, and I imagine only a fraction of that fractional subset of people intend to ride a bicycle.

Also, "custom" does not necessarily mean expensive. It just means building it up piece by piece. Many people who have very little money but want a decent bike also build "custom" bikes from used parts, because you can slap together a decent bike from good used parts rather than spend the same amount on a Walmart special that breaks apart in two months.

They're not left out. They just have to purchase the right equipment for their condition.

They have excluded themselves from a segment of the market.

We have to stop infantilizing adults and actually tell grown ups what's actually going on.

You are an idiot.

Was hoping for something premade. I’ve got a Lectric XP Trike.

It’s rare for bodybuilders to push over 300lbs in weight, even supplemented. When talking about body mass, sure BMI is just an indicator and not a diagnostic measure.

Of the 74% mentioned in the article, a small percentage of that would be the athletes and other genetic outliers.

Yeah, being tall sucks. If anyone out there wants to be 4 inches taller, I’ll be your donor.

Honestly if airplane seats were less like medieval torture devices and T-shirts didn’t shrink in the dryer, I’d be all right. I can deal with bumping my head on things and getting the same questions/comments every time I meet someone new. But being constantly reminded by ordinary objects that I’m not considered part of the bell curve? Rude.

Component-level weight ratings are indeed lacking right now, although I will note that the author appears to be proposing a frame-only weight rating, presumably because while all other parts of a bike can be replaced, the frame is at the center of a bike, setting aside Ship of Theseus considerations. Replacing a frame is virtually equivalent to building a new bike, after all.

Of course, a manufacturer of assembled bikes should publish an overall weight limit for the bike as-assembled. But still, it might be nice to know that the frame specifically is overbuilt for that particular assemblage, meaning it has capacity that can be utilized with the appropriate upgrades.

You're absolutely right that just rating the frame alone won't necessarily result in broader marker supply, but it's certainly a start. As I said, there's a vicious feedback cycle and the way to break it is to find a niche and grow it. Perhaps mandating a frame-only weight rating will spur lawyers to require all weight-bearing components to also have weight ratings as legal cover, or something like that. Such a limit might be low, though, but is still progress.

Although true, it isn't the point I'm trying to get across. My view is that weight limits aren't a great metric. You don't have to go for niche sports, the traditional xc/trail bike is what everybody starts with on mtb.

Say this example xc bike has a weight limit of 150Kg. Rider A is at 170Kg buys this bike ignoring the limit and just rides smooth local fire roads for some excersise.

Rider B is young, athletic 70Kg build. Buys this SAME bike and goes on rides with friends that know all the fun trails. Rider B is getting faster and stronger, and the bike starts to show it's limitations.

It's clear which bike will fail sooner. Weight alone doesn't matter, and both riders are using the bike for it's intended and designed purpose.

Manufacturers cannot reliably slap a max weight to their bikes because of all the other factors involved. And if they do, it will be way conservative to avoid getting into legal trouble.

That's not really true. Genetics may contribute, but they certainly don't cause it. At it's core, obesity in the overwhelming majority of people is caused by a combination of eating too many calories, and not exercising enough (or doing the correct exercises; working out in zone 4/5 all the time isn't giving you the benefit you want).

I would challenge all people that are obese to have a metabolic assessment done to determine their true TDEE, and then eat at or below their TDEE while doing 1-2 hours of cardio (defined as zone 3 activity) + moderate weight training daily, and see where they end up.

As a former personal trainer, EVERY client i ever had was resistant to tracking their intake in any way. They flatly refused to even take a photo of every single thing that they consumed that wasn't water. They claimed to want to lose weight, but refused to do even the absolute bare minimum necessary to do it.

Strongly agree that fat people should be able to participate in society.

Strongly disagree that genetics causes obesity. When I was younger I spent a lot of time with the American side of my family. Every time I was with them I would gain like 10kg over 3 months. Then I would lose it after I left. It was purely living in their no walking, highly processed unhealthy food environment.

My parents are fat, now i can only eat McDonald's and donuts. Okay whatever floats your boat. No one can convince me that people get magically fat without eating copious amount of calories with no means to burn it.