Sometimes I and other longtime cyclists blame e-bikes, motorized bikes and scooters for "ruining" or "wrecking" cycling. They have all but taken over some bike lanes in my city, New York, where some of those lanes are just barely wide enough to accomodate two cyclists approaching each other from opposite directions. And the majority of those e-bikes and motorized bikes are ridden by delivery workers racing to meet ten- or fifteen-minute delivery windows guaranteed by restaurant delivery apps.
Now, an e-bike is to blame for destroying actual bicycles. Well, sort of. On Monday afternoon, an employee at 5 Hermanos bike shop--less than a mile from my apartment--plugged an e-bike's lithium-ion battery for charging. That employee and others, as shop owner Jorge Molina Carranza explained, understand how dangerous those batteries can be and therefore don't leave them to charge overnight.
His and employees' precautions, however, weren't enough to prevent what happened next. "It was very sudden, like firecrackers," Molina Carranza explained. "When that battery exploded, all the other batteries started to explode as well."
The result was a two-alarm fireball that destroyed his and his employees' work. All of the inventory--which included regular pedal bikes, mainly used, as well as parts and accessories (The shop seemed to make much, if not most, of its money from repairs.) burned. "I lost everything," Molina Carranza said.
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| 5 Hermanos, after the fire. Photo by Kerry Burke. (Somehow I didn't feel right about photographing it myelf. ) |
Although it wasn't my regular shop, I would sometimes stop at 5 Hermanos for a tube, cable or some other small item, or simply to say, "Hola, como estas?" The folks in the shop, including Jorge, were friendly and seemed not to mind my gringo accent.
Anyway, I hope he and his employees recover and prosper. If they re-open the shop, I wonder how they'll deal with e-bikes. Their mishap is not the first I've heard about batteries catching fire or exploding even as people take proper precautions while charging them.
