Juiced Bikes, the San Diego-based maker of e-bikes, has been sold on an auction website for $1,225,000, according to a report from Electrek.Digital Trends recently reported how the company was showing signs of being on the brink of bankruptcy. The company and its executives had remained silent, while customer inquiries went unanswered and its website showed all products were out of stock. In addition, there were numerous reports of layoffs at the company.Yet, the most convincing sign was that the company’s assets appeared as listed for sale on an auction website used by companies that go out of business.Now, it appears that Juiced Bikes’ assets, including a dozen patents, multiple URLs, and the company’s inventory in both the U.S. and China, have been sold at auction, according to the report. It is likely that the buyer, who remains unknown, can capitalize on the brand and the overall value of the 15-year old company. Founded in 2009 by Tora Harris, a U.S. high-jump Olympian, Juiced Bikes was one of the early pioneers of the direct-to-consumer e-bike brands in the U.S. market.
The company had quickly built a reputation for the versatility of its e-bikes and the durability of their batteries. Over the years, the popularity of models such as the CrossCurrent, HyperScrambler, and RipCurrent only bolstered the brand’s status.Last year, Digital Trends named the Juiced Bikes Scorpion X2 as the best moped-style e-bike for 2023, citing its versatility, rich feature set, and performance.Juiced Bikes’ getting sold quickly might be a sign of what consulting firm Houlihan Lokey says is a recovery in the North American e-bike market.
The industry has had a roller-coaster ride during and after the COVID-19 pandemic: A huge spike in demand for e-bikes had combined with disrupted supply chains to create a supply/demand mismatch of “historic proportions," Houlihan Lokey said.
Cyclists, listen up — there’s a new app for your smartphone that claims to record your cycling power. Meet Fitif Power!, a power meter app developed by the Madrid-based Capitán Nugget team. The app purports to help you estimate your bike’s effective power while you’re in motion, all without the need for any extra gadgetry or software. Now available for Android as well as iOS, the app may just be one of the cheapest ways to monitor your power while cycling.
The app claims to gather data from sensors built into your smartphone, like your GPS, barometer, and accelerometer. You can also connect the app to a third-party heart rate monitor via Bluetooth, and the Capitán Nugget team recommends that folks also link a Bluetooth cadence meter to the app. The addition of these two tools (which you’re likely already using during your ride), should give you a more accurate power data reading.
Using all these data inputs, Fitif Power! promises to estimate your average power every 15 seconds. This, the team says, should reflect the work that you’re actually doing during your workout. And while most cycling computers give users the option of seeing power results every 3, 10, or 15 seconds, Capitán Nugget provides a single, straightforward estimate. That said, the team is also working to offer shorter time interval readings as well.
In order to truly take advantage of the app, you’ll have to do a bit of setup. Before your ride, cyclists are asked to manually input certain parameters, including the surface they will be riding on, the type of bike they’re riding, crank length, type of tires, tire pressure, type of pedals, and the total weight of the cyclist and bike. The more accurate these inputs, the more accurate Fitif Power!’s output.
The app, originally launched in October 2017 for just the iPhone, has come quite a long way in making power metering more affordable and accessible for folks in the cycling world. You can now download the app for free from the Play Store. Your Android device must be running Android 5.0 or later in order to make use of the app.