Kalakshar US

Last year, I asked if we’d ever see an e-cargo bike “for the people,” with powerful electric assist, generous cargo capacity and an affordable price. Soon after, Mycle got in touch to say its own offering, the Mycle Cargo, was exactly the bike I was looking for. It added that the struggles I’d had with heavy loads and steep hills wouldn’t be a problem for its affordable cargo longtail. After spending the better part of three months riding this thing around, I can heartily agree that it ticks many of the boxes I was hoping for. I may not have fallen head-over-heels in love with it in the way I had hoped, or expected to, but I’m sure it could find a place in the homes of many cyclists.

Mycle is a British-built e-bike which fits into the same category as Tern’s GSD, with a step through frame and beefy longtail. Support struts and plastic panels enclose the thick rear wheel, which houses the surprisingly-powerful 250W hub motor. Now, I won’t bang this drum too much, but this thing is less than half the price of some of its competitors in the cargo longtail space. Here in the UK, a Tern GSD or Yuba’s Spicy Curry will set you back around £5,000 before you start picking optional extras. By comparison, the Cargo’s retail price is £1,999, which will get you the standard setup, including integrated front and rear lights.

The model I tested, meanwhile, had a few luxuries added on, including an LCD display which adds £150 to the price. My model also had a front basket (£89) and a caboose to enclose the rear deck to help keep my kids safe (£129). The only other mainstream e-cargo bike in this price bracket is Rad Power’sRadWagon 4, which I’m looking to test in the future to offer a good head-to-head comparison. On paper, the RadWagon has a far lower center of gravity and a bigger payload weight, but a far shorter promised range.

Every issue I could raise about the Mycle Cargo, and I have a few, can likely be answered by its price. These bikes need to be affordable to win over would-be buyers who can quite reasonably say that five grand would get you a decent second-hand car and cover a year’s running costs. And while two thousand pounds is no small investment for a lot of people right now, it may wind up saving them cash if it helps them get around without a car. You can certainly carry at least two kids on the rear deck, and can probably mount a third seat up front should you need.

Mycle Cargo measures in at 187cm (73.6in) long and 73cm (28.7in) wide, with a quoted kerb weight of around 80 pounds. Even in my fairly spacious house, it took up a lot of room, and it requires a decent amount of effort to get it up my front steps. Which is a euphemistic way of saying that if you’re in a small space, or don’t have great upper body strength, you might need to look for an alternative. I found that, the longer I rode it, the easier it became to handle, so I think my time with the bike has contributed to some minor enswolening of my arms.

The bike arrives half-assembled, and you’ll need to get a hex key to screw in the footplates, caboose, front basket and fit the handlebars. This requires a decent amount of patience, since there’s so much engineering going on that your fingers won’t have much room to maneuver. If you can, get a bike store to do the finishing off for you, especially if you’ve got chunky hands and a tendency to swear in frustration after the screw falls out three times in a row.

The bike is fitted with a wonderfully comfortable seat, and is equipped with a modest, but solid, set of components. There’s Tektro mechanical disc brakes and a 7-speed Shimano Altus set, which might provoke a sniff or two from higher-minded cycling types. Both are what I’d call modestly priced, and aside from the odd stiff gear change, neither felt out of place, with good braking even on steep hills. It’s also clear that cost savings in this area help get the overall price down without causing too much pain for the rider on a daily basis. One nitpick I do have is that the built-in double-sided kickstand is sturdy, it still feels a little weak and I wish it was a bit thicker.

Now, from here on out, we’ll be talking about my experience of riding Mycle Cargo, and I’d say that I’m a general-purpose cyclist at best. Certainly, I’m open about my deficiencies, and hope that I can offer a better perspective for would-be riders than a road-hardened professional. If you’re a novice rider looking for a cargo bike, then these are the issues you’ll probably want to be mindful of, whereas more experienced riders can probably just look at the price, what you get for that chunk of cash, and head to the Mycle website to pre-order one.

The issue with weight, for instance, is going to be harder for novices to deal with compared to people who already own more than one pair of waterproof trousers. Mycle Cargo is heavy and, in my early rides, proved to be more than I could handle in terms of its balance issues. Even with fat tyres, which are designed to improve balance, I found it very easy to lose control of this thing at lower speeds. I tried to take the kids to school in rush-hour traffic, and pushed off in a quiet moment, only to find the bike started to wobble. I tried to correct it, but in doing so nearly pitched sideways into a van coming the other way.

Fortunately, this problem did eventually go away, but it took me a lot of (solo) trial-and-error and some counterintuitive tyre-deflating before I put the kids back on it again. Once I’d got the Mycle set up the way I did, riding became a lot easier and I had some fairly glorious runs around the local area. But don’t expect to climb on this in the first hour or two and expect to be zooming around your town without a care in the world. The learning curve is there, and it is steep, and I found the damped steering – designed to prevent you making risky, aggressive turns – was a bit of a pain in my early trips.

Once you get past the slow-speed wobbles, however, do you find Mycle Cargo’s comfort zone, which is unleashing its vast reserves of power. Accelerate a bit, and you’ll find riding the bike is easy and comfortable, but if you only run it on flat ground, you’ll miss out on its party piece. My kids’ school is at the top of a hill that measures around 11 degrees (or more) at its gentlest point. And I’ve ridden a few 250W hub motor bikes up there with varying levels of comfort, and even a light single-seater can sometimes struggle.

This thing? With all the added weight in its frame and two kids in the back? I have never seen a bike move this fast. It shot up the hill faster than the car I was passing, and I very quickly had to dial down the assistance level to stop feeling uncomfortable. When that pedal assist kicks in after a second or so’s delay, you feel as if you’re being towed by a car. It ships with a throttle but I don’t think I was ever compelled to use it outside of trying to intentionally test it, because one full turn of the pedal and this thing moves like a rocket.

I cannot overstate how much power Mycle has managed to wring out of this motor, to the point where I’d almost want to joke that it’s really a 500W motor with the wrong label. I cannot imagine anyone riding this thing and thinking that it’ll do anything but conquer any terrain you put in front of it. If I had infinite time and money, I’d take this to France and irritate everyone doing a mountain cycle climb as I lap them while lazily pedaling my way to lunch. The downside is the lack of refinement; dial down the electric assist and you’ll very quickly feel a lurch as the motor steps down a notch.

That’s really where your money isn’t going with a bike like this – into the refinements that would see it go from a two grand bike to a five grand one. I can think of plenty of tweaks I’d like to see, including a lighter weight, lower center of gravity and better handling. But if the choice is this bike or one that’ll cost more than twice the price, I’d rather keep my cash in the bank.

You can pre-order the Mycle Cargo now, with deliveries slated for some point in August. That will come with a few tweaks, including upgraded brakes – hydraulic, rather than mechanical – and fittings for a new rear-caboose. The new model will also be able to use a new clubhouse-style weather tent to keep your kids dry on windier days, but there’s no word on how much that’ll cost you at present.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mycle-cargo-is-almost-the-longtail-of-the-people-ive-been-waiting-for-130046591.html?src=rss 

GoodRx, best known for its prescription drug price comparison tool, has launched a new free offering called “Medicine Cabinet.” The tool will allow GoodRx app users to manage their prescription medications on a single platform. This comes on the heels of the news that the company is working with CVS Health to develop the Caremark Cost Saver, which could lower pharmacy out-of-pocket drug costs for shoppers.

Medicine Cabinet will automatically integrate within the GoodRx app and will feature tools like a “prescriptions dashboard” where a consumer can set up refill reminders and find the best pharmacies to pick up their medications at the lowest price. At the heart of the app are daily pill reminders that are customizable to any treatment plan that is uploaded into the app. GoodRx Chief Product Officer Mark Hull said the reminders feature is huge because 50 percent of the time, Americans are struggling to take their medications as prescribed for reasons as simple as forgetfulness or cost.

The Medicine Cabinet also includes a dashboard for GoodRx’s rewards program which offers users monetary perks like e-gift cards for staying on top of medication refills. “Nobody’s integrating or rewarding people for having those healthy habits,” Hull said.

“What we’ve found is that the winning model for us is to marry the discounts, the value and the rewards, with the basic healthy habits and reminder stuff,” he added. GoodRx claims it can save consumers up to 80 percent off the price of prescription drugs by partnering with pharmacy benefits managers to negotiate deals on drugs. Normally, the average consumer wouldn’t otherwise have access to these discounts without middlemen like GoodRx.

The Medicine Cabinet tool has only been in development for roughly six months and will be available on iOS, but not on Android just yet.

“GoodRx was able to develop Medicine Cabinet so quickly in part due to the data it has already amassed from users and providers over the last decade.” “If a startup were doing this, it would take a long time, they don’t have the data, they don’t have the relationships with retailers, they don’t already have the customer base,” Hull said. “We already have a half a billion prescriptions in federal records from the millions of people who have been using us for the last 12 plus years.”

Hull said he actually wishes Medicine Cabinet could have come sooner. He recalls when his stepfather had a heart attack a couple of years ago. “When he came home from the hospital, he had like a dozen medications he had to manage,” Hull said, remembering it as a nerve wracking time for his family and specifically his mother. “For the average person who’s managing a condition with multiple medications, it’s a lot of work and so we’re really trying to make it simple, clear and obvious what you need to do at any given point to help manage your condition.”

Down the line, Hull hopes Medicine Cabinet will be easier for older people to use, with the inclusion of features that will let a user take a photo of a medication instead of having to look it up in the database.

Still, GoodRx’s history of being caught up in legal trouble related to data privacy issues is worth noting. Earlier this year, the Federal Trade Commission fined the company for the unauthorized disclosure of customers’ identifiable health information with third parties, such as Facebook and Google. “Our privacy policy applies to Medicine Cabinet, which sits within the GoodRx app. We are very transparent about what information we collect and how we use it to personalize and customize our products for consumers. Additionally, the feature is only available for users who have registered for a GoodRx account,” a representative said. The company’s recent focus on transparency and adherence to privacy policies suggest it’s taking the issue seriously, though as with any telehealth company, data privacy will always be a front and center concern.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/goodrx-now-offers-an-ios-medicine-cabinet-for-managing-prescription-meds-130002408.html?src=rss