Road Ruiner premortem

The Road Ruiner is here!

But wait! You didn't expect it to not be defective, did you? Guess what? It is. I'm using it anyway.

The Road Ruiner is a bicycle that happens to have a small electric motor that you can use to navigate greater Cincinnati's otherwise impassable hills. It looks just like a regular bike, and it didn't cost much more than the Peace Bike did when I buyed it 13 years ago. But there's a few problems. That's in addition to the fact that the assembly instructions are absolutely terrible.

It's clear I was sold a bike that someone had returned, even though it was advertised as new. There's a huge scrape on the frame. But that's only cosmetic. It's sort of like my punk rocker teeth. Nothing I'd ever lose sleep over or spend any money to fix.

There's more serious problems though. The left pedal that came with the Road Ruiner couldn't be installed, because the threads were stripped. So I had to remove a pedal from the Peace Bike and use it instead.

The seat can't be adjusted any higher than its lowest level, because if you do, your weight just shoves it back down. This is useful only for extremely short people. Also, the gear shifters do not work. At all. One of the brakes does not work. At all.

But the motor works. I think. I haven't gone any further than a couple houses away with it yet, because it's poured down rain all day.

This is the major purchase I was talking about that might be illegal in Kentucky. If the Road Ruiner is illegal, I've already kablammoed that Allowed Cloud clean into the stratosphere by testing it. I don't follow your laws, Bevster.