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I Brought 8 ‘Dead’ VanMoofs Back to Life – A Strangely Familiar Experience?
by Ian Sherrington, May 2025
Everyone these days is ‘technical’. Whether or not one considers oneself to be so, we all interact with technology for most of our day. We just have varying degrees of understanding it. That’s all.
So it seems strange to say that I have led a mainly technical life and done many technical things. These days we all do. What I should say is that I was chiefly an obsessed programmer who would (used to) work days and nights churning out code for online gambling systems.
And, as a programmer, one appreciates the form and beauty of great coding – usually other people’s code 😊 – there’s definitely an art to solving difficult problems by applying elegantly structured code in the form of functions, algorithms and whatnot.
And, as I am certainly an appreciator of form and beauty, I understandably became mesmerized in 2018 by an ad for a new e-bike, the VanMoof S2.
I had to have one! After a 5 month wait, it finally arrived and e-bike commuting soon became my preferred transport option – but not if it rains though 😊.
But, after 4 years of trusty service, unfortunately my bike broke down and I was relegated to manual pedaling again. An awful experience albeit a very healthy one.
So, I decided to try and fix the bike myself! How hard could it be? A new journey began.
What followed became an obsession – god, another one..
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The Rise and Pause of VanMoof
VanMoof, founded in Amsterdam in 2009, set out to revolutionize urban mobility. Their bikes were beautiful: sleek aluminum frames, integrated lights, anti-theft tech, and app-controlled locking mechanisms.
With the launch of the S2 in 2018, VanMoof hit its stride. The S2 was the perfect fusion of form and function—minimalist on the outside, incredibly smart on the inside.
Features like a boost button, automatic gear shifting, and onboard theft tracking made it feel like the Tesla of bicycles. It became a cult classic—especially in cities like Amsterdam, London, and Berlin.
But beneath that polished exterior was a vulnerability that led to the premature demise of many of these bikes.
The S2’s Achilles’ Heel: A Burnt Charger Port
The fatal flaw of the VanMoof S2 lies in one small yet critical component: the charging port inside the Smart Cartridge – the board that controls the motor, battery management system (BMS), and communication electronics.
Over time, repeated use and internal resistance cause the connector to degrade and eventually burn out, preventing the bike from charging. The rider sees a non-functional charger or a dead bike and assumes the battery or electronics have failed. Once the battery is depleted beyond a certain threshold, the BMS shuts down, and recovery becomes nearly impossible without intervention.
Most bikes are simply abandoned at this point. But the truth is, this is a 30-minute repair—if you know what to look for.
Four have new homes already
A Resurrection Story (or Eight)
Once I learned about the issue, I opened the Smart Cartridge, located the burnt port, and carefully chopped off and soldered the connection. In most cases, this alone allowed the bike to charge again.
When the battery was completely drained, I would gently charge the individual cells directly, bypassing the BMS, until it was safe to re-engage. After that, the bike usually roared back to life—fully functional and ready to ride.
It was strangely satisfying. These bikes weren’t “dead” – they just needed someone willing to dig in and apply the right fix. Kind of like old systems in tech, sitting in dusty racks or ignored Docker containers, waiting for someone to care enough to troubleshoot.
It Felt Familiar—Because It Was
In my work with online systems – especially within the gambling industry – I’ve had to debug more than my fair share of broken systems, the cause of which was usually my own fault somehow.
To fix stuff, you need to know what is wrong and how to replicate the issue. You need tools (like Wireshark and Postman to watch network packets and API calls in detail) to help you hunt down the fault.
To fix a VanMoof, you also need specialist tools along with a gentle touch – but also, occasionally, persuasive force.
Once I understood this and, amazingly, had fixed one bike, I wanted to fix more… This was the start of it. Hunting down and buying these bikes became quite an obsession.
Each bike purchase was a gamble. All the owner usually knew was that it didn’t work anymore. Picking the right bike that I could fix was risky. There were always other issues too. Would they always be fixable?
I threw the dice and in total I bought ten bikes including my original. I fixed eight and the remaining two are in pieces hoping that I can fix their wiring issues. However, they’ve now been robbed of some critical components. I’m thinking should I try and build a tandem with the remaining two frames…
Some Things Are Worth Saving
The VanMoof S2 is still one of the best bikes ever built. It’s beautifully engineered, rides like a dream, and can often be fixed with a few tools and the right mindset.
It just wasn’t built to be easily serviced – much like some of the software platforms we’ve inherited.
But that doesn’t mean it should be forgotten. In fact, it means the opposite. It means the people who understand how to fix and maintain complex systems – be they physical or digital – are more valuable than ever.
Final Thoughts
The original VanMoof company, founded in Amsterdam in 2009 by brothers Taco and Ties Carlier, declared bankruptcy in July 2023 after years of rapid growth, hardware innovation – and mounting operational challenges.
VanMoof became known for its sleek, tech-infused e-bikes and designed many of their bike’s components themselves. Their innovations revolutionized the e-bike world but would prove to be risky.
When issues arose with a couple of critical own-design components, the result was an avalanche of warranty claims. The issues proved so expensive and time consuming to solve, they ultimately led to VanMoof’s downfall.
And, for me, it’s still about understanding how things actually work, why they fail and how to breathe life back into something that seems beyond repair.
Whether you’re maintaining an online platform or fixing a fleet of abandoned e-bikes, yes it’s complicated, but stick with it and you’ll always get there in the end. Promise!
