Cowboy recall: customers must bring e-bikes to hub for frame replacement

The repair program of e-bike manufacturer Cowboy has started. However, it is now emerging that owners of the Cowboy bikes affected by the recall must transport them to one of the service hubs established in Germany at their own expense. So, anyone living in the countryside or in a city without such a hub is in trouble.

Logistical effort for customers

This is reported by a reader of heise online, who received an invitation for a frame replacement last week. “Your bike is now ready for a free frame replacement as part of the Cowboy 4 ST (Edition MR) recall,” the email states.

Furthermore, “You can now drop off your bike at any of the hubs listed below.” According to the overview, they have the option of dropping off in Hamburg, Berlin, Düsseldorf, or Munich – hubs in Frankfurt and Freiburg are to be added. However, the reader lives in Hanover and would have to travel to Hamburg with their bike, where the bike would be accepted before being sent on to an assembly plant.

According to the email available to heise online, the frame replacement process takes about a month and a half. Afterwards, the bike will be transported back to the service hub, where the customer will have to pick it up again. The affected person adds that there might be a handful of working days in the entire month of May when one can come by to drop off the bike. No appointments have been released for June yet.

This means Cowboy is once again putting owners of the affected bikes to a severe test. Because exactly one year ago, on May 5, 2025, the company published the recall for the step-through model C4 ST (MR) and at the same time issued a warning not to use it anymore. At that time, Cowboy did not offer a temporary solution for those affected. Moreover, according to another affected person, the manufacturer allowed service and insurance contracts to continue while the bikes had to remain unused. In this case, the customer had to take action themselves and eventually got a refund under pressure.

Cowboy has been French since the end of 2025

The Belgian start-up Cowboy, after months of uncertainty and impending insolvency, has no longer belonged to founders Tanguy Goretti and Adam Roose since the end of last year, but to the French ReBirth Group. With the takeover, the new owner also shouldered the costs of the frame replacement program and opened the aforementioned service hubs. Even if the solution is not optimal and those affected had to wait a long time for their replacement frame, and in some cases still have to, their bike is at least being repaired. If Cowboy had gone into insolvency, like VanMoof, customers might have been left with their defective bikes.

Nevertheless, a more elegant solution, for example, through the now numerous Cowboy repair workshops, would possibly have been more customer-friendly.

(afl)