The wait for Rivian’s first electric bike just got a little bit shorter. After months of delays, ALSO has informed reservation holders that they’ll finally be able to place pre-orders for the company’s highly anticipated TM-B electric bike starting August 18.

It’s welcome news for the unknown number of people who put down reservations, though it’s hard to ignore just how far the timeline has slipped.

When ALSO first unveiled the TM-B last year, the company targeted Spring 2026 deliveries. Spring has now come and gone, and with Summer well upon us now, reservation holders are only now getting the opportunity to actually order their bikes – or at least they’re being told that such an opportunity will be coming very soon.

No customer TM-B bikes have been reported as delivered yet, meaning the first shipments are still ahead of us.

The latest email from ALSO explains that the company’s Gear Shop pre-order opening was itself pushed back by another week, from August 11 to August 18, so the company could align Gear Shop purchases with bike ordering for “the best and most seamless experience.”

One point of frustration that’s been bubbling up in the reservation community is ALSO’s decision to open ordering for all reservation holders at once.

Rather than giving earlier reservation holders priority based on when they put down their deposits, everyone appears to be entering the ordering process simultaneously.

For customers who reserved last year, that’s understandably rubbed some people the wrong way, especially since ALSO’s reservation page still includes language indicating that reservation order impacts fulfillment, stating that “The sooner you reserve, the sooner you ride” and “Reservations will be fulfilled on a first-come basis.”

The TM-B itself remains one of the more technically ambitious e-bikes we’ve seen in years. The lightweight urban bike features Rivian-inspired industrial design, a carbon belt drive, integrated lighting, a removable battery, connected features, GPS tracking, automatic electronic shifting, pedal-by-wire, and a suite of sensors intended to improve security and the riding experience. It was designed to be more of a premium mobility platform than just another commuter e-bike.

The catch, of course, is the price. The bike is priced at US $4,500 for the Performance version or $3,500 for the lower-range version with a smaller battery. The TM-B enters an increasingly competitive market at a time when many buyers are gravitating toward value-oriented e-bikes that deliver much but not all of the performance of a TMB, yet for a fraction of the cost. That’s a difficult backdrop for any premium newcomer.

I’ve said it before, and I still think it’s true: the TM-B is undeniably cool. Sure, the design is divisive in the classic love-it-or-hate-it way, but the engineer in me nerds out on how cool the technology and design turned out to be. Rivian’s innovative DNA is all over it, and there are some genuinely clever features here.

But I also wonder whether the company has misread where today’s e-bike market is. The industry is still recovering from a painful downturn, consumers have become far more price-conscious, and ALSO has clearly invested heavily in branding, social media marketing, and building out what appears to be a sizable, highly talented workforce that has to be weighing heavily on the company’s burn rate. That’s an expensive way to launch into a market that increasingly rewards value over novelty.

If the riding experience is as polished as ALSO promises, maybe the bike will justify its premium positioning. But after months of delays, the company now has even more to prove. And that has to start with delivering bikes.