I skimmed it and didnt find much “more to the story than meets eye” about it.
It’s by a Chinese branch of Honda and limited to the Asian market for now. And its performance won’t rip your pants off - which makes sense given the market.

Thanks!

Available only on BBC iPlayer currently

My first bike was a Suzuki GN250 and I’d highly recommend it (or something similar) to you based on your post. Eg Honda CB250/CD250. Actually any Japanese (UJM) air cooled single cylinder bike will be a great start to learn riding and maintenance. Usually cheap and available parts too.
I now ride a DR650 and still do a lot of my own wrenching.

Those will be square taper cranks. They can be a pain to remove, but sometimes are okay. Remove circular plastic cap and there’ll be a nut down inside the crank. One side will be left hand thread, the other right hand. You’ll need a socket that is very thin walled. Undoing these can be hard, but getting the cranks off the square taper is usually the more annoying part as the cranks get jammed on. I’ve often had to bash them off with a hammer 😅

(If you’re actually going to attempt this, probs worth watching a youtube tutorial)

My dad recently picked up an automated brake light from the ALDI centre isle… so there are cheap options out there to try (and I imagine poor quality). But the tech wouldn’t be too complex i wouldn’t think - using an accelerometer.
They’ve had this tech in after market brake lights for motos for a while now.

To expand. Let’s say a pedals raw BOM* cost is $30.
Plus old tarrifs = $30.02.
Plus new tarrifs = $42.80.

(*Bill of materials)

Nah, I think what they’re saying is that; at April 27 tarrifs added 2c to the cost of their pedals, but that will increase 640% to $12.80 later this year. It’s worded weirdly and took me a while to get (if I do understand correctly), but i don’t think it’s a typo.