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First 100 miles on my E-Bike

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Re: First 100 miles on my E-Bike

#51

Post by ozten »

Daily, year-round bike commuter in Seattle - I think electronic bikes are awesome for the hills in Seattle for folks new to biking. I'm concerned with the possibility of this increasing accidents, however.

My commute is mostly on roads with cars. I don't ride as fast as I can. Driving defensively, you want to be able to break and avoid a collision.

I witnessed a really bad accident, where a car t-boned a cyclist. This has cured me of riding as fast as I can into work.

I see a lot of normal bikers as well as e-bikers going faster than is safe and I think e-bikes contribute to riders putting themselves into jeopardy.

Re: First 100 miles on my E-Bike

#52

Post by Shivetya »

rorykoehler wrote: post #30
WA wrote: post #6

I have put about 3,000km on my E-bike in the last 1.5 years. It's limited to 25km/h, because then I don't need a license, it's fast enough for city traffic (mostly in bike lanes anyways) and I get to tow a trailer for my kid. Biggest advantage: Hills don't exist for me. We live in a city with quite a few hills and day care is about 70-100m below our appartment. Doing this trip twice a day with its 15% slope would tak…

The 25km/h limit is why I won't buy one. Pointless for normal use.

I figure it this way, I would want it for boosting on take off and going up hills. the limit on speed is not an issue to me as if I am maintaining a pace higher than that it is because I am on favorable terrain.

Re: First 100 miles on my E-Bike

#53

Post by jordache »

username223 wrote: post #36
jordache wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> $200 piece of cast-iron junk. He used an alu bike... mechanical disc brakes worked for a decade before hydraulics.

> He used an alu bike... My bad -- the name "IRON HORSE" threw me off. Still, the thing supposedly weighs 37.75 lbs., which is terrible for a bike. For $1500, he could get something with much better parts weighing 20-25 lbs.

In an e-bike assisted context, the extra 10-15 lb, most of which is non-rotational weight is negligible.

A 20-25 lb steel bike with sufficient robustness does not really exist for $1500. Something like a surly ogre is about 30lbs. To shave off that extra 5-10 lbs you're looking at some very performance oriented parts and/or construction with extremely elevated prices.

Re: First 100 miles on my E-Bike

#54

Post by amiga-workbench »

username223 wrote: post #17
CydeWeys wrote: post #10

I'm surprised the author spent so much money building on top of a base bike of such low quality. That department store bike is what bike snobs would call a "bicycle-shaped object". You certainly shouldn't not be cheaping out on the actual bicycle for an e-bike, as you're putting the bike (and particularly the brakes) through forces they were not properly designed for. The author even admits such: > The brakes are oft…

This. For the $1500 the author spent, he could have bought a decent bike instead of strapping a motor on a $200 piece of cast-iron junk. Plus, a 1000-watt motor is ridiculous: that's the kind of power generated by a pro sprinter, and over twice what a pro climber generates on average. A 100-watt boost would be enough of an advantage to make most hills easy, and would probably weigh and cost far less.

I don't think you have tried out an eBike before, 1000W is just about enough to make most inclines easy. If I drop my BLDC controller down to 250W it makes things rather difficult. Remember you are carrying around the extra weight of a battery pack and motor.

Re: First 100 miles on my E-Bike

#55

Post by microtonal »

oligopoly wrote: post #44
rorykoehler wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 25km/h limit is why I won't buy one. Pointless for normal use.

Yeah, that's just ridiculous. You can cycle 20-25km/h without catching a breath if you are even in decent shape

Under good circumstances, yes. When you are cycling recreationally, you get to pick a nice day. But if you are cycling to work every day and deal with strong wind, elevation differences, maintaining 20-25 km/h is going to be tough.

Sustaining 20-25 is easy for me on a calm day. But on steep roads or windy days it's definitely more in the 10-15 or 15-20 ballpark.

(This is from experience. I am fit, cycle 22km every working day (roughly 5200km per year) with elevation differences and have an excellent bike.

Re: First 100 miles on my E-Bike

#57

Post by lmm »

jordache wrote: post #26

I still think the opportunity cost of not having a car is greater than whatever you pay to make it instantly available, should you want to take that trip during poor weather, or sufficient distance to make the ebike non applicable. Unless you are content with the daily patterns that are constraint by the range of your e-bike.

A parking space where I live (London) would cost 1100/month. I find it very hard to imagine getting that much value out of a car - what would I ever use it for? I mean sure it would make it easier to make a spontaneous trip hundreds of miles while carrying lots of luggage for some reason, but how often do I want to do that?

Re: First 100 miles on my E-Bike

#58

Post by alfla »

ozten wrote: post #51

Daily, year-round bike commuter in Seattle - I think electronic bikes are awesome for the hills in Seattle for folks new to biking. I'm concerned with the possibility of this increasing accidents, however. My commute is mostly on roads with cars. I don't ride as fast as I can. Driving defensively, you want to be able to break and avoid a collision. I witnessed a really bad accident, where a car t-boned a cyclist. Thi…

Also year-round commuter in Norway w/ an e-bike. I agree that the increased speed increases the probability of an accident. I've personally had several close calls vs cars in roundabouts and on bike lanes (!).

I also have a motorcycle license and I've been riding motorcycles for about 5 years in traffic. A lot of the risks are very similar to the ones you experience on an e-bike in my opinion.

Edit: The best tip I can give to two-wheel riders is to increase visibility as much as possible, and be observant of cars. Lights and bright colored clothing helps a lot.

Re: First 100 miles on my E-Bike

#59

Post by analog31 »

>>> If the ride is so great and economics so favorable, why haven’t I seen more adoption here in US and Canada?

The author's answers to this question focus solely on the bike technology itself. This is a common thread in a lot of discussions about cycling: If we only built the right bike, more people would ride. This is usually followed by a CAD rendering of the perfect bike, that looks like nobody would want to ride it.

I don't think it's the bike. I think that there are a lot of cyclists who are simply not candidates for e-bikes because riding under their own power is part of the attraction. I'm one of those people. A friend of mine who loves his e-bike finally gave up trying to understand why I don't want one.

So you have to reach the same people who were deterred from cycling in the past for reasons good and bad. The motor addresses the issue of effort, but not safety, weather, or a variety of other factors, including the fact that driving a car is fun for a lot of people. The e-bike could produce a marginal uptick in cycling, in the short term, but not a revolution.

Re: First 100 miles on my E-Bike

#60

Post by chx »

I swear the best commuter ebike is the Revelo Flex (https://www.revelo.ca/pages/flex-electric-folding-bike). It's like someone shrank a penny farthing and put a motor in the back wheel: the front wheel is 20" and has pedals attached to it (so you can help the motor when uphill), the back is 16" and has the motor inside (torque!). You can order it with bike ABS as well (https://www.bikerumor.com/2012/11/27/hands-on-sabs-antilock-...). Since it's folding and rolling folded you can easily carry it on public transit. It's only 15kg which is just about the lightest possible (those batteries are heavy). There's no chain to maintain, no grease, nothing. Just hop on, zip along and stop when the situation warrants -- the stopping distance of the SABS pads is nothing short of incredible (I have been rearended by another cyclist once when I fully engaged them to avoid a collision with a car -- normally when riding in a bike lane I don't grip them like my life depends on them because I know how they behave).
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