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First 100 miles on my E-Bike

yilunzh.com

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Re: First 100 miles on my E-Bike

#61

Post by chrisseaton »

waytogo wrote: post #27

I don't grok e-bikes. I like them and I'd like to get one but I just don't know how I will manage the charging. I am livinig in a big city and have no garage and no wall socket in front of my street door. And 100% of all destinations I ride to don't have wall sockets for charging neither. So, I would need to carry every time the heavy battery upstairs (3 floors)? I am anyway always full-loaded with bags or whatever a…

> Edit: Why the downvote?

Maybe it's because you've said you don't understand e-bikes for the ridiculous reason that they don't fit your very specific living situation like what kind of housing you have, which floor you live on and how many bags you're prepared to carry.

Other people have different living situations, and e-bikes suit them. It's not a mystery.

Re: First 100 miles on my E-Bike

#62

Post by jdietrich »

noonespecial wrote: post #37
jmull wrote: post #19

The laws around e-bikes in the US can be a deterrent. E.g.: [The Murky Legality of E-Bikes]( https://www.citylab.com/equity/2016/02/the-murky-legality-of... ) The second paragraph gives you the flavor of it: > Under federal law, an electric bike with a maximum assisted speed under 20 miles per hour can be sold as a bicycle, not a motor vehicle. Under New York state law, riders would need to register these as they wou…

I actually worry about the "something must be done" crowd cajoling lawmakers into lazily shoehorning electric bikes into the "motorcycle" category and erasing much of their advantages to own as a bicycle. This happened with boats here as my little plastic kayak with a tiny electric assist has to be registered and taxed as if it was a full sized bass fishing boat with a v8.

Many e-bikes are perilously close to motorcycles, with similar power and top speed to a 50cc motor scooter. Brushless motors and lithium batteries can put out a phenomenal amount of power and torque. There's a line between "bicycle with electric assist" and "electric motorcycle with vestigial pedals" - I see an awful lot of the latter these days.

Re: First 100 miles on my E-Bike

#63

Post by mindB »

jakobegger wrote: post #38
mindB wrote: post #9

Author seems to think an internal drivetrain for a bike would be more reliable. Maybe somebody more mechanical can chime in, but my understanding was that the opposite was true: only reason cars have to use an internal drivetrain is for cooling and external ones are generally more reliable?

Internal gears in bicycles need no service at all for typical use. External gears on the other hand require you to swap chain and cogset regularly. (But if well serviced, they are more efficient)

Ah. I think I was getting robustness and efficiency mixed up. I suppose if you have sufficient electric assist, efficiency becomes less of a concern.

Re: First 100 miles on my E-Bike

#64

Post by alfla »

quickben wrote: post #49
yilunzh wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, the brakes is definitely the limiting factor currently, but other parts of the bike have held up surprisingly well. I didn't really know anything about bikes before starting this, so it was a cheap way to learn. I figured I can always upgrade the parts over time if needed. I had set a max budget of $1500 for the initial purchase and had to make tradeoff somewhere.

I've been getting interested in e-bikes recently. Work is 15km away, but I do weight near 0.1 [t] :) Hows the battery holding if you carry extra weight? How much does the total setup, you included, weights?

I can comment on the range. I have a similar bike with a 540Wh battery. Total weight close to 20 kg, maximum practical range approx 30-40 km. Slightly less when sub zero C temp.

Edit: I would consider an extra charger and charge at work for that range, in case you want to stop by somewhere on your way to or back from work.

Re: First 100 miles on my E-Bike

#65

Post by jordache »

lmm wrote: post #57
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?

well when you live in a dense urban environment, you are already prioritizing certain things above having a car.

Re: First 100 miles on my E-Bike

#66

Post by CydeWeys »

yilunzh wrote: post #20
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…

Yup, the brakes is definitely the limiting factor currently, but other parts of the bike have held up surprisingly well. I didn't really know anything about bikes before starting this, so it was a cheap way to learn. I figured I can always upgrade the parts over time if needed. I had set a max budget of $1500 for the initial purchase and had to make tradeoff somewhere.

You can't easily replace the frame though. You're right that the other parts can be replaced, but you should have at least used a good frame to start with. For only a few hundred bucks more you could have gotten a substantially better bike to work with. The bike you have has a cheap aluminum frame, which will accumulate stress fractures over time from the high speed electric bicycle use exceed its design specs that it's seeing. It may eventually catastrophically fail on you.

At your given budget I would have used a better bike and a smaller motor/battery. The combination of beefy motor on an inferior quality bike could be flat-out dangerous.

Re: First 100 miles on my E-Bike

#67

Post by adrianN »

lumberjack wrote: post #35
rorykoehler wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

A fast e-bike would be dangerous, anyway. At that point, you should just get a small capacity motorcycle or a scooter.

It would be good if they went 30-35, so that you don't impede traffic on streets with a 30km/h limit. I don't think the additional 15% speed would make that much of a safety difference, compared to cars overtaking you.

Re: First 100 miles on my E-Bike

#68

Post by rurban »

mojoe wrote: post #56

The author mentions that ebikes in China run around $500. Has anyone here tried importing one of those models?

I've imported my european bike for $800. It lasted quite a while, until I tried to fix a flat tire in the Lance Anderson bike shop in Austin, TX. They've got coffee, but have no idea about e-bikes. They broke it (short circuit), but thanksfully there was an e-bike repair in Austin. They could repair it to 95%. There' was still some leakage. I think there's one repair shop every 1000 miles. There's none in Houston. It was stolen after 2 years, which was expected.

My imported bike was far better than any $1000-2000 bikes in the states. They are all a scam.

Re: First 100 miles on my E-Bike

#70

Post by jpollock »

analog31 wrote: post #59

>>> 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…

I commute 38m/day, and tried an e-bike. Since it was speed limited to 19mph, it didn't save me any time compared to self-powered riding, and it provided considerably less exercise - about the same as walking.

I had to return the bike after a week. :)

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