241–248 of 248 posts
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Ha ha ha. Sorry, couldn't resist. Yes there's probably a fine on car drivers, but typically you pay a smaller bribe and get out. Bus drivers are difficult to punish due to unions, etc
Yes, I figured it was poorly policed if it existed at all, but was interested in knowing for sure.
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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 wo…
I used to cycle to work, 3 miles long. Half of it was a straight line along the road and the overground. Doing 50 km/h in good shape and on flat ground. Keeping up with the overground and the cars.
Moreover, if you can do 50 km/h of sustained speed, you should become a professional cycler. The world record is around 55 km in an hour. Pro cyclers can only sustain > 50 km/h speeds for shorter periods:
https://books.google.de/books?id=-TpDCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT79&lpg=PT...
Of course, short stretches of 40 or 50 km/h is doable, but most fit cyclers cannot sustain that for 3 mile stretch. So, either you are near-pro or overestimating your average speed ;).
Ps. I pass the vast majority of (clearly non-recreational) cyclers (> 95%).
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Don't prevent them from buying them, prevent people from riding that fast on sidewalks.
Another difference between e-bikes and scooters is that e-bikes do not require a license to drive while scooters do. One of the reasons for the speed limit on e bikes is to avoid this license requirement.
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Yes it would, if you really care about the planet and climate change you and I need to sacrifice something. Getting fit while helping doesn't hurt.
It's worth keeping in mind that riding a bike isn't necessarily better for climate change. Presuming that you aren't actively losing weight, you're eating extra calories in the form of food to power your bike. And the ecological impact of that food can easily be greater than that of biking. For example, buying 1kg of beef has the same ecological impact as driving 63 miles in a car[0]. However, that 1kg supplies you w…
>>> 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…
>>>> If the ride is so great and economics so favorable, why haven’t I seen more adoption here in US and Canada? (...) > I don't think it's the bike. Indeed. The issue is the infrastructure.
Thus the "infrastructure" could include public transportation. In my spouse's case, public transit encouraged her to ride her bike because it provides an alternative on days when it's too crappy to ride.
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I used to cycle to work, 3 miles long. Half of it was a straight line along the road and the overground. Doing 50 km/h in good shape and on flat ground. Keeping up with the overground and the cars.
If you commute on flat ground, you can use a lightweight racing bake and narrow tires. Unfortunately, that does not work for forest roads on my commute, so I need a heavier trekking bake with wide tires (with a lot more friction). Moreover, if you can do 50 km/h of sustained speed, you should become a professional cycler. The world record is around 55 km in an hour. Pro cyclers can only sustain > 50 km/h speeds for s…
The speed is not overestimated. The overground and the car have a well defined speed for comparison. Sometimes a friend would happen to drive along on the road on his way home and be surprised that I keep up with his car.
I cycled every day for a decade. That's a good training I guess.
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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.
Perhaps if the rider is really heavy or untrained. :p I have a 500w motor and almost never have to use more than about 4/5 of the maximum throttle.
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…
I've read about motorized doping in bike races, with motors hidden inside the gearing, I wonder whether anyone's thought about this sort of thing for consumer bikes, and what sort of benefit you could get for, say, 1kg or half a kg of extra weight. E-bikes at the moment seem to have reconciled themselves to being twice the weight of ordinary bikes.