151–160 of 188 posts
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If you ride around in the gutter then you will get cars squeezing you all day long. Taking your position in the road is absolutely the right thing to do.
This sense of self-righteousness helps nobody. It creates a phoney war between different types of road user, as opposed to looking for ways we can coexist peacefully.
This sounds great in theory, but I don't find it convincing. Motorcyclists say the same thing about speed being a benefit and maybe it is in some cases, but if you look at the stats, the faster the bike, the more likely you will die. Speeding is a factor in 32% of fatalities. I'd be surprised if it's significantly different on an e-bike.
In that range, and in mixed traffic (which is unfortunately most urban riding in the US), a 5mph difference can be a step change in terms of whether drivers even feel the need to pass me at all. 15mph is only 50% faster than 10mph, but can totally flip the "who's passing who" dynamic from "cars passing me frequently+aggressively" to "cars hesitate, back off, and then I get ahead / pass the next cars in line at the next light."
Here's an account where I've been posting videos that illustrate this a little more viscerally: https://twitter.com/CarsDontFitJC/status/1457490588320817153
I appreciate the fact that e-bikes are bringing biking to the masses. I really do. But from this post I also read a lot of coping, because your cycling infrastructure is bad. Like the speed argument is completely bogus if you wouldn't need to cycle next to cars that are going that fast. If you had separated bike lanes, maybe not even attached to streets. Proper bike infrastructure is what gets people to bike, e-bikes…
Are e-bikes bringing biking to the masses? At least here in the UK it seems that standard cycling is very common among ordinary people (and a basic bike can be bought for £50-£100). Whereas e-bikes are mainly owned by the relatively wealthy as they sell for upwards of £1000.
I appreciate the fact that e-bikes are bringing biking to the masses. I really do. But from this post I also read a lot of coping, because your cycling infrastructure is bad. Like the speed argument is completely bogus if you wouldn't need to cycle next to cars that are going that fast. If you had separated bike lanes, maybe not even attached to streets. Proper bike infrastructure is what gets people to bike, e-bikes…
"Better bike infrastructure" and "a bit of pedal assist" are both good things that we need more of.
Even in the best possible future, I believe cycling in US cities will involve some amount of mixing with cars for the rest of my natural life (unfortunately!), so I'm not sure "completely bogus if…" is fair.
And anyway, a little extra speed is still useful because it's transportation.
Here's a fun thought experiment: define "places I can go" as "the locus of points within 1hr bike ride of a train station." If e-bikes let me go 50% faster (say, avg 15mph instead of 10mph), that multiplies the accessible area around each train station by 2.25x! I can go more than twice as many places now!
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>I think this must be a US phenomenon. >a car chosen for low total ownership cost. I own and drive a car that I bought with the intention of owning and maintaining cheaply, too. I am fairly anal about maintenance, so the costs associated with that are actually inflated from what they could be. I live in Southern California, apparently a very expensive place to be. I own a reliable used car that I bought for fairly ch…
Insurance seems to very high compared to Japan. With good history, 35yr old, and having Prius, unlimited insurance with car insurance takes below $300/yr. Tax is high here. $330/yr (after 2yr) and $210/2yr (after 5yr).
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Might I suggest clothing? There is clothing available now that can be used to protect our frail, naked bodies against the punishing elements.
Indeed, yet they are hopeless against proper rain and snow, but I guess some people are masochistic. I am used to Scandinavian, German and Swiss winter. Cycling with rain or snowstorm, only when no other option is available.
I admittedly do go camping in snow and whatnot but I find the biggest barrier people have to doing these things is not knowing the equipment that you can bring to make it nice. The worst part is actually probably mitigating rust IMO.
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We will be moving to a house in the suburbs next year, and then we probably will get a cargo bike, as there we will have space to safely store it and the roads are better for cycling than the city centre. Bikes also need a good amount of infrastructure, and most cities do not have that right now. Given its usually car drivers that pay taxes for roads (either a direct road tax or through fuel) it not really a suprise…
I would suggest you take a close you at how much you local governments spend on roads vs how much they bring in via road/fuel taxes. In most places the cost of roads (especially local roads) is being partially covered by general taxes. Where I live is it around 50%.
[0]: https://terrapass.com/product/personal-carbon-offset-grouped
[1]: https://www.bidnet.com/resources/business-insights/us-govern...
[2]: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=23&t=10#:~:text=In...
[3]: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/diesel-fuel/use-of-diese...
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I'm talking about the thousands of Sur-Ron and Segways, Super 73s, etc. which have pedals simply to be technically class 2, yet can hit 70mph. I'm not sure why the downvotes. Oh well.
Pedals don't make you class 2. Class 2 requires bring limited to 20mph. Even Class 3 requires bring limited to 28mph. No ebike is hitting "70mph". The hearing and tires avg l aren't good enough and the battery didn't even deliver enough power.
Really? It's not that hard to Google this stuff.
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> Where I live the hills are so steep that it's impossible to bike them solely human-powered unless you're an actual athlete. or you have (and use) gears? It will just take a while
Lol, where I'm from(Polish mountains) you can have a proper mountain bike with 30 gears, and even in the lowest gear I can guarantee 90% of people wouldn't be able to cycle up to my house without at the very least standing on the pedals - most people just give up and walk pushing the bike in fact. It took me years of training to comfortably cycle up some of those roads while sitting, and it takes a lot of effort.
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Car insurance, gas, maintenance, oil changes, tires, etc… Total cost of ownership of a car is really high
I bought a used car 6 years ago, and since then I've spent €2,200 on maintenance - that includes oil and tire changes. I'm quite strict on following the manufacturers guidelines, so if you were a bit more laissez-faire or did more work yourself it would be cheaper. Insurance costs €150/year. I drive around 10,000km per year, which at today's prices (€1.50 per litre) fuel costs €900/year. I paid €10,000 to buy the car…