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Reflections on E-Bikes

ebikes.neighbor-ryan.org

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Re: Reflections on E-Bikes

#171

Post by TulliusCicero »

t43562 wrote: post #96
TulliusCicero wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing how many people think bikes only work if you're a fit single person with no kids in a big city. On some level they're aware of ebikes existing, or, y'know, the Dutch, but for some reason the thoughts of "the Dutch bike everywhere" and "the Dutch have children" never quite connect in their heads.

Perhaps I'm wrong but I did think the Dutch were quite fit when I was borrowing a bike and riding around in Amsterdam. I wondered if it was about riding bikes. Perhaps other parts of the country are different.

Sure, because the Dutch are champions of active transportation: rates of walking and biking are very high there, due to urban design that supports those things. People who exercise will be in better shape than those who don't.

That said, you definitely don't need to be particularly fit to bike there. The bike infrastructure is quite good, and yes it helps how flat the country is (though this is becoming less of an issue with the rise of ebikes).

Re: Reflections on E-Bikes

#172

Post by TulliusCicero »

gregors wrote: post #165
TulliusCicero wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They go really, really fast, for sustained periods of time, and yet are as thin and quiet as a pedal bike. Not really? Class 1 and 2 ebikes in the US top out at 20 mph. Ebikes in Europe usually top out at 25 km/h (15.5 mph). Even 20 mph is achievable by a moderately fit person on a road bike for a sustained period of time.

People can are are modifying them. 80 mph Sur Ron https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-udAVx85IFs Call it whatever you want, these are motorcycles.

This is stupid. What percentage of ebike riders do you think are actually modding their bikes to go 80 mph? C'mon.

Re: Reflections on E-Bikes

#173

Post by TulliusCicero »

nicoburns wrote: post #104
LeonidasXIV wrote: post #89

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.

Yes, though it's taking a while, and you're not wrong that it's hitting more affluent demographics first (not unusual for new tech though).

Re: Reflections on E-Bikes

#174

Post by [deleted] »

soheil wrote: post #51

So many cringe statements in this post I'm not going to reference them here. One note which I think is missed often with heavy electric cargo bikes is a simple equation, used in car collisions to determine safety requirements. F = 0.5 mv^2 The electric nature of these bikes makes them go faster than regular bikes so the force in case of an accident is increased by the square of increase in velocity. Add the increased…

[deleted]

Re: Reflections on E-Bikes

#175

Post by TulliusCicero »

notacoward wrote: post #106

Some good points, but the focus seems to be on e-bikes vs. cars. I rarely see any opposition to e-bikes from drivers. The push-back mostly comes from regular cyclists and pedestrians, and those interactions are hardly addressed. Personally, I think putting e-bikes on paths already suffering from contention among cyclists and pedestrians is not something the stewards of those facilities should approve by default. If a…

A lot of drivers just hate bikes in general, not specifically ebikes.

Re: Reflections on E-Bikes

#176

Post by nybble41 »

russellbeattie wrote: post #158
Arainach wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

https://youtu.be/I8Ia6P1dBBI Really? It's not that hard to Google this stuff.

It may be based on a bicycle and have an electric motor, but the vehicle in that video is not a class 1, 2, or 3 e-bike. Due to the speed and motor size (2 kW) most places would classify it as an electric motorcycle and require the corresponding license. The limit to be considered a class 3 e-bike (in the US), the highest e-bike class, is a maximum speed of 28 MPG on level ground with standard passenger + cargo mass before the assist cuts out. (You may be able to exceed that speed with pure pedaling, or on a downhill slope.) Class 1 and 2 are limited to 20 MPH, with only foot-controlled throttle ("pedal assist") or the option of hand-activated throttle, respectively. All three classes are limited to 750 watt or smaller motors. Quite a few places treat class 3s as motorbikes or motorcycles rather than bicycles.

Re: Reflections on E-Bikes

#177

Post by jjav »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #133
RegW wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conversion kits start at around £150 and can be fitted to that £50 bike. The biggest issue I see for higher priced bikes is secure parking (as mentioned in the article). No one provides secure/supervised parking and its tricky to get insurance. You can't really lock any nice bike outside the supermarket and always expect it to be there when you get back.

If you want 250 watts or less for a bit of assistance with pedaling and ~20 miles of range, a conversion kit is fine. But if you have to deal with serious hills or want to use throttle-only, 250W won't be enough. IMO 750W is the bare minimum for that, and it requires a bigger motor, bigger battery, and disc brakes.* That costs a lot more and it's easier (and probably cheaper) to just buy the whole bike than convert w…

> 250W won't be enough. IMO 750W is the bare minimum

Those numbers seem huge. I can only put out about 150W sustained, so a 250W motor boost on top of that sounds like a lot. That would have me at 400W combined which is nearly pro-rider territory.

Re: Reflections on E-Bikes

#178

Post by jjav »

haspok wrote: post #95
blowski wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’ve put your finger on a real problem for me. I live in the UK countryside, and we get a lot of serious cyclists visiting here. The most dangerous pattern I see is occupying the middle of the road - which is fine when they’re doing 25mph in a 30mph road. But they stay there in 60mph sections, causing drivers to accelerate and veer round them. If we had more riders doing the same thing on ebikes, I imagine there’d…

E-bikes are limited to 25kmh in Europe (and that also applies to the UK - for now). If you are seeing e-bikers doing 25mph (are you really?), then those are illegally modified. They exist, but are a distinct minority. Also, e-bikes are typically ridden by people who would never think of riding a bicycle in the middle of an A-road, so no need to worry.

> If you are seeing e-bikers doing 25mph (are you really?), then those are illegally modified.

The speed cutoffs are where the electric assist stops assisting, but you can always just pedal to higher speeds like any bike.

Re: Reflections on E-Bikes

#179

Post by ryanchants »

bbarn wrote: post #111
hammock wrote: post #8

I ride an ebike every day. In Chicago they are very prevalent on every other block as part of the bike share system (so no need to worry about storage, theft, recharging or maintenance), and for 15 cents a minute it has become my main form of transportation.

e-bikes replaced the Divvy system? Wow, I've only been gone two years and I never saw one then.

No, Divvy has e-bikes as well now.

Re: Reflections on E-Bikes

#180

Post by jjav »

nickysielicki wrote: post #42
hans-moleman wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would rather this type of person drive a 2 ton vehicle? “Well people are going to have poor judgement” isn’t really a good argument against anything.

I'd rather they drive a machine that is fast enough to keep up fully with traffic, outfitted with proper safety mechanisms like ABS and turn signals, and wear protective DOT-approved safety gear. Motorcycles are not that much more expensive but they're much safer. The only reason that ebiking isn't killing people is because it's new and rare, but when that changes it's obviously worse for people to be sitting on the…

> Motorcycles are not that much more expensive

What's weird to me is that motorcycles can be had for cheaper than many e-bikes despite the e-bike being a much simpler machine, less range and far slower.

For example, a Kawasaki Ninja 400 has MSRP in the $5200-$5800 range, a nice small local commuter bike but still very capable. Many nicer e-bikes are quite a bit more expensive than that.

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