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Show HN: Long Range E-Bike

jacquesmattheij.com

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Re: Show HN: Long Range E-Bike

#161

Post by aaomidi »

space_fountain wrote: post #128
Closi wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I see the two as totally different things: I've tried pedal-assist e-bike and they're great. But... Although I have nothing against motorbikes I'm not cool at all with basically motorbikes getting a free pass because they're disguised as bicycles. Eh, it depends if you see pedal assistance being the defining difference between a bike and a motorbike. From a safety perspective, speed may be a better differentiator.

I think something like average real world speed and weight are the two important metrics. Maybe this is the intuition with petal assist vs throttle controlled e-bikes. I do sort of think it should take some work to get a bike up to it's top speed so that riders don't just cruise at that speed.

> so that riders don't just cruise at that speed.

Do you actually ride bikes on roads? This is there because if you're going slow on an actual road you're more likely to get killed because of a car hitting you.

I'm honestly exhausted at this FUD when it's actively fucking with my life as a bike rider on a main road. Even Netherlands allows fully motorized vehicles that are small on their bike paths.

Stop thinking of this as a "free pass" and more of "what's actually the safest for bikers and pedestrians.

Re: Show HN: Long Range E-Bike

#162

Post by nybble41 »

jacquesm wrote: post #159
nybble41 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one else was taking specifically about Bosch systems (edit: in the comments, not the article ) until you came along, and your original reply didn't mention them by name. There are lots of e-bikes out there, including pure "pedelecs" with no hand-operated throttle, which do not use Bosch parts and do not have torque sensors. They assist when the pedals are moving, not when you're applying pressure.

The article is mine. And that's the context in which you can read my comments.

I realize the article is yours, but you responded as if you were talking about all pedal-assist electric bikes (as the comment you replied to undoubtedly was), not just your particular model.

Re: Show HN: Long Range E-Bike

#163

Post by groone »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #133
davidw wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not cool at all with basically motorbikes getting a free pass because they're disguised as bicycles. As long as they'r not causing problems for other cyclists, they're still a big win in terms of transportation: way less carbon usage and occupies less space.

> As long as they'r not causing problems for other cyclists, They cause problems. Maybe not every e-motorcycle rider, but most of them take full advantage of the power to out-accelerate other bikers and double the top speed of everyone around them. Bike paths were design with typical cyclist speeds in mind. It's not uncommon to see a young kid flying down our local bike paths at 40mph or more on a modded e-bike, forc…

two e-bikers flying toward each other at 40mph in opposite directions is the same as one of them crashing at 80mph

- only if one of them weighs infinitely more than the other.

Re: Show HN: Long Range E-Bike

#164

Post by disambiguation »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #27

We really need a terminology to differentiate better between pedal-assist only e-bikes ("pedelec") and electric motorbikes. A "bicycle" that can accelerate without the need to pedal at all is an electric motorcycle, no matter if you put pedal on it or not. I see the two as totally different things: I've tried pedal-assist e-bike and they're great. But... Although I have nothing against motorbikes I'm not cool at all…

Surely top speed matters more than pedaling?

No one argues that people in electric wheel chairs are really driving ATV quads.

Re: Show HN: Long Range E-Bike

#165

Post by rjzzleep »

aaomidi wrote: post #161
space_fountain wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think something like average real world speed and weight are the two important metrics. Maybe this is the intuition with petal assist vs throttle controlled e-bikes. I do sort of think it should take some work to get a bike up to it's top speed so that riders don't just cruise at that speed.

> so that riders don't just cruise at that speed. Do you actually ride bikes on roads? This is there because if you're going slow on an actual road you're more likely to get killed because of a car hitting you. I'm honestly exhausted at this FUD when it's actively fucking with my life as a bike rider on a main road. Even Netherlands allows fully motorized vehicles that are small on their bike paths. Stop thinking of…

In the US a lot of places don't have sidewalks or bike lanes and you're encouraged to cycle in the middle of a road lane so that you don't get killed when a driver hits you at full speed from the side. Also, you're legally entitled to a lane.

In most other places that don't have dedicated bike lanes drive on the side of the road, same places scooters normally drive.

Re: Show HN: Long Range E-Bike

#166

Post by shadowoflight »

globular-toast wrote: post #129
Closi wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I see the two as totally different things: I've tried pedal-assist e-bike and they're great. But... Although I have nothing against motorbikes I'm not cool at all with basically motorbikes getting a free pass because they're disguised as bicycles. Eh, it depends if you see pedal assistance being the defining difference between a bike and a motorbike. From a safety perspective, speed may be a better differentiator.

> From a safety perspective, speed may be a better differentiator. Or perhaps momentum, which is far higher in motorised vehicles.

While I agree with this, there are the caveats that both light electric bicycles and heavy analog bicycles exist, and that in many cases the additional mass of the motor and battery may not contribute much to the overall momentum once the mass of cyclist and cargo are factored in.

Note: I commuted by electric bicycle before I switched to working remote, and I have to say that riding a vehicle that tops out at ~30mph when you're slamming the throttle _and_ pedaling as hard as you can on a road with cars and trucks going 45mph (or faster) is a harrowing experience. The few miles where I rode on bicycle paths, though, I capped my speed at 15-20mph (around what a decent cyclist would do) and slowed to 5-10mph when I was approaching foot traffic or other cyclists - and nobody ever batted an eye (except a few people who wanted to know where they could get one, heh).

Re: Show HN: Long Range E-Bike

#168

Post by jacquesm »

Closi wrote: post #132
jacquesm wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That and there are fixed maximum ratios between the pedal input and motor assist.

Why does it matter from a safety perspective if the locomotion is powered by a motor or a combination of a motor plus someone's legs? (Or if it doesn't matter from a safety perspective, what's the practical need to legislate against it?)

It's not the safety perspective that drives the legislation, but trying to create meaningful classes of vehicles that then can be used to drive safety. The classification comes first. And s-pedelecs are a bit of a weird in-between thing. From a technical perspective a bike, from a speed perspective potentially as fast as a scooter (but rarely so in practice), a bit faster than a normal bike or e-bike and a lot lighter than a scooter. So it's a tricky thing to classify.

In the end the governments decided to limit the power for e-bikes, limit their speed and tie it in with pedalling. S-pedelecs have all those restrictions but they're a bit higher, so you can have more power, go a bit faster but you still have to work to get to some speed. On 'takeoff' my bike can briefly do 350 Watt bursts but that quickly falls off to 150 and at the maximum speed (45 kph) it's like driving into a wall if you want to go above, the motor cuts out completely and there is considerable drag.

Re: Show HN: Long Range E-Bike

#169

Post by wpietri »

Closi wrote: post #121
TacticalCoder wrote: post #27

We really need a terminology to differentiate better between pedal-assist only e-bikes ("pedelec") and electric motorbikes. A "bicycle" that can accelerate without the need to pedal at all is an electric motorcycle, no matter if you put pedal on it or not. I see the two as totally different things: I've tried pedal-assist e-bike and they're great. But... Although I have nothing against motorbikes I'm not cool at all…

> I see the two as totally different things: I've tried pedal-assist e-bike and they're great. But... Although I have nothing against motorbikes I'm not cool at all with basically motorbikes getting a free pass because they're disguised as bicycles. Eh, it depends if you see pedal assistance being the defining difference between a bike and a motorbike. From a safety perspective, speed may be a better differentiator.

Speed (or better, momentum) is important. But pedal assistance is definitely material to me. Switching from pedal-assist to throttle-controlled changes the proportionality between impulse and real-world results.

As a kid my first response to pretty much anything with a dial was to turn it up all the way and see what happened. That's a behavior I saw quite a bit during the brief plague of VC-funded scooters: novices at 100% motor output rocketing down sidewalks, etc. That's much less likely to happen it they have to pedal hard to get the top speed.

Re: Show HN: Long Range E-Bike

#170

Post by jacquesm »

nybble41 wrote: post #153
twodave wrote: post #38

Awesome project Jacques! I saw a comment of yours on an article a day or two ago and was hoping to see this pop up soon. I've found the most difficult thing about riding an e-bike is the other motorists have no idea how to react to you. You're not really a regular bicycle anymore due to your speed, but you're also not a motorcycle that deserves its own lane. I have at least one car turn in front of me almost every tr…

> You're not really a regular bicycle anymore due to your speed… The top speed (with assist) for class 1 & 2 e-bikes is well within the speed range of a regular bicycle. 15 MPH is considered a reasonable average speed for beginners, and 18-22 MPG is not out of the question with training. I've ridden my own e-bike past 20 MPH with no assist on occasion, and being a foldable model designed for electric assist it has a…

I've tried driving over the top of the motor on this bike and it is almost impossible. I'm a pretty strong cyclist and I never managed more than 48 kph and that only very briefly. The drag is insane.
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