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Electric bike, stupid love of my life

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Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life

#211

Post by entropicgravity »

tjoff wrote: post #35
swader999 wrote: post #6

E bikes really are the best form of travel. The only issue is how do you get rid of that ridiculous looking grin on your face. You just had a huge rush, got a bit of exercise, paid nothing for parking, eight pennies for 'gas', and beat all your co-workers who were stuck in traffic. The grin is real and not a good look professionally at the office when commuting. Thanks ebikes.ca, endless sphere forums and Sheldon Bro…

The problem of thieves is such a downer though. Against all kinds of bikes, really takes both the joy and the utility out of it. Same with owning a scooter and similar vehicles. And even if you have good and safe parking at home and at the office (great!), which will cover the vast majority of trips it still limits the usefulness of a vehicle to be so tied up. Yes, there are solutions/mitigations/compromises. But exp…

Having rode motorcycles and an ebike scooter in the past, both of these have an integrated lock for the handle bars. This means a thief can't just cut the lock and roll the bike away because the handle bars are locked at an angle. The thief then has a choice of carrying the bike, breaking the handle bar lock, or awkwardly picking up the front tire and dragging it. All of which takes time and is obvious to on lookers and in the case of breaking the lock then the bicycle frame is now worthless.

I would like to see more ebikes include an integrated handlebar locks in their ebikes. Cheap and effective.

Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life

#212

Post by amelius »

tjoff wrote: post #35
swader999 wrote: post #6

E bikes really are the best form of travel. The only issue is how do you get rid of that ridiculous looking grin on your face. You just had a huge rush, got a bit of exercise, paid nothing for parking, eight pennies for 'gas', and beat all your co-workers who were stuck in traffic. The grin is real and not a good look professionally at the office when commuting. Thanks ebikes.ca, endless sphere forums and Sheldon Bro…

The problem of thieves is such a downer though. Against all kinds of bikes, really takes both the joy and the utility out of it. Same with owning a scooter and similar vehicles. And even if you have good and safe parking at home and at the office (great!), which will cover the vast majority of trips it still limits the usefulness of a vehicle to be so tied up. Yes, there are solutions/mitigations/compromises. But exp…

Have you tried a U-lock?

Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life

#213

Post by abeppu »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #117
tjoff wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem of thieves is such a downer though. Against all kinds of bikes, really takes both the joy and the utility out of it. Same with owning a scooter and similar vehicles. And even if you have good and safe parking at home and at the office (great!), which will cover the vast majority of trips it still limits the usefulness of a vehicle to be so tied up. Yes, there are solutions/mitigations/compromises. But exp…

Just put your bike on your renters or homeowners insurance. Mine is covered for theft with zero deductible.

If your bike is stolen and you actually make a claim, does that make your homeowners insurance more expensive going forward?

Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life

#214

Post by Aulig »

entropicgravity wrote: post #211
tjoff wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem of thieves is such a downer though. Against all kinds of bikes, really takes both the joy and the utility out of it. Same with owning a scooter and similar vehicles. And even if you have good and safe parking at home and at the office (great!), which will cover the vast majority of trips it still limits the usefulness of a vehicle to be so tied up. Yes, there are solutions/mitigations/compromises. But exp…

Having rode motorcycles and an ebike scooter in the past, both of these have an integrated lock for the handle bars. This means a thief can't just cut the lock and roll the bike away because the handle bars are locked at an angle. The thief then has a choice of carrying the bike, breaking the handle bar lock, or awkwardly picking up the front tire and dragging it. All of which takes time and is obvious to on lookers…

When my bike was stolen, they drove up with a large van, threw a bunch of bikes in the back, and drove away. A handlebar lock wouldn't do much here unfortunately.

Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life

#215

Post by somerandomqaguy »

abeppu wrote: post #213
kjkjadksj wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just put your bike on your renters or homeowners insurance. Mine is covered for theft with zero deductible.

If your bike is stolen and you actually make a claim, does that make your homeowners insurance more expensive going forward?

On that same vein, is there a limit of how many times you can make a claim on stolen bikes?

Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life

#216

Post by abeppu »

c-cube wrote: post #98
wpietri wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel that one for sure. I live in San Francisco and was a dedicated cyclist. I had 6 bikes stolen in my first years here. But I was stubborn, got cannier, and kept the 7th long enough for it to look scruffy. Which let me keep it for years. But then it got stolen while locked up behind a 12-foot fence and something went out of me. I just gave up. I still make occasional trips on the Lyft bikes, which are fine. And I…

I haven't tried but I'm curious about them: would a foldable (e)bike do it for you? You just don't leave it outside at all! I've been eyeing the Bromptons but without a commute it's harder for me to justify the cost.

> You just don't leave it outside at all!

How practical is this really? You bring your folding bike into the restaurant where you're eating, into the bar where you're meeting friends, into the gym (it doesn't fit into a locker), into the little corner store with narrow aisles, etc? I feel like taking the folding bike indoors can work for a commute if your office doesn't have dedicated safe bike storage, but I think it falls apart as an overall response to "I'm inhibited from using my bike as my primary transportation b/c it is an easy target of theft"

Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life

#217

Post by mjmsmith »

zdragnar wrote: post #25
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #3

It amazes me how little attention e-bikes are given in terms of reducing traffic, pollution, CO2 etc. The BBC is especially bad at this - they promote lots of articles singing the praises of electric vehicles (i.e. cars) and almost never mention e-bikes as being far better for a lot of use cases. It also grinds my gears that there's tax breaks for getting e-cars and nothing for getting e-bikes. It's almost as if poli…

I would love to get some e-bikes for my family. However, they're not terribly useful aside from recreation for us. We don't live in an urban or even suburban area. Bikes are a local thing. If the weather is too hot, or cold, or wet, or snowy, you're out of luck. Cars appeal nationwide. They'll get you hundreds of miles, comfortably, between remote destinations that aren't served by public transport or airports. Or, t…

For most of the of the country, I don't think heat is that much of a problem. You're not pedaling hard and you have a steady breeze at 15+ mph. I ride electric Citibikes in NYC all summer where it's often in the 90s with high humidity.

Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life

#218

Post by abeppu »

bluGill wrote: post #168
somerandomqaguy wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technology improved, but cars one main advantage. To steal a 4000lbs car one needs either a tow truck, or to enable the engine, or a lot of guys to push. To steal a 15 lbs bicycle, one need only pick it up and walk away.

60 years ago it wasn't hard to hot wire a car. Car locks are very good, 20 years ago encryption was added so you can't start the car withour the authorized keys. Decades before that the lock was attached to the steering wheel so you couldn't drive even if you srarted.it. and car locks are hard to pick (unlike many house locks)

... btw, since we know how to make locks that are harder to pick, why _don't_ we use them basically everywhere including houses. Are they a lot more challenging to manufacture?

Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life

#219

Post by lostlogin »

analog31 wrote: post #85
swader999 wrote: post #6

E bikes really are the best form of travel. The only issue is how do you get rid of that ridiculous looking grin on your face. You just had a huge rush, got a bit of exercise, paid nothing for parking, eight pennies for 'gas', and beat all your co-workers who were stuck in traffic. The grin is real and not a good look professionally at the office when commuting. Thanks ebikes.ca, endless sphere forums and Sheldon Bro…

A problem with the ridiculous grin is that people somehow assume riding a bike is purely a source of personal gratification or irrational indulgence at the expense of others. Like being cheerful while you're working. Or working from home.

How does riding a bike come at the expense of others?

Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life

#220

Post by chriswarbo »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #69
alsuren wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> tax breaks for getting e-cars and nothing for getting e-bikes Cycle to work schemes let you buy a bike before income tax. I'm not sure how that compares to e-car tax breaks though. All your employer if they have such a scheme.

The Cycle-to-Work scheme as I remember it is problematic in that you're not buying the bike, but virtually leasing it from your employer for a period of time (1 year?) and you hope that your employer will give the bike to you at the end of that period. The problems are that your employer might not want the extra hassle involved of potentially owning unwanted bikes (my employer has no interest in the scheme) and also…

> The Cycle-to-Work scheme as I remember it is problematic in that you're not buying the bike, but virtually leasing it from your employer for a period of time (1 year?)

That's just a technicality, I assume to make it comply with other laws about using company money to buy personal items. Payments are deducted from your pre-tax earnings each month, so the saving come from paying less income tax; you can't give the company a wad of cash up-front, or have it all come out of one month's salary.

> you hope that your employer will give the bike to you at the end of that period

They will always give you the bike: Cycle to Work schemes are offered as an employee benefit, the company doesn't want the bike. More important is what happens if you leave the company before that period; e.g. when a previous employer folded I had some some balance remaining to pay (around £500), which was deducted from my redundancy payment.

> The problems are that your employer might not want the extra hassle involved of potentially owning unwanted bikes (my employer has no interest in the scheme)

That's certainly true, and probably the main reason to avoid it (as an employer). Still, it's not much different to having surplus office furniture; at the higher-end, I imagine it's similar to an employee requiring some specialist desk chair, which the company can sell off afterwards.

> he last time that I checked, the tax break was on only the first £1000.

It varies per employer, e.g. I got one up to £1500. More annoying is that it must cover the full price: e.g. you can't pay £100 cash to get a £1600 ebike (although some sellers may fiddle the price tag to get around this!)

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