Why E-Bikes Could Change Everything – Sierra Club • Hacker News Board

Re: Why E-Bikes Could Change Everything – Sierra Club

#11

Post by tjr225 » Sun, Oct 02, 2022, 5:50 PM UTC

bonniemuffin wrote: post #7

wpm wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh wow I guess I have to knock Radpower off my list, that is indeed insanely stupid. I snagged last years model of Urban Arrow from a local dealer, one of their last before the long wait for the 2022s to come in from the Netherlands. I absolutely love it. Even without kids or pets it’s great for doing larger shopping runs. Not having to default to car rentals or Ubers for moving big stuff is freeing. I’ve taken it on…

There are a lot of plusses to Radpower bikes. Overall I think they're in a real sweet spot for features + affordability for a lot of people.

I am anxiously awaiting any word from them because I want the bike pretty bad

Re: Why E-Bikes Could Change Everything – Sierra Club

#12

Post by ItsMonkk » Sun, Oct 02, 2022, 6:04 PM UTC

8jef wrote: post #8

In an average checkered square North American city, every second street or avenue reserved to any and all personal transportation not larger than a cargo trike, not longer than a tandem bike. From there you can have one ways, two ways, fast lanes, non-powered lanes, longer green lights than cross car streets, overpass, underpass, etc. The Works. You keep boulevards and any street with speed limitations over 30mph to…

There's a realization you come to short after you understand what you described as an easy transition to a much better community - the transition from grid streets is much simpler than the transition from suburban streets. All of the suburbs filled with stroad connected cul-de-sac developments might be nearly permanently disfigured that aren't worth the costs to retrofit.

Re: Why E-Bikes Could Change Everything – Sierra Club

#13

Post by noahtallen » Sun, Oct 02, 2022, 6:16 PM UTC

ItsMonkk wrote: post #12

8jef wrote: post #8

In an average checkered square North American city, every second street or avenue reserved to any and all personal transportation not larger than a cargo trike, not longer than a tandem bike. From there you can have one ways, two ways, fast lanes, non-powered lanes, longer green lights than cross car streets, overpass, underpass, etc. The Works. You keep boulevards and any street with speed limitations over 30mph to…

There's a realization you come to short after you understand what you described as an easy transition to a much better community - the transition from grid streets is much simpler than the transition from suburban streets. All of the suburbs filled with stroad connected cul-de-sac developments might be nearly permanently disfigured that aren't worth the costs to retrofit.

To be fair, suburb streets aren’t that car unfriendly. Many of the subdevelopments I’ve been to are extremely chill, low traffic, low speed.

The problem is really twofold:

- suburbs are far away from anything worth biking to. Strip malls and chain stores aren’t great destinations. The nice stuff (or bike friendly stuff) is closer to the city and many miles away from the subdevelopments.

- Those connection stroads are dangerous to walk and bike on. On the flip side, the public right of way used to built them is so large, it’d be “easy” to add bike lanes and sidewalks. By easy, I mean it won’t make people’s lives worse. You could remove a lane or a handful of parking spots and it wouldn’t make a huge impact to human life.

But at the end of the day… if there’s nowhere to go, no one would use those modified roads.

So it’s a catch 22, and I doubt it will get better with small local initiatives because the suburb lifestyle is so ingrained in many people’s lives.

Re: Why E-Bikes Could Change Everything – Sierra Club

#14

Post by rasz » Mon, Oct 03, 2022, 4:07 AM UTC

tjr225 wrote: post #2

I take my child to day care every day with an e-bike. We both love it. I have a second, more cargo oriented, e-bike on back order. If anyone from rad powered bikes is reading this I think your decision to use proprietary tire sizes for your cargo bikes was insanely stupid.

>If anyone from rad powered bikes is reading this I think your decision to use proprietary tire sizes for your cargo bikes was insanely stupid.

Its brilliant business move on paper. Onewheel did the same moving away from standard gokart tires in GT. You become single source for consumables, perpetual $$$.