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Electric bike, stupid love of my life

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Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life

#131

Post by oezi »

Filligree wrote: post #16
blamazon wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first problem you outline has a very simple solution: insurance. Just like cars. E-bikes can also be leased, to lower the barrier to entry. As an alternative to providing costly downtown parking, many employers in USA subsidize month-to-month e-bike leases with a final cost of like 30 bucks a month.

Bicycle theft insurance costs approximately ten percent the cost of the bicycle, per month. Which should tell you how good an idea it is to leave one unattended.

Less than 10% per year.

Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life

#132

Post by foobarbazetc »

True. Biking is the best thing ever (also extremely expensive).

I spent a ridiculous amount on a Gazelle HMB 380+. It’s so much fun to ride. Every component is top quality. No maintenance issues ever.

Recently got a carbon fiber road bike from a Taiwanese factory. Just as fun. Weighs 7.9kg.

I will say when I tested the VanMoof I hated everything about it. The automatic shifter is extremely counterintuitive. The parts suck, a lot.

Shimano hydraulic disc breaks are pretty much set it and forget it type things, so I personally wouldn’t form an opinion of the quality of disc breaks based on the VanMoof.

Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life

#133

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

dazc wrote: post #89
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in the UK, I gaze longingly over the Channel at France and their promotion of cycling, especially in Paris.

Cheeky

I'd like to be able to legally RLJ as in Paris: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33773868

Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life

#134

Post by kjkjadksj »

paganel wrote: post #8

There is no way for me to let a ~2000 euros object of mine unattended and out in the open. I barely leave my current bike like that, and that "only" costs ~300 euros. More generally, I feel like this is a subject that doesn't get discussed often enough. Yes, most probably the writer of this article can eat the 2000 euros loss if his e-bike gets stolen, but the majority of the population cannot. It also sucks that the…

You can easily insure the bike.

Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life

#135

Post by [deleted] »

the_snooze wrote: post #23

> Depending on which country you live in top speeds will differ. In Japan the bike’s are capped at 24km/h. In America, 32km/h. Some places only allow for pedal-assist — meaning the motor only works when pedaling. Others allow throttles, blurring the line between bike and scooter. I’m lucky enough to live somewhere that I use a regular human-powered bike for my workweek commute. I think pedal-assist e-bikes are great…

[deleted]

Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life

#137

Post by mulmen »

nicbou wrote: post #118
mulmen wrote: post #107

I'm glad Americans are (re-)discovering the motorcycle. It's like the 1960s all over again. But this time instead of Hondas it's e-bikes. I just hope they take a safety class and stay on the road where they belong.

I have a motorcycle and a bicycle. They're not comparable. After riding my motorcycle in almost every European and Central Asian country, I'm about to sell it because every nice motorcycle day is a better bicycle day. My motorcycle is stuck on the road. I can ride my bicycle to the lake and back along nice trails. All of my friends have bicycles, so they can come too. I can also ride my bicycle wearing shorts and a t…

So do I. I have ridden both. Class 3 e-bikes are mopeds at a minimum. I see them on mixed use bike paths daily, going 20mph or more.

Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life

#138

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

dazc wrote: post #94
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's a tax break which is 100% not enforced. You don't even have to actually cycle to work.

I think it would make more sense to reduce or remove VAT from bikes and cycling accessories instead. Far less paperwork and it would immediately open the benefits to everyone rather than being targetted towards the MAMIL (MAWIL?) segment though I consider myself a MAMIL.

Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life

#139

Post by dghlsakjg »

jeffbee wrote: post #44
itsagavin wrote: post #21

Anecdotally it seems like these things are causing a crazy amount of head injuries. I get all the tales from the ICU at the dinner table and if I had kids I don't know if I would even let them hang out with another kid if they had an ebike. They seem super cool and I always stop to watch someone zoom buy but I can't help but notice that a lot of the people on ebikes shouldn't be going that fast and aren't built to ta…

I don’t think this can be ignored. The bulk of ebike injuries to children are coming from throttle-having class 2 bikes and in my view these should simply be outlawed. I’ve seen people crash then who clearly thought they were stopping, but who were holding the throttle. They were riding a motorcycle without motorcycle training. Torque-assist pedal systems are perfectly intuitive to anyone who knows how to ride a regu…

Unlike a motorcycle, if you engage the brake on an ebike, the motor is completely disabled in every model I’ve ever seen.

You can hold the throttle wide open, and it won’t matter if any amount of brake is applied.

E-bikes just aren’t that dangerous, especially compared to a full power motor vehicle. I suspect that the bulk of injuries to children on e-bikes are happening in throttle models because those are cheaper models. You don’t buy your kid a $5k mid drive ebike when you can get a $1k rear drive one. Mid drives are physically unable to have throttle, whereas rear drive bikes almost universally have them.

If you are truly interested in saving children from injuries, the best thing we could do is put speed and power limits on cars. Speeding cars maim, kill, and injure several orders of magnitude more children than e-bikes.

Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life

#140

Post by wpietri »

wccrawford wrote: post #122
wpietri wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big reason cars don't require secure storage is better policing. Here in San Francisco there's been a lot of talk about how the SFPD these days isn't taking theft from cars and theft of catalytic converters very seriously. They aren't wrong; the SFPD seems pretty slack to me. But what they're missing is that the SFPD has always been like this for bicycles . A while back I had only locked my front wheel and my frame…

I don't know what my local police are like for bike theft, but given how poorly they handle theft from inside cars, I have no hope that they can do anything about any kind of theft, ever. They even had a security camera video of the person, knew who it was, and even where they frequently are, but flat-out told us they weren't going to do anything because it was pointless and they'd just be back at it soon. We weren't…

Wow! With a police attitude like that, the criminal will definitely "be back at it soon".
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