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The popularity of e-bikes isn’t slowing down

nytimes.com

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Re: The popularity of e-bikes isn’t slowing down

#161

Post by mrep »

paiute wrote: post #63
multjoy wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you remove the limiter and pedal assist requirement, you have an electric motorcycle. If you want one of those, then you'll need to be licensed to ride one. Do you want an e-bike you can ride like a bicycle, or do you want an e-bike you can ride like a motorcycle?

only because we have brain dead laws on e bikes. why not 24.5 mph? I see actual electric motorcycles on our bike paths all the time, I have never seen them cause a real problem. People on normal bikes cause all the problems because they have so much invested in their current speed.

So true. Normal bikers break the rules of the road by far the most in my experience because god forbid they have to stop and start again.

Re: The popularity of e-bikes isn’t slowing down

#162

Post by gnarcoregrizz »

asdff wrote: post #130
gnarcoregrizz wrote: post #28

Not surprised. They are a lot cheaper, easier to own than a car in cities, and are a lot of fun to ride. A loud contingent view them as a scourge, calling for ebikes to be banned, or otherwise licensed, registered, and insured, which would eliminate them as a common mode of transport. Most of the people I see riding them around here are high-school aged who probably don't care enough to deal with that. The next step…

The moped licensing process definitely has a quieting effect on the amount of mopeds you see. I tried to get one thinking I would just take a little written test since I had a drivers license already. If the state was letting me drive a multiton vehicle it should be trivial for me to be allowed to drive a vehicle I could lean back up up with my own strength. Boy was I wrong. Several hundred dollars for the moped safe…

Yes, mopeds and scooters would have been a lot more popular if it weren't for those requirements. I'm sure the class is great for safety knowledge, but seems half irrelevant to electrics and mopeds since its taught on a heavy gas bike with manual transmission. I tried to register a popular but overpowered ebike with no success. The solution for now is to ride slow, slap some pedals on and say "yes officer, it's a class 3 ebike", and hope I don't get a ticket.

Re: The popularity of e-bikes isn’t slowing down

#163

Post by fragmede »

pcwalton wrote: post #41
rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>with pedestrians Do some cities actually let cyclists bike on sidewalks? I bike 24/7 but this seems crazy. Bicycles needs their own, separate, protected paths, at the road level. Period.

Yes. Several cities in the Bay Area have shared sidewalks; e.g. Embarcadero in San Francisco, and Foster City has a ton of them. I don't know of any cities that allow all sidewalks to be used by bikes, but I'm sure some exist.

Embarcadero's a special case since it's so wide, and barely has car traffic crossing it. (It borders the ocean on one side.) San Francisco has many protected bike lanes and if your route is on those exclusively, it's very nice.

Re: The popularity of e-bikes isn’t slowing down

#164

Post by mrep »

rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #22
multjoy wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you remove the speed limiter you are riding an electric motorcycle, which needs to be somewhere other than with pedestrians and cyclists.

>with pedestrians Do some cities actually let cyclists bike on sidewalks? I bike 24/7 but this seems crazy. Bicycles needs their own, separate, protected paths, at the road level. Period.

Does it matter if it is not enforced?

Re: The popularity of e-bikes isn’t slowing down

#165

Post by memco »

hectormalot wrote: post #62
Robotbeat wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. A lot of times you see 3 wheel vehicles instead of 4 for regulatory reasons. That’s silly. I agree it’d be super awesome to get car-like protection from rain and wind, better stability than a bike, but maintaining the very low mass (and therefore low inertia and low pedestrian risk) & low cost & low footprint & high efficiency of bikes.

I see these around the city: https://www.estrima.com/en/models/biro-winter/ approximately 360kg, so def not as light as a bike, but not incredibly heavy either. 100km range.

Something like this, but regulated as a bike for the US would be great for me! I'm legally blind so I can't drive a full size vehicle—I'll likely get an ebike soon so I can have greater mobility than walking or bus allows. However, I live in a rainy area so having something covered and which I could use to transport my daughter would be ideal. I've found one vendor in the area that sells an ebike, but they lack a lot of convenience and safety features. The covered options I've seen don't have lockable storage so you can't leave any valuables inside without risk of theft.

Re: The popularity of e-bikes isn’t slowing down

#166

Post by wil421 »

Spooky23 wrote: post #120
kevincrane wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Proponents of efforts to make roads safer for cyclists have always gotten pushback from people who think that cycling is a niche hobby of rich lycra-clad yuppies. Which I think is misguided pushback btw (which I think you agree with based on the context). I see it as a chicken and egg thing. The roads are unsafe for bikers, so the only people who bike are those who are super dedicated to it. Then when people ask fo…

You have a point, but the Lance Armstrong wannabes make everyone miserable. In my area, they “took over” a popular bike trail and now kids and more casual people are pushed aside. It’s like dealing with serious lap swimmers.

Runners took over a popular route that has roads with a low speed limit and bike lanes on either side. They run with lien 4-5 people next to each other and will never yield. I’m forced to slow down to a stop if a car is near or swerve into the road. They have plenty of signs telling bikes to ride single file but the runners could care less.

Re: The popularity of e-bikes isn’t slowing down

#167

Post by sbierwagen »

paulgb wrote: post #4

The thing that excites me most about e-bikes is that they change the politics around cycling. Proponents of efforts to make roads safer for cyclists have always gotten pushback from people who think that cycling is a niche hobby of rich lycra-clad yuppies. With e-bikes becoming more common, I know a number of people who would not have touched a bike share but are using it as a replacement for Uber/Lyft rides. People…

>from people who think that cycling is a niche hobby of rich lycra-clad yuppies

This has never been true, of course. As you would expect for something that costs a hundredth as much as a car, bicycling to work has always been more common among the poor: https://usa.streetsblog.org/2014/05/08/low-income-americans-...

Re: The popularity of e-bikes isn’t slowing down

#168

Post by rootusrootus »

notatoad wrote: post #87
notacoward wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the short-term hell is simply more people experiencing what most cyclists are already used to. Did you miss the part where the cyclists are the ones inflicting that hell on others sometimes? Cyclists haven't been the only ones demanding better non-automotive infrastructure. I've supported the local path with both my dollars and the sweat of my brow, only to have freeloading cyclists tell me that they have priority…

again, this is exactly the sort of politics that hopefully will change as more people ride bikes. yes, there's some bad cyclists. but because there's few enough cyclists, people who aren't cyclists like to group us all together. when a driver or pedestrian is an asshole, you say the person was an asshole, because you understand that they don't represent all drivers or all pedestrians any more than you do. but when a…

> when a driver or pedestrian is an asshole, you say the person was an asshole, because you understand that they don't represent all drivers or all pedestrians any more than you do.

Ya know, I don't have to look any farther than this discussion to see people doing exactly that, painting all drivers as bad.

Re: The popularity of e-bikes isn’t slowing down

#169

Post by wil421 »

bink wrote: post #91
TrevorJ wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It cuts both ways. I am lucky enough to live in an area with an EXTENSIVE system of mixed-use trails for bikes and pedestrians. I worry that e-bikes, which are potentially much less pedestrian-friendly, will lead to a pushback against bikes being used on these trials at all.

We're in a weird situation now where I think most people riding e-bikes are doing so illegally on trails and paths. It's not being enforced yet where I live and I fear the push-back when someone inevitably gets hurt.

My city had issues after the escooter craze started. They outlawed them on side walks and started giving a lot of tickets to people who kept doing it. Not sure if it worked or the craze died down.

Re: The popularity of e-bikes isn’t slowing down

#170

Post by cmos »

kevincrane wrote: post #18
paulgb wrote: post #4

The thing that excites me most about e-bikes is that they change the politics around cycling. Proponents of efforts to make roads safer for cyclists have always gotten pushback from people who think that cycling is a niche hobby of rich lycra-clad yuppies. With e-bikes becoming more common, I know a number of people who would not have touched a bike share but are using it as a replacement for Uber/Lyft rides. People…

> Proponents of efforts to make roads safer for cyclists have always gotten pushback from people who think that cycling is a niche hobby of rich lycra-clad yuppies. Which I think is misguided pushback btw (which I think you agree with based on the context). I see it as a chicken and egg thing. The roads are unsafe for bikers, so the only people who bike are those who are super dedicated to it. Then when people ask fo…

Throw into this confusion a badly implemented public transportation system that you find in most US cities.

Public transportation and city bike rental systems should be free to ride. We all pay taxes to keep roads maintained, we should all pay taxes to keep public transportation maintained.

Not charging would help busses keep their schedules with less queuing and waiting, tourists would be less likely to rent a car, and it could help that chicken and egg problem. The problem with charging people with riding public transportation is you are taxing the very people we should be rewarding. The people who are committing to taking up less space on the road and living with a smaller carbon footprint are being penalized for their hugely beneficial decision to society not to drive. Making public transportation better and free are the two things that can transform a city and make it more equitable. Poor people would have more money and more places available to spend it. Every city benefits from its people having more money to spend and more places to spend it.

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