Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sypathetic but ... unlike cars, bikes don't have large each to read license plates. People will scream about facial recognition. I'm not trying to take away your freedom. I've just wished they'd enforce traffic laws on cyclists but it's just not going to happen and cyclists know it so they almost all break traffic laws with impunity.
You know what happens when a cyclist is involved in a traffic accident they cause? They might get hurt or cause some minor property damage. When the driver of a car is at fault they kill other people, so I'm not too worried about even negligent bike riders causing an accident.
Long Range E-Bike (2021)
181–190 of 345 posts
Re: Long Range E-Bike (2021)
#182Reading the comments here, let’s take a moment to mourn another technology that so called HN hackers want to see regulated en masse by their big daddy government. Like drones, 3D printing, and now the simple pleasure of building your own e-bike. It seems like a certain demographic of NIMBY/Karen has taken over and is hell bent against makers and anything remotely cool, DIY, that could even be slightly more dangerous…
But as a morally righteous big brained HN edgelord, feel free to live your anarchist life on a seastead in the middle of the ocean running drones into icebergs and enjoying the whiz of throttling your exquisitely powerful ebike on the deck of your boat if you please.
Re: Long Range E-Bike (2021)
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sypathetic but ... unlike cars, bikes don't have large each to read license plates. People will scream about facial recognition. I'm not trying to take away your freedom. I've just wished they'd enforce traffic laws on cyclists but it's just not going to happen and cyclists know it so they almost all break traffic laws with impunity.
You know who generally stops at a stop sign or stoplight? People on an e-bike, compared to people riding for sport or commuting on road bikes. It's not a big deal to stop and get started again when you have a motor. It's a pain in the ass when you're trying to make it to work on time with your legs. Why is having a license plate even relevant here? Most traffic enforcement is done when an officer sees something happe…
Re: Long Range E-Bike (2021)
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
As an oldster who used to do weekly century rides and lost that ability due to nerve damage in my foot (thanks to decades of wearing pointy Italian riding shoes), I’d love it if we could focus on simply enforcing laws that exist rather than saddling arbitrary blanket regulations on lawful citizens. I built an ebike and hell yes I put a throttle on it because it enables me to ride more technical trails. This bike has…
>> Please leave me alone and if someone uses a throttle bike in an illegal manner give them a ticket. Well in most jurisidictions just the throttle is an "illegal manner", and if you're riding technical trails because of it I have no sympathy for your condition or improved quality of life; you're screwing it up for the rest of us. Maybe you should be the one who leaves.
Re: Long Range E-Bike (2021)
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you sure? https://www.r-m.de/en-us/bikes/load5-75/
How many of those have you seen in the US? None, because noone wants to bike 5 miles for 3 bags of groceries.
At the same time, I don't need to go 5 miles for groceries, so you might be picturing using a cargo bike in sparse suburbs. If your built environment is car centric then almost definitionally using any other mode of locomotion is going to be subpar.
Re: Long Range E-Bike (2021)
#186Re: Long Range E-Bike (2021)
#187Re: Long Range E-Bike (2021)
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
> thinner chain which wear faster This gets repeated a lot, but isn't true. Cheaply made single-speed and 6/7/8 chains aren't any more robust than nice modern 10 and 11-speed chains. Shimano CUES (11-speed) works fine for ebikes. Belts are fine, but less efficient than well-maintained chains. And they require special frames with some way of breaking the rear triangle.
I wasn’t comparing 6/7/8 with 10 and 11 but with 1 speed. Those are indestructible. But as you noted the quality of the chain is also important. As for the chain you might be right, but a well maintained chain over time needs more work that many wants to invests. It’s an option for the hobbiest and sportmans but not for most of daily commuters which want something that just work, days after days and years after years…
I covered 1 speed in my earlier comment (“single-speed”) too. There are some nice graphs at https://zerofrictioncycling.com.au/chaintesting/ (although that testing doesn’t cover single-speed chains).
> As for the chain you might be right, but a well maintained chain over time needs more work that many wants to invests.
Right! Totally reasonable to prefer not to maintain a chain.
Re: Long Range E-Bike (2021)
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you sure? https://www.r-m.de/en-us/bikes/load5-75/
How many of those have you seen in the US? None, because noone wants to bike 5 miles for 3 bags of groceries.
Also, my grocery stores are 0.7, 1.1, and 1.6 miles away, not that it matters. 5 miles is just not very much time at 20-28 mph. I think theft and weather/comfort are bigger obstacles to most people than distance.
Re: Long Range E-Bike (2021)
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm curious, how much does this weigh? I've ridden e-bikes a few times, and it's always surprising how much heavier they are than ordinary bikes. I can't imagine how heavy this must be.
Yeah the assistance you get from a bike being light is huge. I wonder if expensive light bike > assisted bike in terms of saving human effort per trip. Obviously if the e-bike requires no pedalling at all it wins but then that is not legal everywhere.
On flat roads, I usually ride on 3rd or 4th gear (out of 7), now i ride in 2nd or 3rd.
But where i ride, the road isn't even and has a lot of steep slopes. There I'm on 1st gear all the time anyway and the assistance i get totally saves my knees, and ensures I'm not all sweaty when i reach my destination. Even compared to the light weight regular bicycles i rode before, this is better.