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Long Range E-Bike (2021)

jacquesmattheij.com

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Re: Long Range E-Bike (2021)

#241

Post by namibj »

Qwertious wrote: post #176
bjustin wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I propose a new and improved e-bike classification scheme: Class A: Bikes that can not go over 10mph via a throttle. And can’t go over 28mph with pedal assist. Or set the pedal assist limit at 20mph if you’re feeling especially conservative. Class B-Class infinity: These aren’t considered bikes. Class A is the only class of e-bike.

Fixed for metric: >Class A: Bikes that can not go over 10mph (16km/h) via a throttle. And can’t go over 28mph (45km/h) with pedal assist. Or set the pedal assist limit at 20mph (32km/h) if you’re feeling especially conservative. In Australia, the pedal-assist limit is 25km/h (~15.5mph). And frankly, that's plenty.

A major problem is there not being a way a city can legally speed limit a road such that it can ticket cars who go faster than what the bikes allow assisted.

If you take away their legal reasons for overtaking you while you go as far as the bike let's you and there's nothing ahead of you, you've already massively reduced the amount of dangerous overtaking, and you can aggressively police the remaining overtaking for speeding without having to prove they are overtaking in a dangerous manner.

Re: Long Range E-Bike (2021)

#242

Post by IshKebab »

jandrese wrote: post #97
IshKebab wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with max speed is that while big legit ebike manufacturers respect it (e.g. you can't buy a Bosch ebike in the UK that will go above 15.5mph), you can easily get Chinese models that don't care, or you can mod other bikes that do fairly easily. I don't know what the solution is tbh.

Why not just define the law in terms of maximum speed and be fine with it? Why nitpick over control modes? I can guarantee that if I asked 10 random cops what the restrictions are of a Class 2 e-bike not more than 1 could answer, but if I asked them to stop people who were going over 30mph on the bike trail they could figure it out.

I agree the control mode restrictions are dumb. Lime-style ebikes have their assist set so high that you don't need to put any effort at all into pedaling. Effectively the pedals are the throttle.

But anyway that's nothing to do with the problem of ebike hooligans. The law is also defined in terms of maximum speed. Anyone going over 15.5mph (without pedaling really hard) is breaking the law.

It's not ambiguous when this is happening; it's just impractical for the police to do anything about it.

Re: Long Range E-Bike (2021)

#243

Post by lukan »

fgfarben wrote: post #216
Panzer04 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human effort just isn't worth very much. The strongest humans on earth can manage about 400W for an hour. Even very small ebike motors are usually capable of 500w continuous/forever, so long as the motor does not spend too much time stalled or at very low speeds. For a normal human, a "legal" 250w motor is easily doubling or tripling their normal power output, so hauling around an extra 20kg on top of the existing ~1…

A heavy battery makes an ebike extremely unpleasant to pedal manually. You should try it. I built almost exactly the same size pack (2 kWH) as Jacques in 2020 on a hybrid road bike and hated it so much that I only rode it 20 times or so. The battery still sits in the corner of my house doing nothing.

On a flat road I disagree, but uphill you notice it a lot of course, but way worse is carrying the heavy bike. I take mine into trains a lot and unfortunately there are often lots of stairs and no escalators involved.

Re: Long Range E-Bike (2021)

#244

Post by aziaziazi »

loeg wrote: post #188
aziaziazi wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wasn’t comparing 6/7/8 with 10 and 11 but with 1 speed. 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…

Thanks for that link! Looks super interesting I’ll dive into it tonight.

Re: Long Range E-Bike (2021)

#245

Post by Manuel_D »

socalgal2 wrote: post #158
wintermutestwin wrote: post #68

Earlier 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…

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.

Japan has bicycles with license plates. It's clearly possible.

Re: Long Range E-Bike (2021)

#246

Post by Tepix »

jacquesm wrote: post #121
Tepix wrote: post #100

> My first e-bike, a pretty crappy one but enough to get my appetite whetted had a 500 Wh battery, enough for a 55 km trip one-way, and it would be dead on arrival, range anxiety to the max. What? 55km with a 500Wh battery? Was he not pedaling at all? Why does he even have range anxiety on an ebike? You can just pedal if the battery is low.

Yes, I'm pedaling just fine, thank you for asking. The range on this thing is not that large even when you are pedaling strongly, it just uses a lot of power. As you probably know the power consumption of a bike goes up considerably as the speed increases, this is NL and while we don't have hills we do have wind, and plenty of it. Add in a 40 to 45 kph top speed and you can see the battery dwindle in real time. As fo…

On my ebike the power consumption goes to zero when traveling faster than 25kph because then the engine is not allowed to assist you past that speed.

Anyway, if you use high power settings due to your bad leg, I understand. With assist set to low or even medium, you can get a lot more than 55km out of a 500Wh battery.

Re: Long Range E-Bike (2021)

#247

Post by trelliumD »

electric bicycles, are just smartly marketeered motorcycles as bicycles. Give it the health sauce of a bicycle, and the comfort of a motorcycle. You excercise but dont get tired at all, you dont sweat, the bike works for you... to me that sounds like electric fitness, where you do power assisted weightlifting, so that you can do more reps, and lift more weight. Beeing a cyclist who regularly cycles with an unassisted bike distances over 200 km i see no added value of an electric bicycle over a normal bike. Disclaimer, it is a velomobile

Re: Long Range E-Bike (2021)

#248

Post by renewiltord »

presentation wrote: post #182
oceanplexian wrote: post #162

Reading 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…

Like it or not, if people who aren't big brained HN genius hackers like yourself do reckless things with powerful technology, like a stupid teenager killing someone's baby by running them over with an e-bike at max speed on a sidewalk around a sharp corner, then broader society will hate that technology, and then that woke freedom you crave will get wiped out by those small brained normies. The point is that it is be…

This doesn't seem to actually be the case. A stupid teenager ran over a baby by driving onto the sidewalk and killing the child there and broader society does not actually hate cars. In fact, last night another stupid person killed a two-year old by my home. The eye-witness accounts are unholy things (you can go find them on /r/sanfrancisco but I honestly am trying to purge it from my mind). It is not actually the case that the "woke freedom is wiped out by small-brained normies" in my experience.

Re: Long Range E-Bike (2021)

#249

Post by trelliumD »

jacquesm wrote: post #116
jandrese wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is kind of a shame that recumbent bikes are expensive and bike nerd coded. A recumbent e-bike with an aeroshell would be fantastically efficient and useful in so many situations, but if you tried to buy one today it is going to cost as much as a car and have everybody else sneering at you.

They're also a great way to get really badly hurt.

No, that is not true. If you ride a velomobile, you are protected by its aeroshell. Consider it a full body helmet. You are rather flipped/ pushed away, than coming under a car. Of course you are not happy after a crash, but you mostly survive. And you also have other benefits, such as weather protection. In heavy rains you are sitting dry in your bicycle, listening to your radio, where your fellow ebiker gets soaking wet. And did i mention carco capacity :-)

Re: Long Range E-Bike (2021)

#250

Post by KeplerBoy »

gcanyon wrote: post #75

It's weird that these restrictions apply: 25km/h, 55km range? The Evolve Carbon skateboard tops out at 50km/h, and 80km range. Granted, you have to be a little bit crazy to ride that fast on a skateboard, and having owned an earlier version, I guarantee it's not pleasant riding that far on one. But people do it. Someone must be putting out faster/longer distance bikes that don't look like/ride like mopeds. Okay, a qu…

That skateboard is legally a toy and you cannot ride it on the street. You will be on your own if you cause an accident with that thing. Insurance will nope right out; chances are you will serve jail time if anyone is seriously harmed.
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