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Electric bike, stupid love of my life

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Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life

#91

Post by wpietri »

bluescrn wrote: post #15
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #3

It amazes me how little attention e-bikes are given in terms of reducing traffic, pollution, CO2 etc. The BBC is especially bad at this - they promote lots of articles singing the praises of electric vehicles (i.e. cars) and almost never mention e-bikes as being far better for a lot of use cases. It also grinds my gears that there's tax breaks for getting e-cars and nothing for getting e-bikes. It's almost as if poli…

Unless bike theft is solved, an e-bike will remain a toy for the weekends for most people. An expensive e-bike is a prime target to thieves. They require a secure indoor storage space at both ends of the any journey, and many potential users lack that, either at their workplace or their home (e.g living in an apartment only accessible via stairs)

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, so some dedicated thief stole the back wheel. I walked in to the nearest police station with the remains of my bike. The cop on the desk asked why I was there. "To report a crime," said I, holding up the bike. He looked befuddled, asking if I needed it for an insurance report or something. "No, I thought that the police might want to know about a crime." He shrugged and took the report, but clearly did not give a shit.

If cops took bike theft as seriously as car theft (which they should given that in both cases it can be somebody's primary transportation) I think we'd see a lot more e-bike usage.

Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life

#92

Post by microtonal »

tjoff wrote: post #35
swader999 wrote: post #6

E bikes really are the best form of travel. The only issue is how do you get rid of that ridiculous looking grin on your face. You just had a huge rush, got a bit of exercise, paid nothing for parking, eight pennies for 'gas', and beat all your co-workers who were stuck in traffic. The grin is real and not a good look professionally at the office when commuting. Thanks ebikes.ca, endless sphere forums and Sheldon Bro…

The problem of thieves is such a downer though. Against all kinds of bikes, really takes both the joy and the utility out of it. Same with owning a scooter and similar vehicles. And even if you have good and safe parking at home and at the office (great!), which will cover the vast majority of trips it still limits the usefulness of a vehicle to be so tied up. Yes, there are solutions/mitigations/compromises. But exp…

I have insurance with a tracker. It costs about 10 Euro per month. If the bike is stolen, they first try to find it with the tracker. Bikes with trackers are usually put temporarily in public space close to where it's stolen during a cool-off period to check if the tracker is still operational/followed. Usually the insurance will just recover the bike from this cool-off spot. If the insurance company cannot find the bike through the tracker, they'll buy you a new bike.

Besides that, the rule is to always make your bike the least attractive to steal. Use two locks eg. a ring lock through the rear wheel and a chain lock through the front wheel, frame, and attached to something stationary (so they can't through the bike in a van and break the locks later). In general it's also good to put it in places where someone would notice if anyone tries to steal the bike, but not so busy that no one would notice and feels responsibility. Bonus points (remember the 'least attractive' rule), put it in some place where there are bikes that are much easier to steal (eg. not attached to a fixed object).

But expensive and heavy locks suck and the ever present thought in your head planning a good parking spot etc. kills the joy of it.

It's also a cultural/facilities thing. Eg. in The Netherlands many cities have bike parking with supervision and nobody minds if you attach your bike to eg. a lamp post. And most cities have plenty of lamp posts, so no real planning necessary :).

Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life

#93

Post by zdragnar »

readingistuff wrote: post #47
ryukafalz wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're of course not the solution for every transportation need, especially if you live out in the middle of nowhere, but two things: > If the weather is too hot, or cold, or wet, or snowy, you're out of luck. I really don't think the weather is as much of a barrier as it's often made out to be. The Netherlands is famously windy and rainy and Oulu, Finland has snow 5 months out of the year, but nevertheless lots of…

I live in Seattle, and it's really pretty easy to get a shell for rain and cold. Or shorts for heat.

Seattle has a very temperate climate (relatively speaking) so the last paragraph of my post applies quite well there.

Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life

#94

Post by dazc »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #69
alsuren wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> tax breaks for getting e-cars and nothing for getting e-bikes Cycle to work schemes let you buy a bike before income tax. I'm not sure how that compares to e-car tax breaks though. All your employer if they have such a scheme.

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.

Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life

#95

Post by swader999 »

js2 wrote: post #50
swader999 wrote: post #6

E bikes really are the best form of travel. The only issue is how do you get rid of that ridiculous looking grin on your face. You just had a huge rush, got a bit of exercise, paid nothing for parking, eight pennies for 'gas', and beat all your co-workers who were stuck in traffic. The grin is real and not a good look professionally at the office when commuting. Thanks ebikes.ca, endless sphere forums and Sheldon Bro…

> E bikes really are the best form of travel Whether an E bike is the best form of travel is going to depend on a lot of factors. It's certainly less flexible than a car. For one person who doesn't need to carry a lot and who lives somewhere that has dedicated bike lanes or can at least safely share the road with cars and where the weather is neither much too cold nor much too hot and there aren't daily thunderstorms…

While I didn't completely replace my car, I was able to go a couple of months on each tank and reduced my insurance to the casual driver level.

Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life

#96

Post by wpietri »

bluescrn wrote: post #36
blamazon wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars once upon a time required a secure storage space for security. Technology improved, comprehensive insurance became a social norm, etc, and now you can just snug it against a curb, hop out of your car and press a button and generally not worry about theft, but if it does happen you're covered. Why can't e-bikes be this way? My answer: they can and are, just not all of them yet.

Car theft is rather more policed because a 2-ton 100mph+ car can easily kill or cause a lot of damage in the wrong hands. Bike theft is down there with shoplifting or recreational drug use when it comes to policing priorities. But when a bike is stolen, often a person is losing an important means of transportation, so perhaps it should be taken more seriously. Not going to happen in a ‘soft on crime’ society, though.

I don't think this is a "soft on crime" question. As you say, bikes are a low priority. But bikes were long considered a low priority in things like road design. The lack of bike lanes isn't getting better because people are getting tougher on crime. It's because we're getting rid of some of the classist nonsense that treats people able to afford cars as more important than those who couldn't. And also because bike commuting has become a middle- and upper-class phenomenon.

Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life

#97

Post by jerlam »

analog31 wrote: post #71
tjoff wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem of thieves is such a downer though. Against all kinds of bikes, really takes both the joy and the utility out of it. Same with owning a scooter and similar vehicles. And even if you have good and safe parking at home and at the office (great!), which will cover the vast majority of trips it still limits the usefulness of a vehicle to be so tied up. Yes, there are solutions/mitigations/compromises. But exp…

Murphy's law for bicycles: All bikes weigh 35 pounds, because the lighter the bike, the heavier the lock needed to secure it.

This rule doesn't work for ebikes that can weigh 70 pounds unloaded.

Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life

#98

Post by c-cube »

wpietri wrote: post #78
tjoff wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem of thieves is such a downer though. Against all kinds of bikes, really takes both the joy and the utility out of it. Same with owning a scooter and similar vehicles. And even if you have good and safe parking at home and at the office (great!), which will cover the vast majority of trips it still limits the usefulness of a vehicle to be so tied up. Yes, there are solutions/mitigations/compromises. But exp…

I feel that one for sure. I live in San Francisco and was a dedicated cyclist. I had 6 bikes stolen in my first years here. But I was stubborn, got cannier, and kept the 7th long enough for it to look scruffy. Which let me keep it for years. But then it got stolen while locked up behind a 12-foot fence and something went out of me. I just gave up. I still make occasional trips on the Lyft bikes, which are fine. And I…

I haven't tried but I'm curious about them: would a foldable (e)bike do it for you? You just don't leave it outside at all!

I've been eyeing the Bromptons but without a commute it's harder for me to justify the cost.

Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life

#99

Post by vel0city »

ryukafalz wrote: post #33
zdragnar wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to get some e-bikes for my family. However, they're not terribly useful aside from recreation for us. We don't live in an urban or even suburban area. Bikes are a local thing. If the weather is too hot, or cold, or wet, or snowy, you're out of luck. Cars appeal nationwide. They'll get you hundreds of miles, comfortably, between remote destinations that aren't served by public transport or airports. Or, t…

They're of course not the solution for every transportation need, especially if you live out in the middle of nowhere, but two things: > If the weather is too hot, or cold, or wet, or snowy, you're out of luck. I really don't think the weather is as much of a barrier as it's often made out to be. The Netherlands is famously windy and rainy and Oulu, Finland has snow 5 months out of the year, but nevertheless lots of…

> I really don't think the weather is as much of a barrier as it's often made out to be.

Extremely variable based on local climate. I'll take cycling in a 68F rainstorm or the snow compared to 98F at 76% relative humidity.

Re: Electric bike, stupid love of my life

#100

Post by antiframe »

gerbilly wrote: post #83

Unpopular opinion: Ride a regular bike. In terms of theft, just use a beater bike for commuting. By getting rid of the 'E' part of the bike, you'll get more exercise and won't have to worry about theft. For years I rode a beater that I found in the garbage and that I fixed up with some parts I had lying around. Later I upgraded to a singlespeed because derailleurs freeze up in the winter. It's a trek earl. Seriously…

Some people live in hilly areas. Taking a child to school can go from "nope unless you are top 1% fit people in the world" to "quite the workout". You can turn the motor off on flat terrain.
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