11 ms·

Street-Legal ebikes are underpowered

84 points by buovjaga 10y ago

throwaway7767 10y ago
I suspect noone gives a rat's ass about your illegal ebike either. It's like the author wrote this article to show how cool he is for flouting the law. I'm also not really sure what he's arguing for. That manufacturers of complete ebikes should just sell bikes that can't be ridden legally on the streets? They'd be sued if they did that. As a DIY builder you can take that chance, as a business selling to the public you can't. If you disagree with the ebike restrictions, you should be focusing your efforts on the politicians and public servants that make those policies. Also, I'm not sure "ebike" is a good term for what the author is talking about. It's firmly into e-moped territory and possibly an electric motorcycle. Which is not to say that bikes more powerful than the legal limit can't qualify as ebikes, but when you're pushing 2500W through your motor, the addition of pedaling won't even register because it's such a small fraction of the total power, so it's really not a bike. All that said, the US has it really easy when it comes to ebike regulations. You can go to 750W! That's enough for an e-bike. Over here in europe we're limited to 250W which really is ridiculously small. I have a 500W motor on my bike, putting it firmly into illegal territory but it's still definitely a bike.
- sandworm101 10y ago
  Yes.. If this guy cared he would by an electric motorcycle, with all the extra regs that entails. What he want is an electric motorcycle that doesnt require a dot helmet, a license, insurance, and yet is allowed to use bike lanes and parking. I have little sympathy.
  - awqrre 10y ago
    Uber mentality
  - Spooky23 10y ago
    We'll see what the narrative is when some jackass like this loses everything he owns when he creams some jogger with his illegal bike and gets sued into oblivion without insurance.
gpm 10y ago
Sounds to me like he wants an electric motorcycle, not a bike. Maybe he wants it to look like a bike, but I'm fairly sure there are no laws about making a motorcycle look like a bike. Of course it does change the legal regime. He will probably (IANAL) need a license, lights, insurance, and so on. Those are all required for good reason, operating a vehicle at that speed is dangerous to those around you.
- falsedan 10y ago
  I agree, this author wants a motorcycle and is prepared to show everyone their e-peen to prove how muck tougher they are for making one out of an e-bike.
- Freak_NL 10y ago
  Yeah it looks like he is mostly hung up on a semantic issue. When you strap a power source to your bicycle that exceeds the power limit for assisted pedalling technologies, you get into moped or motorcycle territory — legally speaking. It may look like a bicycle, but manufacturers of e-bikes are probably not too keen on calling anything that requires a driving licence and/or insurance an e-bike; it creates confusion and hurts the image they are trying to build around e-bikes. He just wants a moped that looks like a bicycle.
pavel_lishin 10y ago
> It’s no wonder that no one is buying this crap. Except something like 90% of the delivery people I see riding around New York.
- vdnkh 10y ago
  What's the battery life on those things? I've literally never seen one being charged.
  - pavel_lishin 10y ago
    I have no idea, but I would strongly suspect that they have two batteries, and keep one in a charger inside the restaurant. It's not like they're going to sit outside and wait for it to charge when there's work to be done, right?
  - HNaTTY 10y ago
    Probably about 300-500 watt-hours of power and approximately 20 watt-hours per mile, so 15-25 miles.
- zer0her0 10y ago
  Do these guys not get ticketed (and/or have their bikes impounded)? NYC (& NY as a whole, but NYC was first) have outlawed E-Bikes.
Johnny555 10y ago
The problem with fast eBikes is safety -- there's a huge difference in injury (and survivability) between a 15mph collision and a 30mph collision. If a collision between an unprotected bicyclist and a stationary object is similar to that between a car and a pedestrian, the chance of death in a 15mph (25kph) collision is around 5% and the chance of non-minor injury is 10%. In a 50kph collision, that jumps up to a 50% chance of death and 95% chance of non-minor injury. http://www.safespeed.org.uk/killspeed.html http://www.safespeed.org.uk/killspeed.html So sure, build your 30mph bike if you want to, but understand that it's no longer a bike, it's a motor vehicle, and should be restricted to licensed adults and should not be used on bike paths and the rider should probably be wearing a motorcycle-style helmet. I know there's some debate on the effectiveness of bicycle helmets at preventing injury in the low-speed accidents cyclists are usually in, but for motorcyclists, the benefits are more clear -- a 37% reduction in deaths and 67% reduction in brain injuries. http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/motorcycles/fatalityfacts/motorcycles http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/motorcycles/fatalityfacts/... Oh, and make sure that your brakes are able to stop your 1000W+ motor if the throttle gets stuck wide open.
- throwaway7767 10y ago
  > Oh, and make sure that your brakes are able to stop your 1000W+ motor if the throttle gets stuck wide open. This cannot be stressed enough. The amount of new builds on ebike forums where people are building essentially electric motorcycles on bicycle frames with no upgrades to non-drivetrain components is scary. Even with my 500W motor (illegal here, but would be legal in the states, and puny compared to the stuff the article's author is talking about), I found myself wishing the brakes were more responsive. I upgraded the brake pads which made the ratio of stopping power to acceleration acceptable. Then after a year of using that, the aluminum stirrup that the brake noodle slides into bent enough for the noodle to pop out, putting my front brake out of service. This happened while I was applying braking power during a steep downhill descent going 35-40km/h, I lost control and fell off the bike. The stirrup wasn't designed to handle the braking forces I was applying to it with the new brake pads, so over time it bent outwards and eventually gave way. Don't neglect your brakes! After this I upgraded to mechanical disc brakes. EDIT: Regarding "if the throttle gets stuck wide open" - if you don't have motor safety cutoffs installed on your brakes, you should do so now. I've had my PAS controller get into a state where it decided to just apply power even with no movement on the pedals. Always have a cutoff switch! If you dislike the chinese ebrakes (and they do suck), there are inline wire sensors you can install to keep your existing brake handles, and it's also fairly simple to modify your existing handles with a reed switch.
amarka 10y ago
You lost me at `If you’re going to cheap out, brakes are the first place to cut corners.` Cheap brakes + 30mph = a bad time
- wolrah 10y ago
  Depends. Almost every vehicle, motorized or not, that I've ever driven can lock up the tires. For a vehicle used for commuting or other non-performance applications that's basically all that matters. If you can outbrake your tires (or in the case of a short + high-CG vehicle like a bike, outbrake your ability to keep the thing from flipping over the front wheel) any more braking ability is irrelevant. For those sorts of uses where a single panic stop is the hardest the brakes will ever work it's basically binary, you either have enough brakes or you don't, and once you have enough adding more doesn't gain you anything. Performance applications where you're constantly hard on the brakes, off, then back on like a car on a race track are where the scale becomes analog. Larger brakes that are better at dissipating heat will last longer before fading out, and if good enough will not fade during the expected race session. tl;dr: Unless you're on a race track or similar there's only "enough brakes" or "not enough brakes" and no reason to go better.
  - amarka 10y ago
    I'm sorry but I just can't agree; brake performance is not binary, brake fade from continual use is only one factor to consider. How the brakes perform in different weather/temperature/riding conditions is also critically important. It would REALLY suck to find out that some cheap brakes that worked great on the sunny+mildly warm day when you installed them but end up failing miserably the next day when it's a bit wet and they have a bit of mud on them. Maybe the city environment I usually commute in has more obstacles than most, but investing so heavily in your ability to accelerate + maintain high speeds and then sacrificing braking is an incredibly poor decision.
IshKebab 10y ago
This is idiotic. I've ridden a 500W e-bike and on full power it was easily powerful enough. Think about it - a 'healthy man' can only maintain 250W for about an hour [1]. Having the equivalent of three people cycling is more than enough. There's no situation at safe cycling speeds where you'd need more power than that. He maybe have had a point if he had concentrated on the 25 kph (15.5 mph) speed limit for electric assistance in the EU. That is far too slow. By the way, technically in the EU there is no power limit. There is a 250W 'continuous' power limit, but 'continuous' is never defined, and Bosch's bikes go up to 500W for at least 10 minutes. [1] http://www.power2max.de/northamerica/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/humanpoweroutput2.jpg http://www.power2max.de/northamerica/wp-content/uploads/2014...
- Freak_NL 10y ago
  > He maybe have had a point if he had concentrated on the 25 kph (15.5 mph) speed limit for electric assistance in the EU. That is far too slow. Really? It makes a lot of sense to me. In The Netherlands e-bikes are used mainly by elderly to stay mobile in the face of a weaker body, and sometimes by commuters riding for longer distances. 25km/h is quite fast for a device with as little protection as a bicycle, and more than fast enough when riding in traffic or in an urban area. If you want to go faster and still be able to avoid traffic, you get a moped with a 45km/h limit (helmet, insurance, and licence required), or get a racing bicycle (and a good condition) for those long stretches of road.
  - throwaway7767 10y ago
    I think the speed limits would be better enforced in a similar way as car speed limits are - instead of a limit on the controller, trust the rider to obey the law and bust people who don't. A 25km/h speed limit is probably very reasonable in a dutch city. If I'm riding my bike on a deserted highway in Iceland with 150km between towns, allowing riders to go to 35-40km/h would make ebikes much more practical. My main problem with the regulations is how they're all based around what a bicycle can do, which restricts development of new, innovative use cases for ebikes. The 250W limit was decided because that's what an average healthy adult can maintain for a decent amount of time. But why should an ebike be limited by that? I can get a cargo ebike that can carry 200kg of cargo, but that 250W motor isn't going to get it up the hill. A speed limit on that kind of vehicle makes perfect sense, but a 250W power limit seems much too restrictive.
microDude 10y ago
Just keep them off the single-track (back country trails on public lands). There is a serious problem going on right now where eBikes are being used by hiking advocates to ban all Mountain Bikes (ie, normal pedal powered) off the trails. Motored powered bikes are already banned on most trail systems (for good reason).
- analog31 10y ago
  I would go further and say, keep them off dedicated bike lanes and paths. I'm a regular "utilitarian" cyclist, i.e., I commute by bike year-round, use it for shopping, getting around town, etc. I live in a locale (Madison WI) that is regarded as being bike-friendly, with gradually increasing popularity of cycling. I use bike paths, bike lanes, and low traffic streets, whenever possible. At present I'd rather stick with a human powered bike because I really need the exercise, and I enjoy it, but I encourage friends to give e-bikes a try if their commutes are not as short as mine or they're not as inclined to deal with all of the issues -- weather, sweating, etc. For now, the e-bikes are fairly well behaved on the bike paths. It's only a matter of time before there are a lot more e-bikes, probably heading towards a point where we might have to re-think how they are regulated if they get out of hand in some cities, but for now I'm optimistic that we can coexist. Keeping the power and speed limits seems prudent. People can decide if they want the safety of the bike paths, or the convenience of going faster, by choosing an e-bike or an electric motorcycle.
gravypod 10y ago
> 750W power limit on all their ebikes That's quite the limit. That's one hell of a limit. Most people aren't planning on going 40-60 MPH in a bycicle. From wikipedia: "When considering human-powered equipment, a healthy human can produce about 1.2 hp briefly (see orders of magnitude) and sustain about 0.1 hp indefinitely" A 1HP DC motor (or if you want to get crazy with speed control and all that jaz you could do a 3 phase system with a PDM from a torq-controlling pedel or something) is more then enough! Hell we don't even need that. Let's think a .5 HP 1 phase 60Hz motor. This clocks in ~800 watts at continuoious max current but we'd probably not be doing constant drive on this. But let's say that we can pay a little more and find a perfect 750W motor for this at .5 HP. That's a lot of torque given that most people can only sustain .1 HP. This motor (which is crazily oversized by the way) is rated for .5HP @ 3450RPM. 3450RPM at the chain is different to the gear ratio at the wheel. The lowest gear ratio on a bike is about 1.9:1 so our motor would be putting out quite a bit of thrust and even at the reduced torque you'll be halling ass. Now this is a super oversized motor but anything that can take 750W continuious input is some serious shit. That's one hell of a motor and to complain that that is too small? Get a harley and tinker with that man. [0] - http://www.ebay.com/itm/MARATHON-1-2HP-AC-MOTOR-M400095-208VAC-1PHASE-60HZ-3450RPM-CONTINUOUS-DUTY-/351072233034?hash=item51bd89264a:g:S4AAAOxyyFhTdOMs http://www.ebay.com/itm/MARATHON-1-2HP-AC-MOTOR-M400095-208V...
- loeg 10y ago
  Well, ebike parts do add significant weight to a bike (maybe ~50 lbs). So it is reasonable to have slightly greater than human power to compensate for the additional weight.
  - dreamcompiler 10y ago
    Exactly. The first 200-300 watts of an e-bike just serves to compensate for the additional weight, especially if it's a hub motor. It's a gain of nothing, at a cost upwards of $1000.
- flubert 10y ago
  https://www.google.com/search?q=hp+to+watts https://www.google.com/search?q=hp+to+watts
nlawalker 10y ago
TL;DR: "The reality in the US is that if your ebike looks like a bike you can probably go 30 mph where ever you want and get away with it."
zobzu 10y ago
dude wants a motor bike he can ride in bike lanes and pedestrian paths. you can get a 3000w+ motorbike thats electric if you pass a motorbike license ans drive it on the road.
gammarator 10y ago
These are literally consecutive sentences: "Ebikes in China... got so out of control that many large cities have banned ebikes (known as ‘silent killers’) from the major roads to cut down on the massive number of traffic fatalities that happen from people riding ebikes. Ebikes have the potential to solve most of the traffic problems in many of the major cities (not to mention global warming), but instead of embracing them in the US lawmakers shun them entirely."
- Zigurd 10y ago
  Is an e-bike ban true? Or is this more "ghost cities" hype? Why would fatalities be materially different from ordinary bikes? The way drivers behave toward bikes in China is horrifying. They'll drive inches from a bike, and the only thing standing athwart mass slaughter is that traffic is as slow as molasses.
  - gambiting 10y ago
    I assume that it's because you can easily maintain 30mph on an E-bike, while doing so on a normal bike is possible,but requires a good bike and a certain level of physical fitness. So I would guess that average E-bike accident will happen at a higher speed than your average bicycle accident.
- Kadin 10y ago
  It was at about that point that I started to wonder if maybe I'd finally fallen for a good, old, Adequacy.org-style troll article. But it's just hard to tell.
- Mathnerd314 10y ago
  http://www.sixthtone.com/news/china-says-no-%E2%80%98silent-killer%E2%80%99-e-bikes http://www.sixthtone.com/news/china-says-no-%E2%80%98silent-... http://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/05/18/as-china-chokes-on-smog-the-biggest-adoption-of-green-transportation-in-history-is-being-banned/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/05/18/as-china-... http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/1952218/traffics-toll-road-accidents-kill-700-people-day-china http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/1952218/traff... His facts all seem in order. In China, ebikes are unregulated but popular and there's a clear need to regulate e-bikes to ensure that they obey traffic laws. In the US, e-bikes are over-regulated and rare, but the laws aren't strictly enforced either. I think his point is that there's room for improvement in both cases, some form of happier middle ground, wherein (a) laws are sane and enforced (b) bikes are cheap and plentiful. Also just the general complaint that Chinese tech is cheaper & better quality than American tech.
everyone 10y ago
I dont get ebikes. Surely the extra weight of a motor + battery offsets any advantages. Whats a more efficient source of work than the human body? I average about 25kph on my road bike, on extremely hilly/crappy roads out where I live. I've gone over 70kph on it, but I would very rarely do that as it would be dangerously fast in most situations. If you cycle in and out to work every day your performance will increase as you get fitter / build up certain muscles. Cycling is an elegant, low carbon, solution to commuting + getting enough exercise.
- tomjen3 10y ago
  Ebikes means my mum doesn't take the car all the time. She isn't fit and there isn't a way to go that doesn't have steep hills. It might mean my grandparents were able to go see/do more things, if they weren't scared of them. They are less useful for healthy, young adults, though they might get more people to ride if they made it unnecessary to shower when you were done (it is not a problem to shower at work if that place has a gym, you just don't shower at home, however it is annoying having to shower when you get home again).
- Avshalom 10y ago
  >Whats a more efficient source of work than the human body probably almost anything?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- acoil 10y ago
  I have a 250W e-bike and it cuts my 15 mile commute about in half which is the difference between my chubby ole self being able to do it twice a month or 4 days a week.
- jseliger 10y ago
  I dont get ebikes I didn't either, and then I rode one. Now I get it. Ride one.
amiga-workbench 10y ago
I'm pretty dismayed by the prebuilt bikes available, they are absolutely extortionate considering the pathetic motors they come with. I've decided that I'll be buying a reasonable mountain bike frame with disc breaks and retrofitting one of those 1000W Chinese conversion kits onto it. I have no interest in riding it at its top speed, I just want the power to get up anything more than a shallow incline.
- post_break 10y ago
  Which kit are you looking at?
  - amiga-workbench 10y ago
    http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/311702965224 http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/311702965224 I'm looking at this one.
AlgorithmicTime 10y ago
If you go more than 750W you're getting firmly into moped/scooter territory. My state limits mopeds/scooters to 1.5hp and no more than 25MPH.
chrischen 10y ago
For comparison I have a food mixer in my kitchen with a 1 HP motor.
- HNaTTY 10y ago
  You rebel!
Kadin 10y ago
Ugh, what a tool. > I rode that [2600 watt] ebike like a motorcycle right in the middle of the lane all around the city. I accelerated much faster than the cars did and frankly I got pretty annoyed at how slow the cars really were. Cars clearly were annoyed with me when they saw me at a stop light taking up the whole lane, but once the light turned green I just left them in the dust. This is the way that ebikes were meant to be ridden. This guy doesn't want an "ebike". What he wants is an ELECTRIC MOTORCYCLE. What he built is an electric motorcycle. (Or maybe a moped, depending on the state, but probably it's an electric motorcycle if it is totally ungoverned.) I'm glad he likes it -- electric motorcycles, and motorcycles generally, are a lot of fun. Welcome to the club! But let's not pretend that this is some brand-new invention. All he's doing is building electric motorcycles and then flouting the insurance and registration laws that already exist around them. Nobody is saying that you can't have a 2600W, two-wheeled, electric-powered personal transportation device. What the law requires, in most states, is that you put a fucking license plate on it, and pay insurance, and prove you know how to ride the thing, and generally not act like a dipshit. Which is kind of what he's doing by riding around on an illegal, unlicensed, probably uninsured electric motorcycle. People build motorcycles all the time. It's a cool hobby. Unlike building your own cars, there aren't a ton of safety regs or crash testing that you have to do, so it's not too difficult to get into. But just because you build one around a bicycle frame (not new -- early motorcycles evolved from bicycles!) doesn't mean you suddenly get to ignore the decades of legal infrastructure which were created to regulate them.
- mcv 10y ago
  Exactly. Nothing wrong with electric motorcycles, but then you also need motorcycle brakes, motorcycle stiffness of the frame, motorcycle helmet and leathers, etc. If you want to ride it like a motorcycle, treat it like a motorcycle, and make sure that it's a safe motorcycle. Just keep in mind you can't and shouldn't pretend it's a regular bike anymore. An e-bike isn't really a regular bike anymore, but when limited to bike speeds, I suppose you can effectively pretend it's a regular bike.
- derekp7 10y ago
  There is one other problem -- most states won't let you register it as a motorcycle unless it has been built on a motorcycle frame, and has other components that meet the appropriate safety standards (and probably for good reason -- see other comments regarding brakes). Of course, that makes the whole bike heavier, which requires a bigger motor/battery, etc.
loeg 10y ago
The author wants an electronic motorcycle, not a bicycle. The important thing about low-powered bicycles is that they can go where human-powered bicycles do — multi-use paths, cycle paths, sidewalks (depending on locale) — because they're not much faster or heavier than human-powered bicycles. Yes, they'll never keep up with car traffic on roads with high speed limits.
joshu 10y ago
Are any of these parts suitable for non-bicycle uses? Like replacing the gasoline engine in a gokart?
pmontra 10y ago
According to http://www.bicycling.com/racing/tour-de-france/you-versus-a-tour-de-france-pro-cyclist/slide/9 http://www.bicycling.com/racing/tour-de-france/you-versus-a-... (turn off the speakers before clicking) pro sprinters max out at 1500 W and the average power of a pro on a Tour de France climb is 400 W. So, what's this need to get 3500 W from an ebike? Maybe a motor bike would be a better and safer choice.
HoyaSaxa 10y ago
I don't think problem with ebikes is power. Safety becomes a huge issue above 20 MPH both for the rider and bystanders. Instead, ebike adoption seems to be limited by style, weight, and affordability. Riide[1] is one company I've seen trying to tackle these problems. It was started by a fellow Hoya (so I'm biased). I find their unique pricing model to be very interesting/attractive as a first time eBike owner. Instead of shelling out thousands of dollars up front, you pay $79 per month for the bike, unlimited maintenance, insurance, and accessories. After 24 months you either own the bike outright or opt-in to upgrade to the latest model. http://www.riide.com/ http://www.riide.com/
lnanek2 10y ago
His entire rant seems to boil down to this: " Legally if an ebike in the US has more than 750W it must be registered and insured as a ‘motor vehicle’ and have turn signals, mirrors and lights. That’s just not gonna happen with any of my ebikes. " It's not that what he wants in terms of power isn't available without building it yourself, it's that it isn't available without safety features. And maybe it shouldn't be (and I say that as an avid rider with two bicycles, street and racing, and two scooters, 50cc and 250cc).
trm42 10y ago
From the tone of the article, it sounds like the author should buy some enduro motorcycle and forget ebikes completely. Problem solved, move along.
- laughfactory 10y ago
  I disagree. You like many other commenters are focusing on the speed aspect of the article. His actually use case is cycling in snow and challenging terrain. The fact that his ebike CAN go really fast is really a footnote to that overarching theme. Wanting an ebike we can ride at 20+ mph doesn't make us a target market for scooters, mopeds, or motorcycles. I for example have no interest in the above, but love ebikes.
untangle 10y ago
The biggest source of cost and weight for an ebike drivetrain is the battery. The 1KW+ ebikes lauded by the author are fun but they are generally heavy and range-limited. These power levels might be necessary for the snow/mud/fat-tired world of the author but IMO are neither necessary nor desirable in the general leisure/commuting use case. Get on a 250w mid-drive or 500w hub-drive. You will have a blast.

84 points by buovjaga 10y ago

I suspect noone gives a rat's ass about your illegal ebike either. It's like the author wrote this article to show how cool he is for flouting the law. I'm also not really sure what he's arguing for. That manufacturers of complete ebikes should just sell bikes that can't be ridden legally on the streets? They'd be sued if they did that. As a DIY builder you can take that chance, as a business selling to the public you can't. If you disagree with the ebike restrictions, you should be focusing your efforts on the politicians and public servants that make those policies. Also, I'm not sure "ebike" is a good term for what the author is talking about. It's firmly into e-moped territory and possibly an electric motorcycle. Which is not to say that bikes more powerful than the legal limit can't qualify as ebikes, but when you're pushing 2500W through your motor, the addition of pedaling won't even register because it's such a small fraction of the total power, so it's really not a bike. All that said, the US has it really easy when it comes to ebike regulations. You can go to 750W! That's enough for an e-bike. Over here in europe we're limited to 250W which really is ridiculously small. I have a 500W motor on my bike, putting it firmly into illegal territory but it's still definitely a bike.

sandworm101 10y ago
Yes.. If this guy cared he would by an electric motorcycle, with all the extra regs that entails. What he want is an electric motorcycle that doesnt require a dot helmet, a license, insurance, and yet is allowed to use bike lanes and parking. I have little sympathy.
- awqrre 10y ago
  Uber mentality
- Spooky23 10y ago
  We'll see what the narrative is when some jackass like this loses everything he owns when he creams some jogger with his illegal bike and gets sued into oblivion without insurance.

gpm 10y ago

Sounds to me like he wants an electric motorcycle, not a bike. Maybe he wants it to look like a bike, but I'm fairly sure there are no laws about making a motorcycle look like a bike. Of course it does change the legal regime. He will probably (IANAL) need a license, lights, insurance, and so on. Those are all required for good reason, operating a vehicle at that speed is dangerous to those around you.

falsedan 10y ago
I agree, this author wants a motorcycle and is prepared to show everyone their e-peen to prove how muck tougher they are for making one out of an e-bike.
Freak_NL 10y ago
Yeah it looks like he is mostly hung up on a semantic issue. When you strap a power source to your bicycle that exceeds the power limit for assisted pedalling technologies, you get into moped or motorcycle territory — legally speaking. It may look like a bicycle, but manufacturers of e-bikes are probably not too keen on calling anything that requires a driving licence and/or insurance an e-bike; it creates confusion and hurts the image they are trying to build around e-bikes. He just wants a moped that looks like a bicycle.

pavel_lishin 10y ago

> It’s no wonder that no one is buying this crap. Except something like 90% of the delivery people I see riding around New York.

vdnkh 10y ago
What's the battery life on those things? I've literally never seen one being charged.
- pavel_lishin 10y ago
  I have no idea, but I would strongly suspect that they have two batteries, and keep one in a charger inside the restaurant. It's not like they're going to sit outside and wait for it to charge when there's work to be done, right?
- HNaTTY 10y ago
  Probably about 300-500 watt-hours of power and approximately 20 watt-hours per mile, so 15-25 miles.
zer0her0 10y ago
Do these guys not get ticketed (and/or have their bikes impounded)? NYC (& NY as a whole, but NYC was first) have outlawed E-Bikes.

Johnny555 10y ago

The problem with fast eBikes is safety -- there's a huge difference in injury (and survivability) between a 15mph collision and a 30mph collision. If a collision between an unprotected bicyclist and a stationary object is similar to that between a car and a pedestrian, the chance of death in a 15mph (25kph) collision is around 5% and the chance of non-minor injury is 10%. In a 50kph collision, that jumps up to a 50% chance of death and 95% chance of non-minor injury. http://www.safespeed.org.uk/killspeed.html http://www.safespeed.org.uk/killspeed.html So sure, build your 30mph bike if you want to, but understand that it's no longer a bike, it's a motor vehicle, and should be restricted to licensed adults and should not be used on bike paths and the rider should probably be wearing a motorcycle-style helmet. I know there's some debate on the effectiveness of bicycle helmets at preventing injury in the low-speed accidents cyclists are usually in, but for motorcyclists, the benefits are more clear -- a 37% reduction in deaths and 67% reduction in brain injuries. http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/motorcycles/fatalityfacts/motorcycles http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/motorcycles/fatalityfacts/... Oh, and make sure that your brakes are able to stop your 1000W+ motor if the throttle gets stuck wide open.

throwaway7767 10y ago
> Oh, and make sure that your brakes are able to stop your 1000W+ motor if the throttle gets stuck wide open. This cannot be stressed enough. The amount of new builds on ebike forums where people are building essentially electric motorcycles on bicycle frames with no upgrades to non-drivetrain components is scary. Even with my 500W motor (illegal here, but would be legal in the states, and puny compared to the stuff the article's author is talking about), I found myself wishing the brakes were more responsive. I upgraded the brake pads which made the ratio of stopping power to acceleration acceptable. Then after a year of using that, the aluminum stirrup that the brake noodle slides into bent enough for the noodle to pop out, putting my front brake out of service. This happened while I was applying braking power during a steep downhill descent going 35-40km/h, I lost control and fell off the bike. The stirrup wasn't designed to handle the braking forces I was applying to it with the new brake pads, so over time it bent outwards and eventually gave way. Don't neglect your brakes! After this I upgraded to mechanical disc brakes. EDIT: Regarding "if the throttle gets stuck wide open" - if you don't have motor safety cutoffs installed on your brakes, you should do so now. I've had my PAS controller get into a state where it decided to just apply power even with no movement on the pedals. Always have a cutoff switch! If you dislike the chinese ebrakes (and they do suck), there are inline wire sensors you can install to keep your existing brake handles, and it's also fairly simple to modify your existing handles with a reed switch.

amarka 10y ago

You lost me at `If you’re going to cheap out, brakes are the first place to cut corners.` Cheap brakes + 30mph = a bad time

wolrah 10y ago
Depends. Almost every vehicle, motorized or not, that I've ever driven can lock up the tires. For a vehicle used for commuting or other non-performance applications that's basically all that matters. If you can outbrake your tires (or in the case of a short + high-CG vehicle like a bike, outbrake your ability to keep the thing from flipping over the front wheel) any more braking ability is irrelevant. For those sorts of uses where a single panic stop is the hardest the brakes will ever work it's basically binary, you either have enough brakes or you don't, and once you have enough adding more doesn't gain you anything. Performance applications where you're constantly hard on the brakes, off, then back on like a car on a race track are where the scale becomes analog. Larger brakes that are better at dissipating heat will last longer before fading out, and if good enough will not fade during the expected race session. tl;dr: Unless you're on a race track or similar there's only "enough brakes" or "not enough brakes" and no reason to go better.
- amarka 10y ago
  I'm sorry but I just can't agree; brake performance is not binary, brake fade from continual use is only one factor to consider. How the brakes perform in different weather/temperature/riding conditions is also critically important. It would REALLY suck to find out that some cheap brakes that worked great on the sunny+mildly warm day when you installed them but end up failing miserably the next day when it's a bit wet and they have a bit of mud on them. Maybe the city environment I usually commute in has more obstacles than most, but investing so heavily in your ability to accelerate + maintain high speeds and then sacrificing braking is an incredibly poor decision.

IshKebab 10y ago

This is idiotic. I've ridden a 500W e-bike and on full power it was easily powerful enough. Think about it - a 'healthy man' can only maintain 250W for about an hour [1]. Having the equivalent of three people cycling is more than enough. There's no situation at safe cycling speeds where you'd need more power than that. He maybe have had a point if he had concentrated on the 25 kph (15.5 mph) speed limit for electric assistance in the EU. That is far too slow. By the way, technically in the EU there is no power limit. There is a 250W 'continuous' power limit, but 'continuous' is never defined, and Bosch's bikes go up to 500W for at least 10 minutes. [1] http://www.power2max.de/northamerica/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/humanpoweroutput2.jpg http://www.power2max.de/northamerica/wp-content/uploads/2014...

Freak_NL 10y ago
> He maybe have had a point if he had concentrated on the 25 kph (15.5 mph) speed limit for electric assistance in the EU. That is far too slow. Really? It makes a lot of sense to me. In The Netherlands e-bikes are used mainly by elderly to stay mobile in the face of a weaker body, and sometimes by commuters riding for longer distances. 25km/h is quite fast for a device with as little protection as a bicycle, and more than fast enough when riding in traffic or in an urban area. If you want to go faster and still be able to avoid traffic, you get a moped with a 45km/h limit (helmet, insurance, and licence required), or get a racing bicycle (and a good condition) for those long stretches of road.
- throwaway7767 10y ago
  I think the speed limits would be better enforced in a similar way as car speed limits are - instead of a limit on the controller, trust the rider to obey the law and bust people who don't. A 25km/h speed limit is probably very reasonable in a dutch city. If I'm riding my bike on a deserted highway in Iceland with 150km between towns, allowing riders to go to 35-40km/h would make ebikes much more practical. My main problem with the regulations is how they're all based around what a bicycle can do, which restricts development of new, innovative use cases for ebikes. The 250W limit was decided because that's what an average healthy adult can maintain for a decent amount of time. But why should an ebike be limited by that? I can get a cargo ebike that can carry 200kg of cargo, but that 250W motor isn't going to get it up the hill. A speed limit on that kind of vehicle makes perfect sense, but a 250W power limit seems much too restrictive.

microDude 10y ago

Just keep them off the single-track (back country trails on public lands). There is a serious problem going on right now where eBikes are being used by hiking advocates to ban all Mountain Bikes (ie, normal pedal powered) off the trails. Motored powered bikes are already banned on most trail systems (for good reason).

analog31 10y ago
I would go further and say, keep them off dedicated bike lanes and paths. I'm a regular "utilitarian" cyclist, i.e., I commute by bike year-round, use it for shopping, getting around town, etc. I live in a locale (Madison WI) that is regarded as being bike-friendly, with gradually increasing popularity of cycling. I use bike paths, bike lanes, and low traffic streets, whenever possible. At present I'd rather stick with a human powered bike because I really need the exercise, and I enjoy it, but I encourage friends to give e-bikes a try if their commutes are not as short as mine or they're not as inclined to deal with all of the issues -- weather, sweating, etc. For now, the e-bikes are fairly well behaved on the bike paths. It's only a matter of time before there are a lot more e-bikes, probably heading towards a point where we might have to re-think how they are regulated if they get out of hand in some cities, but for now I'm optimistic that we can coexist. Keeping the power and speed limits seems prudent. People can decide if they want the safety of the bike paths, or the convenience of going faster, by choosing an e-bike or an electric motorcycle.

gravypod 10y ago

> 750W power limit on all their ebikes That's quite the limit. That's one hell of a limit. Most people aren't planning on going 40-60 MPH in a bycicle. From wikipedia: "When considering human-powered equipment, a healthy human can produce about 1.2 hp briefly (see orders of magnitude) and sustain about 0.1 hp indefinitely" A 1HP DC motor (or if you want to get crazy with speed control and all that jaz you could do a 3 phase system with a PDM from a torq-controlling pedel or something) is more then enough! Hell we don't even need that. Let's think a .5 HP 1 phase 60Hz motor. This clocks in ~800 watts at continuoious max current but we'd probably not be doing constant drive on this. But let's say that we can pay a little more and find a perfect 750W motor for this at .5 HP. That's a lot of torque given that most people can only sustain .1 HP. This motor (which is crazily oversized by the way) is rated for .5HP @ 3450RPM. 3450RPM at the chain is different to the gear ratio at the wheel. The lowest gear ratio on a bike is about 1.9:1 so our motor would be putting out quite a bit of thrust and even at the reduced torque you'll be halling ass. Now this is a super oversized motor but anything that can take 750W continuious input is some serious shit. That's one hell of a motor and to complain that that is too small? Get a harley and tinker with that man. [0] - http://www.ebay.com/itm/MARATHON-1-2HP-AC-MOTOR-M400095-208VAC-1PHASE-60HZ-3450RPM-CONTINUOUS-DUTY-/351072233034?hash=item51bd89264a:g:S4AAAOxyyFhTdOMs http://www.ebay.com/itm/MARATHON-1-2HP-AC-MOTOR-M400095-208V...

loeg 10y ago
Well, ebike parts do add significant weight to a bike (maybe ~50 lbs). So it is reasonable to have slightly greater than human power to compensate for the additional weight.
- dreamcompiler 10y ago
  Exactly. The first 200-300 watts of an e-bike just serves to compensate for the additional weight, especially if it's a hub motor. It's a gain of nothing, at a cost upwards of $1000.
flubert 10y ago
https://www.google.com/search?q=hp+to+watts https://www.google.com/search?q=hp+to+watts

nlawalker 10y ago

TL;DR: "The reality in the US is that if your ebike looks like a bike you can probably go 30 mph where ever you want and get away with it."

zobzu 10y ago

dude wants a motor bike he can ride in bike lanes and pedestrian paths. you can get a 3000w+ motorbike thats electric if you pass a motorbike license ans drive it on the road.

gammarator 10y ago

These are literally consecutive sentences: "Ebikes in China... got so out of control that many large cities have banned ebikes (known as ‘silent killers’) from the major roads to cut down on the massive number of traffic fatalities that happen from people riding ebikes. Ebikes have the potential to solve most of the traffic problems in many of the major cities (not to mention global warming), but instead of embracing them in the US lawmakers shun them entirely."

Zigurd 10y ago
Is an e-bike ban true? Or is this more "ghost cities" hype? Why would fatalities be materially different from ordinary bikes? The way drivers behave toward bikes in China is horrifying. They'll drive inches from a bike, and the only thing standing athwart mass slaughter is that traffic is as slow as molasses.
- gambiting 10y ago
  I assume that it's because you can easily maintain 30mph on an E-bike, while doing so on a normal bike is possible,but requires a good bike and a certain level of physical fitness. So I would guess that average E-bike accident will happen at a higher speed than your average bicycle accident.
Kadin 10y ago
It was at about that point that I started to wonder if maybe I'd finally fallen for a good, old, Adequacy.org-style troll article. But it's just hard to tell.
Mathnerd314 10y ago
http://www.sixthtone.com/news/china-says-no-%E2%80%98silent-killer%E2%80%99-e-bikes http://www.sixthtone.com/news/china-says-no-%E2%80%98silent-... http://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/05/18/as-china-chokes-on-smog-the-biggest-adoption-of-green-transportation-in-history-is-being-banned/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/05/18/as-china-... http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/1952218/traffics-toll-road-accidents-kill-700-people-day-china http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/1952218/traff... His facts all seem in order. In China, ebikes are unregulated but popular and there's a clear need to regulate e-bikes to ensure that they obey traffic laws. In the US, e-bikes are over-regulated and rare, but the laws aren't strictly enforced either. I think his point is that there's room for improvement in both cases, some form of happier middle ground, wherein (a) laws are sane and enforced (b) bikes are cheap and plentiful. Also just the general complaint that Chinese tech is cheaper & better quality than American tech.

everyone 10y ago

I dont get ebikes. Surely the extra weight of a motor + battery offsets any advantages. Whats a more efficient source of work than the human body? I average about 25kph on my road bike, on extremely hilly/crappy roads out where I live. I've gone over 70kph on it, but I would very rarely do that as it would be dangerously fast in most situations. If you cycle in and out to work every day your performance will increase as you get fitter / build up certain muscles. Cycling is an elegant, low carbon, solution to commuting + getting enough exercise.

tomjen3 10y ago
Ebikes means my mum doesn't take the car all the time. She isn't fit and there isn't a way to go that doesn't have steep hills. It might mean my grandparents were able to go see/do more things, if they weren't scared of them. They are less useful for healthy, young adults, though they might get more people to ride if they made it unnecessary to shower when you were done (it is not a problem to shower at work if that place has a gym, you just don't shower at home, however it is annoying having to shower when you get home again).
Avshalom 10y ago
>Whats a more efficient source of work than the human body probably almost anything?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
acoil 10y ago
I have a 250W e-bike and it cuts my 15 mile commute about in half which is the difference between my chubby ole self being able to do it twice a month or 4 days a week.
jseliger 10y ago
I dont get ebikes I didn't either, and then I rode one. Now I get it. Ride one.

amiga-workbench 10y ago

I'm pretty dismayed by the prebuilt bikes available, they are absolutely extortionate considering the pathetic motors they come with. I've decided that I'll be buying a reasonable mountain bike frame with disc breaks and retrofitting one of those 1000W Chinese conversion kits onto it. I have no interest in riding it at its top speed, I just want the power to get up anything more than a shallow incline.

post_break 10y ago
Which kit are you looking at?
- amiga-workbench 10y ago
  http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/311702965224 http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/311702965224 I'm looking at this one.

AlgorithmicTime 10y ago

If you go more than 750W you're getting firmly into moped/scooter territory. My state limits mopeds/scooters to 1.5hp and no more than 25MPH.

chrischen 10y ago

For comparison I have a food mixer in my kitchen with a 1 HP motor.

HNaTTY 10y ago
You rebel!

Kadin 10y ago

Ugh, what a tool. > I rode that [2600 watt] ebike like a motorcycle right in the middle of the lane all around the city. I accelerated much faster than the cars did and frankly I got pretty annoyed at how slow the cars really were. Cars clearly were annoyed with me when they saw me at a stop light taking up the whole lane, but once the light turned green I just left them in the dust. This is the way that ebikes were meant to be ridden. This guy doesn't want an "ebike". What he wants is an ELECTRIC MOTORCYCLE. What he built is an electric motorcycle. (Or maybe a moped, depending on the state, but probably it's an electric motorcycle if it is totally ungoverned.) I'm glad he likes it -- electric motorcycles, and motorcycles generally, are a lot of fun. Welcome to the club! But let's not pretend that this is some brand-new invention. All he's doing is building electric motorcycles and then flouting the insurance and registration laws that already exist around them. Nobody is saying that you can't have a 2600W, two-wheeled, electric-powered personal transportation device. What the law requires, in most states, is that you put a fucking license plate on it, and pay insurance, and prove you know how to ride the thing, and generally not act like a dipshit. Which is kind of what he's doing by riding around on an illegal, unlicensed, probably uninsured electric motorcycle. People build motorcycles all the time. It's a cool hobby. Unlike building your own cars, there aren't a ton of safety regs or crash testing that you have to do, so it's not too difficult to get into. But just because you build one around a bicycle frame (not new -- early motorcycles evolved from bicycles!) doesn't mean you suddenly get to ignore the decades of legal infrastructure which were created to regulate them.

mcv 10y ago
Exactly. Nothing wrong with electric motorcycles, but then you also need motorcycle brakes, motorcycle stiffness of the frame, motorcycle helmet and leathers, etc. If you want to ride it like a motorcycle, treat it like a motorcycle, and make sure that it's a safe motorcycle. Just keep in mind you can't and shouldn't pretend it's a regular bike anymore. An e-bike isn't really a regular bike anymore, but when limited to bike speeds, I suppose you can effectively pretend it's a regular bike.
derekp7 10y ago
There is one other problem -- most states won't let you register it as a motorcycle unless it has been built on a motorcycle frame, and has other components that meet the appropriate safety standards (and probably for good reason -- see other comments regarding brakes). Of course, that makes the whole bike heavier, which requires a bigger motor/battery, etc.

loeg 10y ago

The author wants an electronic motorcycle, not a bicycle. The important thing about low-powered bicycles is that they can go where human-powered bicycles do — multi-use paths, cycle paths, sidewalks (depending on locale) — because they're not much faster or heavier than human-powered bicycles. Yes, they'll never keep up with car traffic on roads with high speed limits.

joshu 10y ago

Are any of these parts suitable for non-bicycle uses? Like replacing the gasoline engine in a gokart?

pmontra 10y ago

According to http://www.bicycling.com/racing/tour-de-france/you-versus-a-tour-de-france-pro-cyclist/slide/9 http://www.bicycling.com/racing/tour-de-france/you-versus-a-... (turn off the speakers before clicking) pro sprinters max out at 1500 W and the average power of a pro on a Tour de France climb is 400 W. So, what's this need to get 3500 W from an ebike? Maybe a motor bike would be a better and safer choice.

HoyaSaxa 10y ago

I don't think problem with ebikes is power. Safety becomes a huge issue above 20 MPH both for the rider and bystanders. Instead, ebike adoption seems to be limited by style, weight, and affordability. Riide[1] is one company I've seen trying to tackle these problems. It was started by a fellow Hoya (so I'm biased). I find their unique pricing model to be very interesting/attractive as a first time eBike owner. Instead of shelling out thousands of dollars up front, you pay $79 per month for the bike, unlimited maintenance, insurance, and accessories. After 24 months you either own the bike outright or opt-in to upgrade to the latest model. http://www.riide.com/ http://www.riide.com/

lnanek2 10y ago

His entire rant seems to boil down to this: " Legally if an ebike in the US has more than 750W it must be registered and insured as a ‘motor vehicle’ and have turn signals, mirrors and lights. That’s just not gonna happen with any of my ebikes. " It's not that what he wants in terms of power isn't available without building it yourself, it's that it isn't available without safety features. And maybe it shouldn't be (and I say that as an avid rider with two bicycles, street and racing, and two scooters, 50cc and 250cc).

trm42 10y ago

From the tone of the article, it sounds like the author should buy some enduro motorcycle and forget ebikes completely. Problem solved, move along.

laughfactory 10y ago
I disagree. You like many other commenters are focusing on the speed aspect of the article. His actually use case is cycling in snow and challenging terrain. The fact that his ebike CAN go really fast is really a footnote to that overarching theme. Wanting an ebike we can ride at 20+ mph doesn't make us a target market for scooters, mopeds, or motorcycles. I for example have no interest in the above, but love ebikes.

untangle 10y ago

The biggest source of cost and weight for an ebike drivetrain is the battery. The 1KW+ ebikes lauded by the author are fun but they are generally heavy and range-limited. These power levels might be necessary for the snow/mud/fat-tired world of the author but IMO are neither necessary nor desirable in the general leisure/commuting use case. Get on a 250w mid-drive or 500w hub-drive. You will have a blast.