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> Previously, you had to be a serious cyclist to access this speed (and corresponding ability to simply exist on car-dominated roads), but now almost everyone c

> Previously, you had to be a serious cyclist to access this speed (and corresponding ability to simply exist on car-dominated roads), but now almost everyone can. Wow, interesting that they frame this as a positive. I'm a general advocate for e-bikes but this has been the absolute biggest drawback I've noticed with them: e-bike riders suddenly get all of the speed of a very fit cyclist but absolutely none of the road awareness. Most "serious" cyclists in my area generally behave pretty well, or at least when they're breaking the law they are usually doing it in a way that has manageable risk to them (I'm not approving it, but I understand it's calculated), while I've seen a lot of ebike riders do some phenomenally dangerous things because they just didn't realize it was dangerous. I don't necessarily blame the ebikes for this -- I just think riding on "car-dominated roads" requires some experience rather than just more speed. Ebikes aren't a replacement for safe infrastructure.

missedthecue 5y ago
This is something i'm also concerned with when it comes to electric vehicles. I don't necessarily think the average 4000 lbs family sedan should be doing 0-60 in 3 seconds.
FemmeAndroid 5y ago
Yeah. I agree with this. I tend to be very law abiding. And I think e-bikes enable me to be more willing to come to complete stops, and generally follow traffic laws than most bike riders I know. But I’d definitely acknowledge that a lot of e-bike riders seem to be engaging in risky behavior, quite possibly without realizing the risk.
- chrisfosterelli 5y ago
  That's a good point about stops. Starting off on an ebike is so much easier haha. > I tend to be very law abiding. Same. I've always tried quite hard to follow the letter of the law on my bike; it seems every counter example is otherwise held against cyclists as a whole. I'm hesitant to criticize ebikes as I do think they're a net good. More people biking is better for everyone.
  - chrismorgan 5y ago
    > it seems every counter example is otherwise held against cyclists as a whole This made me think of Mr. Riah from Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend, a Jew who had been operating a money-lending business: > “It looked so bad, Jenny,” responded the old man, with gravity, “that I will straightway tell you what an impression it wrought upon me. I was hateful in mine own eyes. I was hateful to myself, in being so hateful to the debtor and to you. But more than that, and worse than that, and to pass out far and broad beyond myself—I reflected that evening, sitting alone in my garden on the housetop, that I was doing dishonour to my ancient faith and race. I reflected—clearly reflected for the first time—that in bending my neck to the yoke I was willing to wear, I bent the unwilling necks of the whole Jewish people. For it is not, in Christian countries, with the Jews as with other peoples. Men say, ‘This is a bad Greek, but there are good Greeks. This is a bad Turk, but there are good Turks.’ Not so with the Jews. Men find the bad among us easily enough—among what peoples are the bad not easily found?—but they take the worst of us as samples of the best; they take the lowest of us as presentations of the highest; and they say ‘All Jews are alike.’ If, doing what I was content to do here, because I was grateful for the past and have small need of money now, I had been a Christian, I could have done it, compromising no one but my individual self. But doing it as a Jew, I could not choose but compromise the Jews of all conditions and all countries. It is a little hard upon us, but it is the truth. I would that all our people remembered it! Though I have little right to say so, seeing that it came home so late to me.”
hans-moleman 5y ago
You would rather this type of person drive a 2 ton vehicle? “Well people are going to have poor judgement” isn’t really a good argument against anything.
- chrisfosterelli 5y ago
  I don't think this is comparable. People driving a two ton vehicle have to be licensed, which means they have a general understanding of the rules they're supposed to follow and a general mentality that they should follow them. More experienced cyclists are similar (not in the license, but mentality). A lot of amateur cyclists don't have this mentality on the bike when they start out.
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    The reality in my area is most people on e-bikes are aged. They already have a lifetimes experience of driving and cycling on normal bikes.
- nickysielicki 5y ago
  I'd rather they drive a machine that is fast enough to keep up fully with traffic, outfitted with proper safety mechanisms like ABS and turn signals, and wear protective DOT-approved safety gear. Motorcycles are not that much more expensive but they're much safer. The only reason that ebiking isn't killing people is because it's new and rare, but when that changes it's obviously worse for people to be sitting on the edge of the road at around 30mph with nothing other than a cycling helmet and airpods.
  - jjav 5y ago
    > Motorcycles are not that much more expensive What's weird to me is that motorcycles can be had for cheaper than many e-bikes despite the e-bike being a much simpler machine, less range and far slower. For example, a Kawasaki Ninja 400 has MSRP in the $5200-$5800 range, a nice small local commuter bike but still very capable. Many nicer e-bikes are quite a bit more expensive than that.
mdoms 5y ago
So you think that you can calculate it as dangerous but they can't? It seems to me like the dangers of riding a bicycle fast on the road is really obvious and the e-bike riders are calculating the risk just as experienced riders are. Not everyone has your risk appetite.
- chrisfosterelli 5y ago
  > So you think that you can calculate it as dangerous but they can't? I'm sure they know it's dangerous at some level but there's fundamental differences in riding patterns between someone who has thousands of hours in the saddle and someone who just got on a bike. For example in the last week I've seen ebike riders swap in and off the sidewalk, not use helmets, and change lanes without a shoulder check. Experienced cyclists don't typically do these.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- TulliusCicero 5y ago
  > So you think that you can calculate it as dangerous but they can't? It's the same thing as texting while driving. People know it's dangerous on some level, but that doesn't stop them.
- bbarn 5y ago
  The dangers are obvious, but the experience and ability to read your surroundings comes with time spent. So, yes, I do believe AP when if they say their experience in getting to that speed with a regular bicycle gives them an advantage in those situations to someone jumping on a bike that artificially empowers them to that speed.
blowski 5y ago
You’ve put your finger on a real problem for me. I live in the UK countryside, and we get a lot of serious cyclists visiting here. The most dangerous pattern I see is occupying the middle of the road - which is fine when they’re doing 25mph in a 30mph road. But they stay there in 60mph sections, causing drivers to accelerate and veer round them. If we had more riders doing the same thing on ebikes, I imagine there’d be more accidents, not fewer.
- haspok 5y ago
  E-bikes are limited to 25kmh in Europe (and that also applies to the UK - for now). If you are seeing e-bikers doing 25mph (are you really?), then those are illegally modified. They exist, but are a distinct minority. Also, e-bikes are typically ridden by people who would never think of riding a bicycle in the middle of an A-road, so no need to worry.
  - jjav 5y ago
    > If you are seeing e-bikers doing 25mph (are you really?), then those are illegally modified. The speed cutoffs are where the electric assist stops assisting, but you can always just pedal to higher speeds like any bike.
  - multjoy 5y ago
    Pedal-ecs shut the assistance off at 15.5mph, but that doesn't mean that you can't ride faster especially with some of the very lightweight versions. In any case, it's relatively easy to do 25mph without a motor which is probably who he's seeing.
  - mrep 5y ago
    Level 3 e-bikes in the US can do 20 mph on throttle alone and 28 mph with assist.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  If you ride around in the gutter then you will get cars squeezing you all day long. Taking your position in the road is absolutely the right thing to do.
mgraczyk 5y ago
Just meeting anecdote with anecdote, but in my experience the overwhelming majority of accidents and near accidents with bicycles happen because either a driver isn't paying attention, or the bicyclist intentionally cuts in front of traffic to get hit or fuck with people (San Francisco). E-bikes make the first case safer because, as described in the article, the faster you go the more time the driver has to notice you and slow down before crushing or swiping you. Similar but slightly different, you also spend less time in intersections when you go faster, lowering your chance of getting hit by turning or cross traffic
- chrisfosterelli 5y ago
  Oh yeah I don't have any data at all, and I don't doubt that statistic about accidents for a second. > E-bikes make the first case safer because, as described in the article, the faster you go the more time the driver has to notice you and slow down before crushing or swiping you I think this is true in some degree, but has a corresponding elongation in the time required to pass the cyclist (which increases the chance that drivers gun it to do so) and reduction in the time to respond when you're going to be cut off. I would suspect it's mostly a wash.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  >or the bicyclist intentionally cuts in front of traffic to get hit What?
- bryanlarsen 5y ago
  The vast majority of accidents happen at intersections. At an intersection the faster you go the less time somebody in the cross direction has to see you, so speed makes you much less safe.
  - mgraczyk 5y ago
    I've only seen one good study about this, and it was in Sweden where people drive very differently. That study suggested faster speeds do lead to more collisions or near collisions with cars. But in the absence of more relevant and recent studies, I prefer to trust my own experience. I feel safer on a bike when I go faster because I'm moving at a slower speed relative to the cars more likely to hit me, and I can get out of the way of others more quickly.
roeles 5y ago
I agree. I used to ride a recumbent in the rural parts of The Netherlands to work. Since those are notorious for being overlooked, I looked into why. Flags and such didn't seem to make as much of a difference as just behaving predictably. Drive slower in the city. Match your speed with the traffic around you when it gets crowded. And try to make eye-contact with drivers if you doubt they noticed you. Now I live in a city and just got an eBike. I think it's more or less the same, even though you are more visible. Acceleration can be handy, but speed itself feels more of a risk if you don't have enough situational awareness. Off course I am heavily biased towards separate bikepaths or roads where bikes have priority[1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVnEHqdmV6A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVnEHqdmV6A
bbarn 5y ago
Yeah, for the most part, speed comes with experience (genetic freaks of athleticism aside). I can ride at 30mph as comfortably now as I could 20mph 10 years ago. 10 years ago, 30mph was sprinting, and I was not as skilled at maneuvering the machine as I am today. Even with my lack of current fitness (I quit racing and training years ago) I can still comfortably ride with groups of people much more fit because of the experience I gained when I was racing.
- miltondts 5y ago
  You can ride comfortably at 48km/h? I guess you should attempt the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hour_record https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hour_record.
  - bbarn 5y ago
    Yes I can. In a group, rotating out quick pulls on the front but largely drafting. Most cyclists with a few years under their belt can. I'm was never a track racer, never even much of a road racer, but at peak fitness I could do a 40K time trial in ~56 minutes, on a time trial bike and a flat course. That only won races where the fast guys didn't show up. 10 years ago if memory serves a 50 year old guy almost broke the 50 minute mark. It's really not as fast as you think it is. Alex Dowset did nearly 55KPH his last track hour record attempt, and didn't set the record. Power required to go a given speed follows the cube of the velocity so it's nothing near linear to go 10kph faster into the wind at those speed, but yes, in a group, 48kph is attainable for a moderately fit cyclist. Furthermore, my point wasn't about being "comfortable" as in "breathing easy" it's "comfortable" as in "feeling ok going that fast on a bicycle and knowing I'm relatively safe because of the experience I have.
m_fayer 5y ago
This post made chuckle with recognition. I'm typically a fast and very occasionally aggressive cyclist, on a fast bike with 15 years of experience. Lately I've been seeing aggressive moves that I recognize from visibly unathletic cyclists on heavy loaded up ebikes in very much upright postures. If any of the things that have gone wrong for me go wrong for them, no way do they have the reaction speed or maneuverability or stopping power needed to get out of the situation.

missedthecue 5y ago

This is something i'm also concerned with when it comes to electric vehicles. I don't necessarily think the average 4000 lbs family sedan should be doing 0-60 in 3 seconds.

FemmeAndroid 5y ago

Yeah. I agree with this. I tend to be very law abiding. And I think e-bikes enable me to be more willing to come to complete stops, and generally follow traffic laws than most bike riders I know. But I’d definitely acknowledge that a lot of e-bike riders seem to be engaging in risky behavior, quite possibly without realizing the risk.

chrisfosterelli 5y ago
That's a good point about stops. Starting off on an ebike is so much easier haha. > I tend to be very law abiding. Same. I've always tried quite hard to follow the letter of the law on my bike; it seems every counter example is otherwise held against cyclists as a whole. I'm hesitant to criticize ebikes as I do think they're a net good. More people biking is better for everyone.
- chrismorgan 5y ago
  > it seems every counter example is otherwise held against cyclists as a whole This made me think of Mr. Riah from Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend, a Jew who had been operating a money-lending business: > “It looked so bad, Jenny,” responded the old man, with gravity, “that I will straightway tell you what an impression it wrought upon me. I was hateful in mine own eyes. I was hateful to myself, in being so hateful to the debtor and to you. But more than that, and worse than that, and to pass out far and broad beyond myself—I reflected that evening, sitting alone in my garden on the housetop, that I was doing dishonour to my ancient faith and race. I reflected—clearly reflected for the first time—that in bending my neck to the yoke I was willing to wear, I bent the unwilling necks of the whole Jewish people. For it is not, in Christian countries, with the Jews as with other peoples. Men say, ‘This is a bad Greek, but there are good Greeks. This is a bad Turk, but there are good Turks.’ Not so with the Jews. Men find the bad among us easily enough—among what peoples are the bad not easily found?—but they take the worst of us as samples of the best; they take the lowest of us as presentations of the highest; and they say ‘All Jews are alike.’ If, doing what I was content to do here, because I was grateful for the past and have small need of money now, I had been a Christian, I could have done it, compromising no one but my individual self. But doing it as a Jew, I could not choose but compromise the Jews of all conditions and all countries. It is a little hard upon us, but it is the truth. I would that all our people remembered it! Though I have little right to say so, seeing that it came home so late to me.”

hans-moleman 5y ago

You would rather this type of person drive a 2 ton vehicle? “Well people are going to have poor judgement” isn’t really a good argument against anything.

chrisfosterelli 5y ago
I don't think this is comparable. People driving a two ton vehicle have to be licensed, which means they have a general understanding of the rules they're supposed to follow and a general mentality that they should follow them. More experienced cyclists are similar (not in the license, but mentality). A lot of amateur cyclists don't have this mentality on the bike when they start out.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  The reality in my area is most people on e-bikes are aged. They already have a lifetimes experience of driving and cycling on normal bikes.
nickysielicki 5y ago
I'd rather they drive a machine that is fast enough to keep up fully with traffic, outfitted with proper safety mechanisms like ABS and turn signals, and wear protective DOT-approved safety gear. Motorcycles are not that much more expensive but they're much safer. The only reason that ebiking isn't killing people is because it's new and rare, but when that changes it's obviously worse for people to be sitting on the edge of the road at around 30mph with nothing other than a cycling helmet and airpods.
- jjav 5y ago
  > Motorcycles are not that much more expensive What's weird to me is that motorcycles can be had for cheaper than many e-bikes despite the e-bike being a much simpler machine, less range and far slower. For example, a Kawasaki Ninja 400 has MSRP in the $5200-$5800 range, a nice small local commuter bike but still very capable. Many nicer e-bikes are quite a bit more expensive than that.

mdoms 5y ago

So you think that you can calculate it as dangerous but they can't? It seems to me like the dangers of riding a bicycle fast on the road is really obvious and the e-bike riders are calculating the risk just as experienced riders are. Not everyone has your risk appetite.

chrisfosterelli 5y ago
> So you think that you can calculate it as dangerous but they can't? I'm sure they know it's dangerous at some level but there's fundamental differences in riding patterns between someone who has thousands of hours in the saddle and someone who just got on a bike. For example in the last week I've seen ebike riders swap in and off the sidewalk, not use helmets, and change lanes without a shoulder check. Experienced cyclists don't typically do these.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
TulliusCicero 5y ago
> So you think that you can calculate it as dangerous but they can't? It's the same thing as texting while driving. People know it's dangerous on some level, but that doesn't stop them.
bbarn 5y ago
The dangers are obvious, but the experience and ability to read your surroundings comes with time spent. So, yes, I do believe AP when if they say their experience in getting to that speed with a regular bicycle gives them an advantage in those situations to someone jumping on a bike that artificially empowers them to that speed.

blowski 5y ago

You’ve put your finger on a real problem for me. I live in the UK countryside, and we get a lot of serious cyclists visiting here. The most dangerous pattern I see is occupying the middle of the road - which is fine when they’re doing 25mph in a 30mph road. But they stay there in 60mph sections, causing drivers to accelerate and veer round them. If we had more riders doing the same thing on ebikes, I imagine there’d be more accidents, not fewer.

haspok 5y ago
E-bikes are limited to 25kmh in Europe (and that also applies to the UK - for now). If you are seeing e-bikers doing 25mph (are you really?), then those are illegally modified. They exist, but are a distinct minority. Also, e-bikes are typically ridden by people who would never think of riding a bicycle in the middle of an A-road, so no need to worry.
- jjav 5y ago
  > If you are seeing e-bikers doing 25mph (are you really?), then those are illegally modified. The speed cutoffs are where the electric assist stops assisting, but you can always just pedal to higher speeds like any bike.
- multjoy 5y ago
  Pedal-ecs shut the assistance off at 15.5mph, but that doesn't mean that you can't ride faster especially with some of the very lightweight versions. In any case, it's relatively easy to do 25mph without a motor which is probably who he's seeing.
- mrep 5y ago
  Level 3 e-bikes in the US can do 20 mph on throttle alone and 28 mph with assist.
tonyedgecombe 5y ago
If you ride around in the gutter then you will get cars squeezing you all day long. Taking your position in the road is absolutely the right thing to do.

mgraczyk 5y ago

Just meeting anecdote with anecdote, but in my experience the overwhelming majority of accidents and near accidents with bicycles happen because either a driver isn't paying attention, or the bicyclist intentionally cuts in front of traffic to get hit or fuck with people (San Francisco). E-bikes make the first case safer because, as described in the article, the faster you go the more time the driver has to notice you and slow down before crushing or swiping you. Similar but slightly different, you also spend less time in intersections when you go faster, lowering your chance of getting hit by turning or cross traffic

chrisfosterelli 5y ago
Oh yeah I don't have any data at all, and I don't doubt that statistic about accidents for a second. > E-bikes make the first case safer because, as described in the article, the faster you go the more time the driver has to notice you and slow down before crushing or swiping you I think this is true in some degree, but has a corresponding elongation in the time required to pass the cyclist (which increases the chance that drivers gun it to do so) and reduction in the time to respond when you're going to be cut off. I would suspect it's mostly a wash.
tonyedgecombe 5y ago
>or the bicyclist intentionally cuts in front of traffic to get hit What?
bryanlarsen 5y ago
The vast majority of accidents happen at intersections. At an intersection the faster you go the less time somebody in the cross direction has to see you, so speed makes you much less safe.
- mgraczyk 5y ago
  I've only seen one good study about this, and it was in Sweden where people drive very differently. That study suggested faster speeds do lead to more collisions or near collisions with cars. But in the absence of more relevant and recent studies, I prefer to trust my own experience. I feel safer on a bike when I go faster because I'm moving at a slower speed relative to the cars more likely to hit me, and I can get out of the way of others more quickly.

roeles 5y ago

I agree. I used to ride a recumbent in the rural parts of The Netherlands to work. Since those are notorious for being overlooked, I looked into why. Flags and such didn't seem to make as much of a difference as just behaving predictably. Drive slower in the city. Match your speed with the traffic around you when it gets crowded. And try to make eye-contact with drivers if you doubt they noticed you. Now I live in a city and just got an eBike. I think it's more or less the same, even though you are more visible. Acceleration can be handy, but speed itself feels more of a risk if you don't have enough situational awareness. Off course I am heavily biased towards separate bikepaths or roads where bikes have priority[1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVnEHqdmV6A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVnEHqdmV6A

bbarn 5y ago

Yeah, for the most part, speed comes with experience (genetic freaks of athleticism aside). I can ride at 30mph as comfortably now as I could 20mph 10 years ago. 10 years ago, 30mph was sprinting, and I was not as skilled at maneuvering the machine as I am today. Even with my lack of current fitness (I quit racing and training years ago) I can still comfortably ride with groups of people much more fit because of the experience I gained when I was racing.

miltondts 5y ago
You can ride comfortably at 48km/h? I guess you should attempt the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hour_record https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hour_record.
- bbarn 5y ago
  Yes I can. In a group, rotating out quick pulls on the front but largely drafting. Most cyclists with a few years under their belt can. I'm was never a track racer, never even much of a road racer, but at peak fitness I could do a 40K time trial in ~56 minutes, on a time trial bike and a flat course. That only won races where the fast guys didn't show up. 10 years ago if memory serves a 50 year old guy almost broke the 50 minute mark. It's really not as fast as you think it is. Alex Dowset did nearly 55KPH his last track hour record attempt, and didn't set the record. Power required to go a given speed follows the cube of the velocity so it's nothing near linear to go 10kph faster into the wind at those speed, but yes, in a group, 48kph is attainable for a moderately fit cyclist. Furthermore, my point wasn't about being "comfortable" as in "breathing easy" it's "comfortable" as in "feeling ok going that fast on a bicycle and knowing I'm relatively safe because of the experience I have.

m_fayer 5y ago

This post made chuckle with recognition. I'm typically a fast and very occasionally aggressive cyclist, on a fast bike with 15 years of experience. Lately I've been seeing aggressive moves that I recognize from visibly unathletic cyclists on heavy loaded up ebikes in very much upright postures. If any of the things that have gone wrong for me go wrong for them, no way do they have the reaction speed or maneuverability or stopping power needed to get out of the situation.