4 ms·

> I see the two as totally different things: I've tried pedal-assist e-bike and they're great. But... Although I have nothing against motorbikes I'm not cool at

by Closi 5y ago

> I see the two as totally different things: I've tried pedal-assist e-bike and they're great. But... Although I have nothing against motorbikes I'm not cool at all with basically motorbikes getting a free pass because they're disguised as bicycles. Eh, it depends if you see pedal assistance being the defining difference between a bike and a motorbike. From a safety perspective, speed may be a better differentiator.

space_fountain 5y ago
I think something like average real world speed and weight are the two important metrics. Maybe this is the intuition with petal assist vs throttle controlled e-bikes. I do sort of think it should take some work to get a bike up to it's top speed so that riders don't just cruise at that speed.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  A typical scooter will blow right by my bike, no matter how hard I work at it. Anything over 40 kph is very intense, 36 to 38 is doable over the longer term traffic permitting.
- aaomidi 5y ago
  > so that riders don't just cruise at that speed. Do you actually ride bikes on roads? This is there because if you're going slow on an actual road you're more likely to get killed because of a car hitting you. I'm honestly exhausted at this FUD when it's actively fucking with my life as a bike rider on a main road. Even Netherlands allows fully motorized vehicles that are small on their bike paths. Stop thinking of this as a "free pass" and more of "what's actually the safest for bikers and pedestrians.
  - rjzzleep 5y ago
    In the US a lot of places don't have sidewalks or bike lanes and you're encouraged to cycle in the middle of a road lane so that you don't get killed when a driver hits you at full speed from the side. Also, you're legally entitled to a lane. In most other places that don't have dedicated bike lanes drive on the side of the road, same places scooters normally drive.
  - et-al 5y ago
    The OP, jacquesm, just mentioned throttle-only ebikes are not legal in the Netherlands. Anyone who's comparing ebike speeds to rider speeds: most people new to riding bikes cannot sustain riding at 30kph (18.5mph) for probably more than 5 minutes, less if there's any gradual elevation. As such, bikes are "safe" because there's an inherent speed limiter. You pedal really fast, go fast, then you get tired and chill out. By having a throttle-only mode, the rider never tires and will just want to go fast all. the. time. > Stop thinking of this as a "free pass" and more of "what's actually the safest for bikers and pedestrians. What's safest for bikers and pedestrians on multi-use paths (MUP) would be if ebikes actually followed the Class 1 rules and were limited to 32kph/20mph on these paths. (imo, 20mph is already pretty darn fast.) If folks want to go faster, then do it on the street. If you want to rip the throttle wide open, don't do it where a child is learning how to ride their bike or where people are just enjoying a leisurely stroll.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      > If folks want to go faster, then do it on the street. If you want to rip the throttle wide open, don't do it where a child is learning how to ride their bike or where people are just enjoying a leisurely stroll Agreed, but this is also leading to problems: people on racing bikes, especially in groups that occupy the whole width of the bike path. In general the problem is much simpler: people should treat the roads like a commons and adapt to the slowest present user. That's the safest way, and if that means you'll be a little later at your destination then maybe you should have left a little earlier. And on a racing bike you are no better than any other cyclist, ditto for e-bikes and s-pedelecs. It's a shared resource and a bit of common sense and respect for each other goes a long way.
      - et-al 5y ago
        > and if that means you'll be a little later at your destination then maybe you should have left a little earlier. Oh gosh, I wish this was the case, but the past two years of anti-masking / anti-vaccinations have clearly illustrated that there is no common good in Modern America.
    - Closi 5y ago
  - space_fountain 5y ago
    I didn't mean to cause quite as much of a controversy as it seems I have. I do actually ride a standard, non e-bike on SF streets, admittedly only somewhat timidly and in places with low speed limits and or good bike infrastructure. It just strikes me that if you want a machine with a throttle, and that can operate at road speeds we have that. It's a moped. If you want something that can operate in close quarters on shared paths with humans we also have that, but it is scary and potentially dangerous being overtaken at speed on a shared path by a heavy machine with wide tires traveling at speed when you're walking on a path. What both riders and pedestrians need is better car free infrastructure so we can stop it with the biking means going fast business. An ebike capped at something like the top speed of a human is a very different beast than a normal bike even if their top speeds are the same because the ebike is much more likely to actually be at those speeds at any point in time.
globular-toast 5y ago
> From a safety perspective, speed may be a better differentiator. Or perhaps momentum, which is far higher in motorised vehicles.
- shadowoflight 5y ago
  While I agree with this, there are the caveats that both light electric bicycles and heavy analog bicycles exist, and that in many cases the additional mass of the motor and battery may not contribute much to the overall momentum once the mass of cyclist and cargo are factored in. Note: I commuted by electric bicycle before I switched to working remote, and I have to say that riding a vehicle that tops out at ~30mph when you're slamming the throttle _and_ pedaling as hard as you can on a road with cars and trucks going 45mph (or faster) is a harrowing experience. The few miles where I rode on bicycle paths, though, I capped my speed at 15-20mph (around what a decent cyclist would do) and slowed to 5-10mph when I was approaching foot traffic or other cyclists - and nobody ever batted an eye (except a few people who wanted to know where they could get one, heh).
wpietri 5y ago
Speed (or better, momentum) is important. But pedal assistance is definitely material to me. Switching from pedal-assist to throttle-controlled changes the proportionality between impulse and real-world results. As a kid my first response to pretty much anything with a dial was to turn it up all the way and see what happened. That's a behavior I saw quite a bit during the brief plague of VC-funded scooters: novices at 100% motor output rocketing down sidewalks, etc. That's much less likely to happen it they have to pedal hard to get the top speed.
- dncornholio 5y ago
  E bikes also have a dial, all it does is it limits the speed when it stops accelerating. You can dial the bike all the way up, peddle but not apply any force and still accelerate to top speed.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Where I live that would be illegal for an e-bike, that vehicle would be classified as an e-scooter.
    - dncornholio 5y ago
      Doesn't any Batavus E-Bike does this? That's were I got my (limited) experience from.
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        That depends on what you mean by 'dial it up', do you mean a throttle? If so then that's illegal. If it is just a 25 kph bike then you can feather the pedals and it will go up to 15 or so and above that you'll have to work for it.
        dncornholio 5y ago
        25 kph bike, has a setting for power that has 4 stages and an 5th stage called boost. Would go all the way to 25 with just feathering

by Closi 5y ago

space_fountain 5y ago

I think something like average real world speed and weight are the two important metrics. Maybe this is the intuition with petal assist vs throttle controlled e-bikes. I do sort of think it should take some work to get a bike up to it's top speed so that riders don't just cruise at that speed.

jacquesm 5y ago
A typical scooter will blow right by my bike, no matter how hard I work at it. Anything over 40 kph is very intense, 36 to 38 is doable over the longer term traffic permitting.
aaomidi 5y ago
> so that riders don't just cruise at that speed. Do you actually ride bikes on roads? This is there because if you're going slow on an actual road you're more likely to get killed because of a car hitting you. I'm honestly exhausted at this FUD when it's actively fucking with my life as a bike rider on a main road. Even Netherlands allows fully motorized vehicles that are small on their bike paths. Stop thinking of this as a "free pass" and more of "what's actually the safest for bikers and pedestrians.
- rjzzleep 5y ago
  In the US a lot of places don't have sidewalks or bike lanes and you're encouraged to cycle in the middle of a road lane so that you don't get killed when a driver hits you at full speed from the side. Also, you're legally entitled to a lane. In most other places that don't have dedicated bike lanes drive on the side of the road, same places scooters normally drive.
- et-al 5y ago
  The OP, jacquesm, just mentioned throttle-only ebikes are not legal in the Netherlands. Anyone who's comparing ebike speeds to rider speeds: most people new to riding bikes cannot sustain riding at 30kph (18.5mph) for probably more than 5 minutes, less if there's any gradual elevation. As such, bikes are "safe" because there's an inherent speed limiter. You pedal really fast, go fast, then you get tired and chill out. By having a throttle-only mode, the rider never tires and will just want to go fast all. the. time. > Stop thinking of this as a "free pass" and more of "what's actually the safest for bikers and pedestrians. What's safest for bikers and pedestrians on multi-use paths (MUP) would be if ebikes actually followed the Class 1 rules and were limited to 32kph/20mph on these paths. (imo, 20mph is already pretty darn fast.) If folks want to go faster, then do it on the street. If you want to rip the throttle wide open, don't do it where a child is learning how to ride their bike or where people are just enjoying a leisurely stroll.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    > If folks want to go faster, then do it on the street. If you want to rip the throttle wide open, don't do it where a child is learning how to ride their bike or where people are just enjoying a leisurely stroll Agreed, but this is also leading to problems: people on racing bikes, especially in groups that occupy the whole width of the bike path. In general the problem is much simpler: people should treat the roads like a commons and adapt to the slowest present user. That's the safest way, and if that means you'll be a little later at your destination then maybe you should have left a little earlier. And on a racing bike you are no better than any other cyclist, ditto for e-bikes and s-pedelecs. It's a shared resource and a bit of common sense and respect for each other goes a long way.
    - et-al 5y ago
      > and if that means you'll be a little later at your destination then maybe you should have left a little earlier. Oh gosh, I wish this was the case, but the past two years of anti-masking / anti-vaccinations have clearly illustrated that there is no common good in Modern America.
  - Closi 5y ago
- space_fountain 5y ago
  I didn't mean to cause quite as much of a controversy as it seems I have. I do actually ride a standard, non e-bike on SF streets, admittedly only somewhat timidly and in places with low speed limits and or good bike infrastructure. It just strikes me that if you want a machine with a throttle, and that can operate at road speeds we have that. It's a moped. If you want something that can operate in close quarters on shared paths with humans we also have that, but it is scary and potentially dangerous being overtaken at speed on a shared path by a heavy machine with wide tires traveling at speed when you're walking on a path. What both riders and pedestrians need is better car free infrastructure so we can stop it with the biking means going fast business. An ebike capped at something like the top speed of a human is a very different beast than a normal bike even if their top speeds are the same because the ebike is much more likely to actually be at those speeds at any point in time.

globular-toast 5y ago

> From a safety perspective, speed may be a better differentiator. Or perhaps momentum, which is far higher in motorised vehicles.

shadowoflight 5y ago
While I agree with this, there are the caveats that both light electric bicycles and heavy analog bicycles exist, and that in many cases the additional mass of the motor and battery may not contribute much to the overall momentum once the mass of cyclist and cargo are factored in. Note: I commuted by electric bicycle before I switched to working remote, and I have to say that riding a vehicle that tops out at ~30mph when you're slamming the throttle _and_ pedaling as hard as you can on a road with cars and trucks going 45mph (or faster) is a harrowing experience. The few miles where I rode on bicycle paths, though, I capped my speed at 15-20mph (around what a decent cyclist would do) and slowed to 5-10mph when I was approaching foot traffic or other cyclists - and nobody ever batted an eye (except a few people who wanted to know where they could get one, heh).

wpietri 5y ago

Speed (or better, momentum) is important. But pedal assistance is definitely material to me. Switching from pedal-assist to throttle-controlled changes the proportionality between impulse and real-world results. As a kid my first response to pretty much anything with a dial was to turn it up all the way and see what happened. That's a behavior I saw quite a bit during the brief plague of VC-funded scooters: novices at 100% motor output rocketing down sidewalks, etc. That's much less likely to happen it they have to pedal hard to get the top speed.

dncornholio 5y ago
E bikes also have a dial, all it does is it limits the speed when it stops accelerating. You can dial the bike all the way up, peddle but not apply any force and still accelerate to top speed.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Where I live that would be illegal for an e-bike, that vehicle would be classified as an e-scooter.
  - dncornholio 5y ago
    Doesn't any Batavus E-Bike does this? That's were I got my (limited) experience from.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      That depends on what you mean by 'dial it up', do you mean a throttle? If so then that's illegal. If it is just a 25 kph bike then you can feather the pedals and it will go up to 15 or so and above that you'll have to work for it.
      - dncornholio 5y ago
        25 kph bike, has a setting for power that has 4 stages and an 5th stage called boost. Would go all the way to 25 with just feathering