8 ms·

A few concrete arguments for e-bikes

77 points by zdw 5y ago

nickstinemates 5y ago
In california, for the same price you can get a motorcycle which has the same risk profile but requires licensing (and therefore training.) I have joined the club, all of my around town travel is now on 2 wheels. It's awesome.
hnov 5y ago
Totally agree with the premise that e-bikes are the most appealing option for urban mobility. I don't need a full workout when commuting and 250W of torque-sensing assist makes me, the average cyclist feel like superman. Just wanted to point out some downsides: - $3300 + $1000 for upgrades/maintenance to cover 4k km works out to $1/km which is fairly expensive. Longer use will obviously amortize the cost further and the resale value of that bike is at least $2k, but still, I could buy a motorcycle/scooter and gear for similar money. - Any US city I've lived in, riding such a bike to anywhere where I'd be leaving it out of sight for >5min is a non-starter because of rampant theft. - Riding a sustained 20mph with a bicycle helmet without first developing the requisite skill to go that fast on a regular basis exposes you to much higher risk. Similar to if your first car had 400hp and no active safety features.
- worik 5y ago
  > - Any US city I've lived in, riding such a bike to anywhere where I'd be leaving it out of sight for >5min is a non-starter because of rampant theft. That is very sad. How can people exist in such an environment?
  - tantalor 5y ago
    This is why commuting to work with an e-bike is a great option, assuming your workplace offers secure bike storage, which it certainly should.
  - dont__panic 5y ago
    Why do you think suburbs are so popular in the USA? A lot of us are interested in living in cities, walking and biking as much as possible, but eventually the crime (personal or property) becomes too much and folks move somewhere "safer." It happened in the 60s and 70s with "white flight," it's happening now with millenials who are getting fed up with rent, crime, etc. That being said, cities still have more things to do than most alternatives unless you really like outdoor activities. And the dating scene is much better in cities. And physical workplaces are nearly all near cities. So a lot of Americans work around the problems US cities have for those advantages.
- thebigjewbowski 5y ago
  > I could buy a motorcycle/scooter and gear for similar money I did a similar calculation myself recently. I sold my car for a profit given I was driving very little. The furthest I’d been driving most of the time was 3 miles away / 6 round trip. I looked into an e-bike but it seemed to make more sense to get a motorcycle. The bike, title transfer, helmet and some gloves wound up being less than $3k. I also decided it was probably safer to ride with traffic at 35-40mph than be riding on the side of the road at 20mph tops.
  - grokx 5y ago
    > I looked into an e-bike but it seemed to make more sense to get a motorcycle. The bike, title transfer, helmet and some gloves wound up being less than $3k. In the long run, the motorcycle will likely cost more than the bike, considering gas, insurance, and maintenance expenses. Also, for 6 miles, it might not be worth to have an e-bike. I do ~17km round trip on a so-called "fitness bike", and after some training I go faster than e-bikes. :) > I also decided it was probably safer to ride with traffic at 35-40mph than be riding on the side of the road at 20mph tops. This is a good point. I chose a longer trip, but way safer with separated lanes for cycles. Disclaimer: I rode motorcycles for ~10 years, now I'm full bicycle for commuting, and we use a long-tail e-bike to carry the kids around the city. We still have a car for family WE trips (main blocker!) and weekly groceries.
    - nickstinemates 5y ago
      > In the long run, the motorcycle will likely cost more than the bike, considering gas, insurance, and maintenance expenses. Gas cost is nominal - premium, $6/gallon and 130mpg with a 1 gal tank. Insurance is equally nominal - $20/month for single motorcycle for a clean record driver in their late 20s/30s with more than minimum coverage Maintenance - a wash. Bikes are cheap/easy to maintain yourself and are more complicated in their E versions I'd imagine.
- picture_view 5y ago
  There are lots of decent ebike options < $2000 and they generally require very little maintenance. $1000 for inner tubes, break pads, and chain grease is not a reasonable estimate.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    I'd say $1000 is pretty high and likely is mostly labor. You can almost all of your bike maintenance yourself for a small fraction of what it costs at the bike store and if you are halfway handy you will probably do as good or better. $1000 would probably also include things like cassettes, chainrings, chains and brake discs. Depending on the system on your bike this stuff can get quite expensive.
  - sliken 5y ago
    Er, what? Sounds crazy high, maybe $50 for tubes/pads (at huge bike shop markups) and even a very generous hourly rate for a generous 1 hour should be WAY less than half of that.
- 13of40 5y ago
  Another downside and word of caution: I left my $1200 Rad City bike in the garage over the winter and it got unplugged somehow. By spring it was no longer able to charge, and replacing just the battery cost another $600.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    It should have kept charge easily if it was full when the winter started. I've two 36 V nominal packs here lying around in case the other one dies (but it never does) and they've dropped 0.5V from 39 or so over the winter. Quite probably there was something wrong with that previous pack already that caused a self discharge rate so high that the pack had gone completely empty. The best way to store them for long term is to charge to either 3.7 or 3.9 V / cell (depending on whether you want to check them in 3 or in 5 months).
  - jdboyd 5y ago
    I hope that your bike failed like that was a fluke. I didn't recharge my $1100 Ancheer all winter and it was fine when I started using it again 2 weeks ago. I didn't even think it might be a problem to worry about. I'll have to be more careful next winter. FWIW, I would encourage anyone who isn't certain enough about it to buy a $3,000 bike to start with a cheaper Chinese model to decide if it is for them. There are things I don't love about this bike, but it definitely has me sold on electric assist bikes given the hills I have around me and my knees, and when it comes time to replace it, I expect I will get a nicer model.
- lazyier 5y ago
  > Riding a sustained 20mph with a bicycle helmet without first developing the requisite skill to go that fast on a regular basis exposes you to much higher risk. It's not really that "sustained" in reality. Sure you need to be careful, but it's not like you are going to risk flying off your bike if you hit a pebble. There is a hell of a lot of bike snobbery coming from the roady groups when it comes to ebikes and they act like if you don't put in the physical conditioning necessary to ride that fast you have no business on a ebike. The whole thing is pretty silly. Grandmas and mothers and kids have been riding 50cc scooters all over the planet for decades in public roads in speeds in excess of 30mph without having their faces explode. > - $3300 + $1000 for upgrades/maintenance to cover 4k km works out to $1/km which is fairly expensive. If you a DIY sort, which you should if you are considering using bicycles as viable transportaation, then a reasonable ebike that will handle 20-40 thousand miles can be put together for under 2 grand. Much less if you don't mind replacing throttles that wear out or having ugly wiring. The expensive part is the battery. That is the heart of the bike. Everything else is almost incidental. If you are worried about theft a used mountain bike and a 200 dollar kit will get you were you are going just as well as a 4000 dollar bicycle. The expensive part, the battery, you take with you.
  - Zigurd 5y ago
    I'm one of those lycra clad roadies and even a carefully planned load of groceries in a messenger bag, nevermind loaded panniers, weighs you down a lot. OK on flat terrain, but the hills in my town would make it pretty miserable. If I were to use a bike for regular errands for groceries, taking trash to the transfer station, shirts to the cleaners, etc. an e-bike would be perfect. The thing about calculating per mile costs is: 1. e-bikes are on a downward cost track, interrupted by COVID supply chain issues. But, recently, you can get a Giant e-bike for under $2000, which is very reasonable. Lightness is expensive. As long as you do not need to lift your e-bike, costs can continue to come down. 2. They are for local journeys. I would not commute from the exurbs on an e-bike. Up to 10 miles is a reasonable distance.
    - AtlasBarfed 5y ago
      E-bikes eliminate two factors that inexperienced bikers struggle with: wind and hills, two things that a couple hundred extra watts really help with even when limited to 20-25mph. Especially if you are towing a burley or have panniers or aren't in full spandex. The wind resistance really adds up. Ebikes are such an effective and useful form of urban transportation that very efficiently leverages what battery supply we have for cheap and FUN travel. To the point that the government should make this the "summer of the ebike" and offer a $500 rebate on e-bikes this summer. When I lived in a downtown, I could not wait for bikeable weather to come (midwestern winters). A city shrinks by a factor of ten over walking, and when you consider you often can park right by your destination for free, while cars almost always have a 10-15 minute penalty for finding parking and walking from the parking spot. The convenience range of an e-bike that can do 250-300 watts over a regular bike is probably 20-30 miles further, especially when often bike routes can be more direct. And an ebike gives the horsepower to cart around rain gear. For things like watching marathons, parades, and festivals (as long as you aren't THAT GUY trying to walk his bike through shoulder to shoulder crowds), they are unmatched. You get so much more of the experience. Of course so much of this is because people don't bike, maybe things would change if a lot more people did. If you are ever doing the tourist thing in Washington DC, their city is perfect for their bike share service. It was AWESOME. Being able to go monument to monument, smithsonian to smithsonian, to the zoo, to the hotel, to restaurants, was amazing on a bike with no hassles with car parking, the roundabouts in cars, or dealing with the metro schedules and line transfers. Bonus: you can go to Georgetown easily which doesn't have a metro. Manhattan/NYC SHOULD be like this, but it wasn't in the same league as DC last I did it. Brooklyn was still not well served. Manhattan/NYC would be much better with an ebike. It would shrink Manhattan neighborhoods by a huge amount.
- kashkhan 5y ago
  Even $0.50 per km is pretty bad. With no safety shell. I drive a used Lexus which costs me less that 30 cents per mile all up.
  - Zigurd 5y ago
    It's a faulty comparison: If you drove only in city traffic, your costs per mile would be at double or more. A few hours at highway speed is low-cost. Cost per city journey, including parking, would be a more enlightening comparison. And if you substituted an e-bike for those journeys your car costs per mile would drop.
    - kashkhan 5y ago
      Lexus RX 30 MPG on highway 18 MPG on city streets with medium traffic (Denver Metro) So yes city uses twice the gas. But average is 24MPG. I bike (no battery) and it is super efficient for 5-10 miles. My point was ebikes make no sense economically.
      - hnov 5y ago
        Yet. I think part of that is that cars are ubiquitous enough for you to able to buy a fully depreciated, reliable Japanese car for the cost of a decent ebike, we have some of the cheapest fuel in the world and everything is built around cars. I expect economies of scale to kick in with eBikes while cars continue to become more and more expensive to run in dense urban centers.
  - Zobat 5y ago
    Honest question; What's included in those 30 cents? I'm just guessing that that's gas alone, and not including parking, insurance, repairs and depreciation.
    - kashkhan 5y ago
      includes all of that (2004 RX330). Gas: 15 cents depreciation and repairs: 5 cents (bought for $4k(180k miles), no repairs (3 years), lasts 300k-400k if driven with care maintenance: 1 cent. $50 oil change every 6 months Insurance: $50/month. 5 cents parking: 0 cents free on the street (live and work in suburbia) even in city find street parking and walk half mile (Denver/Boulder) you could go even cheaper buying a camry.
- nawgz 5y ago
  > - $3300 + $1000 for upgrades/maintenance to cover 4k km works out to $1/km which is fairly expensive. Longer use will obviously amortize the cost further and the resale value of that bike is at least $2k, but still, I could buy a motorcycle/scooter and gear for similar money. I just want to say, as someone who just got into mountain biking, this is a shockingly expensive sport and these machines are requiring surprising amounts of maintenance. The cheapest full-suspension bike I found was $1250 lightly used, and I promptly had to go spend $130 to have just the rubber of the front tire replaced (tubeless wheel - $70 part $60 labor). I admit I got boomed by the seller and should've asked for money back when when he told me the tire was needing repairs, but the bike shop I went to did not have low prices beside tune-ups or installs
  - grokx 5y ago
    The good news is that most of the maintenance can be DIYed with a few inexpensive tools. Replacing tires, inner tubes, or brake pads is not really complex. Cleaning and greasing the chain is also easy, but must be done regularly to preserve the transmission. In the same way, tire pressure should be adjusted regularly to preserve tires and avoid punctures. Transmission replacement could be a bit more complicated and requires additional tools, but it's still feasible. What I would leave to a pro is the suspension maintenance and break fluid replacement.
    - nawgz 5y ago
      > Replacing tires, inner tubes Note I did say tubeless - I bought the bike to ride trails and I understand these to be more durable. If it took the guy at the shop an hour to put a tire on, have him describe it as not fun, requiring specialized tools, and say it'll last a year if I maintain it a bit, I can assure you I'm not going to DIY that. The transmission is simple, just a rear derailleur with 12 speeds, I am glad for this, it seems very well built and I don't expect issue, but I would be hopeless to fix it were it to severely break. The brakes are extremely critical on steep and rocky trails so I will also leave this to the professionals. Overall, I don't think becoming a bike mechanic is a trivial venture, and given the relatively high stakes nature of trail riding I prefer to have it done at an expert level.
- antisthenes 5y ago
  > $3300 + $1000 for upgrades/maintenance to cover 4k km What happens to your bike after 4k km?
- sliken 5y ago
  > I could buy a motorcycle/scooter and gear for similar money. Sure, purchase price, but not cost to own. Don't forget the total cost to own. Gas, Oil, Oil changes, license, registration, insurance, etc. Also exercising while commuting makes it a daily activity, doesn't require a gym membership, and can save you a few hours a week of trying to get exercise elsewhere.
bombcar 5y ago
Let's add one more lesson so you can get to 401k and retirement - WEAR THE DAMN HELMET even on short trips! The main thing it's protecting you from is the fall from height. Slap it on your head when you slap your ass on the seat; even short slow trips can still result in a crash.
- pc86 5y ago
  I hopped on a bike for the first time in ~20 years a few years ago. Fell off the bike at one point, going pretty slow in objective terms but faster than I should have been given my experience - got a concussion and broke my nose as well as got two pretty deep cuts on my hand and ankle. When I took the helmet off the front had split open from the impact. What was a quick exam from a doctor who was on the trip could have easily turned into a ruined vacation with days in the hospital or worse, and this was a slight downhill grade where I was barely pedaling. The thought of falling off a bike without a helmet at any appreciable speed should be very frightening.
- InCityDreams 5y ago
  - jtwaleson 5y ago
    Thanks for insulting 99% of the Dutch. We have great bike infrastructure and the need for helmets is way less.
    - bombcar 5y ago
      The Dutch have conquered gravity!
      - jtwaleson 5y ago
        I think forcing the Dutch to wear helmets is like forcing Americans to give up the second amendment. It’s completely rational but you’ll get a crapload of resistance. Edit: for myself I would not mind if we made it mandatory but we would need to adjust our infrastructure for the helmets. Where do you keep them when you’re stowing your bike when you hop on the train?
xdfgh1112 5y ago
Isn't an escooter better at that point?
- worik 5y ago
  Point is the ebike actually gives you exercise. Low impact aerobic. An escooter has all the bad things without the good thing
- jonnycomputer 5y ago
  I find the balance on them and the wheel size to be pretty unsafe for a lot of roads. Also, some of the hills here, I end up having to push the scooter up anyway.
- picture_view 5y ago
  If you plan on riding on anything other than perfectly paved and mostly flat concrete the ebike is much more practical.
- chabons 5y ago
  I see them as fulfilling different needs. An e-bike lets you go further, faster, travel more safely on mixed surfaces, and carry more cargo. An e-scooter is smaller and more portable, making it easier to store in apartments, at work, or integrate into public transit.
sva_ 5y ago
I often see unfit/overweight people riding electric bicycles. One could assume that it means that these bikes don't provide a good workout, but one could also assume that these people would otherwise not be riding a bike. I'm leaning on the latter explanation, in most cases - especially an inductive argument can be made, since there seem to be many more bikers nowadays than a few years ago, and many of them ride electric. Though I think, if you're already riding a bike regularly, you probably shouldn't switch to electric, because it'll definitely mean less workout. One thing that pisses me off from time to time, is that some (especially older folks) seem to overestimate themselves riding these - or rather, they underestimate the speed of seasoned 'manual' riders. They overtake other people last moment while coming my way and endanger themselves, others, and me. There were many instances where I had to brake hard or even go off-asphalt because of such maneuvers from people presumably aged 60+. The question I ask myself is: what to do about it. Willingly crash into them is out of question, since that'd probably fuck them up for good, considering their advanced age. But there's also nothing else to do other than brake or get out of the way, which can be immensely frustrating.
- pasabagi 5y ago
  > But there's also nothing else to do other than brake or get out of the way, which can be immensely frustrating. Well, yeah, but the nice thing about somebody being in any kind of not-car is you can talk to them like a normal person. Half the issue with shitty drivers is that cars bring out the obnoxious asshole in most people behind the wheel.
  - sva_ 5y ago
    I don't think you can talk to someone zapping by at 25kmh while you're going the same, or faster speed, in the other direction. (Unless you were to follow them - which probably wouldn't be a friendly encounter, if you did it)
- beefield 5y ago
  > Though I think, if you're already riding a bike regularly, you probably shouldn't switch to electric, because it'll definitely mean less workout. If any part of your regular bike riding is for fun/exercise and not e.g. set commute trip, electric does not definitely mean less workout. It may mean less workout, but I'd argue that more likely it means you rides are longer and you ride faster, thus the total workout being at least the same. And this not even taking into account that with assistance you likely also ride more often.
astuyvenberg 5y ago
I used to feel annoyed when I'd see an e-bike while I was out riding. I'm not sure which bastion of my ego that irritation came from, but eventually I decided that more bikes (of any kind) is better than more cars, or folks just sitting at home.
- QuercusMax 5y ago
  I would get annoyed out of jealousy when they effortlessly accelerated from a stop, easily clearing dangerous intersections. In contrast I was using a muscle-powered bike which takes much more effort to start up from a standstill.
- agumonkey 5y ago
  the silence of electric scooter / bikes is so neat compared to other ICE based vehicles
mataug 5y ago
My wife and I own one of the RadMission ebikes[1] each, and I now fully believe that they are the missing middle transportation that many cities, even in suburbs. We've taken these bikes on, long trips on a trial, grocery runs, trips to the gym, and even on dates. These things are a ton of fun, and I can safely keep up with cars on many, not all, city streets. I think ebikes can effectively replace cars for many trips, they cause minimal wear to city infrastructure, require much less space on roads, cause a lot less traffic, and generally improve the health and well being of people in a city. I think we need an ebike revolution as much as we need an electric car revolution. https://www.radpowerbikes.com/collections/electric-bikes/products/radmission-electric-city-bike https://www.radpowerbikes.com/collections/electric-bikes/pro...
- jmondi 5y ago
  One dilemma that stops ebikes from really taking over cars is the fact that it rains a lot in most of the country. Sure, on the west coast and in the desert ebikes work great. Move to a climate like the east coast, and it is immediately much less appealing as a single mode of transportation.
  - bombcar 5y ago
    It doesn't need to be a single mode - it can be a supplementary mode that covers some percentage of use - 10%, 30%, 50% - all would help reduce transit issues and improve transit density.
  - BizarroLand 5y ago
    North of California on the West Coast gets quite a bit of rain as well, some 200+ days on average, and even though the rain is more on the scale of a light mist than a torrential downpour, moving through it for a decently long period of time would leave anyone soaked to the bone.
  - Zigurd 5y ago
    Scooters dominate personal transport in Taipei despite a rainy climate. Offices there have pegs for hanging up wet ponchos.
jonnycomputer 5y ago
I have been a bike commuter (half hour one way) off and on for the last 10 years, and e-bikes do not solve the real issues I have: safety, especially at night, or in rainy or icy weather, which I have a lot of (but, yes, on some of those hot days, an e-assist would be pretty nice to have).
- giraffe_lady 5y ago
  The main safety problems for me are infrastructure and cultural. If ebikes become popular then hopefully that will provide more pressure for better bike infrastructure, and increase driver awareness. Neither is a quick or guaranteed process, but the benefit should apply even to normal bike users. The weather thing yeah I don't see how it's going to help. If they drastically increase ridership, then I guess it could make high quality winter gear more practical and affordable? I'm not really expecting anything on that front though.
netfortius 5y ago
Love my e-bike! Haven't had any incentive to acquire such, while in the US (not that popular, either, for obvious reasons), but bought one upon arrival in France, where roads are either bicycle friendly or there are lots of dedicated / purposely built bike paths. I can't get enough of it - trips in and out of the city where I live, be it to various beaches, by the sea, or wineries in the hilly areas.
bmj 5y ago
Some of the arguments presented are not e-bike specific. And those that are specific to e-bikes, specifically the "good for the planet" argument, are dodgy (as the report linked to by Bray in that section admits). To be fair, I have no real issue with e-bikes. If they get people out of their cars, I'm all for it. I'm a long time cyclo-commuter, and like others in this thread, I've had a knee-jerk reaction to e-bikes, but I've gotten over that.
thinkindie 5y ago
I live in Berlin which has a pretty decent bike infrastructure, and improving. I've never owned a car (always relying on bike + public transport or car sharing) and since I got a baby I got a cargo e-bike (Larry vs Harry Bullit) and I've been in love with it since: I use it for groceries, taking my kid to the kindergarten, to the playground, literally everywhere. I can't recommend anything better than a cargo ebike if you live in a city.
c0nsumer 5y ago
I love the idea of eBikes, and everything this post mentions is spot on. But there's one part I have a hard time getting past: Chronic use on infrastructure meant for pedestrians. Around here (southeast Michigan, US) it's very common to see folks on eBikes riding on sidewalks or non-motorized trails at speeds that far exceed those on human-power bikes. The speeds afforded by eBikes, even pedal assist ones, makes them a whole different thing from traditional human powered bicycles. Some/many are effectively just electric motorbikes (throttle control and all) that fly under the radar because they happen to also have pedals and no traditional "motor" noise. I feel like I'm somewhat grumping about something that I realize there's no practical solution for, but it's quite difficult when I'm walking on a sidewalk and someone comes flying by at 20 MPH (capped speed for most eBikes). Folks on human power bikes rarely reach these speeds, and those that do are usually more experienced riders who'll be doing so in the road, not on a sidewalk or hiking path. Heck, while I was typing this comment I saw someone ride the path through the suburban park across the street from house on a throttle-control eBike, helmetless, going full speed, swerving between walkers. That's a recipe for disaster. I recognize this is an law enforcement issue more than anything, but at the same time it's pretty unlikely that policymakers and enforcers are going to do anything about it because they've got other priorities. Whether due to ignorance or lack of concern, it seems we can't depend on folks to do the right thing, and thus it's frustrating all around.
- aqme28 5y ago
  > there's no practical solution Plenty of cities have built cycling infrastructure. That's the solution, not law enforcement.
  - c0nsumer 5y ago
    Getting people to use the cycling infrastructure (and not the pedestrian areas) is exactly an enforcement issue. To note, the sidewalk I mentioned above while writing the earlier comment parallels a local cycling route. It's a 25 MPH residential street that also has wide paved shoulders, with sharrows, signed as a formal bicycle route. I ride it almost daily, and it's a great route to ride. There's no reason to ride a bicycle on the barely-two-person-wide sidewalk there except out of ignorance.
jacquesm 5y ago
"Before I go on, I want to point out that my helmet saved my life on that occasion. I recommend Bontrager helmets, another product of Trek. And let me confess: When I’m just going five blocks to pick up parmesan and red wine because we’re having pasta, I often don’t wear one. And then I don’t go fast at all." Accidents can happen just as easily when you're going five blocks for your cheese and wine as they can on longer trips. When on an e-bike: wear a helmet, always, to the point that you are no longer thinking about it and it is as automatic as snapping your seatbelt in place in a car. Don't be person that ends up dead three blocks from home.
- pengaru 5y ago
  Personally I go further and always wear a full-face helmet if I'm helmeting at all. A childhood friend's father used to ride his road bike around the neighborhood and one evening he mistakenly rode into a construction pit where the barricades had been stolen by neighborhood kids. He face-planted into the asphalt on the far side when the front of his bike was abruptly swallowed by the pit. His cycling lid did absolutely no good for him, had his broken jaw wired shut, eating burgers through a straw for months. Another friend more recently had his front end wash out crossing a slightly muddy intersection riding to the googleplex via skyline. At first he thought he only suffered some rash, until days later he noticed a horizontal crack in one of his canines. Tooth struck the asphalt in the chaos, turned into a year of implant surgery b.s. The full-face cycling helmets are no less comfortable, and would probably have moved the needle in both of those scenarios despite being casual on-road accidents.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    That's a good point. I tried a full face but I find that if I have to choose between wearing a full face helmet or taking the car for any length trip that I'll end up taking the car. But your comment makes me reconsider, especially given that every third 130 km trip I have a 'near miss' of sorts, either some animal or a pedestrian or another cyclist making an expected move. So far so good (good brakes), but statistically speaking that probably won't last. So thanks!
yupper32 5y ago
E-bikes might be the only think to get me off the side of wanting to ban bikes from roadways. I really don't understand why there isn't a larger group of people who dislike bikes riding on roads. 1. You don't have to be licensed to bike on a road, but you do for motorized vehicles. This doesn't make sense. 2. Bikes can't keep up with traffic. I have to sit behind bikes trying to get up the SF hills daily, and either have to perform semi-dangerous passes or wait while cars back up behind me. 3. Bikes break road laws way more frequently than cars. Blowing through red lights and stop signs like they don't exist, which is dangerous for the biker, the cars, and especially pedestrians trying to cross the road. E-bikes with a biking test/license would solve most of my issues.
- yodelshady 5y ago
  You know, sometimes I am extremely glad I do not live in the United States. There will always be people who cannot afford to drive. Others are making a conscious decision to impose the enormous burden on everyone that is inherent to driving. And this is how you want to treat them. Sorry not sorry - that is appalling and I'm glad I'm not in that country.
  - yupper32 5y ago
    This seems like an aggressive response which doesn't address any of my points. I support (mostly by voting for and donating to candidates who support these): 1. Free public transportation. 2. Expansion of public transportation. 3. Proper bike lanes (which properly separates bikes from cars, if we're going to have bikes on the road anyway). 4. Higher wages, so people can survive in the meantime. All those address your concerns without ordinary bikes sharing the road. All I'm saying is that bikes sharing the roadway with cars doesn't make sense to me for the reasons I wrote above, and that I'm surprised more people don't feel the same way.
    - yodelshady 5y ago
      You're never going to fund any of those, are you? So no you don't support them.
mrfusion 5y ago
Do we think these will come down in price in the next few years? I $500 want one, but not $3000.
steelframe 5y ago
Speaking as a self-pronounced bike geek (hence the username), I love seeing e-bikes gain in popularity, since they help normalize cycling as a mode of transportation. Normalizing makes motorists more aware of my existence, and it also increases political pressure to build and maintain cycling infrastructure. One thing I have mixed feelings about is the fact the people riding e-bikes aren't required to get a license to operate them on public infrastructure. People who want to operate motorcycles on public infrastructure typically have to pass tests (often after taking classes) to qualify for a license. In the classes they teach you about how 2-wheeled vehicles with a motor on the back wheel can get finicky under a variety of situations. The author of the linked article learned that lesson the hard way. I've learned that the hard way even on a leg-powered 2-wheeler. (One lesson: Treat any wet piece of metal on the road as you would a cluster of tiny marbles.) One e-bike rider who would often pass me on a trail (usually well above the 15mph speed limit) on my morning commute just kept on blasting through corners as the weather gradually turned colder through the fall season. One morning there was enough frost accumulated on the pavement that I saw him slide right out on a patch of frost while he gunned the throttle around a corner like he probably did for the past ~100 times on his commute. Another co-worker of mine was cycling in to work for a while. Part of the commute went down a steep hill. I warned him that, when he sees that the grass is frosty in the morning, he should probably take another route that's not so steep. Sure enough, on the first of said frosty days that year, he showed up to work with a messed-up elbow. He told me he remembered what I told him, but he thought, "Okay, so the grass is frosty. The road looks okay, I guess. How dangerous can it be? I'm sure it will be fine." It wasn't. The thing about traction on a bike: You've got it, over and over and over again, until suddenly one time you don't. And the instant you lose traction, you're generally gonna have a bad time. Unless someone somewhere has drilled that into your head in the form of a class or test or whatever, you're not going to know when you need to slow way down and possibly dismount. Or avoid a specific route altogether. Or swap out for studded tires. Or even maybe take the bus that day. You'll be likely to just keep doing what's always "worked" up until then, to your peril.

77 points by zdw 5y ago

In california, for the same price you can get a motorcycle which has the same risk profile but requires licensing (and therefore training.) I have joined the club, all of my around town travel is now on 2 wheels. It's awesome.

hnov 5y ago

Totally agree with the premise that e-bikes are the most appealing option for urban mobility. I don't need a full workout when commuting and 250W of torque-sensing assist makes me, the average cyclist feel like superman. Just wanted to point out some downsides: - $3300 + $1000 for upgrades/maintenance to cover 4k km works out to $1/km which is fairly expensive. Longer use will obviously amortize the cost further and the resale value of that bike is at least $2k, but still, I could buy a motorcycle/scooter and gear for similar money. - Any US city I've lived in, riding such a bike to anywhere where I'd be leaving it out of sight for >5min is a non-starter because of rampant theft. - Riding a sustained 20mph with a bicycle helmet without first developing the requisite skill to go that fast on a regular basis exposes you to much higher risk. Similar to if your first car had 400hp and no active safety features.

worik 5y ago
> - Any US city I've lived in, riding such a bike to anywhere where I'd be leaving it out of sight for >5min is a non-starter because of rampant theft. That is very sad. How can people exist in such an environment?
- tantalor 5y ago
  This is why commuting to work with an e-bike is a great option, assuming your workplace offers secure bike storage, which it certainly should.
- dont__panic 5y ago
  Why do you think suburbs are so popular in the USA? A lot of us are interested in living in cities, walking and biking as much as possible, but eventually the crime (personal or property) becomes too much and folks move somewhere "safer." It happened in the 60s and 70s with "white flight," it's happening now with millenials who are getting fed up with rent, crime, etc. That being said, cities still have more things to do than most alternatives unless you really like outdoor activities. And the dating scene is much better in cities. And physical workplaces are nearly all near cities. So a lot of Americans work around the problems US cities have for those advantages.
thebigjewbowski 5y ago
> I could buy a motorcycle/scooter and gear for similar money I did a similar calculation myself recently. I sold my car for a profit given I was driving very little. The furthest I’d been driving most of the time was 3 miles away / 6 round trip. I looked into an e-bike but it seemed to make more sense to get a motorcycle. The bike, title transfer, helmet and some gloves wound up being less than $3k. I also decided it was probably safer to ride with traffic at 35-40mph than be riding on the side of the road at 20mph tops.
- grokx 5y ago
  > I looked into an e-bike but it seemed to make more sense to get a motorcycle. The bike, title transfer, helmet and some gloves wound up being less than $3k. In the long run, the motorcycle will likely cost more than the bike, considering gas, insurance, and maintenance expenses. Also, for 6 miles, it might not be worth to have an e-bike. I do ~17km round trip on a so-called "fitness bike", and after some training I go faster than e-bikes. :) > I also decided it was probably safer to ride with traffic at 35-40mph than be riding on the side of the road at 20mph tops. This is a good point. I chose a longer trip, but way safer with separated lanes for cycles. Disclaimer: I rode motorcycles for ~10 years, now I'm full bicycle for commuting, and we use a long-tail e-bike to carry the kids around the city. We still have a car for family WE trips (main blocker!) and weekly groceries.
  - nickstinemates 5y ago
    > In the long run, the motorcycle will likely cost more than the bike, considering gas, insurance, and maintenance expenses. Gas cost is nominal - premium, $6/gallon and 130mpg with a 1 gal tank. Insurance is equally nominal - $20/month for single motorcycle for a clean record driver in their late 20s/30s with more than minimum coverage Maintenance - a wash. Bikes are cheap/easy to maintain yourself and are more complicated in their E versions I'd imagine.
picture_view 5y ago
There are lots of decent ebike options < $2000 and they generally require very little maintenance. $1000 for inner tubes, break pads, and chain grease is not a reasonable estimate.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  I'd say $1000 is pretty high and likely is mostly labor. You can almost all of your bike maintenance yourself for a small fraction of what it costs at the bike store and if you are halfway handy you will probably do as good or better. $1000 would probably also include things like cassettes, chainrings, chains and brake discs. Depending on the system on your bike this stuff can get quite expensive.
- sliken 5y ago
  Er, what? Sounds crazy high, maybe $50 for tubes/pads (at huge bike shop markups) and even a very generous hourly rate for a generous 1 hour should be WAY less than half of that.
13of40 5y ago
Another downside and word of caution: I left my $1200 Rad City bike in the garage over the winter and it got unplugged somehow. By spring it was no longer able to charge, and replacing just the battery cost another $600.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  It should have kept charge easily if it was full when the winter started. I've two 36 V nominal packs here lying around in case the other one dies (but it never does) and they've dropped 0.5V from 39 or so over the winter. Quite probably there was something wrong with that previous pack already that caused a self discharge rate so high that the pack had gone completely empty. The best way to store them for long term is to charge to either 3.7 or 3.9 V / cell (depending on whether you want to check them in 3 or in 5 months).
- jdboyd 5y ago
  I hope that your bike failed like that was a fluke. I didn't recharge my $1100 Ancheer all winter and it was fine when I started using it again 2 weeks ago. I didn't even think it might be a problem to worry about. I'll have to be more careful next winter. FWIW, I would encourage anyone who isn't certain enough about it to buy a $3,000 bike to start with a cheaper Chinese model to decide if it is for them. There are things I don't love about this bike, but it definitely has me sold on electric assist bikes given the hills I have around me and my knees, and when it comes time to replace it, I expect I will get a nicer model.
lazyier 5y ago
> Riding a sustained 20mph with a bicycle helmet without first developing the requisite skill to go that fast on a regular basis exposes you to much higher risk. It's not really that "sustained" in reality. Sure you need to be careful, but it's not like you are going to risk flying off your bike if you hit a pebble. There is a hell of a lot of bike snobbery coming from the roady groups when it comes to ebikes and they act like if you don't put in the physical conditioning necessary to ride that fast you have no business on a ebike. The whole thing is pretty silly. Grandmas and mothers and kids have been riding 50cc scooters all over the planet for decades in public roads in speeds in excess of 30mph without having their faces explode. > - $3300 + $1000 for upgrades/maintenance to cover 4k km works out to $1/km which is fairly expensive. If you a DIY sort, which you should if you are considering using bicycles as viable transportaation, then a reasonable ebike that will handle 20-40 thousand miles can be put together for under 2 grand. Much less if you don't mind replacing throttles that wear out or having ugly wiring. The expensive part is the battery. That is the heart of the bike. Everything else is almost incidental. If you are worried about theft a used mountain bike and a 200 dollar kit will get you were you are going just as well as a 4000 dollar bicycle. The expensive part, the battery, you take with you.
- Zigurd 5y ago
  I'm one of those lycra clad roadies and even a carefully planned load of groceries in a messenger bag, nevermind loaded panniers, weighs you down a lot. OK on flat terrain, but the hills in my town would make it pretty miserable. If I were to use a bike for regular errands for groceries, taking trash to the transfer station, shirts to the cleaners, etc. an e-bike would be perfect. The thing about calculating per mile costs is: 1. e-bikes are on a downward cost track, interrupted by COVID supply chain issues. But, recently, you can get a Giant e-bike for under $2000, which is very reasonable. Lightness is expensive. As long as you do not need to lift your e-bike, costs can continue to come down. 2. They are for local journeys. I would not commute from the exurbs on an e-bike. Up to 10 miles is a reasonable distance.
  - AtlasBarfed 5y ago
    E-bikes eliminate two factors that inexperienced bikers struggle with: wind and hills, two things that a couple hundred extra watts really help with even when limited to 20-25mph. Especially if you are towing a burley or have panniers or aren't in full spandex. The wind resistance really adds up. Ebikes are such an effective and useful form of urban transportation that very efficiently leverages what battery supply we have for cheap and FUN travel. To the point that the government should make this the "summer of the ebike" and offer a $500 rebate on e-bikes this summer. When I lived in a downtown, I could not wait for bikeable weather to come (midwestern winters). A city shrinks by a factor of ten over walking, and when you consider you often can park right by your destination for free, while cars almost always have a 10-15 minute penalty for finding parking and walking from the parking spot. The convenience range of an e-bike that can do 250-300 watts over a regular bike is probably 20-30 miles further, especially when often bike routes can be more direct. And an ebike gives the horsepower to cart around rain gear. For things like watching marathons, parades, and festivals (as long as you aren't THAT GUY trying to walk his bike through shoulder to shoulder crowds), they are unmatched. You get so much more of the experience. Of course so much of this is because people don't bike, maybe things would change if a lot more people did. If you are ever doing the tourist thing in Washington DC, their city is perfect for their bike share service. It was AWESOME. Being able to go monument to monument, smithsonian to smithsonian, to the zoo, to the hotel, to restaurants, was amazing on a bike with no hassles with car parking, the roundabouts in cars, or dealing with the metro schedules and line transfers. Bonus: you can go to Georgetown easily which doesn't have a metro. Manhattan/NYC SHOULD be like this, but it wasn't in the same league as DC last I did it. Brooklyn was still not well served. Manhattan/NYC would be much better with an ebike. It would shrink Manhattan neighborhoods by a huge amount.
kashkhan 5y ago
Even $0.50 per km is pretty bad. With no safety shell. I drive a used Lexus which costs me less that 30 cents per mile all up.
- Zigurd 5y ago
  It's a faulty comparison: If you drove only in city traffic, your costs per mile would be at double or more. A few hours at highway speed is low-cost. Cost per city journey, including parking, would be a more enlightening comparison. And if you substituted an e-bike for those journeys your car costs per mile would drop.
  - kashkhan 5y ago
    Lexus RX 30 MPG on highway 18 MPG on city streets with medium traffic (Denver Metro) So yes city uses twice the gas. But average is 24MPG. I bike (no battery) and it is super efficient for 5-10 miles. My point was ebikes make no sense economically.
    - hnov 5y ago
      Yet. I think part of that is that cars are ubiquitous enough for you to able to buy a fully depreciated, reliable Japanese car for the cost of a decent ebike, we have some of the cheapest fuel in the world and everything is built around cars. I expect economies of scale to kick in with eBikes while cars continue to become more and more expensive to run in dense urban centers.
- Zobat 5y ago
  Honest question; What's included in those 30 cents? I'm just guessing that that's gas alone, and not including parking, insurance, repairs and depreciation.
  - kashkhan 5y ago
    includes all of that (2004 RX330). Gas: 15 cents depreciation and repairs: 5 cents (bought for $4k(180k miles), no repairs (3 years), lasts 300k-400k if driven with care maintenance: 1 cent. $50 oil change every 6 months Insurance: $50/month. 5 cents parking: 0 cents free on the street (live and work in suburbia) even in city find street parking and walk half mile (Denver/Boulder) you could go even cheaper buying a camry.
nawgz 5y ago
> - $3300 + $1000 for upgrades/maintenance to cover 4k km works out to $1/km which is fairly expensive. Longer use will obviously amortize the cost further and the resale value of that bike is at least $2k, but still, I could buy a motorcycle/scooter and gear for similar money. I just want to say, as someone who just got into mountain biking, this is a shockingly expensive sport and these machines are requiring surprising amounts of maintenance. The cheapest full-suspension bike I found was $1250 lightly used, and I promptly had to go spend $130 to have just the rubber of the front tire replaced (tubeless wheel - $70 part $60 labor). I admit I got boomed by the seller and should've asked for money back when when he told me the tire was needing repairs, but the bike shop I went to did not have low prices beside tune-ups or installs
- grokx 5y ago
  The good news is that most of the maintenance can be DIYed with a few inexpensive tools. Replacing tires, inner tubes, or brake pads is not really complex. Cleaning and greasing the chain is also easy, but must be done regularly to preserve the transmission. In the same way, tire pressure should be adjusted regularly to preserve tires and avoid punctures. Transmission replacement could be a bit more complicated and requires additional tools, but it's still feasible. What I would leave to a pro is the suspension maintenance and break fluid replacement.
  - nawgz 5y ago
    > Replacing tires, inner tubes Note I did say tubeless - I bought the bike to ride trails and I understand these to be more durable. If it took the guy at the shop an hour to put a tire on, have him describe it as not fun, requiring specialized tools, and say it'll last a year if I maintain it a bit, I can assure you I'm not going to DIY that. The transmission is simple, just a rear derailleur with 12 speeds, I am glad for this, it seems very well built and I don't expect issue, but I would be hopeless to fix it were it to severely break. The brakes are extremely critical on steep and rocky trails so I will also leave this to the professionals. Overall, I don't think becoming a bike mechanic is a trivial venture, and given the relatively high stakes nature of trail riding I prefer to have it done at an expert level.
antisthenes 5y ago
> $3300 + $1000 for upgrades/maintenance to cover 4k km What happens to your bike after 4k km?
sliken 5y ago
> I could buy a motorcycle/scooter and gear for similar money. Sure, purchase price, but not cost to own. Don't forget the total cost to own. Gas, Oil, Oil changes, license, registration, insurance, etc. Also exercising while commuting makes it a daily activity, doesn't require a gym membership, and can save you a few hours a week of trying to get exercise elsewhere.

bombcar 5y ago

Let's add one more lesson so you can get to 401k and retirement - WEAR THE DAMN HELMET even on short trips! The main thing it's protecting you from is the fall from height. Slap it on your head when you slap your ass on the seat; even short slow trips can still result in a crash.

pc86 5y ago
I hopped on a bike for the first time in ~20 years a few years ago. Fell off the bike at one point, going pretty slow in objective terms but faster than I should have been given my experience - got a concussion and broke my nose as well as got two pretty deep cuts on my hand and ankle. When I took the helmet off the front had split open from the impact. What was a quick exam from a doctor who was on the trip could have easily turned into a ruined vacation with days in the hospital or worse, and this was a slight downhill grade where I was barely pedaling. The thought of falling off a bike without a helmet at any appreciable speed should be very frightening.
InCityDreams 5y ago
- jtwaleson 5y ago
  Thanks for insulting 99% of the Dutch. We have great bike infrastructure and the need for helmets is way less.
  - bombcar 5y ago
    The Dutch have conquered gravity!
    - jtwaleson 5y ago
      I think forcing the Dutch to wear helmets is like forcing Americans to give up the second amendment. It’s completely rational but you’ll get a crapload of resistance. Edit: for myself I would not mind if we made it mandatory but we would need to adjust our infrastructure for the helmets. Where do you keep them when you’re stowing your bike when you hop on the train?

xdfgh1112 5y ago

Isn't an escooter better at that point?

worik 5y ago
Point is the ebike actually gives you exercise. Low impact aerobic. An escooter has all the bad things without the good thing
jonnycomputer 5y ago
I find the balance on them and the wheel size to be pretty unsafe for a lot of roads. Also, some of the hills here, I end up having to push the scooter up anyway.
picture_view 5y ago
If you plan on riding on anything other than perfectly paved and mostly flat concrete the ebike is much more practical.
chabons 5y ago
I see them as fulfilling different needs. An e-bike lets you go further, faster, travel more safely on mixed surfaces, and carry more cargo. An e-scooter is smaller and more portable, making it easier to store in apartments, at work, or integrate into public transit.

sva_ 5y ago

I often see unfit/overweight people riding electric bicycles. One could assume that it means that these bikes don't provide a good workout, but one could also assume that these people would otherwise not be riding a bike. I'm leaning on the latter explanation, in most cases - especially an inductive argument can be made, since there seem to be many more bikers nowadays than a few years ago, and many of them ride electric. Though I think, if you're already riding a bike regularly, you probably shouldn't switch to electric, because it'll definitely mean less workout. One thing that pisses me off from time to time, is that some (especially older folks) seem to overestimate themselves riding these - or rather, they underestimate the speed of seasoned 'manual' riders. They overtake other people last moment while coming my way and endanger themselves, others, and me. There were many instances where I had to brake hard or even go off-asphalt because of such maneuvers from people presumably aged 60+. The question I ask myself is: what to do about it. Willingly crash into them is out of question, since that'd probably fuck them up for good, considering their advanced age. But there's also nothing else to do other than brake or get out of the way, which can be immensely frustrating.

pasabagi 5y ago
> But there's also nothing else to do other than brake or get out of the way, which can be immensely frustrating. Well, yeah, but the nice thing about somebody being in any kind of not-car is you can talk to them like a normal person. Half the issue with shitty drivers is that cars bring out the obnoxious asshole in most people behind the wheel.
- sva_ 5y ago
  I don't think you can talk to someone zapping by at 25kmh while you're going the same, or faster speed, in the other direction. (Unless you were to follow them - which probably wouldn't be a friendly encounter, if you did it)
beefield 5y ago
> Though I think, if you're already riding a bike regularly, you probably shouldn't switch to electric, because it'll definitely mean less workout. If any part of your regular bike riding is for fun/exercise and not e.g. set commute trip, electric does not definitely mean less workout. It may mean less workout, but I'd argue that more likely it means you rides are longer and you ride faster, thus the total workout being at least the same. And this not even taking into account that with assistance you likely also ride more often.

astuyvenberg 5y ago

I used to feel annoyed when I'd see an e-bike while I was out riding. I'm not sure which bastion of my ego that irritation came from, but eventually I decided that more bikes (of any kind) is better than more cars, or folks just sitting at home.

QuercusMax 5y ago
I would get annoyed out of jealousy when they effortlessly accelerated from a stop, easily clearing dangerous intersections. In contrast I was using a muscle-powered bike which takes much more effort to start up from a standstill.
agumonkey 5y ago
the silence of electric scooter / bikes is so neat compared to other ICE based vehicles

mataug 5y ago

My wife and I own one of the RadMission ebikes[1] each, and I now fully believe that they are the missing middle transportation that many cities, even in suburbs. We've taken these bikes on, long trips on a trial, grocery runs, trips to the gym, and even on dates. These things are a ton of fun, and I can safely keep up with cars on many, not all, city streets. I think ebikes can effectively replace cars for many trips, they cause minimal wear to city infrastructure, require much less space on roads, cause a lot less traffic, and generally improve the health and well being of people in a city. I think we need an ebike revolution as much as we need an electric car revolution. https://www.radpowerbikes.com/collections/electric-bikes/products/radmission-electric-city-bike https://www.radpowerbikes.com/collections/electric-bikes/pro...

jmondi 5y ago
One dilemma that stops ebikes from really taking over cars is the fact that it rains a lot in most of the country. Sure, on the west coast and in the desert ebikes work great. Move to a climate like the east coast, and it is immediately much less appealing as a single mode of transportation.
- bombcar 5y ago
  It doesn't need to be a single mode - it can be a supplementary mode that covers some percentage of use - 10%, 30%, 50% - all would help reduce transit issues and improve transit density.
- BizarroLand 5y ago
  North of California on the West Coast gets quite a bit of rain as well, some 200+ days on average, and even though the rain is more on the scale of a light mist than a torrential downpour, moving through it for a decently long period of time would leave anyone soaked to the bone.
- Zigurd 5y ago
  Scooters dominate personal transport in Taipei despite a rainy climate. Offices there have pegs for hanging up wet ponchos.

jonnycomputer 5y ago

I have been a bike commuter (half hour one way) off and on for the last 10 years, and e-bikes do not solve the real issues I have: safety, especially at night, or in rainy or icy weather, which I have a lot of (but, yes, on some of those hot days, an e-assist would be pretty nice to have).

giraffe_lady 5y ago
The main safety problems for me are infrastructure and cultural. If ebikes become popular then hopefully that will provide more pressure for better bike infrastructure, and increase driver awareness. Neither is a quick or guaranteed process, but the benefit should apply even to normal bike users. The weather thing yeah I don't see how it's going to help. If they drastically increase ridership, then I guess it could make high quality winter gear more practical and affordable? I'm not really expecting anything on that front though.

netfortius 5y ago

Love my e-bike! Haven't had any incentive to acquire such, while in the US (not that popular, either, for obvious reasons), but bought one upon arrival in France, where roads are either bicycle friendly or there are lots of dedicated / purposely built bike paths. I can't get enough of it - trips in and out of the city where I live, be it to various beaches, by the sea, or wineries in the hilly areas.

bmj 5y ago

Some of the arguments presented are not e-bike specific. And those that are specific to e-bikes, specifically the "good for the planet" argument, are dodgy (as the report linked to by Bray in that section admits). To be fair, I have no real issue with e-bikes. If they get people out of their cars, I'm all for it. I'm a long time cyclo-commuter, and like others in this thread, I've had a knee-jerk reaction to e-bikes, but I've gotten over that.

thinkindie 5y ago

I live in Berlin which has a pretty decent bike infrastructure, and improving. I've never owned a car (always relying on bike + public transport or car sharing) and since I got a baby I got a cargo e-bike (Larry vs Harry Bullit) and I've been in love with it since: I use it for groceries, taking my kid to the kindergarten, to the playground, literally everywhere. I can't recommend anything better than a cargo ebike if you live in a city.

c0nsumer 5y ago

I love the idea of eBikes, and everything this post mentions is spot on. But there's one part I have a hard time getting past: Chronic use on infrastructure meant for pedestrians. Around here (southeast Michigan, US) it's very common to see folks on eBikes riding on sidewalks or non-motorized trails at speeds that far exceed those on human-power bikes. The speeds afforded by eBikes, even pedal assist ones, makes them a whole different thing from traditional human powered bicycles. Some/many are effectively just electric motorbikes (throttle control and all) that fly under the radar because they happen to also have pedals and no traditional "motor" noise. I feel like I'm somewhat grumping about something that I realize there's no practical solution for, but it's quite difficult when I'm walking on a sidewalk and someone comes flying by at 20 MPH (capped speed for most eBikes). Folks on human power bikes rarely reach these speeds, and those that do are usually more experienced riders who'll be doing so in the road, not on a sidewalk or hiking path. Heck, while I was typing this comment I saw someone ride the path through the suburban park across the street from house on a throttle-control eBike, helmetless, going full speed, swerving between walkers. That's a recipe for disaster. I recognize this is an law enforcement issue more than anything, but at the same time it's pretty unlikely that policymakers and enforcers are going to do anything about it because they've got other priorities. Whether due to ignorance or lack of concern, it seems we can't depend on folks to do the right thing, and thus it's frustrating all around.

aqme28 5y ago
> there's no practical solution Plenty of cities have built cycling infrastructure. That's the solution, not law enforcement.
- c0nsumer 5y ago
  Getting people to use the cycling infrastructure (and not the pedestrian areas) is exactly an enforcement issue. To note, the sidewalk I mentioned above while writing the earlier comment parallels a local cycling route. It's a 25 MPH residential street that also has wide paved shoulders, with sharrows, signed as a formal bicycle route. I ride it almost daily, and it's a great route to ride. There's no reason to ride a bicycle on the barely-two-person-wide sidewalk there except out of ignorance.

jacquesm 5y ago

"Before I go on, I want to point out that my helmet saved my life on that occasion. I recommend Bontrager helmets, another product of Trek. And let me confess: When I’m just going five blocks to pick up parmesan and red wine because we’re having pasta, I often don’t wear one. And then I don’t go fast at all." Accidents can happen just as easily when you're going five blocks for your cheese and wine as they can on longer trips. When on an e-bike: wear a helmet, always, to the point that you are no longer thinking about it and it is as automatic as snapping your seatbelt in place in a car. Don't be person that ends up dead three blocks from home.

pengaru 5y ago
Personally I go further and always wear a full-face helmet if I'm helmeting at all. A childhood friend's father used to ride his road bike around the neighborhood and one evening he mistakenly rode into a construction pit where the barricades had been stolen by neighborhood kids. He face-planted into the asphalt on the far side when the front of his bike was abruptly swallowed by the pit. His cycling lid did absolutely no good for him, had his broken jaw wired shut, eating burgers through a straw for months. Another friend more recently had his front end wash out crossing a slightly muddy intersection riding to the googleplex via skyline. At first he thought he only suffered some rash, until days later he noticed a horizontal crack in one of his canines. Tooth struck the asphalt in the chaos, turned into a year of implant surgery b.s. The full-face cycling helmets are no less comfortable, and would probably have moved the needle in both of those scenarios despite being casual on-road accidents.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  That's a good point. I tried a full face but I find that if I have to choose between wearing a full face helmet or taking the car for any length trip that I'll end up taking the car. But your comment makes me reconsider, especially given that every third 130 km trip I have a 'near miss' of sorts, either some animal or a pedestrian or another cyclist making an expected move. So far so good (good brakes), but statistically speaking that probably won't last. So thanks!

yupper32 5y ago

E-bikes might be the only think to get me off the side of wanting to ban bikes from roadways. I really don't understand why there isn't a larger group of people who dislike bikes riding on roads. 1. You don't have to be licensed to bike on a road, but you do for motorized vehicles. This doesn't make sense. 2. Bikes can't keep up with traffic. I have to sit behind bikes trying to get up the SF hills daily, and either have to perform semi-dangerous passes or wait while cars back up behind me. 3. Bikes break road laws way more frequently than cars. Blowing through red lights and stop signs like they don't exist, which is dangerous for the biker, the cars, and especially pedestrians trying to cross the road. E-bikes with a biking test/license would solve most of my issues.

yodelshady 5y ago
You know, sometimes I am extremely glad I do not live in the United States. There will always be people who cannot afford to drive. Others are making a conscious decision to impose the enormous burden on everyone that is inherent to driving. And this is how you want to treat them. Sorry not sorry - that is appalling and I'm glad I'm not in that country.
- yupper32 5y ago
  This seems like an aggressive response which doesn't address any of my points. I support (mostly by voting for and donating to candidates who support these): 1. Free public transportation. 2. Expansion of public transportation. 3. Proper bike lanes (which properly separates bikes from cars, if we're going to have bikes on the road anyway). 4. Higher wages, so people can survive in the meantime. All those address your concerns without ordinary bikes sharing the road. All I'm saying is that bikes sharing the roadway with cars doesn't make sense to me for the reasons I wrote above, and that I'm surprised more people don't feel the same way.
  - yodelshady 5y ago
    You're never going to fund any of those, are you? So no you don't support them.

mrfusion 5y ago

Do we think these will come down in price in the next few years? I $500 want one, but not $3000.

steelframe 5y ago

Speaking as a self-pronounced bike geek (hence the username), I love seeing e-bikes gain in popularity, since they help normalize cycling as a mode of transportation. Normalizing makes motorists more aware of my existence, and it also increases political pressure to build and maintain cycling infrastructure. One thing I have mixed feelings about is the fact the people riding e-bikes aren't required to get a license to operate them on public infrastructure. People who want to operate motorcycles on public infrastructure typically have to pass tests (often after taking classes) to qualify for a license. In the classes they teach you about how 2-wheeled vehicles with a motor on the back wheel can get finicky under a variety of situations. The author of the linked article learned that lesson the hard way. I've learned that the hard way even on a leg-powered 2-wheeler. (One lesson: Treat any wet piece of metal on the road as you would a cluster of tiny marbles.) One e-bike rider who would often pass me on a trail (usually well above the 15mph speed limit) on my morning commute just kept on blasting through corners as the weather gradually turned colder through the fall season. One morning there was enough frost accumulated on the pavement that I saw him slide right out on a patch of frost while he gunned the throttle around a corner like he probably did for the past ~100 times on his commute. Another co-worker of mine was cycling in to work for a while. Part of the commute went down a steep hill. I warned him that, when he sees that the grass is frosty in the morning, he should probably take another route that's not so steep. Sure enough, on the first of said frosty days that year, he showed up to work with a messed-up elbow. He told me he remembered what I told him, but he thought, "Okay, so the grass is frosty. The road looks okay, I guess. How dangerous can it be? I'm sure it will be fine." It wasn't. The thing about traction on a bike: You've got it, over and over and over again, until suddenly one time you don't. And the instant you lose traction, you're generally gonna have a bad time. Unless someone somewhere has drilled that into your head in the form of a class or test or whatever, you're not going to know when you need to slow way down and possibly dismount. Or avoid a specific route altogether. Or swap out for studded tires. Or even maybe take the bus that day. You'll be likely to just keep doing what's always "worked" up until then, to your peril.