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Ebikes outselll electric cars, motorbikes, vans, busses and trucks combined. I got one recently and it has been a real eye opener. My 'normal' cycling pace is

Ebikes outselll electric cars, motorbikes, vans, busses and trucks combined. I got one recently and it has been a real eye opener. My 'normal' cycling pace is 10 miles an hour, this is usually not enough to keep up with traffic. Slowest speed limit is 20, everyone is overtaking you dangerously. I can only reach that speed briefly, before I start sweating and panting. If you are going uphill, wel... So unless you are really fit, driving in traffic is a challenge In UK legal limit for ebikes is 16 miles per hour, I wish it was 20, but on most roads that works and much fewer cars are overtaking you. This makes much safe experience, and gives confidence. It is so efficient, charging it is basically free. It is so effortless, that using it in a big city is better than a car or public transport - you can go anywhere and dont need to think about parking. All they need is some space and sensible laws. We could literally solve 1/3 of the problem 'for free'. Also most people dont know how to kit out a bike to carry stuff - you dont need a trailer or a cargo bike. I can fit 125 liters of good on my bike. 40 in the rear basket, 50 in rear panniers, 35 in the front panniers. The smaller supermarket trolly is usually 70 liters, the big one is 150. You can also get a few straps and put really big items into the basket. It have transported large post boxes, chairs, vacuum cleaners, desktop computers, etc. And there is a youtube video of a guy carrying a full-sized fridge on a bike, but that's a bit extreme.

smileysteve 4y ago
> you can go anywhere and dont need to think about parking. I was visiting new Orleans recently, and they had signs on rod iron fences "no bike parking" as you ride into the French Quarter. Car street parking on both sides, lots of traffic and potholes, I saw one single loop bike "rack" in a mile. The city also has its own bike share, but its rules include parking in designated spots - would you believe very few in top pedestrian and tourist areas? I see this in Atlanta too. The scooters and lime bikes ran into this problem.. people complain of car traffic and bikes and scooters parked on sidewalks, cities even invest in a less profitable bike share program and a few racks - or temporary bike lanes, but they to have a car parking spot rather than parking for a dozen bikes in the same footprint for some reason. It's a ux and public policy failure / money drain.
- AtlasBarfed 4y ago
  Houston sucked for bike infrastructure. It is INSANE. These places are made for year-round biking. In Houston, you have the state legislature forbidding mass transit funding for Houston and tons of other sharply own-the-libs political grandstanding that has real impacts to the cities in Texas. I've worked in Minneapolis which is a dream for biking... in the summer. I've visited Washington DC and its bikeshare program was perfect for seeing all the sights distributed around the city, and showed what ebikes and good urban infrastructure can do for city livability. Bikes shrink a city by a factor of 5 for doing anything. Every city should be falling over themselves, ESPECIALLY with the covid-fuelled distributed work culture, to do this because it makes cities FAR BETTER than living in rural or suburban areas. It will increase property values, people living in the cities, increase exchange of goods and services. The writing is on the wall for the ICE, the oil companies, and even the republicans in Texas. Hopefully the writing isn't on the wall for the human race in the process.
  - germinalphrase 4y ago
    "I've worked in Minneapolis which is a dream for biking... in the summer." It's not that bad in the winter; the dedicated bike paths get plowed.
    - sleepybrett 4y ago
      Yeah I went to a conference for a few years in Minnenapolis at the Walker. That bike road through the downtown core seemed amazing. It looked to me like they just took a road and said 'no more cars' right through the little 'Downtown West' core (I didn't really get a feel for the city geography generally so I might have that wrong). I wish more cities would do that. Just take a couple of streets in each direction of the grid and say 'no more cars' or maybe choke it down to one lane one way for cars with speed bumps for local pickup/delivery 'local access only'.
      - germinalphrase 4y ago
        Was it lower than regular street level? If so, you’re talking about the Greenway which is a converted rail route. I believe making it a bike thoroughfare was (is?) intended as a temporary measure before a new light rail line was put in its place. Quite nice to have a protected bike corridor that crosses the center of the city, that’s for sure.
jjav 4y ago
> and dont need to think about parking What do you mean? Lack of safe parking is by far the largest pain point preventing me from biking everywhere. Even though my neighborhoods are generally very safe, bike theft is very high. I cycle 100+ miles a week for sport so I'd be happy to also be able to bike to most errands, but with the lack of safe bike parking nearly anywhere, that's not a reasonable option.
vladvasiliu 4y ago
> you can go anywhere and dont need to think about parking I don't know where you are in the UK, but I don't agree with this in the general European case. I'd be very concerned with theft. I have a friend who almost got his ebike stolen while waiting in line in London. It was attached and everything, but apparently some dude went and came back with tools. He was lucky some passerby scared the thief away. In Paris, where I live, I'd never leave a bike unattended in the street, either. It's the main reason why I don't ride around town on my own bike: if I'm not certain that I can keep it somewhere behind a locked door, I don't bother.
- BoxOfRain 4y ago
  Yeah I live in Oxford and bike theft is rampant. I like the idea of an ebike but I'm going to keep riding a piece of rubbish I won't be devastated by when it inevitably gets stolen.
- MaysonL 4y ago
  Software defined bikes can resist theft in quite a few ways, making theft impractical. See https://weel.bike/ https://weel.bike/ for some details.
- iknowstuff 4y ago
  Consider that a bike stolen once a year is still 1/10th the cost of car payment+insurance+fuel. Also Lemonade has bike insurance for like $7/month. It's fine.
- sleepybrett 4y ago
  In tokyo it seems to not be a problem. Tons of bikes, no locks, just parked a little out of the way in a ally. Crazy.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  A friend's motorbike was properly locked, parked closed to a police station in Cardiff, and it got stolen, she even got the watch the robbery afterwards in the police station as it was on tape via CCTV. The police never found the dudes that got it.
- 4y ago
peoplefromibiza 4y ago
> Ebikes outselll electric cars, motorbikes, vans, busses and trucks combined In US, where every family owns at least 2 cars already and goes to buy grocery twice a week in a SUV. They are simply replacing their old bikes with the electric ones, they are not switching to biking Car traffic volume in US increased steadily after the pandemic and by mid 2022 it was already at pre-pandemic levels, now it's worse. So e-bikes are not changing the way people move, just the way people use their bikes on their free time, when they are biking.
- HDThoreaun 4y ago
  > In US, where every family owns at least 2 cars already and goes to buy grocery twice a week in a SUV. If you believe this you live in a massive bubble.
  - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
    I might. Or I might have researched the topic before posting (I'm not American) On average, American households had 1.79 cars as of 2019, or roughly two vehicles per household.

smileysteve 4y ago

> you can go anywhere and dont need to think about parking. I was visiting new Orleans recently, and they had signs on rod iron fences "no bike parking" as you ride into the French Quarter. Car street parking on both sides, lots of traffic and potholes, I saw one single loop bike "rack" in a mile. The city also has its own bike share, but its rules include parking in designated spots - would you believe very few in top pedestrian and tourist areas? I see this in Atlanta too. The scooters and lime bikes ran into this problem.. people complain of car traffic and bikes and scooters parked on sidewalks, cities even invest in a less profitable bike share program and a few racks - or temporary bike lanes, but they to have a car parking spot rather than parking for a dozen bikes in the same footprint for some reason. It's a ux and public policy failure / money drain.

AtlasBarfed 4y ago
Houston sucked for bike infrastructure. It is INSANE. These places are made for year-round biking. In Houston, you have the state legislature forbidding mass transit funding for Houston and tons of other sharply own-the-libs political grandstanding that has real impacts to the cities in Texas. I've worked in Minneapolis which is a dream for biking... in the summer. I've visited Washington DC and its bikeshare program was perfect for seeing all the sights distributed around the city, and showed what ebikes and good urban infrastructure can do for city livability. Bikes shrink a city by a factor of 5 for doing anything. Every city should be falling over themselves, ESPECIALLY with the covid-fuelled distributed work culture, to do this because it makes cities FAR BETTER than living in rural or suburban areas. It will increase property values, people living in the cities, increase exchange of goods and services. The writing is on the wall for the ICE, the oil companies, and even the republicans in Texas. Hopefully the writing isn't on the wall for the human race in the process.
- germinalphrase 4y ago
  "I've worked in Minneapolis which is a dream for biking... in the summer." It's not that bad in the winter; the dedicated bike paths get plowed.
  - sleepybrett 4y ago
    Yeah I went to a conference for a few years in Minnenapolis at the Walker. That bike road through the downtown core seemed amazing. It looked to me like they just took a road and said 'no more cars' right through the little 'Downtown West' core (I didn't really get a feel for the city geography generally so I might have that wrong). I wish more cities would do that. Just take a couple of streets in each direction of the grid and say 'no more cars' or maybe choke it down to one lane one way for cars with speed bumps for local pickup/delivery 'local access only'.
    - germinalphrase 4y ago
      Was it lower than regular street level? If so, you’re talking about the Greenway which is a converted rail route. I believe making it a bike thoroughfare was (is?) intended as a temporary measure before a new light rail line was put in its place. Quite nice to have a protected bike corridor that crosses the center of the city, that’s for sure.

jjav 4y ago

> and dont need to think about parking What do you mean? Lack of safe parking is by far the largest pain point preventing me from biking everywhere. Even though my neighborhoods are generally very safe, bike theft is very high. I cycle 100+ miles a week for sport so I'd be happy to also be able to bike to most errands, but with the lack of safe bike parking nearly anywhere, that's not a reasonable option.

vladvasiliu 4y ago

> you can go anywhere and dont need to think about parking I don't know where you are in the UK, but I don't agree with this in the general European case. I'd be very concerned with theft. I have a friend who almost got his ebike stolen while waiting in line in London. It was attached and everything, but apparently some dude went and came back with tools. He was lucky some passerby scared the thief away. In Paris, where I live, I'd never leave a bike unattended in the street, either. It's the main reason why I don't ride around town on my own bike: if I'm not certain that I can keep it somewhere behind a locked door, I don't bother.

BoxOfRain 4y ago
Yeah I live in Oxford and bike theft is rampant. I like the idea of an ebike but I'm going to keep riding a piece of rubbish I won't be devastated by when it inevitably gets stolen.
MaysonL 4y ago
Software defined bikes can resist theft in quite a few ways, making theft impractical. See https://weel.bike/ https://weel.bike/ for some details.
iknowstuff 4y ago
Consider that a bike stolen once a year is still 1/10th the cost of car payment+insurance+fuel. Also Lemonade has bike insurance for like $7/month. It's fine.
sleepybrett 4y ago
In tokyo it seems to not be a problem. Tons of bikes, no locks, just parked a little out of the way in a ally. Crazy.
pjmlp 4y ago
A friend's motorbike was properly locked, parked closed to a police station in Cardiff, and it got stolen, she even got the watch the robbery afterwards in the police station as it was on tape via CCTV. The police never found the dudes that got it.
4y ago

peoplefromibiza 4y ago

> Ebikes outselll electric cars, motorbikes, vans, busses and trucks combined In US, where every family owns at least 2 cars already and goes to buy grocery twice a week in a SUV. They are simply replacing their old bikes with the electric ones, they are not switching to biking Car traffic volume in US increased steadily after the pandemic and by mid 2022 it was already at pre-pandemic levels, now it's worse. So e-bikes are not changing the way people move, just the way people use their bikes on their free time, when they are biking.

HDThoreaun 4y ago
> In US, where every family owns at least 2 cars already and goes to buy grocery twice a week in a SUV. If you believe this you live in a massive bubble.
- peoplefromibiza 4y ago
  I might. Or I might have researched the topic before posting (I'm not American) On average, American households had 1.79 cars as of 2019, or roughly two vehicles per household.