I suspect noone gives a rat's ass about your illegal ebike either. It's like the author wrote this article to show how cool he is for flouting the law.
I'm also not really sure what he's arguing for. That manufacturers of complete ebikes should just sell bikes that can't be ridden legally on the streets? They'd be sued if they did that. As a DIY builder you can take that chance, as a business selling to the public you can't. If you disagree with the ebike restrictions, you should be focusing your efforts on the politicians and public servants that make those policies.
Also, I'm not sure "ebike" is a good term for what the author is talking about. It's firmly into e-moped territory and possibly an electric motorcycle. Which is not to say that bikes more powerful than the legal limit can't qualify as ebikes, but when you're pushing 2500W through your motor, the addition of pedaling won't even register because it's such a small fraction of the total power, so it's really not a bike.
All that said, the US has it really easy when it comes to ebike regulations. You can go to 750W! That's enough for an e-bike. Over here in europe we're limited to 250W which really is ridiculously small. I have a 500W motor on my bike, putting it firmly into illegal territory but it's still definitely a bike.
Yes..
If this guy cared he would by an electric motorcycle, with all the extra regs that entails. What he want is an electric motorcycle that doesnt require a dot helmet, a license, insurance, and yet is allowed to use bike lanes and parking. I have little sympathy.
We'll see what the narrative is when some jackass like this loses everything he owns when he creams some jogger with his illegal bike and gets sued into oblivion without insurance.
Sounds to me like he wants an electric motorcycle, not a bike. Maybe he wants it to look like a bike, but I'm fairly sure there are no laws about making a motorcycle look like a bike.
Of course it does change the legal regime. He will probably (IANAL) need a license, lights, insurance, and so on. Those are all required for good reason, operating a vehicle at that speed is dangerous to those around you.
I agree, this author wants a motorcycle and is prepared to show everyone their e-peen to prove how muck tougher they are for making one out of an e-bike.
Yeah it looks like he is mostly hung up on a semantic issue. When you strap a power source to your bicycle that exceeds the power limit for assisted pedalling technologies, you get into moped or motorcycle territory — legally speaking. It may look like a bicycle, but manufacturers of e-bikes are probably not too keen on calling anything that requires a driving licence and/or insurance an e-bike; it creates confusion and hurts the image they are trying to build around e-bikes.
I have no idea, but I would strongly suspect that they have two batteries, and keep one in a charger inside the restaurant. It's not like they're going to sit outside and wait for it to charge when there's work to be done, right?
The problem with fast eBikes is safety -- there's a huge difference in injury (and survivability) between a 15mph collision and a 30mph collision.
If a collision between an unprotected bicyclist and a stationary object is similar to that between a car and a pedestrian, the chance of death in a 15mph (25kph) collision is around 5% and the chance of non-minor injury is 10%. In a 50kph collision, that jumps up to a 50% chance of death and 95% chance of non-minor injury.
So sure, build your 30mph bike if you want to, but understand that it's no longer a bike, it's a motor vehicle, and should be restricted to licensed adults and should not be used on bike paths and the rider should probably be wearing a motorcycle-style helmet. I know there's some debate on the effectiveness of bicycle helmets at preventing injury in the low-speed accidents cyclists are usually in, but for motorcyclists, the benefits are more clear -- a 37% reduction in deaths and 67% reduction in brain injuries.
> Oh, and make sure that your brakes are able to stop your 1000W+ motor if the throttle gets stuck wide open.
This cannot be stressed enough. The amount of new builds on ebike forums where people are building essentially electric motorcycles on bicycle frames with no upgrades to non-drivetrain components is scary.
Even with my 500W motor (illegal here, but would be legal in the states, and puny compared to the stuff the article's author is talking about), I found myself wishing the brakes were more responsive. I upgraded the brake pads which made the ratio of stopping power to acceleration acceptable.
Then after a year of using that, the aluminum stirrup that the brake noodle slides into bent enough for the noodle to pop out, putting my front brake out of service. This happened while I was applying braking power during a steep downhill descent going 35-40km/h, I lost control and fell off the bike. The stirrup wasn't designed to handle the braking forces I was applying to it with the new brake pads, so over time it bent outwards and eventually gave way.
Don't neglect your brakes! After this I upgraded to mechanical disc brakes.
EDIT: Regarding "if the throttle gets stuck wide open" - if you don't have motor safety cutoffs installed on your brakes, you should do so now. I've had my PAS controller get into a state where it decided to just apply power even with no movement on the pedals. Always have a cutoff switch! If you dislike the chinese ebrakes (and they do suck), there are inline wire sensors you can install to keep your existing brake handles, and it's also fairly simple to modify your existing handles with a reed switch.
Don't you guys have regenerative braking via the electric motor? From the sound of it, the motor controllers out there are rather primitive in this market. Thoughts?
There's not a whole lot of energy to recover -- most of the eBike's energy is spent fighting wind resistance, so there's not much left to recover when you're slowing to a stop at a stop sign.
Long descents where there is significant energy to recover are not that common for most riders.
Well you could just use the drive as an electromagnetic brake w/o necessarily recovering all power by diverting all or just a part of it to a load. Train engines do this.
Well you could, but it comes at a cost (in dollars, complexity and weight), and is likely not worth it since the bike still needs friction brakes.
It's a different story with a 50 ton train where a 20 KW resistor bank is not a significant amount of weight, but adding a 500W resistor bank to a bike (since you need somewhere for energy to go when the battery is fully charged) is probably not going to be worth the weight and expense.
Plus you need some sort of blending between regenerative and friction braking, so it's yet another thing that needs adjusted and maintained.
A stop should provide almost as much energy as starting back up again. How about an e-bike with a fixed gear? You get assist when starting, but pedal yourself at speed, regen to stop, and perhaps some option to charge the battery via the pedals that's up to the rider.
The most unusual thing I ever saw in my EV days... We had a full Ford Focus Electric on a chassis dyno to debug some problems. After several hours of tuning and data collection we realized the car needed to be charged to get it back to our own facility. The dyno place had no high power chargers. So we set the dyno somewhere around 40mph, put the car in drive and left it. With no foot on the gas it would do a light regeneration at that speed. The strange part is that we sat around a table to analyze the days data about 5 feet from the car. We're at a table next to a car tied down and going 40mph and its almost dead silent charging via regen. Analysis done, car charged, untie it and off we went ;-)
Define "almost as much energy". Bike motors aren't super efficient, especially at low RPM's (like when you're coasting to a stop).
A bike has very little rolling resistance, nearly all of the energy used to propel the bike on level ground is going toward fighting air resistance. Even on rolling hills, I rarely use my brakes on the downhill, any regen braking used on the downhill is just going to increase the energy needed to go up the next hill. (and due to less than perfect efficiency, you lose energy on both the regen capture and powering the motor again, so it's a big loss).
So yes, you might recover some small amount of energy used to decelerate the bike at a stop sign, it's not going to be significant percentage of the total power requirements, and you're going to be paying a price in dollars, complexity and weight for this feature.
My Bionx Xtracycle has regenerative breaking and it is as implied super-useful as a speed moderator here in SF when going downhill with a load (my two kids) would build up speed.
It's firmware limited to 20 mph which _feels_ slow but is probably a sane compromise. We only hit that going down hill, and are far from the fastest cycle; but we average 12-15 mph on mild uphills and flats when conventional cycles usually average a few mph slower.
I love my ebike, it makes a daily commute taking two kids to school then getting on to work feasible, regardless of weather or relative personal energy level.
You upgraded to mechanical disk brakes? What were you running before? V brakes? I wouldn't run anything less than hydrolic disks on something that fast. Preferably dual piston like the ones Sram are making now.
I've destroyed two sets of Avid Juicy 7 hydraulic disc brakes with upgraded pads just by mountain biking, and these are almost top tier of bicycle brakes. Can't imagine people are running electric bikes with a lot of power without matching it with appropriate braking system.
I'd only use original pads and discs from the brake manufacturer. If you upgrade your brakes it's best to upgrade the whole system, not just the pads. Overbuilt components with more metal and more surface would normally dissipate heat better, reducing the prospect of brake failure. Also, mechanical brakes are easier to inspect, maintain and fix. You won't see if your DOT fluid absorbed humidity or you won't notice a leak until the brake fails, but you will certainly see a broken cable.
If you're running a >30mph ebike, you probably want something larger than 160mm rotors and something heavier duty than XC disc brakes. I'd suggest some downhill gear, including DH forks, headset, bars, cranks, etc. Shimano has the Saint line: http://bike.shimano.com/content/sac-bike/en/home/components1...
And other manufacturers also make calipers with >=4-piston calipers.
Again for rotor size, 160mm is typically standard for XC, road bikes run 140mm usually, some "all mountain" bikes have 180mm fronts, and 200mm is typically seen only on DH/4x/trials/dirt jump bikes but likely what you want for a fast ebike.
All that said, competition-level road bikes generally hold up fine at speeds up to 60mph (and the riders hit those speeds going down hills) and their brakes work fine. You obviously don't just mash them, and the rim surface they're clenching matters a lot, as do the pads, but the tech works well and has worked for the past 100 years. Weight distribution and even application of both brakes help a lot.
Competition level road bikes are new and get used for max one Tour de France season, so chances of wearing the rim, or the calioer material are minimal. I doubt they even wear the pads too much.
For >750W e-bikes that go over 28 mph you'd normally need DH brake tech, 180 rotors at least. Shimano Saint Ice tech is good, Magura brakes are also top notch, even the lower end models. Avid Code looks rather flimsy and advertises low weight. I would avoid any calipers w/o metal bodies as it does not dissipate heat well. The Hope caliper looks especially good - lots if surface, lots of metal. The brakes and the steering are the last things to save weight on.
> You upgraded to mechanical disk brakes? What were you running before? V brakes?
Yes, V-brakes.
> I wouldn't run anything less than hydrolic disks on something that fast. Preferably dual piston like the ones Sram are making now.
I actually didn't specify anything about the speed of my bike in the post, but mostly I ride below 25km/h. The 35-40km/h quoted was coasting down a steep hill, and I would have gone the same speed without the motor. It's just that the added load caused the V-brake stirrup to bend open over time, and then it finally popped out in that situation.
I think idea that disc brakes, mechanical or hydraulic, are "more powerful" than V-brakes or canti's is a misunderstanding. If you think about it, the absolute limit to a bicycle's braking power is as much force as possible without locking the front wheel and sending the rider over the handlebars. Any bicycle brake can do that, and if it can't it should be returned to the store as defective. The reason I switched to discs was that the whole assembly seemed more solid than V-brakes (no loose coupling like in the harness). The other big reason to switch is the feel of the lever (better control over braking modulation), and needing to put less force on the lever for more braking power, so your hands get tired less.
The main reason I went for mechanical disc brakes vs hydraulics is the ability to service them on long trips. I'm not going to bring tools to bleed the hydraulic system on touring trips.
EDIT: Another reason I picked mechanical is that it's simpler to wire a motor safety shut-off switch to mechanical brakes. For hydraulics you need to do the reed-switch mod I mentioned which is a bit more finicky, or install a hydraulic sensor which requires bleeding the system.
Disc brakes use different materials than the rubber blocks on cantilever or v brakes. I would exect that more friction can be applied. It will also handle heat differently.
Yes, I know, I'm just saying that the extra braking power isn't useful because you can already apply the maximum safe braking power with any bicycle brake. Anything more will just send you flying over the handlebars. There are other reasons to prefer discs though, as I mentioned.
As an aside, it's weird that in the bicycle world we talk about disc brakes vs rim brakes since they are all disc brake systems (in a rim brake, the rim itself takes the place of the rotor). I don't think I've ever seen a bicycle with a drum brake :)
People go over the handlebars on braking because they use the rear brake, or are not properly braced on the handlebars. If you use the front brake (and brace properly) there is little practical limit to braking force. You are more likely to skid the wheels than go over the handlebars.
If you want moped speed, get a moped. You can't safely upgrade one component; you need to upgrade them all. And it's not just your safety, it's the safety of the public, and they have a right to legislate that you don't drive a dangerous vehicle on the public highway.
I agree. I personally don't care if this guy cracks his own head open but I believe "my freedom ends where yours begins" and if he's going fast enough to seriously injure or kill someone on the sidewalk he needs to carry some form of insurance to cover the liability. "Here take my iPhone brah” isn't enough for someone who will never walk again.
Also if he wants to play around and weave in and out of cars at 30 mph+ and he ends up as a road waffle too bad, so sad.
What makes you think he's riding on the sidewalk? Riding on the sidewalk is a rookie move and anyone that rides more than once a year knows it. Author has been riding seriously for 40 years.
I've been riding nearly daily for 15 years and not once have I ever come in physical contact with a pedestrian. I've been hit by 2 cars though, both times by drivers not paying attention.
>Riding on the sidewalk is a rookie move and anyone that rides more than once a year knows it.
Eh, depends on the location. My sister rode a bike every day for about 4 years (she didn't have a car). She always rode on the sidewalk because she rode at a slower pace, the sidewalks generally didn't have any people on them, and in her neighborhood if you tried to ride in the road you'd get mowed down by vehicles. There's really some places where it makes most sense to ride on the sidewalk even if you aren't supposed to.
Right. If you want an electric motorcycle, get an electric motorcycle. There are some very nice ones.[1] Now that's not underpowered. 90MPH top speed, 200 mile range. That's their entry level model; they have electric superbikes, too. If you're going to be riding in traffic at speed, bigger tires and brakes can get you out of trouble. You can turn harder and stop faster.
The next step down is electric scooters, which are around $1000-$2000. They aren't pretend bicycles, but are more street-suitable.
This doesn't look like something that can be stored in an apartment, unlike a bike (and presumably an electric bike, which are about the same size). Having to park it outside is a huge hassle and theft risk, I'd never leave my bike outside.
A motorcycle/scooter isn't a major theft risk, because its big/heavy enough to resist theft on its own (and has front and back wheel locks and motion-activated siren alarm)
Admittedly I just picked the first speed versus fatality chart I could find with references (and they do link to the government site where the data came from).
This one shows a fatality rate of 2.3% for speeds from 10.0 – 19.9 mph, and 35% for speeds from 30.0 – 39.9mph. Even though the rate is different, it's still showing over a 10X difference in fatality rates at the higher speeds.
Consider this, at 30mph a cyclists body has to dissipate 4 times more energy than a 15mph cyclist. There's not much in a bike to absorb energy like in a car.
> Oh, and make sure that your brakes are able to stop your 1000W+ motor if the throttle gets stuck wide open.
Fortunately, a lot of custom sinusoidal controllers have a voltage gap between 0-1V and 4-5V (or whatever full throttle is for a build) to prevent full throttle or full braking with any electrical component in the case of wiring failure.
Speed is one factor, difference in speed is a more useful measure of the risk of harm. If you're going 15mph on a road marked 35, you are in danger BECAUSE you are slower than the rest of the traffic on that road. Other vehicles expect traffic to go at or near the posted limit, if conditions allow it. Hitting a wall at 15mph is one hazard; getting hit by a car going 20mph faster than you is a bigger hazard.
In Hawaii, because some people tend to drive too slowly and doing so causes crashes, they post the minimum speed below the limit on a lot of roads. Across the US, it is illegal to go more than 15 below the limit in clear conditions.
Once a cyclist has a motor, it seems they are more likely to 'claim' a lane and then they need to keep up or risk being a roadblock. It's less safe either way, and I'm not sure there is a viable solution. Part of the thrill of cycling in traffic, I guess.
Momentum matters as much as speed. Suppose you are doing 35mph on a bike the road and you get sideswiped by a car doing 35mph. The direct impact is negligible, but now you've got angular momentum that is going to send you into another car or the ground at high speed.
And even if you are doing 35mph, and claiming a lane, you'll still be passed (often unsafely) by cars doing 40, 50mph. (Source: motorcyclist who can't go fast up hills)
Almost every vehicle, motorized or not, that I've ever driven can lock up the tires. For a vehicle used for commuting or other non-performance applications that's basically all that matters. If you can outbrake your tires (or in the case of a short + high-CG vehicle like a bike, outbrake your ability to keep the thing from flipping over the front wheel) any more braking ability is irrelevant.
For those sorts of uses where a single panic stop is the hardest the brakes will ever work it's basically binary, you either have enough brakes or you don't, and once you have enough adding more doesn't gain you anything.
Performance applications where you're constantly hard on the brakes, off, then back on like a car on a race track are where the scale becomes analog. Larger brakes that are better at dissipating heat will last longer before fading out, and if good enough will not fade during the expected race session.
tl;dr: Unless you're on a race track or similar there's only "enough brakes" or "not enough brakes" and no reason to go better.
I'm sorry but I just can't agree; brake performance is not binary, brake fade from continual use is only one factor to consider. How the brakes perform in different weather/temperature/riding conditions is also critically important.
It would REALLY suck to find out that some cheap brakes that worked great on the sunny+mildly warm day when you installed them but end up failing miserably the next day when it's a bit wet and they have a bit of mud on them. Maybe the city environment I usually commute in has more obstacles than most, but investing so heavily in your ability to accelerate + maintain high speeds and then sacrificing braking is an incredibly poor decision.
This is idiotic. I've ridden a 500W e-bike and on full power it was easily powerful enough. Think about it - a 'healthy man' can only maintain 250W for about an hour [1]. Having the equivalent of three people cycling is more than enough. There's no situation at safe cycling speeds where you'd need more power than that.
He maybe have had a point if he had concentrated on the 25 kph (15.5 mph) speed limit for electric assistance in the EU. That is far too slow.
By the way, technically in the EU there is no power limit. There is a 250W 'continuous' power limit, but 'continuous' is never defined, and Bosch's bikes go up to 500W for at least 10 minutes.
> He maybe have had a point if he had concentrated on the 25 kph (15.5 mph) speed limit for electric assistance in the EU. That is far too slow.
Really? It makes a lot of sense to me. In The Netherlands e-bikes are used mainly by elderly to stay mobile in the face of a weaker body, and sometimes by commuters riding for longer distances. 25km/h is quite fast for a device with as little protection as a bicycle, and more than fast enough when riding in traffic or in an urban area. If you want to go faster and still be able to avoid traffic, you get a moped with a 45km/h limit (helmet, insurance, and licence required), or get a racing bicycle (and a good condition) for those long stretches of road.
I think the speed limits would be better enforced in a similar way as car speed limits are - instead of a limit on the controller, trust the rider to obey the law and bust people who don't.
A 25km/h speed limit is probably very reasonable in a dutch city. If I'm riding my bike on a deserted highway in Iceland with 150km between towns, allowing riders to go to 35-40km/h would make ebikes much more practical.
My main problem with the regulations is how they're all based around what a bicycle can do, which restricts development of new, innovative use cases for ebikes. The 250W limit was decided because that's what an average healthy adult can maintain for a decent amount of time. But why should an ebike be limited by that? I can get a cargo ebike that can carry 200kg of cargo, but that 250W motor isn't going to get it up the hill. A speed limit on that kind of vehicle makes perfect sense, but a 250W power limit seems much too restrictive.
Because once you get to higher speeds you probably need a moped with proper brakes and a helmet, insurance, a drivers license, etc. Same for hauling 200kg of cargo, that will also require stronger brakes, etc.
Why would you ride a 40km/hr eBike on a deserted highway with 150km between towns when you could ride a 100km/hr+ electric motorcycle?
If you have to travel long distances, an eBike is probably not the right vehicle unless you're just out for the ride to enjoy the scenery, and if that's the case, is 25km/hr really a problem?
> Why would you ride a 40km/hr eBike on a deserted highway with 150km between towns when you could ride a 100km/hr+ electric motorcycle?
Because I want to? Riding an ebike is a very different experience to riding a motorcycle (I have my motorcycle license and have owned a motorcycle in the past). You see more of the land, but sometimes you want to go a bit faster than 25km/h without going 100km/h. This is sort of like demanding someone justify their use of a car since we have public transit.
Besides, the law shouldn't be based on "why would you?", it should be based on solid safety arguments. I can see the validity of those within cities, but not so much in more rural areas.
The law isn't there based on "why would you?" it's there based on "Is it safe to..."
You have a very specific use case, if you can buy a bike that goes 40km/hr on a deserted road, you'll also be able to use that same 40km/hr bike on crowded urban bike paths.
If you want a vehicle that goes faster than a bike, there are plenty of options. The faster vehicles abide by more stringent safety standards and have restrictions on where they can ride (i.e. you can't ride a motorcycle on a bike path, but depending on where you are, you might be able to ride a speed restricted moped there).
> You have a very specific use case, if you can buy a bike that goes 40km/hr on a deserted road, you'll also be able to use that same 40km/hr bike on crowded urban bike paths.
Right, just like people who buy Teslas that can go 200+km/h can take those cars to the residential street with 15km/h limit and children playing in the street. We make laws that apply to the operator of the vehicle, instead of deciding a maximum safe speed for cars of 15km/h and applying a limiter to every car's engine. That's my whole point - the law should apply to how the engine is used, same as most every other class of vehicle out there.
In a lot of countries any motorised vehicle moving in excess of a certain speed is subject to certain safety requirements (such as a helmet or an enclosure, insurance, and a driver's licence).
If you take a bicycle, add a powerful engine, and ride it at 40km/h, then legally speaking you don't have an e-bike; you have a moped or whatever the relevant category is called in the local jurisdiction.
To prevent everyone buying e-bikes from having to deal with safety requirements that are not deemed relevant below 25km/h, the lawmaker's have decided to limit this class of vehicle to those speeds.
A healthy, somewhat fit individual can go 30km/h on a decent bike for extended periods of time. With a little tail-wind 40 is doable. 40 is also about the speed where most bikes' smallest gear starts to become uncomfortable. I find it strange that the cutoff is at 25 and not at 30-35. With the current limit an e-bike is not very attractive for active people.
Many bikers aren't health, somewhat fit individuals with a decent bike capable of going 30km/h for extended periods of time. They're normal people on some random cheap bike just who want to get to work without being drenched in sweat. Those are the people you have to take into account, not active people out biking for fun.
If the question is "why aren't people buying electric bikes" then the reason's probably different for different market segments.
Electric bikes seem to cost $1000+. Here in the UK I know plenty of people who can't maintain 25kph for long. And I know plenty of people who spent $1000+ on their bike. But I don't know anyone who belongs to /both/ those groups.
The big problem with 15mph in my opinion is it doesn't allow you to keep up with traffic in 20mph zones. Whole swathes of London are 20mph, if you're going at 15mph it means you're going to get overtaken in roads which are not suitable for overtaking, and that is much more dangerous than travelling with traffic flow at the speed limit. Perhaps in reality the bike helps you to speed up to 15mph, then you as a rider can take over, but these bikes end up being very heavy. In my opinion it would be much more sensible to have a speed limit in bike lanes which applies to all cyclists (people travelling on normal bikes at 35mph is dangerous in a narrow lane, alongside people pootling along at 10mph), and then a higher limit for e-bikes, perhaps almost exactly 20mph, or 30 kph.
> By the way, technically in the EU there is no power limit. There is a 250W 'continuous' power limit, but 'continuous' is never defined, and Bosch's bikes go up to 500W for at least 10 minutes.
It's not defined, but the way the law is applied it's based on the rated wattage from the manufacturer (i.e., what's stamped on the bottom of it). Most bikes you can buy in EU go over 250W but the motors are rated by the manufacturer as 250W. My 500W motor will never be legal because it was rated 500W by the manufacturer (even then, in reality it does 700W continuous with ~980W peak).
You'd get busted when the EU authorities find out. After an accident happens perhaps.
They should rate the whole system: drive + battery to 250 Wh sustained and maybe 500 W peak power (30s) with motor cutoff at 25 kph. I can do all of these with my legs only so it's esentially a bicycle.
The label thing seems dumb. Of course manufacturers would sell 250 W rated drives to comply.
Well apparently not because Bosch motors are 'rated' at 250W but happily run at 500W for at least 10 minutes (that's as long as I tested). As far as I know the EU authorities haven't found this out... especially because there is nothing to 'find out'.
Agree. But it is strange that the law limits the power and top speed (or top speed with the motor helping). I should be allowed to have 750w motor on my bike as long as it is not helping after 25 km/h.
I do think they should lift the restriction a bit and allow help upto 30 or 35 km/h.
Just keep them off the single-track (back country trails on public lands). There is a serious problem going on right now where eBikes are being used by hiking advocates to ban all Mountain Bikes (ie, normal pedal powered) off the trails.
Motored powered bikes are already banned on most trail systems (for good reason).
I would go further and say, keep them off dedicated bike lanes and paths.
I'm a regular "utilitarian" cyclist, i.e., I commute by bike year-round, use it for shopping, getting around town, etc. I live in a locale (Madison WI) that is regarded as being bike-friendly, with gradually increasing popularity of cycling. I use bike paths, bike lanes, and low traffic streets, whenever possible.
At present I'd rather stick with a human powered bike because I really need the exercise, and I enjoy it, but I encourage friends to give e-bikes a try if their commutes are not as short as mine or they're not as inclined to deal with all of the issues -- weather, sweating, etc.
For now, the e-bikes are fairly well behaved on the bike paths. It's only a matter of time before there are a lot more e-bikes, probably heading towards a point where we might have to re-think how they are regulated if they get out of hand in some cities, but for now I'm optimistic that we can coexist.
Keeping the power and speed limits seems prudent. People can decide if they want the safety of the bike paths, or the convenience of going faster, by choosing an e-bike or an electric motorcycle.
That's quite the limit. That's one hell of a limit. Most people aren't planning on going 40-60 MPH in a bycicle.
From wikipedia: "When considering human-powered equipment, a healthy human can produce about 1.2 hp briefly (see orders of magnitude) and sustain about 0.1 hp indefinitely"
A 1HP DC motor (or if you want to get crazy with speed control and all that jaz you could do a 3 phase system with a PDM from a torq-controlling pedel or something) is more then enough! Hell we don't even need that. Let's think a .5 HP 1 phase 60Hz motor. This clocks in ~800 watts at continuoious max current but we'd probably not be doing constant drive on this. But let's say that we can pay a little more and find a perfect 750W motor for this at .5 HP. That's a lot of torque given that most people can only sustain .1 HP. This motor (which is crazily oversized by the way) is rated for .5HP @ 3450RPM. 3450RPM at the chain is different to the gear ratio at the wheel. The lowest gear ratio on a bike is about 1.9:1 so our motor would be putting out quite a bit of thrust and even at the reduced torque you'll be halling ass.
Now this is a super oversized motor but anything that can take 750W continuious input is some serious shit. That's one hell of a motor and to complain that that is too small? Get a harley and tinker with that man.
Well, ebike parts do add significant weight to a bike (maybe ~50 lbs). So it is reasonable to have slightly greater than human power to compensate for the additional weight.
Exactly. The first 200-300 watts of an e-bike just serves to compensate for the additional weight, especially if it's a hub motor. It's a gain of nothing, at a cost upwards of $1000.
One megahertz is more than enough. That's enough power to compare like three-thousand integer values per second, which is way more than a human can do. We've got these guys out there, and they've got 3 gigahertz and more! And they're not even using them! They're playing Candy Crush for gosh sakes!
These people are wasting energy and these super-powered CPUs are a potential fire hazard and we need better regulation enforcement now!
If we restricted high-powered CPUs to people with a license and a documented need, the world would be a safer place for me.
...In all seriousness, 1hp is not serious shit. And motorcycles are significantly faster and more dangerous.
"Ebikes in China... got so out of control that many large cities have banned ebikes (known as ‘silent killers’) from the major roads to cut down on the massive number of traffic fatalities that happen from people riding ebikes. Ebikes have the potential to solve most of the traffic problems in many of the major cities (not to mention global warming), but instead of embracing them in the US lawmakers shun them entirely."
Is an e-bike ban true? Or is this more "ghost cities" hype? Why would fatalities be materially different from ordinary bikes? The way drivers behave toward bikes in China is horrifying. They'll drive inches from a bike, and the only thing standing athwart mass slaughter is that traffic is as slow as molasses.
I assume that it's because you can easily maintain 30mph on an E-bike, while doing so on a normal bike is possible,but requires a good bike and a certain level of physical fitness. So I would guess that average E-bike accident will happen at a higher speed than your average bicycle accident.
It was at about that point that I started to wonder if maybe I'd finally fallen for a good, old, Adequacy.org-style troll article. But it's just hard to tell.
His facts all seem in order. In China, ebikes are unregulated but popular and there's a clear need to regulate e-bikes to ensure that they obey traffic laws. In the US, e-bikes are over-regulated and rare, but the laws aren't strictly enforced either. I think his point is that there's room for improvement in both cases, some form of happier middle ground, wherein (a) laws are sane and enforced (b) bikes are cheap and plentiful.
Also just the general complaint that Chinese tech is cheaper & better quality than American tech.
I dont get ebikes. Surely the extra weight of a motor + battery offsets any advantages. Whats a more efficient source of work than the human body?
I average about 25kph on my road bike, on extremely hilly/crappy roads out where I live. I've gone over 70kph on it, but I would very rarely do that as it would be dangerously fast in most situations. If you cycle in and out to work every day your performance will increase as you get fitter / build up certain muscles. Cycling is an elegant, low carbon, solution to commuting + getting enough exercise.
Ebikes means my mum doesn't take the car all the time. She isn't fit and there isn't a way to go that doesn't have steep hills.
It might mean my grandparents were able to go see/do more things, if they weren't scared of them.
They are less useful for healthy, young adults, though they might get more people to ride if they made it unnecessary to shower when you were done (it is not a problem to shower at work if that place has a gym, you just don't shower at home, however it is annoying having to shower when you get home again).
I have a 250W e-bike and it cuts my 15 mile commute about in half which is the difference between my chubby ole self being able to do it twice a month or 4 days a week.
Yep. This. I finally rode one, and then _had_ to get one. Any kind of ebike is insanely fun, even the hub motor ones. Me and my wife use them for going almost everywhere when it's not too snowy or icy. My next one will be an electric fat tire bike. Can't wait!
Riding an ebike beats sitting in a car (in traffic or not) any day of the week!
Granted, I'm actually happy with being able to go 20-25 mph on mine, but what I want is just more acceleration so I can get to the max speed faster and climb hills easier/faster.
You me and the author are on the same page. Top speed isn't the issue that the author is complaining about, and it's not the reason to get more power. It's about acceleration and hill climbing. That's why he wants more power, and it's why he hates hub motors big and small. In the author's case, it's so that he can power a heavy bike with 5.5" wide tires through deep snow. So many people in this thread don't ride like this, so they imagine 2500 watts powering their skimpy road bike with 110psi tires. He talks about it in this post: https://electricbike-blog.com/2016/12/21/electric-fat-biking...
Exactly. I'd happily buy another $3000+ ebike with a top speed of 20 mph if it could get to that speed faster, and maintain it up hills. The hills, especially, slow me down a lot, and more than I'm happy with.
I agree with you. The reality though is that there is this huge population of people that aren't interested in doing anything difficult ever in their lives (the amount of times I've heard "sweating" as an excuse not to ride a bike makes me believe it) . I think this is why the bike industry has such a hard on for ebikes. It's a huge market to tap in to.
I'm pretty dismayed by the prebuilt bikes available, they are absolutely extortionate considering the pathetic motors they come with.
I've decided that I'll be buying a reasonable mountain bike frame with disc breaks and retrofitting one of those 1000W Chinese conversion kits onto it.
I have no interest in riding it at its top speed, I just want the power to get up anything more than a shallow incline.
> I rode that [2600 watt] ebike like a motorcycle right in the middle of the lane all around the city. I accelerated much faster than the cars did and frankly I got pretty annoyed at how slow the cars really were. Cars clearly were annoyed with me when they saw me at a stop light taking up the whole lane, but once the light turned green I just left them in the dust. This is the way that ebikes were meant to be ridden.
This guy doesn't want an "ebike". What he wants is an ELECTRIC MOTORCYCLE. What he built is an electric motorcycle. (Or maybe a moped, depending on the state, but probably it's an electric motorcycle if it is totally ungoverned.)
I'm glad he likes it -- electric motorcycles, and motorcycles generally, are a lot of fun. Welcome to the club! But let's not pretend that this is some brand-new invention.
All he's doing is building electric motorcycles and then flouting the insurance and registration laws that already exist around them. Nobody is saying that you can't have a 2600W, two-wheeled, electric-powered personal transportation device. What the law requires, in most states, is that you put a fucking license plate on it, and pay insurance, and prove you know how to ride the thing, and generally not act like a dipshit. Which is kind of what he's doing by riding around on an illegal, unlicensed, probably uninsured electric motorcycle.
People build motorcycles all the time. It's a cool hobby. Unlike building your own cars, there aren't a ton of safety regs or crash testing that you have to do, so it's not too difficult to get into. But just because you build one around a bicycle frame (not new -- early motorcycles evolved from bicycles!) doesn't mean you suddenly get to ignore the decades of legal infrastructure which were created to regulate them.
Exactly. Nothing wrong with electric motorcycles, but then you also need motorcycle brakes, motorcycle stiffness of the frame, motorcycle helmet and leathers, etc. If you want to ride it like a motorcycle, treat it like a motorcycle, and make sure that it's a safe motorcycle.
Just keep in mind you can't and shouldn't pretend it's a regular bike anymore. An e-bike isn't really a regular bike anymore, but when limited to bike speeds, I suppose you can effectively pretend it's a regular bike.
There is one other problem -- most states won't let you register it as a motorcycle unless it has been built on a motorcycle frame, and has other components that meet the appropriate safety standards (and probably for good reason -- see other comments regarding brakes). Of course, that makes the whole bike heavier, which requires a bigger motor/battery, etc.
The author wants an electronic motorcycle, not a bicycle. The important thing about low-powered bicycles is that they can go where human-powered bicycles do — multi-use paths, cycle paths, sidewalks (depending on locale) — because they're not much faster or heavier than human-powered bicycles. Yes, they'll never keep up with car traffic on roads with high speed limits.
According to http://www.bicycling.com/racing/tour-de-france/you-versus-a-... (turn off the speakers before clicking) pro sprinters max out at 1500 W and the average power of a pro on a Tour de France climb is 400 W. So, what's this need to get 3500 W from an ebike? Maybe a motor bike would be a better and safer choice.
I don't think problem with ebikes is power. Safety becomes a huge issue above 20 MPH both for the rider and bystanders. Instead, ebike adoption seems to be limited by style, weight, and affordability.
Riide[1] is one company I've seen trying to tackle these problems. It was started by a fellow Hoya (so I'm biased). I find their unique pricing model to be very interesting/attractive as a first time eBike owner. Instead of shelling out thousands of dollars up front, you pay $79 per month for the bike, unlimited maintenance, insurance, and accessories. After 24 months you either own the bike outright or opt-in to upgrade to the latest model.
His entire rant seems to boil down to this:
"
Legally if an ebike in the US has more than 750W it must be registered and insured as a ‘motor vehicle’ and have turn signals, mirrors and lights. That’s just not gonna happen with any of my ebikes.
"
It's not that what he wants in terms of power isn't available without building it yourself, it's that it isn't available without safety features. And maybe it shouldn't be (and I say that as an avid rider with two bicycles, street and racing, and two scooters, 50cc and 250cc).
I disagree. You like many other commenters are focusing on the speed aspect of the article. His actually use case is cycling in snow and challenging terrain. The fact that his ebike CAN go really fast is really a footnote to that overarching theme. Wanting an ebike we can ride at 20+ mph doesn't make us a target market for scooters, mopeds, or motorcycles. I for example have no interest in the above, but love ebikes.
The biggest source of cost and weight for an ebike drivetrain is the battery. The 1KW+ ebikes lauded by the author are fun but they are generally heavy and range-limited. These power levels might be necessary for the snow/mud/fat-tired world of the author but IMO are neither necessary nor desirable in the general leisure/commuting use case. Get on a 250w mid-drive or 500w hub-drive. You will have a blast.
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[ 5.7 ms ] story [ 214 ms ] threadI'm also not really sure what he's arguing for. That manufacturers of complete ebikes should just sell bikes that can't be ridden legally on the streets? They'd be sued if they did that. As a DIY builder you can take that chance, as a business selling to the public you can't. If you disagree with the ebike restrictions, you should be focusing your efforts on the politicians and public servants that make those policies.
Also, I'm not sure "ebike" is a good term for what the author is talking about. It's firmly into e-moped territory and possibly an electric motorcycle. Which is not to say that bikes more powerful than the legal limit can't qualify as ebikes, but when you're pushing 2500W through your motor, the addition of pedaling won't even register because it's such a small fraction of the total power, so it's really not a bike.
All that said, the US has it really easy when it comes to ebike regulations. You can go to 750W! That's enough for an e-bike. Over here in europe we're limited to 250W which really is ridiculously small. I have a 500W motor on my bike, putting it firmly into illegal territory but it's still definitely a bike.
Of course it does change the legal regime. He will probably (IANAL) need a license, lights, insurance, and so on. Those are all required for good reason, operating a vehicle at that speed is dangerous to those around you.
He just wants a moped that looks like a bicycle.
Except something like 90% of the delivery people I see riding around New York.
If a collision between an unprotected bicyclist and a stationary object is similar to that between a car and a pedestrian, the chance of death in a 15mph (25kph) collision is around 5% and the chance of non-minor injury is 10%. In a 50kph collision, that jumps up to a 50% chance of death and 95% chance of non-minor injury.
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/killspeed.html
So sure, build your 30mph bike if you want to, but understand that it's no longer a bike, it's a motor vehicle, and should be restricted to licensed adults and should not be used on bike paths and the rider should probably be wearing a motorcycle-style helmet. I know there's some debate on the effectiveness of bicycle helmets at preventing injury in the low-speed accidents cyclists are usually in, but for motorcyclists, the benefits are more clear -- a 37% reduction in deaths and 67% reduction in brain injuries.
http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/motorcycles/fatalityfacts/...
Oh, and make sure that your brakes are able to stop your 1000W+ motor if the throttle gets stuck wide open.
This cannot be stressed enough. The amount of new builds on ebike forums where people are building essentially electric motorcycles on bicycle frames with no upgrades to non-drivetrain components is scary.
Even with my 500W motor (illegal here, but would be legal in the states, and puny compared to the stuff the article's author is talking about), I found myself wishing the brakes were more responsive. I upgraded the brake pads which made the ratio of stopping power to acceleration acceptable.
Then after a year of using that, the aluminum stirrup that the brake noodle slides into bent enough for the noodle to pop out, putting my front brake out of service. This happened while I was applying braking power during a steep downhill descent going 35-40km/h, I lost control and fell off the bike. The stirrup wasn't designed to handle the braking forces I was applying to it with the new brake pads, so over time it bent outwards and eventually gave way.
Don't neglect your brakes! After this I upgraded to mechanical disc brakes.
EDIT: Regarding "if the throttle gets stuck wide open" - if you don't have motor safety cutoffs installed on your brakes, you should do so now. I've had my PAS controller get into a state where it decided to just apply power even with no movement on the pedals. Always have a cutoff switch! If you dislike the chinese ebrakes (and they do suck), there are inline wire sensors you can install to keep your existing brake handles, and it's also fairly simple to modify your existing handles with a reed switch.
Long descents where there is significant energy to recover are not that common for most riders.
It's a different story with a 50 ton train where a 20 KW resistor bank is not a significant amount of weight, but adding a 500W resistor bank to a bike (since you need somewhere for energy to go when the battery is fully charged) is probably not going to be worth the weight and expense.
Plus you need some sort of blending between regenerative and friction braking, so it's yet another thing that needs adjusted and maintained.
The most unusual thing I ever saw in my EV days... We had a full Ford Focus Electric on a chassis dyno to debug some problems. After several hours of tuning and data collection we realized the car needed to be charged to get it back to our own facility. The dyno place had no high power chargers. So we set the dyno somewhere around 40mph, put the car in drive and left it. With no foot on the gas it would do a light regeneration at that speed. The strange part is that we sat around a table to analyze the days data about 5 feet from the car. We're at a table next to a car tied down and going 40mph and its almost dead silent charging via regen. Analysis done, car charged, untie it and off we went ;-)
A bike has very little rolling resistance, nearly all of the energy used to propel the bike on level ground is going toward fighting air resistance. Even on rolling hills, I rarely use my brakes on the downhill, any regen braking used on the downhill is just going to increase the energy needed to go up the next hill. (and due to less than perfect efficiency, you lose energy on both the regen capture and powering the motor again, so it's a big loss).
So yes, you might recover some small amount of energy used to decelerate the bike at a stop sign, it's not going to be significant percentage of the total power requirements, and you're going to be paying a price in dollars, complexity and weight for this feature.
It's firmware limited to 20 mph which _feels_ slow but is probably a sane compromise. We only hit that going down hill, and are far from the fastest cycle; but we average 12-15 mph on mild uphills and flats when conventional cycles usually average a few mph slower.
I love my ebike, it makes a daily commute taking two kids to school then getting on to work feasible, regardless of weather or relative personal energy level.
Hope makes some nice DH brakes: http://www.hopetech.com/product/tech-3-v4/
Avid has the Code: https://dirtmountainbike.com/bike-reviews/brakes-gears/avid-...
And other manufacturers also make calipers with >=4-piston calipers.
Again for rotor size, 160mm is typically standard for XC, road bikes run 140mm usually, some "all mountain" bikes have 180mm fronts, and 200mm is typically seen only on DH/4x/trials/dirt jump bikes but likely what you want for a fast ebike.
All that said, competition-level road bikes generally hold up fine at speeds up to 60mph (and the riders hit those speeds going down hills) and their brakes work fine. You obviously don't just mash them, and the rim surface they're clenching matters a lot, as do the pads, but the tech works well and has worked for the past 100 years. Weight distribution and even application of both brakes help a lot.
For >750W e-bikes that go over 28 mph you'd normally need DH brake tech, 180 rotors at least. Shimano Saint Ice tech is good, Magura brakes are also top notch, even the lower end models. Avid Code looks rather flimsy and advertises low weight. I would avoid any calipers w/o metal bodies as it does not dissipate heat well. The Hope caliper looks especially good - lots if surface, lots of metal. The brakes and the steering are the last things to save weight on.
Yes, V-brakes.
> I wouldn't run anything less than hydrolic disks on something that fast. Preferably dual piston like the ones Sram are making now.
I actually didn't specify anything about the speed of my bike in the post, but mostly I ride below 25km/h. The 35-40km/h quoted was coasting down a steep hill, and I would have gone the same speed without the motor. It's just that the added load caused the V-brake stirrup to bend open over time, and then it finally popped out in that situation.
I think idea that disc brakes, mechanical or hydraulic, are "more powerful" than V-brakes or canti's is a misunderstanding. If you think about it, the absolute limit to a bicycle's braking power is as much force as possible without locking the front wheel and sending the rider over the handlebars. Any bicycle brake can do that, and if it can't it should be returned to the store as defective. The reason I switched to discs was that the whole assembly seemed more solid than V-brakes (no loose coupling like in the harness). The other big reason to switch is the feel of the lever (better control over braking modulation), and needing to put less force on the lever for more braking power, so your hands get tired less.
The main reason I went for mechanical disc brakes vs hydraulics is the ability to service them on long trips. I'm not going to bring tools to bleed the hydraulic system on touring trips.
EDIT: Another reason I picked mechanical is that it's simpler to wire a motor safety shut-off switch to mechanical brakes. For hydraulics you need to do the reed-switch mod I mentioned which is a bit more finicky, or install a hydraulic sensor which requires bleeding the system.
As an aside, it's weird that in the bicycle world we talk about disc brakes vs rim brakes since they are all disc brake systems (in a rim brake, the rim itself takes the place of the rotor). I don't think I've ever seen a bicycle with a drum brake :)
I think the failure mode of cable-operated disk brakes might be better (though I've since ditched the bike, so that's speculation).
If you want moped speed, get a moped. You can't safely upgrade one component; you need to upgrade them all. And it's not just your safety, it's the safety of the public, and they have a right to legislate that you don't drive a dangerous vehicle on the public highway.
Also if he wants to play around and weave in and out of cars at 30 mph+ and he ends up as a road waffle too bad, so sad.
Eh, depends on the location. My sister rode a bike every day for about 4 years (she didn't have a car). She always rode on the sidewalk because she rode at a slower pace, the sidewalks generally didn't have any people on them, and in her neighborhood if you tried to ride in the road you'd get mowed down by vehicles. There's really some places where it makes most sense to ride on the sidewalk even if you aren't supposed to.
Regarding the general question of danger to pedestrians: good urban planning works wonders.
The next step down is electric scooters, which are around $1000-$2000. They aren't pretend bicycles, but are more street-suitable.
[1] http://www.zeromotorcycles.com/zero-s/
Oh come on. Exactly how was that statistic collected? When people have non-fatal accidents they usually don't report it.
In fact, the link you posted above is to a guy complaining that the stats you quoted don't stand up to reason.
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/killspeed.html
Here's another study: https://www.aaafoundation.org/sites/default/files/2011Pedest...
This one shows a fatality rate of 2.3% for speeds from 10.0 – 19.9 mph, and 35% for speeds from 30.0 – 39.9mph. Even though the rate is different, it's still showing over a 10X difference in fatality rates at the higher speeds.
Consider this, at 30mph a cyclists body has to dissipate 4 times more energy than a 15mph cyclist. There's not much in a bike to absorb energy like in a car.
Fortunately, a lot of custom sinusoidal controllers have a voltage gap between 0-1V and 4-5V (or whatever full throttle is for a build) to prevent full throttle or full braking with any electrical component in the case of wiring failure.
In Hawaii, because some people tend to drive too slowly and doing so causes crashes, they post the minimum speed below the limit on a lot of roads. Across the US, it is illegal to go more than 15 below the limit in clear conditions.
Once a cyclist has a motor, it seems they are more likely to 'claim' a lane and then they need to keep up or risk being a roadblock. It's less safe either way, and I'm not sure there is a viable solution. Part of the thrill of cycling in traffic, I guess.
And even if you are doing 35mph, and claiming a lane, you'll still be passed (often unsafely) by cars doing 40, 50mph. (Source: motorcyclist who can't go fast up hills)
Cheap brakes + 30mph = a bad time
Almost every vehicle, motorized or not, that I've ever driven can lock up the tires. For a vehicle used for commuting or other non-performance applications that's basically all that matters. If you can outbrake your tires (or in the case of a short + high-CG vehicle like a bike, outbrake your ability to keep the thing from flipping over the front wheel) any more braking ability is irrelevant.
For those sorts of uses where a single panic stop is the hardest the brakes will ever work it's basically binary, you either have enough brakes or you don't, and once you have enough adding more doesn't gain you anything.
Performance applications where you're constantly hard on the brakes, off, then back on like a car on a race track are where the scale becomes analog. Larger brakes that are better at dissipating heat will last longer before fading out, and if good enough will not fade during the expected race session.
tl;dr: Unless you're on a race track or similar there's only "enough brakes" or "not enough brakes" and no reason to go better.
It would REALLY suck to find out that some cheap brakes that worked great on the sunny+mildly warm day when you installed them but end up failing miserably the next day when it's a bit wet and they have a bit of mud on them. Maybe the city environment I usually commute in has more obstacles than most, but investing so heavily in your ability to accelerate + maintain high speeds and then sacrificing braking is an incredibly poor decision.
He maybe have had a point if he had concentrated on the 25 kph (15.5 mph) speed limit for electric assistance in the EU. That is far too slow.
By the way, technically in the EU there is no power limit. There is a 250W 'continuous' power limit, but 'continuous' is never defined, and Bosch's bikes go up to 500W for at least 10 minutes.
[1] http://www.power2max.de/northamerica/wp-content/uploads/2014...
Really? It makes a lot of sense to me. In The Netherlands e-bikes are used mainly by elderly to stay mobile in the face of a weaker body, and sometimes by commuters riding for longer distances. 25km/h is quite fast for a device with as little protection as a bicycle, and more than fast enough when riding in traffic or in an urban area. If you want to go faster and still be able to avoid traffic, you get a moped with a 45km/h limit (helmet, insurance, and licence required), or get a racing bicycle (and a good condition) for those long stretches of road.
A 25km/h speed limit is probably very reasonable in a dutch city. If I'm riding my bike on a deserted highway in Iceland with 150km between towns, allowing riders to go to 35-40km/h would make ebikes much more practical.
My main problem with the regulations is how they're all based around what a bicycle can do, which restricts development of new, innovative use cases for ebikes. The 250W limit was decided because that's what an average healthy adult can maintain for a decent amount of time. But why should an ebike be limited by that? I can get a cargo ebike that can carry 200kg of cargo, but that 250W motor isn't going to get it up the hill. A speed limit on that kind of vehicle makes perfect sense, but a 250W power limit seems much too restrictive.
If you have to travel long distances, an eBike is probably not the right vehicle unless you're just out for the ride to enjoy the scenery, and if that's the case, is 25km/hr really a problem?
Because I want to? Riding an ebike is a very different experience to riding a motorcycle (I have my motorcycle license and have owned a motorcycle in the past). You see more of the land, but sometimes you want to go a bit faster than 25km/h without going 100km/h. This is sort of like demanding someone justify their use of a car since we have public transit.
Besides, the law shouldn't be based on "why would you?", it should be based on solid safety arguments. I can see the validity of those within cities, but not so much in more rural areas.
You have a very specific use case, if you can buy a bike that goes 40km/hr on a deserted road, you'll also be able to use that same 40km/hr bike on crowded urban bike paths.
If you want a vehicle that goes faster than a bike, there are plenty of options. The faster vehicles abide by more stringent safety standards and have restrictions on where they can ride (i.e. you can't ride a motorcycle on a bike path, but depending on where you are, you might be able to ride a speed restricted moped there).
Right, just like people who buy Teslas that can go 200+km/h can take those cars to the residential street with 15km/h limit and children playing in the street. We make laws that apply to the operator of the vehicle, instead of deciding a maximum safe speed for cars of 15km/h and applying a limiter to every car's engine. That's my whole point - the law should apply to how the engine is used, same as most every other class of vehicle out there.
If you take a bicycle, add a powerful engine, and ride it at 40km/h, then legally speaking you don't have an e-bike; you have a moped or whatever the relevant category is called in the local jurisdiction.
To prevent everyone buying e-bikes from having to deal with safety requirements that are not deemed relevant below 25km/h, the lawmaker's have decided to limit this class of vehicle to those speeds.
At least make it the 30km/h mopeds are allowed to do on bike paths here in Denmark. Those don't require a separate license if you are over 18 either.
Electric bikes seem to cost $1000+. Here in the UK I know plenty of people who can't maintain 25kph for long. And I know plenty of people who spent $1000+ on their bike. But I don't know anyone who belongs to /both/ those groups.
Neither can normal bicycles though (unless you are physically able to do so, but that too holds true for an e-bike).
It's not defined, but the way the law is applied it's based on the rated wattage from the manufacturer (i.e., what's stamped on the bottom of it). Most bikes you can buy in EU go over 250W but the motors are rated by the manufacturer as 250W. My 500W motor will never be legal because it was rated 500W by the manufacturer (even then, in reality it does 700W continuous with ~980W peak).
They should rate the whole system: drive + battery to 250 Wh sustained and maybe 500 W peak power (30s) with motor cutoff at 25 kph. I can do all of these with my legs only so it's esentially a bicycle.
The label thing seems dumb. Of course manufacturers would sell 250 W rated drives to comply.
Part of what is being said is that the higher power levels are more fun.
I do think they should lift the restriction a bit and allow help upto 30 or 35 km/h.
Motored powered bikes are already banned on most trail systems (for good reason).
I'm a regular "utilitarian" cyclist, i.e., I commute by bike year-round, use it for shopping, getting around town, etc. I live in a locale (Madison WI) that is regarded as being bike-friendly, with gradually increasing popularity of cycling. I use bike paths, bike lanes, and low traffic streets, whenever possible.
At present I'd rather stick with a human powered bike because I really need the exercise, and I enjoy it, but I encourage friends to give e-bikes a try if their commutes are not as short as mine or they're not as inclined to deal with all of the issues -- weather, sweating, etc.
For now, the e-bikes are fairly well behaved on the bike paths. It's only a matter of time before there are a lot more e-bikes, probably heading towards a point where we might have to re-think how they are regulated if they get out of hand in some cities, but for now I'm optimistic that we can coexist.
Keeping the power and speed limits seems prudent. People can decide if they want the safety of the bike paths, or the convenience of going faster, by choosing an e-bike or an electric motorcycle.
That's quite the limit. That's one hell of a limit. Most people aren't planning on going 40-60 MPH in a bycicle.
From wikipedia: "When considering human-powered equipment, a healthy human can produce about 1.2 hp briefly (see orders of magnitude) and sustain about 0.1 hp indefinitely"
A 1HP DC motor (or if you want to get crazy with speed control and all that jaz you could do a 3 phase system with a PDM from a torq-controlling pedel or something) is more then enough! Hell we don't even need that. Let's think a .5 HP 1 phase 60Hz motor. This clocks in ~800 watts at continuoious max current but we'd probably not be doing constant drive on this. But let's say that we can pay a little more and find a perfect 750W motor for this at .5 HP. That's a lot of torque given that most people can only sustain .1 HP. This motor (which is crazily oversized by the way) is rated for .5HP @ 3450RPM. 3450RPM at the chain is different to the gear ratio at the wheel. The lowest gear ratio on a bike is about 1.9:1 so our motor would be putting out quite a bit of thrust and even at the reduced torque you'll be halling ass.
Now this is a super oversized motor but anything that can take 750W continuious input is some serious shit. That's one hell of a motor and to complain that that is too small? Get a harley and tinker with that man.
[0] - http://www.ebay.com/itm/MARATHON-1-2HP-AC-MOTOR-M400095-208V...
These people are wasting energy and these super-powered CPUs are a potential fire hazard and we need better regulation enforcement now!
If we restricted high-powered CPUs to people with a license and a documented need, the world would be a safer place for me.
...In all seriousness, 1hp is not serious shit. And motorcycles are significantly faster and more dangerous.
you can get a 3000w+ motorbike thats electric if you pass a motorbike license ans drive it on the road.
"Ebikes in China... got so out of control that many large cities have banned ebikes (known as ‘silent killers’) from the major roads to cut down on the massive number of traffic fatalities that happen from people riding ebikes. Ebikes have the potential to solve most of the traffic problems in many of the major cities (not to mention global warming), but instead of embracing them in the US lawmakers shun them entirely."
His facts all seem in order. In China, ebikes are unregulated but popular and there's a clear need to regulate e-bikes to ensure that they obey traffic laws. In the US, e-bikes are over-regulated and rare, but the laws aren't strictly enforced either. I think his point is that there's room for improvement in both cases, some form of happier middle ground, wherein (a) laws are sane and enforced (b) bikes are cheap and plentiful.
Also just the general complaint that Chinese tech is cheaper & better quality than American tech.
It might mean my grandparents were able to go see/do more things, if they weren't scared of them.
They are less useful for healthy, young adults, though they might get more people to ride if they made it unnecessary to shower when you were done (it is not a problem to shower at work if that place has a gym, you just don't shower at home, however it is annoying having to shower when you get home again).
probably almost anything?
I didn't either, and then I rode one. Now I get it.
Ride one.
Riding an ebike beats sitting in a car (in traffic or not) any day of the week!
Granted, I'm actually happy with being able to go 20-25 mph on mine, but what I want is just more acceleration so I can get to the max speed faster and climb hills easier/faster.
It turns out, nope. It's still easier and faster. I don't ride e-bikes but I'm happy to see more people on bikes.
I've decided that I'll be buying a reasonable mountain bike frame with disc breaks and retrofitting one of those 1000W Chinese conversion kits onto it.
I have no interest in riding it at its top speed, I just want the power to get up anything more than a shallow incline.
I'm looking at this one.
> I rode that [2600 watt] ebike like a motorcycle right in the middle of the lane all around the city. I accelerated much faster than the cars did and frankly I got pretty annoyed at how slow the cars really were. Cars clearly were annoyed with me when they saw me at a stop light taking up the whole lane, but once the light turned green I just left them in the dust. This is the way that ebikes were meant to be ridden.
This guy doesn't want an "ebike". What he wants is an ELECTRIC MOTORCYCLE. What he built is an electric motorcycle. (Or maybe a moped, depending on the state, but probably it's an electric motorcycle if it is totally ungoverned.)
I'm glad he likes it -- electric motorcycles, and motorcycles generally, are a lot of fun. Welcome to the club! But let's not pretend that this is some brand-new invention.
All he's doing is building electric motorcycles and then flouting the insurance and registration laws that already exist around them. Nobody is saying that you can't have a 2600W, two-wheeled, electric-powered personal transportation device. What the law requires, in most states, is that you put a fucking license plate on it, and pay insurance, and prove you know how to ride the thing, and generally not act like a dipshit. Which is kind of what he's doing by riding around on an illegal, unlicensed, probably uninsured electric motorcycle.
People build motorcycles all the time. It's a cool hobby. Unlike building your own cars, there aren't a ton of safety regs or crash testing that you have to do, so it's not too difficult to get into. But just because you build one around a bicycle frame (not new -- early motorcycles evolved from bicycles!) doesn't mean you suddenly get to ignore the decades of legal infrastructure which were created to regulate them.
Just keep in mind you can't and shouldn't pretend it's a regular bike anymore. An e-bike isn't really a regular bike anymore, but when limited to bike speeds, I suppose you can effectively pretend it's a regular bike.
Riide[1] is one company I've seen trying to tackle these problems. It was started by a fellow Hoya (so I'm biased). I find their unique pricing model to be very interesting/attractive as a first time eBike owner. Instead of shelling out thousands of dollars up front, you pay $79 per month for the bike, unlimited maintenance, insurance, and accessories. After 24 months you either own the bike outright or opt-in to upgrade to the latest model.
http://www.riide.com/