I think pedal-assist is fine, but some e-bikes are effectively motorcycles in terms of the speed they can travel. Those are dangerous on bike/pedestrian trails and paths. They should be licensed and taxed and require insurance like motorcycles do, and they should have to use the roads not bike paths or trails.
I can see that as an argument, but can we agree to keep the question to one strictly about speeds and safety and not about the relative morals of work?
In my admittedly anecdotal experience, e-bike riders tend to actually be as safe if not safer on trails and paths.
Plenty of traditional bikers are folks who are using bike shares and do things like not wear helmets, ignore road signs, ride two abreast, and swerve without warning. Also a problem are the "pro" bikers (you know, the ones on a racing bike, fully decked out in gear) that tend to ride ~10 mph faster than everyone else and pass aggressively.
E-bikers on the other hand, go in a straight line, usually single file, without swerving and seem to follow traffic signs because they have an easier time accelerating and decelerating.
Again, just my anecdotal experience -- I ride ~5 miles to/from work in New York.
As a motorcyclist watching food delivery guys in NYC drive electric bikes the wrong way down 1-way streets, amen. Small, underpowered motorcycles don't get special treatment under the moving laws and neither should e-bikes.
I can't explain what I think about that without getting banned on this forum, but that feeling seems to be the center of the article; basically hipsters crying about smart use of technology.
I swear there's a pervasive feeling among bicycle and mass transit advocates that if the experience is too convenient, it's not morally right. A bicycle is morally right because it takes effort and gets you to work a bit slower than a car. An e-bike is morally wrong because you don't have to work as hard and you get to work just as fast; you're not sacrificing anything by not taking a car, you're not a hero. Similar reasons behind buses/trains vs. ideas of self-driving electric municipal cars.
This is true of any community where the barrier to entry has rapidly eroded. The old-school members who bought their way in with hard work and perseverence (and also usually luck or money) react negatively to recent arrivals who don't understand the community's norms -- which are now suddenly out of date. Meanwhile, the new arrivals often see the old guard as a prickly, up-tight clique. I'm thinking of Endless September, D&D, Anime fandom, model aircraft, music scenes, Old Money versus New Money, Lisp Machine hackers versus Unix folks, Unix folks versus OMGUbuntu... the variations are endless, but they're all the same.
And yet, try as I might to be philosophical about it, my gut tells me that people passing me on e-bikes are vile cheaters.
As someone who has killed deer with a bow and arrow (not on a regular basis: it's difficult and I don't always have the time required), I feel the same way about the new rule change that allows people to hunt with crossbows in archery season. I have sympathy for people who can't or won't draw a bow, but I don't see what's wrong with them just hunting during gun season as they always have.
I'm kind of curious, since my understanding is that America as a whole is not hunting "enough" (to keep deer populations at a sustainable level), if it isn't an explicit attempt to thin deer populations more.
It's meant to help out feeble people, but it will probably help population management as well. Deer populations are really only out of control in suburbia, where crossbows used over a long hunting season might make the biggest difference. No one is going to call the cops because they heard a crossbow go off.
I have a petal assist I go up 200ft eagerly day and I still sweat. Anyone trying to equate effort with morality to legislate away an effective and convenient way of transportation needs to be burned alive.
If you had read past the first paragraph you might've noticed that the article is primarily about the author acknowledging the illegitimacy of his bias and concluding that ebikes are 'a force for good'.
It's not just the physical labor to get up to that particular speed at that moment it's the countless accumulated hours of training and commuting and general bike riding to develop the capacity to produce the power to go that fast.
Along with that time spent in the saddle the non e biker also develops the bike handling and traffic skills, the innate almost unconscious understanding of how the bicycles and cars will move at different speeds, how to calculate multiple vectors, how to process the traffic patterns for safe and fast transit.
My biggest gripe with most e bikers is that they don't have the skills to handle the speed.
While that feeling is present, I think there's an undercurrent you're missing.
NYC has a lot of bicycle infrastructure that is designed and managed for use at bicycle speeds, and under the physicals constraints bicycles face. The style of electric bicycle favored by delivery people (and many others) is significantly heavier, faster, and quieter than an unpowered bicycle, so it's easy to see it as an abuse of the infrastructure.
There's also an element of classism and in-group/out-group bitterness involved. The people most commonly using these bikes for deliveries are predominantly lower-class immigrants, under heavy pressure to go quickly, and are generally not involved with the (wealthier) "bike culture".
There's also a comradery of effort that goes along with riding a bike, the sense that the other people on bikes are putting in the same effort as you. It's granfalloonery at its finest, but I don't think it's fair to attribute this to luddism.
Since they're almost always powering, the freewheel never comes in. The motor is also quieter than most chain sets end up being under the abuses of the city.
"concern mom" mentality. All ebike sold in the us have to have a speed limiter, I am limited to 20 miles an hour on a flat road and daily get bypassed by a few mph easy.
Now we're getting somewhere. Given that these factors are multiplied with automobiles, shouldn't all vehicle speeds be limited so? I am a firm believer that everything should be limited to 30km/h in urban and residential environments where pedestrian and vehicle traffic coexist.
> Given that these factors are multiplied with automobiles
Not a given. At speed, cars handle more securely than bicycles; cars have power brakes, ABS, traction control; modern cars often have automatic collision avoidance systems.
Even automatic collision avoidance systems don't help if a kid chasing a ball jumps out from between two parked cars right in front of your car.
30KPH car-pedestrian collisions are >> 95% survivable. The fatality rate drops dramatically above that speed. Dropping speed limits to 30Kph in areas with shared infrastructure and strictly enforcing them can drop pedestrian fatality rates all the way to zero:
If we had to lower the speed limit to 30kph wherever cars & pedestrians interacted (aka all streets), then magically there would appear money to build separated pedestrian infrastructure like skyways so that politicians could drive faster than 30kph on their routes.
I've been only doing solo and work rides, but I'm trying to get into amateur racing actually and been psyched out getting into a "serious" group of riders, but hearing that is really encouraging :). Of course, this is only flats, but I do try treat almost every ride as a training ride and push myself, and use the weekends to train as well.
How long can you ride at that speed? I'm wondering because I average around 15 on my commuter bike and i'm thinking of getting something faster for my commute.
15 on a commuter sounds about right -- pretty fast actually for most anything I'd call a commmuter bike. I rode a single speed bike for about 8 years before I upgraded to an entry level Cannondale Supersix Evo, which I got late in the season so I ended up with a really, really good deal on a carbon frame road bike. On flats I have no problem maintaining 20-22mph for longer periods of time, but that's after some training. On sprinty bursts on flats I do high 20s, maybe breaking 30mph. On downhills 35mph and I don't feel comfortably pushing past that. In fact I rarely feel comfortably going that fast -- there are just specific stretches of road and hills where I'm not worried about potholes or surprise traffic.
When I started on the road bike doing 15-17mph during rolling-hill after-work rides with minimal intersections and traffic, and I'd say that's comfortably my casual pace that I can keep up for at least 25 miles at a time now, except when I first started I was sweaty and out of breath and now it's an easy commute speed.
Oh absolutely. I don't think I'm an ass on the road (I stay off sidewalks when I can and give a heads up when I'm passing pedestrians), but I do get into my spandex and treat every ride I do like a serious workout. My commute to work is about 25 miles and try to bike that round trip once a week, and then doing more challenging rides on the weekends.
That explains why ebikes there are so many rude e-bike riders around here that jack-rabbit start at each stop, passing all the bikes, and then block the bike lane by going slow. They should set the limiters to 25-30mph!
[edit: why the downvotes? It is a serious safety concern for me during my daily commute. Setting the max speed a few mph slower than everyone else's cruising speed is clearly hazardous. If they set the governors to 15mph it would also solve the safety issue (since you'd only need to pass each ebike once), but then the technology would fail. Is making them 1-2 mph faster than a bike really that big of an incremental safety issue?]
It's also considerably heavier. The amount of effort you'd have to put into it (after downshifting) will proably at best give you one or two mph. As for bike behavior, I and many other cyclists consistently have to deal with slow cyclists taking up the entire lane. This is not unique to Ebikers in fact much more common to those without as there are far less on the roads I ride on (SF daily commuter)
> “But, I feel there is a clear line between human power and non-human power,” he added. “I think there should be a very simple classification: human-powered or not human-powered.
I wonder which side of the line electric shifting (which is legal in cycling race) falls.
Electronic shifting provides a reduction in the interruption of motive power, so it is not 100% clear cut. The sport governing bodies that be probably had to chew on this from various angles before making a decision.
Fast shifting that doesn't interrupt the flow of power is a big deal. That's why Formula 1 cars do not use "H pattern" stick shifts.
Electic shifting is irrelevant here. Does it contribute energy to the propulsion? No. It would be akin to asking if wearing a digital watch rather than an automatic (mechanical) watch makes your bike an electic bike.
You can say it aids propulsion, but that's only because it aids managing the gear ratios. It doesn't contribute energy to the the propulsive force of the engine of the bike (the cyclist). Yes, it is involved in the drivetrain, but the engine in the derailleur does not contribute wattage to the turning of the cranks. It's power is applied to a horizontal repositing of the conduit through which the propulsive power is transferred.
Technically you're correct. However, practically there is an advantage of electric vs mechanical shifting. Usually mechanical derailleurs misbehave a little when used under load. When in turn electric derailleurs shift just fine. That's one reason why all pro sprinters ride di2, eps or etap.
When I first saw this I thought "hell yeah I am buying on of those right this second". I bike every day in SF and there are tons of hills, I'd love one of these for when I am feeling lazy and want to have some fun.
But then I thought about what I'd be like in the bike lane. If someone went by me on one of those I'd be pretty grumpy. They take up more space, they don't have the right acceleration patterns, and the rider is not nearly as engaged with the ride.
I think the e-bike is the perfect city vehicle, but not sure where they will fit in between bikes and motorcycles as they evolve.
New York City lowered their speed limit to 25mph. Electric bikes generally don't go over 20mph. The trick is they can consistently travel at 20mphs - a fast pace for an average human pedaling a bike. That is, they perform like a fast cyclist. I doubt electric bikes will be incompatible with NYC bike and car traffic.
How many pedestrians and bikers have been injured and/or killed by electric bikers? How does that compare to cars and trucks? Wouldn't that information be helpful in thinking through whether there is any problem at all here?
Its a conundrum right now, for sure, but I am all for getting more people on bikes, electric or not.
The main issue with e-bikes in the bike lane is obviously the speed and pacing are not going to match your average bicycle commuter. The same effect would result from a professional cyclist carving through the streets at speeds no one could match.
I think the issue would solve itself as they become more popular. If they can hit speeds of 20-40MPH, then they should be using a full car lane, and can benefit from each other's presence. Professional and highly trained amateur cyclists do this already.
Power on demand vs pedal assist. I think pedal assist bikes are ok in the bike lanes, but power on demand bikes (meaning, bikes that have an explicit throttle control mechanism) are essentially electric scooters.
I'm plenty capable of going dangerously fast on a regular bike but if I'm in a congested bike lane or passing pedestrians on a multi-use trail I slow down. I don't see how having a motor would suddenly cause common sense to fly out the window.
And of course, when riding in traffic, keeping pace with the cars is better and not everyone has the fitness to pull it off.
The main problem I've seen is that they have a different acceleration curve than a road bike -- they take off from a dead stop faster than a road bike, but for some reason most top out a few mph lower than a slow road bike (15-18mph?).
The result is that they rudely pass all the bikes at each stop light, repeatedly forcing the bikes to pass them in car lanes once everyone gets back up to speed.
Same problem with scooters in cities where they cut the lane to go up to the traffic light and then they accelerate up to 30mph and the cars soon have to pass them.
They often stop there because they're speed capped by law.
20mph in the US. Slightly lower in most of the EU.
I have a pedal assist wheel, and it will bring me to 20 fairly quickly on flat ground, but all assist cuts out there and the rest is up to me. Usually I hover around 25, but it depends on how I'm feeling that day. You're not really going to pass me at 25 though... Even if you do think it's a problem, it just means we need better bike lanes and bike planning. Speeds vary all the time.
That said... I bike to work pretty much all the time now because of the electric bike.
The end result is dramatically and unquestionably good.
The article can be summed up by their own quote:
>And yet, for all our shared sense that something was wrong
>with electric bikes, we agreed that, by any rational
>measure, they are a force for good.
This nostalgia fluff piece is fluff. It's basically attempting to explain a soft form of gatekeeping around people who do or don't qualify as cyclists.
If you're hovering around 25mph, then you're not causing trouble for anyone. It's good to know the ebikes don't somehow limit you once you're up to speed.
I guess the problem I see is inexperienced cyclists stuck at 20mph. Presumably that problem will fix itself after they log a few hundred miles and get a bit faster.
This is how electrical motors operate: they accelerate very fast from a stop due to having high torque at low speeds, then as they catch on to speed they're operated at constant power until they reach nominal rpm. In order to achieve greater speeds, you need to operate them in the flux weakening region. E-bikes normally have engine cutoff at 25 kph so you're basically on your own legs over that threshold. No need to operate an e-bike drive with flux weakening.
They cannot. At least, not with electric assist. The motors are programmed to power you up to 20MPH only, by federal law, but many limit it to 18MPH, to be on the safe side. If anyone is going faster than that, they are doing it by their own power, not with the motor.
Don't you have different levels in the US? In Sweden and EU normal electric bikes can only assist up to 25 km/h (15,5 mph) but the next level can go up to 45 km/h (28 mph). They are still allowed in bike lanes but has a requirement on helmet and insurance.
Is that a recent law? I have a few friends, one of who used to work for an electric bike manufacturer, and they can get up to 35mph on their electric bikes. But that was from a few years ago.
Not very recent, no. But it is an easy hack to bypass the limits... just tell your controller you have a different wheel size. So it could very well be that your friends are simply speeding.
Perhaps what bothers the author about e-bikes is that using a bike safely on streets requires hard-won skills, and riders who start out on an e-bike might get hurt before they acquire those skills. The faster the bike, the greater the probable damage.
Just this morning, as I was biking to work, a car came within an inch or so of hitting me, but I was moving slowly enough to avoid a collision. On an e-bike the story might have been very different.
Just like learning to drive, learning to bike takes some time and effort.
In the US it's considerably worse because our bike infrastructure is downright terrible in most cities.
I was biking in Amsterdam a year ago, and holy shit the difference is night and day (even with the shitty delivery guys doing 40mph on their gas scooters in the bike lanes).
Was just in semi-rural Germany (villages every km or two, farmer's fields between, so not urban commuting) and I'd say half of the bikes I passed were electric assist. There weren't actually that many cyclists, considering the infrastructure available. Many bike/ped only paths near the roads, and many roads that are farmworker/ped/bike only, so no cars (but those tended to be significantly hilly, like 1k feet of climbing/10 miles).
But for the most part, the people on the electric assist bikes were older, a distinct population from the ones out for a spin. They were also pretty mellow in terms of speed -- faster than the kiddos but I'd pass them pretty handily on my road bike. It's my impression that the electric bikes there definitely expand the cycling population, and don't detract from it at all.
Same here in Switzerland. Even I upgraded my tandem with the trailer for the kids because if nobody but me is pedaling it was too much effort for me. And now, when I am fetching the kids from daycare, it's a joy. By the way I consciously decided on a slower version (25km/h or 15 miles per hour max.).
Electric bikes may end up setting back progress in getting people to switch to cycling as a main form of transportation.
One of the most significant deterrents to cycling has been the danger involved with being mixed in with automobiles that are easily able to injure and kill a cyclist. The biggest gains in increasing bicycle use has been by creating bike lanes for all ages and abilities that are completely separated from traffic with physical barriers. These are safe spaces for bicycle users and all people can feel comfortable riding on them, whether they're young and fit, elderly or if they're riding with their young child that is just learning.
With the advent of fast moving electric bicycles, suddenly these all ages and abilities bike lanes may not be such safe spaces any more and this could discourage people from cycling. People may not want to take their young child out cycling if there are food couriers zooming by at speeds that a normal bicycle wouldn't be capable of.
It is actually quite the contrary. Electric bikes should bring bikes back as full members of the public traffic. Yes, some people are terrified to drive amongst cars. But the so called bike paths are the actual death traps, as most of them have dangerous encounters with the car traffic where it is the most difficult to spot bicyclists, that is at crossings. A large amount of the bicycle deaths are caused by trucks turning right across the bike path, killing a bicyclist. Furthermore, at least in Germany, they are not in a shape for comfortable riding. The only ones enjoying bike paths are unexperienced and untrained bicyclists, who ride a long at little more than walking speed.
Any reasonably seasoned bicyclists easily bikes at 20-30 kph in the flats, so by far exceed the safe bike path speeds. Electric bikes give this speed to anyone, who might be older, or is commuting and does not seek the sporty challenge. This requires proper bike traffic handling by the authorities.
This is a disingenuous argument - cars are "full members of the public traffic" and are regularly involved in minor and major collisions with each other. Drivers are rarely killed or seriously injured in these collisions, whereas it's almost impossible for a cyclist to escape these collisions without an injury. "Some people are terrified" because injury and death is a very real possibility in traffic.
The primary issue with road safety is not the speed of cycling but the presence of motor vehicles. The only adequate mitigation is to make them go very slowly to reduce the energy of collision (on side streets) or eliminate them (on well-designed, segregated bike paths). The fact that Germany is not very good at segregation does not invalidate the concept - just look at the Netherlands for an example of what can be achieved.
The point is, if you drive in the normal car lane, it is pretty impossible for a driver, who is not asleep, to miss you and hit you. So while it looks scary, it is very safe, as I assume that every driver tries not to hit a bicyclist. But I have not seen a bike infrastructure inside towns which don't involve crossings. At those crossings it is very easy to hit a bicycle, even if you pay a lot of attention as a driver. So, unless it does not cross car traffic, bike paths are more dangerous than being in lane with cars.
It is unfortunately very possible for a driver to be asleep, texting or just to make a massive misjudgement. As you say, crossing situations are some of the most dangerous on a bike, but there's no reason why a properly designed bike lane junction need be more dangerous than a normal road junction. In fact, intuitively, general road junctions are more dangerous as drivers are looking for other road vehicles, rather than bikes, and can very easily miss them. If you're going to continue making this argument, I'd root it in stats - show me a place which has no cycling infrastructure yet which is safer than Copenhagen or Utrecht.
> Any reasonably seasoned bicyclists easily bikes at 20-30 kph in the flats, so by far exceed the safe bike path speeds.
This is my point though that building cycling infrastructure for "all ages and abilities" means including people (eg. children) that aren't comfortable going these at the speeds that weekend warriors on road bikes are comfortable with.
I like the idea of pedal assist in helping people tackle potentially more strenuous parts of a commute, but bike lanes need to be kept as low speed, bicycle speed, zones somehow.
There is no reason not to have a bicycle path and have cyclists using the road too - unless like in Germany, where an official bicycle path means you are not allowed to bike on a road. And even without electrical assist, a capable biker way exceeds the speeds safely possible on the bike paths. As it turns out, most cyclists prefer those speeds, when they can reach them with the electrical assist.
So we need a solution which caters all desired speeds. Electrical assist (which is limited to 25 kph in Germany) just means, that more cyclists can reach the speed a normal healthy biker always had been able to reach.
Here's a conundrum: Cars kill ~30,000 people per year in the USA. Vehicle emissions cause ~58,000 premature deaths. That's a problem. Not bicycles, not E-bikes, not bike sharing programs, not motorcycles, not skateboards, not rollerblades – Cars!
> Here's a conundrum: Cars kill ~30,000 people per year in the USA. Vehicle emissions cause ~58,000 premature deaths. That's a problem. Not bicycles, not E-bikes, not bike sharing programs, not motorcycles, not skateboards, not rollerblades – Cars!
Let's also consider how many lives that fuel-based transportion saves. How many people would die of starvation if you outlawed internal combustion engines? How much would clothes cost? Food? I'll remind you electric engines cannot easily transport 1000-tons of goods across a transcontinental railroad.
Edit: Nobody is suggesting that cars be made illegal. But pretending (yes, pretending) that bicycles, even e-bikes, are a threat to the safety of pedestrians is not supported by any facts or statistics. It seems disingenuous to ignore the elephant in the room: Drunk driving accounts for approximately half of all pedestrian fatalities in the US. When talking about pedestrian safety, it's ridiculous to devote resources to activities that don't comprise any significant portion of pedestrian deaths. Talking about bicycles as a real problem for pedestrian safety is nothing but an emotional circle-jerk.
I looked into getting one. It would increase my commute range if I move (I ride about 4miles to and from work daily). It would also make me a little less sweaty on those hot summer mornings.
They are fun, you feel very strong riding them. Most have various levels of assist. They are heavy and making them a good workout with the assist off.
I do feel you would get scowls from other riders, though they are a little discreet (pedal assist means you look like pedaling), you do notice when people ride by such little effort.
One windy day I asked an e-biker if he wouldn't mind breaking the wind for me on my commute. He agreed, and obligingly slowed down for me a couple times when he dropped me.
Ever since I've been much more charitable towards these "cheaters".
A few critical problems in the US that you don't see as much in Europe (especially DACH + NE where bike culture / support is fantastic):
* is a clear respect for the fact you're in a 4,000 lbs vehicle and I'm on a bike. If you hit me, I die. Drivers in CH stop and wait meters away for bikers to pass the intersection. People in America ain't got time for that I guess.
* Great intra-suburban bike lines that can support multiple commute speed bikers on electric assist or not. (Try riding from any south bay city to any other non-adjacent south bay city)
* General conditioning to driving culture. You gotta get somewhere, you hop in your whip. Walking or other forms of transportation are looked down upon.
My most frustrating commutes (in the US) are when I get unlucky enough to share a two-lane road with a peloton of bicycle commuters.
All the cars slow down and move over a lane to pass them, which slows down traffic enough that you get stopped at every traffic light. The bikes lane-split at full speed through the stopped cars and the red signal, which means you're playing hopscotch with them for miles and traveling at half the speed of a normal day.
If they bothered to obey the traffic laws, on the other hand, it wouldn't be a big deal -- you slow down, pass the slower vehicle, and move on.
is a clear respect for the fact you're in a 4,000 lbs vehicle
Completely unrelated, but it's interesting to me how deeply the "4000lb. vehicle" meme seems to have embedded itself. I can find plenty of articles backing it up and talking about how cars are so much heavier now, cars are getting heavier, etc.
But I notice a problem: they include SUVs, trucks and "luxury" land-yacht vehicles in that classification as representative of the "average car". Cars intended for broad segments of the market are usually much lighter than this. A Toyota Corolla, for example, weighs 2800lb., the (popular) Ford Fiesta is 2500lb., the Nissan Versa is 2300lb., and even hybrids like the Prius (2500lb.) come in way under the "4000lb." meme.
These are still much heavier than bicycles, of course, but it fascinates me how much people have decided that SUVs, trucks and gigantic luxury cars are "average" and built their memes of car weight around that.
Natural progression of the trend I'm seeing in the comments
Step 1: Peaceful citizen buys an ebike to make commute easier. (person is elderly, permanent injury, has steep climb daily, other reasons that are their own)
Step 2: Rider Wears helmet, slows on oncoming traffic, stops at lights, and is generally a perfectly fine rider like many bike riders
Step 3: Concerned mom-type notices faster bikes with engines in lane and complains
Step 4: Law passed, Rider is now doing something illegal
Step 5: Ticket/Jail/Confiscated bike despite no evidence or numbers that rider was a danger to himself or others any more than cyclists
This is literally every law that affects peaceful citizens.
A problem is that if the bicycle goes above 20mph, it is a scooter and would fall under motorcycling laws. That means licensing and insurance. Generally under 20 miles or so it is considered a moped and is treated differently.
Also no offense, but going 20 mph in a bike lane or worse a sidewalk would be very bad. An ebike is not a bike, but a moped under the classic definition, a bicycle with pedals and a engine to provide supplemental power. It's just not a gas moped.
Then why does practically 90% of non-motorized bikes pass me on a flat road. Also prove the anger that actually has been caused by bikes compared to road bikes and I'll maybe consider it. It's really reactionary and would be silly nosy neighbor legislation.
Yes... and most electric assist bikes cap out at 20 mph in the US, as required by law.
Also... you sound like you've never ridden a road bike seriously. 20mph in a bike lane, especially while going downhill, is pretty meagre for a standard road bike. No assist needed.
Hell, I'm fat (ish) and I can hit 25 on flat ground on my road bike with some effort (although staying there is draining). I can easily do 30 going downhill.
I'm regularly passed by folks doing more than 30 on hills where I live.
I forgot about that, downhill without pedaling brings most bikes a good clip, mine being no exception. I have a really good bike with great disk breaks I keep in good shape so I'm no more or less in danger than any other bike on the road. The biggest concern any cyclists have are crowded streets and poorly thought out bike lanes, not ebikes.
Sane cyclists don't ride 20 on the sidewalk. Too many obstacles and too much risk. Any alley/driveway is potentially a blind corner with a car backing out. Pedestrians never move predictably. Etc, etc.
Bike lanes are hit or miss. I'd ride over 20 in a protected lane, but not next to a line of parked cars (door zone).
> "E-bikes being licensed as motorized vehicles is good. E-bikes being in human-powered infrastructure is no good. . . .”
And that's a great way to make sure e-bikes stay unpopular. Most "developed" countries make owning a motorcycles only slightly less expensive than a car (because safety). If it's less convenient and not cheap enough to offset that people won't do it.
This is just people complaining loudly and vebosely about something they don't like and trying to make it into a vague moral failing.
Electric bikes exist.
Bike advocates for years have railed against cars and said the world would be so much better if people biked. Now the electric bike is expanding the world of biking and all of the social benefits of biking still exist with electric bikes and these people don't like it.
It's just classic policing of a sub-culture. According to him, you aren't a real cyclist if you aren't pedaling as hard as he is. What he needs to do is get over himself and realize that progress doesn't look like what you want it to look like; that you should learn to accept the world rather than just like a child expect the world to conform to your purist expectations.
It's quite a bit more reasoned than you suggest. The author acknowledges his bias, its source, and even that it's not entirely rational. But he's also exploring how e-bikes change the dynamic of pedestrian vs. bike vs. car traffic in a city, what kinds of pros and cons exist, and whether there are any rational sources of objection to the way e-bikes are currently being used.
He acknowledges that e-bikes are fun and useful: "I found the effect narcotic and delightful: on a flat road, I moved faster than I did on a normal bike, with less exertion. [...] Assisted living was so pleasant!"
Commiserating with a friend, they conclude that despite their objections, "for all our shared sense that something was wrong with electric bikes, we agreed that, by any rational measure, they are a force for good. [...] The engines are efficient, they reduce congestion [...] Fewer cars, more bikes."
However, they did identify at least one issue worth considering:
> "if you are not human-powered, you should not be using human-powered infrastructure. You should be in the street. E-bikes being licensed as motorized vehicles is good. E-bikes being in human-powered infrastructure is no good..."
Of course it's not quite that simple - e-bikes mingling with cars seems more dangerous than them mingling with human-powered traffic - but it's a point worth considering, for sure. For example, it's much easier to get up to 20 mph on an e-bike than an ordinary bike, and they tend to be quieter, too, so for pedestrians they can be quite terrifying. As the number of e-bikes increases, it's likely to become necessary to address this kind of thing.
He also notes the increasing difficulty of distinguishing between human-powered and assisted activity in an increasingly machine-assisted world, acknowledging that the distinction in the quote above is becoming less easy to make.
Even if you disagree with his perspective, it ought to be possible to read an article like this and recognize its value, unless you're even more ideologically fixed on a particular perspective than the author is.
As far as the danger of mixing e-bikes and regular automotive traffic, I think a similar experiment has already been done.. Any one remember mopeds? The top speed was about 35mph, if I remember correctly, which made them more-or-less the gas-powered equivalent of e-bikes.
Further down there are comments about how any gas/electric powered bike that can go over 20 w/power is technically a moped. So I think I'm mistaken about the 35mph top speed of my friends bikes.
However, it's easy enough to convert an ordinary bike to an e-bike - the necessary motors and other parts are readily available, in fact that's pretty much how the industry started. Many of the bike messengers in NYC etc. have much higher top speeds than 20.
I disagree with the author's idea that bikes should not be in the street. If you're moving significantly above pedestrian speeds, you shouldn't be using pedestrian infrastructure. His classification of "human-powered" and "not human-powered" strikes me as self-serving.
Ebikes are not faster then the regular bikes. I am biking on a trail that has a 15mph speed limit. Even when I am allowing myself to go at 20 mph, I am constantly taken over by those elitist cyclists who feel like they are doing so much good by mere cycling that the rules don't apply to them.
Assist is "optimized" for 20mph and is capped at like 28 - I believe this is due to European laws. I have yet to breach 24 mph even with a full assist on a straight road.
No but they do react very differently, mainly at startup.
> Assist is "optimized" for 20mph and is capped at like 28 - I believe this is due to European laws.
EU classifies ebikes as bicyles if the assistance has cut out by 25km/h (16mph), the ebike must also have an engine under 250W, and must not allow power on demand (only pedaling assistance).
Individual countries may have a broader category for bicycle, or may have additional categories between bicycles and mopeds or motorbikes (e.g. s-pedelec in Germany), but the pedelec classification guarantees your ebike is treated as a bicycle (rather than a moped) across the EU.
I broke my knee three months ago. At that point I went from uninterested to annoyed by the recent wave of attempts to convert roads into bike paths. And this guy -- I hope he breaks his knee.
No one parodies Hacker News comments as well as Hacker News commenters.
This is a piece about one guy's emotions and feelings about the rise of e-bikes. He's not policing anything. He's not setting government policies. He's lamenting that bicycling, especially in NYC, was once an activity for people who had to physically struggle with it and who got some viceral return from that and now it's just another form of commuting alongside cars, taxis and the subway.
He's not telling anyone not to buy an e-bike. He's not saying they don't belong on the road. People have written the same pieces about automatic transmission in cars and all other sorts of automation. Of course e-bikes will continue to grow. But riding one will never be the same as doing it all yourself.
The attitude in the article reminds me of a passage from George Orwell's Road to Wigan Pier:
"Everyone who has travelled by primitive methods in an undeveloped country knows that the difference between that kind of travel and modern travel in trains, cars, etc., is the difference between life and death. The nomad who walks or rides, with his baggage stowed on a camel or an ox-cart, may suffer every kind of discomfort, but at least he is living while he is travelling; whereas for the passenger in an express train or a luxury liner his journey is an interregnum, a kind of temporary death. And yet so long as the railways exist, one has got to travel by train—or by car or aeroplane. Here am I, forty miles from London. When I want to go up to London why do I not pack my luggage on to a mule and set out on foot, making a two days of it? Because, with the Green Line buses whizzing past me every ten minutes, such a journey would be intolerably irksome. In order that one may enjoy primitive methods of travel, it is necessary that no other method should be available. No human being ever wants to do anything in a more cumbrous way than is necessary."
For someone to whom the effort required to be a bicyclist was a badge of honor, an electric bike is the equivalent of that annoying Green Line bus, I would think..
I get your point, but I think it's somewhat ironic we currently have this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15045531 just a few items below the current on on the frontpage.
I have an electric bike and I love it. It makes places that were "just a bit too far" away without assist perfectly close. It won't replace a car 100% for me (I live in Austin, Tx), but it does cut down my total car trips quite a bit.
Ah man as a committed bike commuter in a hilly place I _SOOOOOOOOOO_ identify with the what the author is saying. Something about electric bikes just ... irks me. It's totally irrational because every e-bike is presumably one less car on the road. But the bike lane should be reserved for bikes. And hard work.
For what it's worth, as a fellow non-electric bike commuter, plenty of non-electric bike commuters irk me. Whether it's jumping in front of me while I am waiting at a light, only to be significantly slower than me when the light changes. Or passing at speed on the right hand side. Or jamming up a 4-way intersection by blasting through while others are waiting. In general, some people tend to turn into assholes when they are commuting, regardless of what form of transportation they are using. If someone is using an electric bike, and they are being courteous to other road users then there really isn't any problem. And as far as I am concerned, they really aren't that different than the lycra clad strava jockeys that are already racing all over the place, with the exception that electric bike users are probably MORE likely to obey the rules of the road because it is easier for them to get up to speed after stopping.
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[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 230 ms ] threadPlenty of traditional bikers are folks who are using bike shares and do things like not wear helmets, ignore road signs, ride two abreast, and swerve without warning. Also a problem are the "pro" bikers (you know, the ones on a racing bike, fully decked out in gear) that tend to ride ~10 mph faster than everyone else and pass aggressively.
E-bikers on the other hand, go in a straight line, usually single file, without swerving and seem to follow traffic signs because they have an easier time accelerating and decelerating.
Again, just my anecdotal experience -- I ride ~5 miles to/from work in New York.
I wouldn't be surprised if that overshadows any danger from introducing different travel patterns compared to regular bikes.
I can't explain what I think about that without getting banned on this forum, but that feeling seems to be the center of the article; basically hipsters crying about smart use of technology.
And yet, try as I might to be philosophical about it, my gut tells me that people passing me on e-bikes are vile cheaters.
I'm kind of curious, since my understanding is that America as a whole is not hunting "enough" (to keep deer populations at a sustainable level), if it isn't an explicit attempt to thin deer populations more.
Fucking hipsters.
Along with that time spent in the saddle the non e biker also develops the bike handling and traffic skills, the innate almost unconscious understanding of how the bicycles and cars will move at different speeds, how to calculate multiple vectors, how to process the traffic patterns for safe and fast transit.
My biggest gripe with most e bikers is that they don't have the skills to handle the speed.
Source: Currently rate-limited on my main account for pointing out HN's abusive, opaque moderation tactics.
How ironic...
NYC has a lot of bicycle infrastructure that is designed and managed for use at bicycle speeds, and under the physicals constraints bicycles face. The style of electric bicycle favored by delivery people (and many others) is significantly heavier, faster, and quieter than an unpowered bicycle, so it's easy to see it as an abuse of the infrastructure.
There's also an element of classism and in-group/out-group bitterness involved. The people most commonly using these bikes for deliveries are predominantly lower-class immigrants, under heavy pressure to go quickly, and are generally not involved with the (wealthier) "bike culture".
There's also a comradery of effort that goes along with riding a bike, the sense that the other people on bikes are putting in the same effort as you. It's granfalloonery at its finest, but I don't think it's fair to attribute this to luddism.
Since they're almost always powering, the freewheel never comes in. The motor is also quieter than most chain sets end up being under the abuses of the city.
+ the regularity of the 'effort' around the crankset, not "pressure on the left, then pressure on the right and so on".
Wanna tax something? How about fossil fuels and combustion engines.
Revolutionary!
Not a given. At speed, cars handle more securely than bicycles; cars have power brakes, ABS, traction control; modern cars often have automatic collision avoidance systems.
30KPH car-pedestrian collisions are >> 95% survivable. The fatality rate drops dramatically above that speed. Dropping speed limits to 30Kph in areas with shared infrastructure and strictly enforcing them can drop pedestrian fatality rates all the way to zero:
http://www.visionzeroinitiative.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyway EX: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%2B15
Alternatively, you one or both can go underground. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_city#United_States) Crystal City VA for example has a huge underground mall that almost completely removes pedestrian tragic outside and connects to the subway system. Sadly, it's not a strait path, but there are ~50 buildings connected and it becomes really useful if you live and or work in the area. (http://www.thecrystalcityshops.com/_files/docs/cc-shops-2014...)
I probably couldn't keep up with you + ebike if you average 15 on a regular bike.
I wonder how the governor works. Does it just stop assisting at 20, or does regenerative braking automatically kick in?
When I started on the road bike doing 15-17mph during rolling-hill after-work rides with minimal intersections and traffic, and I'd say that's comfortably my casual pace that I can keep up for at least 25 miles at a time now, except when I first started I was sweaty and out of breath and now it's an easy commute speed.
[edit: why the downvotes? It is a serious safety concern for me during my daily commute. Setting the max speed a few mph slower than everyone else's cruising speed is clearly hazardous. If they set the governors to 15mph it would also solve the safety issue (since you'd only need to pass each ebike once), but then the technology would fail. Is making them 1-2 mph faster than a bike really that big of an incremental safety issue?]
I wonder which side of the line electric shifting (which is legal in cycling race) falls.
Fast shifting that doesn't interrupt the flow of power is a big deal. That's why Formula 1 cars do not use "H pattern" stick shifts.
You can say it aids propulsion, but that's only because it aids managing the gear ratios. It doesn't contribute energy to the the propulsive force of the engine of the bike (the cyclist). Yes, it is involved in the drivetrain, but the engine in the derailleur does not contribute wattage to the turning of the cranks. It's power is applied to a horizontal repositing of the conduit through which the propulsive power is transferred.
When I first saw this I thought "hell yeah I am buying on of those right this second". I bike every day in SF and there are tons of hills, I'd love one of these for when I am feeling lazy and want to have some fun.
But then I thought about what I'd be like in the bike lane. If someone went by me on one of those I'd be pretty grumpy. They take up more space, they don't have the right acceleration patterns, and the rider is not nearly as engaged with the ride.
I think the e-bike is the perfect city vehicle, but not sure where they will fit in between bikes and motorcycles as they evolve.
> I think the e-bike is the perfect city vehicle, but not sure where they will fit in between bikes and motorcycles as they evolve.
It seems to me that Pedelec (assist-only, low-power, low maximum assist speed) are bicycles, other e-bikes are electric mopeds and motorcycles.
The Super73 is a moped: it has functioning pedals but can move solely off of the engine (and the official website calls it a motorbike).
http://www.propellabikes.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_bicycle_laws#Federal_...
The main issue with e-bikes in the bike lane is obviously the speed and pacing are not going to match your average bicycle commuter. The same effect would result from a professional cyclist carving through the streets at speeds no one could match.
I think the issue would solve itself as they become more popular. If they can hit speeds of 20-40MPH, then they should be using a full car lane, and can benefit from each other's presence. Professional and highly trained amateur cyclists do this already.
And of course, when riding in traffic, keeping pace with the cars is better and not everyone has the fitness to pull it off.
The result is that they rudely pass all the bikes at each stop light, repeatedly forcing the bikes to pass them in car lanes once everyone gets back up to speed.
20mph in the US. Slightly lower in most of the EU.
I have a pedal assist wheel, and it will bring me to 20 fairly quickly on flat ground, but all assist cuts out there and the rest is up to me. Usually I hover around 25, but it depends on how I'm feeling that day. You're not really going to pass me at 25 though... Even if you do think it's a problem, it just means we need better bike lanes and bike planning. Speeds vary all the time.
That said... I bike to work pretty much all the time now because of the electric bike.
The end result is dramatically and unquestionably good.
The article can be summed up by their own quote:
>And yet, for all our shared sense that something was wrong
>with electric bikes, we agreed that, by any rational
>measure, they are a force for good.
This nostalgia fluff piece is fluff. It's basically attempting to explain a soft form of gatekeeping around people who do or don't qualify as cyclists.
I guess the problem I see is inexperienced cyclists stuck at 20mph. Presumably that problem will fix itself after they log a few hundred miles and get a bit faster.
They cannot. At least, not with electric assist. The motors are programmed to power you up to 20MPH only, by federal law, but many limit it to 18MPH, to be on the safe side. If anyone is going faster than that, they are doing it by their own power, not with the motor.
Just this morning, as I was biking to work, a car came within an inch or so of hitting me, but I was moving slowly enough to avoid a collision. On an e-bike the story might have been very different.
Just like learning to drive, learning to bike takes some time and effort.
In the US it's considerably worse because our bike infrastructure is downright terrible in most cities.
I was biking in Amsterdam a year ago, and holy shit the difference is night and day (even with the shitty delivery guys doing 40mph on their gas scooters in the bike lanes).
Just putting up temporary bike lanes in some cities increased bike rides by 800% (http://usa.streetsblog.org/2017/06/28/macon-georgia-striped-...).
There's a huge and mostly hidden demand for this. People don't think about it, but when it's offered they take advantage.
But for the most part, the people on the electric assist bikes were older, a distinct population from the ones out for a spin. They were also pretty mellow in terms of speed -- faster than the kiddos but I'd pass them pretty handily on my road bike. It's my impression that the electric bikes there definitely expand the cycling population, and don't detract from it at all.
(ymmv, n=small and all that)
One of the most significant deterrents to cycling has been the danger involved with being mixed in with automobiles that are easily able to injure and kill a cyclist. The biggest gains in increasing bicycle use has been by creating bike lanes for all ages and abilities that are completely separated from traffic with physical barriers. These are safe spaces for bicycle users and all people can feel comfortable riding on them, whether they're young and fit, elderly or if they're riding with their young child that is just learning.
With the advent of fast moving electric bicycles, suddenly these all ages and abilities bike lanes may not be such safe spaces any more and this could discourage people from cycling. People may not want to take their young child out cycling if there are food couriers zooming by at speeds that a normal bicycle wouldn't be capable of.
Any reasonably seasoned bicyclists easily bikes at 20-30 kph in the flats, so by far exceed the safe bike path speeds. Electric bikes give this speed to anyone, who might be older, or is commuting and does not seek the sporty challenge. This requires proper bike traffic handling by the authorities.
The primary issue with road safety is not the speed of cycling but the presence of motor vehicles. The only adequate mitigation is to make them go very slowly to reduce the energy of collision (on side streets) or eliminate them (on well-designed, segregated bike paths). The fact that Germany is not very good at segregation does not invalidate the concept - just look at the Netherlands for an example of what can be achieved.
This is my point though that building cycling infrastructure for "all ages and abilities" means including people (eg. children) that aren't comfortable going these at the speeds that weekend warriors on road bikes are comfortable with.
I like the idea of pedal assist in helping people tackle potentially more strenuous parts of a commute, but bike lanes need to be kept as low speed, bicycle speed, zones somehow.
Let's also consider how many lives that fuel-based transportion saves. How many people would die of starvation if you outlawed internal combustion engines? How much would clothes cost? Food? I'll remind you electric engines cannot easily transport 1000-tons of goods across a transcontinental railroad.
Edit: Nobody is suggesting that cars be made illegal. But pretending (yes, pretending) that bicycles, even e-bikes, are a threat to the safety of pedestrians is not supported by any facts or statistics. It seems disingenuous to ignore the elephant in the room: Drunk driving accounts for approximately half of all pedestrian fatalities in the US. When talking about pedestrian safety, it's ridiculous to devote resources to activities that don't comprise any significant portion of pedestrian deaths. Talking about bicycles as a real problem for pedestrian safety is nothing but an emotional circle-jerk.
They are fun, you feel very strong riding them. Most have various levels of assist. They are heavy and making them a good workout with the assist off.
I do feel you would get scowls from other riders, though they are a little discreet (pedal assist means you look like pedaling), you do notice when people ride by such little effort.
Ever since I've been much more charitable towards these "cheaters".
* is a clear respect for the fact you're in a 4,000 lbs vehicle and I'm on a bike. If you hit me, I die. Drivers in CH stop and wait meters away for bikers to pass the intersection. People in America ain't got time for that I guess. * Great intra-suburban bike lines that can support multiple commute speed bikers on electric assist or not. (Try riding from any south bay city to any other non-adjacent south bay city) * General conditioning to driving culture. You gotta get somewhere, you hop in your whip. Walking or other forms of transportation are looked down upon.
Also I guess DACH is Germany, Austria, Switzerland. Never seen that abbreviation before, but then I live in North America.
About DACH, I think your interpretation is correct, but I had never seen it either.
All the cars slow down and move over a lane to pass them, which slows down traffic enough that you get stopped at every traffic light. The bikes lane-split at full speed through the stopped cars and the red signal, which means you're playing hopscotch with them for miles and traveling at half the speed of a normal day.
If they bothered to obey the traffic laws, on the other hand, it wouldn't be a big deal -- you slow down, pass the slower vehicle, and move on.
Completely unrelated, but it's interesting to me how deeply the "4000lb. vehicle" meme seems to have embedded itself. I can find plenty of articles backing it up and talking about how cars are so much heavier now, cars are getting heavier, etc.
But I notice a problem: they include SUVs, trucks and "luxury" land-yacht vehicles in that classification as representative of the "average car". Cars intended for broad segments of the market are usually much lighter than this. A Toyota Corolla, for example, weighs 2800lb., the (popular) Ford Fiesta is 2500lb., the Nissan Versa is 2300lb., and even hybrids like the Prius (2500lb.) come in way under the "4000lb." meme.
These are still much heavier than bicycles, of course, but it fascinates me how much people have decided that SUVs, trucks and gigantic luxury cars are "average" and built their memes of car weight around that.
Step 1: Peaceful citizen buys an ebike to make commute easier. (person is elderly, permanent injury, has steep climb daily, other reasons that are their own)
Step 2: Rider Wears helmet, slows on oncoming traffic, stops at lights, and is generally a perfectly fine rider like many bike riders
Step 3: Concerned mom-type notices faster bikes with engines in lane and complains
Step 4: Law passed, Rider is now doing something illegal
Step 5: Ticket/Jail/Confiscated bike despite no evidence or numbers that rider was a danger to himself or others any more than cyclists
This is literally every law that affects peaceful citizens.
Also no offense, but going 20 mph in a bike lane or worse a sidewalk would be very bad. An ebike is not a bike, but a moped under the classic definition, a bicycle with pedals and a engine to provide supplemental power. It's just not a gas moped.
Also... you sound like you've never ridden a road bike seriously. 20mph in a bike lane, especially while going downhill, is pretty meagre for a standard road bike. No assist needed.
Hell, I'm fat (ish) and I can hit 25 on flat ground on my road bike with some effort (although staying there is draining). I can easily do 30 going downhill.
I'm regularly passed by folks doing more than 30 on hills where I live.
How? 20mph for a road bike is slower than what trained cyclists do
Bike lanes are hit or miss. I'd ride over 20 in a protected lane, but not next to a line of parked cars (door zone).
And that's a great way to make sure e-bikes stay unpopular. Most "developed" countries make owning a motorcycles only slightly less expensive than a car (because safety). If it's less convenient and not cheap enough to offset that people won't do it.
Electric bikes exist.
Bike advocates for years have railed against cars and said the world would be so much better if people biked. Now the electric bike is expanding the world of biking and all of the social benefits of biking still exist with electric bikes and these people don't like it.
It's just classic policing of a sub-culture. According to him, you aren't a real cyclist if you aren't pedaling as hard as he is. What he needs to do is get over himself and realize that progress doesn't look like what you want it to look like; that you should learn to accept the world rather than just like a child expect the world to conform to your purist expectations.
It's quite a bit more reasoned than you suggest. The author acknowledges his bias, its source, and even that it's not entirely rational. But he's also exploring how e-bikes change the dynamic of pedestrian vs. bike vs. car traffic in a city, what kinds of pros and cons exist, and whether there are any rational sources of objection to the way e-bikes are currently being used.
He acknowledges that e-bikes are fun and useful: "I found the effect narcotic and delightful: on a flat road, I moved faster than I did on a normal bike, with less exertion. [...] Assisted living was so pleasant!"
Commiserating with a friend, they conclude that despite their objections, "for all our shared sense that something was wrong with electric bikes, we agreed that, by any rational measure, they are a force for good. [...] The engines are efficient, they reduce congestion [...] Fewer cars, more bikes."
However, they did identify at least one issue worth considering:
> "if you are not human-powered, you should not be using human-powered infrastructure. You should be in the street. E-bikes being licensed as motorized vehicles is good. E-bikes being in human-powered infrastructure is no good..."
Of course it's not quite that simple - e-bikes mingling with cars seems more dangerous than them mingling with human-powered traffic - but it's a point worth considering, for sure. For example, it's much easier to get up to 20 mph on an e-bike than an ordinary bike, and they tend to be quieter, too, so for pedestrians they can be quite terrifying. As the number of e-bikes increases, it's likely to become necessary to address this kind of thing.
He also notes the increasing difficulty of distinguishing between human-powered and assisted activity in an increasingly machine-assisted world, acknowledging that the distinction in the quote above is becoming less easy to make.
Even if you disagree with his perspective, it ought to be possible to read an article like this and recognize its value, unless you're even more ideologically fixed on a particular perspective than the author is.
http://www.evelo.com/blog/why-is-there-a-20mph-speed-limit-o...
However, it's easy enough to convert an ordinary bike to an e-bike - the necessary motors and other parts are readily available, in fact that's pretty much how the industry started. Many of the bike messengers in NYC etc. have much higher top speeds than 20.
Assist is "optimized" for 20mph and is capped at like 28 - I believe this is due to European laws. I have yet to breach 24 mph even with a full assist on a straight road.
No but they do react very differently, mainly at startup.
> Assist is "optimized" for 20mph and is capped at like 28 - I believe this is due to European laws.
EU classifies ebikes as bicyles if the assistance has cut out by 25km/h (16mph), the ebike must also have an engine under 250W, and must not allow power on demand (only pedaling assistance).
Individual countries may have a broader category for bicycle, or may have additional categories between bicycles and mopeds or motorbikes (e.g. s-pedelec in Germany), but the pedelec classification guarantees your ebike is treated as a bicycle (rather than a moped) across the EU.
This is a piece about one guy's emotions and feelings about the rise of e-bikes. He's not policing anything. He's not setting government policies. He's lamenting that bicycling, especially in NYC, was once an activity for people who had to physically struggle with it and who got some viceral return from that and now it's just another form of commuting alongside cars, taxis and the subway.
He's not telling anyone not to buy an e-bike. He's not saying they don't belong on the road. People have written the same pieces about automatic transmission in cars and all other sorts of automation. Of course e-bikes will continue to grow. But riding one will never be the same as doing it all yourself.
"Everyone who has travelled by primitive methods in an undeveloped country knows that the difference between that kind of travel and modern travel in trains, cars, etc., is the difference between life and death. The nomad who walks or rides, with his baggage stowed on a camel or an ox-cart, may suffer every kind of discomfort, but at least he is living while he is travelling; whereas for the passenger in an express train or a luxury liner his journey is an interregnum, a kind of temporary death. And yet so long as the railways exist, one has got to travel by train—or by car or aeroplane. Here am I, forty miles from London. When I want to go up to London why do I not pack my luggage on to a mule and set out on foot, making a two days of it? Because, with the Green Line buses whizzing past me every ten minutes, such a journey would be intolerably irksome. In order that one may enjoy primitive methods of travel, it is necessary that no other method should be available. No human being ever wants to do anything in a more cumbrous way than is necessary."
For someone to whom the effort required to be a bicyclist was a badge of honor, an electric bike is the equivalent of that annoying Green Line bus, I would think..
Yes, why?
Isn't that qualitatively the enjoyment drivers can get from accelerating in a car?