e-Bikes – Let’s talk

[americancyclo]

I’ve noticed a Prodeco Storm at work lately in the garage, always plugged in to the outlet conveniently located right next to the bike racks. It’s like they are encouraging (two) people to use ebikes to get to work!

[dasgeh]

Riding around on my ebike yesterday, I realized that riding an ebike actually makes me a safer rider.

On a regular bike, you have to earn almost all of your speed. Your little legs powered you up to this cruising speed and it sucks to hit the breaks and scrub that hard earned momentum. So when you approach a place where you’re _supposed_ to stop or slow, you have every incentive to hit the breaks as little as possible. And we all know the inertia curve — the hardest part is starting from a complete stop. So you have incentive to not come to a full-and-complete stop at stop signs; incentive to roll up to and through red lights; incentive to not really slow down when passing others on trails.

On an ebike, you have help earning that speed. So as you see those two peds coming towards each other on the trail, and realize that you would have to squeeze between them if you maintained your current speed, you just tap your brakes and slow down a bit so you can pass the one in your direction after the squeeze. When you pull up to a red light, you keep speed to the stop line and then stop. Ditto with stop signs. You act a lot more like a car, which cars like. Getting back up to speed is easy.

Don’t get me wrong, I normally love earning all my speed. But at the moment, I can’t. On good days, I could probably ride a normal bike to work, but I’d probably yield to those incentives to not hit the brakes. On bad days, I wouldn’t ride. So the ebike both encourages more cycling and safer cycling from at least me. I don’t know why the broader cycling community wouldn’t support that.

[KLizotte]

Well said dasgeh and you make some good points that most people don’t think about. I believe many cyclists are anti-ebike because they fear trails, bike lans, etc will be invaded by ebikes that are really mini-motorcycles. Let’s face it, as battery and engine technology improves these bikes will get faster/lighter and some people may not have to pedal at all on their commutes. We already have all-electric cars so making an all-electric bike that can travel a 100 miles without any human pedaling can’t be all that far away.

I hear what you are saying about your ebiking but I do fear a future of 14 year olds on mini-motorcycles on the trails and similar scenarios. Of course we sort of have the same issue with traditional road bikes; improvements in design and materials have made them very fast compared to bikes of 20+ years ago.

[jnva]

Could not have said it better dasgeh! Ebikes make me feel safer because when I do need to make a quick move to avoid something, I am not exhausted and have the energy and awareness to do it quicker. I’ve commuted without electric assist for a long time and am convinced of this. There’s no reason IMO that legal ebikes should be banned on the mup.

[jnva]

@KLizotte 19092 wrote:

Well said dasgeh and you make some good points that most people don’t think about. I believe many cyclists are anti-ebike because they fear trails, bike lans, etc will be invaded by ebikes that are really mini-motorcycles. Let’s face it, as battery and engine technology improves these bikes will get faster/lighter and some people may not have to pedal at all on their commutes. We already have all-electric cars so making an all-electric bike that can travel a 100 miles without any human pedaling can’t be all that far away.

I hear what you are saying about your ebiking but I do fear a future of 14 year olds on mini-motorcycles on the trails and similar scenarios. Of course we sort of have the same issue with traditional road bikes; improvements in design and materials have made them very fast compared to bikes of 20+ years ago.

I don’t understand this thinking about being afraid of 14 year olds on mini high speed motorcycles etc… These have been available for a long time. Is that a problem on the trails? Legal ebikes will solve a transportation problem in this area, at least it has for me. No need to fear change!

[KLizotte]

@jnva 19098 wrote:

I don’t understand this thinking about being afraid of 14 year olds on mini high speed motorcycles etc… These have been available for a long time. Is that a problem on the trails? Legal ebikes will solve a transportation problem in this area, at least it has for me. No need to fear change!

Well, I see the problem of faster bikes as an issue since we already that problem happening today with the fast road bikes. Fifty years ago the bikes were heavy and slow and pedestrians did not feel threatened. Contrast that with the riders of today who can easily ride from 15 to 30 miles an hour on a trail; this poses real danger to other trail users. Yes, most riders are careful and conscientious but you’ll always have a few bad apples that ruin it for everyone. I’m concerned that ebike speeds will soon start surpassing what people can do on traditional road bikes.

There is also the issue of being able to correctly gauge someone’s speed, especially in dicey situations. One develops a general sense of how quickly a pedal cyclist can travel; throwing a motor into the mix makes things even trickier because now I can’t guess accurately where the cyclist will be at a particular point in time. If the bikes can’t go faster than regular road bikes this isn’t a problem, but if they start getting a lot faster….

[jnva]

@KLizotte 19099 wrote:

Well, I see the problem of faster bikes as an issue since we already that problem happening today with the fast road bikes. Fifty years ago the bikes were heavy and slow and pedestrians did not feel threatened. Contrast that with the riders of today who can easily ride from 15 to 30 miles an hour on a trail; this poses real danger to other trail users. Yes, most riders are careful and conscientious but you’ll always have a few bad apples that ruin it for everyone. I’m concerned that ebike speeds will soon start surpassing what people can do on traditional road bikes.

On a mup, legal ebikes pose no threat, can you agree to that?

In my experience talking with others who have built high speed ebikes, MUPS are the last place they would want to ride because of the pedestrian traffic. Far easier to stay on the road since they can keep up with traffic. It’s not fun for me at all to ride on the wod and custis during the weekends because of the pedestrian traffic. I only really use my ebike to commute to work.

[dasgeh]

First of all, but “ebike” I mean one that complies with the federal law that exempts certain assisted bikes from motor vehicle regulations. That law limits the bikes to ones where the motor can only help the bike go up to 20mph. The ebike can go faster, but only under the rider’s power. I believe that law also requires that the motor be designed to “assist” active riding — so a rider will still have to pedal to make the motor go, just not as hard. That also impacts the acceleration of the bike — it’s nothing like a car. It accelerates like the bike is on a downhill, or like a much stronger rider is pedaling.

Personally, I’d be fine with leaving the ban from MUPs for other bikes-with-motors that aren’t ebikes. Honestly, when I was shopping for one, pretty much all advertised that they complied with the federal law, so I suspect that the only non-ebike bikes-with-motors are self-built.

@KLizotte 19099 wrote:

Well, I see the problem of faster bikes as an issue since we already that problem happening today with the fast road bikes.

I’ve said this before, but just to reiterate, my top speed on my road bike is much faster than my top speed on my ebike, because the ebike is so much heavier (and if I have enough space and the right conditions, even I can make my lightweight aluminum road bike get over 20mph). I support having clearly advertised speed limits on trails, but I don’t think that’s a reason to ban ebikes.

@KLizotte 19099 wrote:

There is also the issue of being able to correctly gauge someone’s speed, especially in dicey situations. One develops a general sense of how quickly a pedal cyclist can travel; throwing a motor into the mix makes things even trickier because now I can’t guess accurately where the cyclist will be at a particular point in time. If the bikes can’t go faster than regular road bikes this isn’t a problem, but if they start getting a lot faster….

This is a problem with bikes in general — some riders/bikes are deceptively fast. I’ve seen people accelerate a lot faster than I expected them to, just because I was unfairly stereotyping them (big bike, rider out of shape, whatever). I imagine that I’ve encountered some people out-and-about who were surprised by how fast I was going on my ebike — it’s bulky and upright — but I get past by people going faster who look like they’re on heavier bikes and look more out of shape than me. So it’s not the ebike causing the surprise.

Have you ever actually encounter an ebike that riding in a way that was unpredictably fast? I imagine you pass a few every month and don’t even notice because generally, they ride just like normal bikes. (I know what to look for, and I don’t see that many around). Have you ever ridden one? Did you really find it that different? I always describe it as above – just like a normal bike, but you always get to pedal like it’s a downhill (not a Courthouse-Rosslyn downhill, more like a Clarendon-50 downhill).

[jnva]

@dasgeh 19106 wrote:

Personally, I’d be fine with leaving the ban from MUPs for other bikes-with-motors that aren’t ebikes..

me too, but as it is now even a bike that meets the legal definition of low speed electric assist bicycle is banned from the trails. I agree that speed is a problem on the trails and no way do I advocate high speed ebikes being allowed.

[DismalScientist]

@KLizotte 19092 wrote:

I hear what you are saying about your ebiking but I do fear a future of 14 year olds on mini-motorcycles on the trails and similar scenarios. Of course we sort of have the same issue with traditional road bikes; improvements in design and materials have made them very fast compared to bikes of 20+ years ago.

I would like you all to know that I am perfectly capable of instilling fear in pedestrians (and all you poseurs with your plastic bikes) with my 35 year old road bike.:rolleyes: (Not that I choose to. Honest….)

Steel is real!

Over the last 20 (40?) years, shifting and braking have improved, but weight and speed only marginally so.

[Mark Blacknell]

Yeah, the function of higher speeds on trails has little to nothing to do with bike tech, and almost entirely to do with more riders.

[jabberwocky]

@jnva 19107 wrote:

me too, but as it is now even a bike that meets the legal definition of low speed electric assist bicycle is banned from the trails. I agree that speed is a problem on the trails and no way do I advocate high speed ebikes being allowed.

I think the main issue is thats really hard to actually check that an e-bike is in compliance with the law. Fast riders are already a problem on MUPs; its understandable that many are leery of allowing a class of vehicle with even higher potential speed on crowded trails. A fit roadie can go quite fast, sure, but becoming a fit roadie takes a lot of riding and experience. Its different when an inexperienced rider can hop on and instantly be cruising at 20+mph…

Its a super young industry and the tech is constantly evolving. My main concern is that e-bikes are almost certainly going to get faster and less expensive as time goes on. Its one thing to allow bikes today (they are uncommon and not much faster than most experienced roadies), but laws change slowly and the tech doesn’t…

[jnva]

@jabberwocky 19112 wrote:

I think the main issue is thats really hard to actually check that an e-bike is in compliance with the law. Fast riders are already a problem on MUPs; its understandable that many are leery of allowing a class of vehicle with even higher potential speed on crowded trails. A fit roadie can go quite fast, sure, but becoming a fit roadie takes a lot of riding and experience. Its different when an inexperienced rider can hop on and instantly be cruising at 20+mph…

Its a super young industry and the tech is constantly evolving. My main concern is that e-bikes are almost certainly going to get faster and less expensive as time goes on. Its one thing to allow bikes today (they are uncommon and not much faster than most experienced roadies), but laws change slowly and the tech doesn’t…

I joined this forum and started posting because I thought I could bring some sense to all of the posts I read about how dangerous ebikes are, and how they are going to take over the trails and ruin it for everyone. The common thing I am hearing is that on an ebike you don’t have to work hard to go fast. But that’s exactly the point and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. As a mode of transportation to get to work, it works great for me. I am certainly not trying to take over the mup and cause problems.

As far as experience and safe handling of an ebike going 20mph, this can be mastered in a week or so. It’s not that difficult.

[mstone]

@jnva 19115 wrote:

As far as experience and safe handling of an ebike going 20mph, this can be mastered in a week or so. It’s not that difficult.

Except, 20 is generally too fast for the close-in MUPs when other users are out and about–and the fact that anyone can jump on and do it in less than a week is exactly the problem…

[jnva]

@mstone 19116 wrote:

Except, 20 is generally too fast for the close-in MUPs when other users are out and about–and the fact that anyone can jump on and do it in less than a week is exactly the problem…

Part of mastering the top speed is knowing when to slow down. I stand by my statement that it can be learned in a week. I agree with you that 20 is too fast in most situations on the mup.

[Author]

Posts