e-Bikes – Let’s talk

[Judd]

Just a reminder that if all of this talk of taking a Jump up 15th Street near Meridian Park has got your interest piqued: If you sign up for a Jump account and use offer code Jump4Judd you’ll get four free rides.

[Dewey]

@lordofthemark 175670 wrote:

I will need to let QOTM know that this still involves significant effort, as she sees the main reason to bike to be help with weight loss.

This jibes with a couple of exercise studies comparing METs expended during normal cycling with riding a Class 1 pedelec type of ebike :

Berntsen, S., Malnes, L., Langåker, A., & Bere, E. (2017). Physical activity when riding an electric assisted bicycle. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 14:55. doi: 10.1186/s12966-017-0513-z

Peterman, J., Morris, K., Kram, R., Byrnes, W., Peterman, J. E., Morris, K. L., & Byrnes, W. C. (2016). Pedelecs as a physically active transportation mode. European Journal Of Applied Physiology, 116(, 1565-1573. doi: 10.1007/s00421-016-3408-9

[Brandon]

@LhasaCM 175682 wrote:

I got a bit of an indirect answer when I raised the quote about the “safety feature” and asking for examples of unusual behavior. Ignoring the part of the answer about battery life and summarizing (since I can’t pull my e-mail up from this computer and don’t feel like retyping the whole thing):
1. Initially, the motor could shut off when there was pressure on the pedals and the brakes were also applied. This reportedly has been fixed in the software.
2. They will be “releasing upgrades to the controllers in the coming weeks to reduce the number of motor shut-off instances that are not due to a lack of battery charge.”

Still unclear what behavior really is causing it, but they seem to be working to make it better. The joys of being on the bleeding edge

Ok, I’ll throw my educated guess in the ring about the “safety cut-out” feature. It’s most likely not safety for the rider, but safety for the motor. They’ve likely programmed the controller to cut out when too much strain/demand/torque is present to ensure motor longevity. For cost, weight, etc. reasons most ebike actually use a lower watt motor and then overvolt them for brief periods as necessary/requested by the rider. My guess is that since these are shared bikes, they limit their controller to not allow for overvolt and to cut out when there’s too large a discrepancy between torque and cadence so you still need to shift gears like you would any other bike. Think of driving a manual car and trying to start from a stop in 3rd or 4th gear.

[LhasaCM]

@NovaEbike 175725 wrote:

Ok, I’ll throw my educated guess in the ring about the “safety cut-out” feature. It’s most likely not safety for the rider, but safety for the motor. They’ve likely programmed the controller to cut out when too much strain/demand/torque is present to ensure motor longevity. For cost, weight, etc. reasons most ebike actually use a lower watt motor and then overvolt them for brief periods as necessary/requested by the rider. My guess is that since these are shared bikes, they limit their controller to not allow for overvolt and to cut out when there’s too large a discrepancy between torque and cadence so you still need to shift gears like you would any other bike. Think of driving a manual car and trying to start from a stop in 3rd or 4th gear.

Excellent points.

[secstate]

Today I learned that a number of European countries provide subsidies or incentives for e-bike purchases. Last year, France offered a 200 Euro subsidy for pedal-assist bikes. Norway has a large subsidy for electric cargo bikes, and Sweden has now announced a 25% e-bike subsidy of up to 1000 Euros (!). The hope is to reduce car travel and overall greenhouse emissions.

It’s interesting to think about why regular (non-e) bicycles are not chosen for subsidies. Perhaps one assumption is if you can’t buy a bicycle, surely you can’t afford a car, but that seems dubious — people who assess they must have a vehicle may not have much spare cash to purchase a bicycle as well. More likely, the belief is that e-bikes reduce more vehicle miles than regular bikes. (Perhaps even current bicycle owners would drive or take taxis less if they had pedal assist bikes).

[dasgeh]

@secstate 175879 wrote:

Today I learned that a number of European countries provide subsidies or incentives for e-bike purchases.

Germany has incentives for all cargo bikes — e and not, and many if not most German states have incentives for e-bikes.

[Dewey]

@secstate 175879 wrote:

Today I learned that a number of European countries provide subsidies or incentives for e-bike purchases.

But not in the UK, mustn’t grumble…(sotto voce: bloody tories)

[cvcalhoun]

@Judd 175618 wrote:

When you’re looking for a bike in the app, it should tell you the charge percentage of each bike to make sure that you’re not getting a dud. I’ve been able to get up inclines pretty easily in one, but nothing as steep as 15th St at Meridian Hill. There was a pretty good northern wind all weekend.

I hope you used offer code Jump4Judd – if so, take one of them babies out for three more free rides and see if the experience is different. Have you gotten QOTM to try one yet? I’d be interested in hearing her experience of trying one out and whether she’d bike more if she had a ped-elec.

Jump4Judd didn’t work for me.

[Dewey]

GGW reviewed the Lime-E ebikeshare bike and compared it to its competitor from JUMP. Wow what a piece of garbage: single speed, mushy brakes that are worse than the JUMP ebike’s roller brakes, weak motor assist that can’t climb hills – I wonder if they went with the cheapest 24v hub motor? Hitherto I’ve thought of ebikeshare as a great ambassador, but if a cyclist got on a Lime-E they might develop completely the wrong idea about ebikes. By contrast JUMP clearly have thought about how people might use an ebike travelling around DC.

[Dewey]

Encouraging news, the District should be aiming for equity and legalize Motorized Bicycles riding on sidewalks outside the business district. Thank you Jim Sebastian and DC DDoT for looking at updating DC regulations.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/as-e-biking-grows-us-cities-consider-easing-rules-on-where-the-machines-may-be-used/2018/04/06/d20b2f58-3756-11e8-8fd2-49fe3c675a89_story.html?utm_term=.dfe03324cdec

[Harry Meatmotor]

WaPo wrote:

The Class 3 has a larger motor that allows speeds up to 28 mph — and should only be ridden on streets, advocates say.

Advocates haven’t visited this thread, apparently.

[Dewey]

Thanks to @Judd for the heads up on the dockless bikeshare thread: Uber has bought the JUMP ebikeshare company.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/09/uber-acquires-bike-share-startup-jump/

[Dewey]

The 2017 National Electric Bike Owner Survey carried out by the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University has been published, lots of interesting data!

[Dewey]

Arizona has passed the People for Bikes 3-class legislation to regulate ebikes, becoming the ninth US state to do so.

[PeteD]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/25/older-men-using-e-bikes-behind-rising-death-toll-among-dutch-cyclists

Peter van der Knaap, director of the Dutch Road Safety Research Foundation, said older men were too confident in their ability not only to cycle at the speeds e-bikes make possible but also to mount or dismount the bike in the first place.

[Author]

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