e-Bikes – Let’s talk

[lordofthemark]

@cvcalhoun 183208 wrote:

Sounds like a plan. But I would caution you, I managed to win the Tortoise Prize (slowest rider in all of Freezing Saddles) so many times that I think I retired it. Freezingsaddles.org seems to be down at the moment, so I can’t check, but I believe my average speed last year was somewhat south of 8 mph.

I’ve given the prize twice, IIRC. Leslie won it. But thats becaue she has issues with Strava

[DismalScientist]

@lordofthemark 183200 wrote:

I will be commuting, doing errands, recreating/exploring alone, and riding in social rides. For most people an ebike would be fine for 90% to 100% of the riding they do.

I commute, recreate, and run errands by bike. I would never use an e-bike for that because that would be cheating.:rolleyes:

[n18]

Here is what I suggest for E-Bikes: All E-Bikes should have two modes:

1 – Road mode: No speed limit.
2 – Trail mode: Full power(Up to 10 MPH, for hills), 200 Watts limit between 10 and 15 MPH, perhaps gradually reducing power, then cut off after that, but the rider can still peddle.

The numbers above are just suggestions, I don’t ride an E-Bike, so I don’t know if these are reasonable.

How counties can enforce them:

1 – Require E-Bike manufacturers to include GPS, and county rules are uploaded to it and applied automatically.
2 – No GPS, but counties put RFID chips at trail heads, and E-Bikes read the rules and apply them automatically.

Finally, it doesn’t make sense to me to outlaw E-Bikes altogether, 10 MPH is fine, or even 7 to 8 MPH in some cases.

[Steve O]

@n18 183216 wrote:

Here is what I suggest for E-Bikes: All E-Bikes should have two modes:

1 – Road mode: No speed limit.
2 – Trail mode: Full power(Up to 10 MPH, for hills), 200 Watts limit between 10 and 15 MPH, perhaps gradually reducing power, then cut off after that, but the rider can still pedal.

The numbers above are just suggestions, I don’t ride an E-Bike, so I don’t know if these are reasonable.

How counties can enforce them:

1 – Require E-Bike manufacturers to include GPS, and county rules are uploaded to it and applied automatically.
2 – No GPS, but counties put RFID chips at trail heads, and E-Bikes read the rules and apply them automatically.

Finally, it doesn’t make sense to me to outlaw E-Bikes altogether, 10 MPH is fine, or even 7 to 8 MPH in some cases.

I am not a big fan of trying to regulate these to death. One outcome is that jurisdictions then relieve the pressure to create transportation systems that move us away from being so auto-centric. The more people using scooters and e-bikes and electric unicycles the better, IMO. The more restrictions we place, then the fewer people will use them.
Agreed that many of our MUPs and other bike infrastructure are not made for these, and there’s not enough of it. But instead of trying to squeeze the genie to fit inside the existing bottle, we should make more bottles…or make it bigger…or make a barrel .

[buschwacker]

@n18 183216 wrote:

Here is what I suggest for E-Bikes: All E-Bikes should have two modes:

1 – Road mode: No speed limit.
2 – Trail mode: Full power(Up to 10 MPH, for hills), 200 Watts limit between 10 and 15 MPH, perhaps gradually reducing power, then cut off after that, but the rider can still peddle.

The numbers above are just suggestions, I don’t ride an E-Bike, so I don’t know if these are reasonable.

How counties can enforce them:

1 – Require E-Bike manufacturers to include GPS, and county rules are uploaded to it and applied automatically.
2 – No GPS, but counties put RFID chips at trail heads, and E-Bikes read the rules and apply them automatically.

Finally, it doesn’t make sense to me to outlaw E-Bikes altogether, 10 MPH is fine, or even 7 to 8 MPH in some cases.

I’ve been commuting 16 mi/day on an e-bike for 8 months now, and so have some opinions. It seems reasonable to me that mandating a power cut off at 20mph and max 1000W (1 hp) for e-bikes on trails/MUPs (i.e., only “Class 3” e-bikes allowed) would solve the issue nicely.

In practice, a 20mph cut-off for power assist does not mean that you can ride the throttle to cruise all over the place at 20 mph. A consumer e-bike is heavier than a normal bicycle to account for greater wear and tear, so even a powerful 1000W motor just doesn’t let you scoot around at max speed. Average speed is more like 17-18mph – you pass cyclists up hills but they commonly pass you on the downhill and flats.

Slap a 20mph speed limit on the trails and you’ve got a feasible regulatory scheme.

[hozn]

@buschwacker 183228 wrote:

I’ve been commuting 16 mi/day on an e-bike for 8 months now, and so have some opinions. It seems reasonable to me that mandating a power cut off at 20mph and max 1000W (1 hp) for e-bikes on trails/MUPs (i.e., only “Class 3” e-bikes allowed) would solve the issue nicely.

Small point, but I think you mean “Class 1 & 2 e-bikes allowed”. As I understand it, (CA) Class 3 can go up to 28mph assisted.

It seems obvious — or at least I’m hopeful — that this is where we’ll end up — i.e. with regulations that match the direction the other states of the USA are taking. I think it’d be just great. It might suck a little for the people that bought class-3 e-bikes with intent to use them on the MUPs, but that’s a pretty high-class problem. I’m fairly confident that those riders don’t care what the regulations say anyway; likely as not they’re already disregarding “no-ebikes” regulations if they’re riding into the city.

[dasgeh]

@n18 183216 wrote:

Here is what I suggest for E-Bikes: All E-Bikes should have two modes:

1 – Road mode: No speed limit.
2 – Trail mode: Full power(Up to 10 MPH, for hills), 200 Watts limit between 10 and 15 MPH, perhaps gradually reducing power, then cut off after that, but the rider can still peddle.

The numbers above are just suggestions, I don’t ride an E-Bike, so I don’t know if these are reasonable.

How counties can enforce them:

1 – Require E-Bike manufacturers to include GPS, and county rules are uploaded to it and applied automatically.
2 – No GPS, but counties put RFID chips at trail heads, and E-Bikes read the rules and apply them automatically.

Finally, it doesn’t make sense to me to outlaw E-Bikes altogether, 10 MPH is fine, or even 7 to 8 MPH in some cases.

Just to pile on: I’ve never seen GPS be precise enough to distinguish between, e.g. the Custis Trail in Rosslyn and Lee Hwy. Having the motor suddenly cap at 10pm while on Lee Hwy beside the Custis Trail would be a bad thing. It would have the effect of encouraging ebike users to use the Trail instead of the street, which is the opposite of what we want (if riders are willing to use the street, they should, so the trail has more capacity).

Also, 200W is ridiculously low. Personally, I’d leave everything on the speed limit, and allow the fact that it’s expensive and eats battery to have more power. But, if you’re hauling a lot of weight, you need that power just to get up the hills. If we want families with kids to bike more, we need ebikes with more power. If we want a future where more deliveries are made by bike, we need ebikes with more power.

Also, have you ever biked 7-8 mph. That’s the speed we go on Kidical Mass rides (rides with kids on their own bikes). It’s difficult for many adults to ride that slowly and stay upright — ask those here who have ridden with us. Any speed limit under 15mph is laughable imo.

[Judd]

@dasgeh 183244 wrote:

Also, have you ever biked 7-8 mph. That’s the speed we go on Kidical Mass rides (rides with kids on their own bikes). It’s difficult for many adults to ride that slowly and stay upright — ask those here who have ridden with us. Any speed limit under 15mph is laughable imo.

I marshaled with a Kidical Mass ride recently and confirm that it is very difficult to ride at kidical speeds.

I also ride dockless scooters occasionally and at 215 pounds they slow down to walking speed on slight hills. If I had a cargo bike with some kiddos in it or a couple of bags of cat litter I’d want more than 200 watts to assist.

[lordofthemark]

Well I’ve finally found a bike skill I am elite at – I can ride at, I guess, 3MPH (maybe its 4MPH?) without falling down – I know this from times where I have used a sidewalk to get a around a bikeability gap, and have found myself behind a ped with no room to pass politely (yes, I know it usually makes more sense to dismount at that point, but not always) This is on a hybrid, not a CaBi. I guess I can do that on a CaBi as well.

[n18]

@Steve O 183222 wrote:

I am not a big fan of trying to regulate these to death. One outcome is that jurisdictions then relieve the pressure to create transportation systems that move us away from being so auto-centric. The more people using scooters and e-bikes and electric unicycles the better, IMO. The more restrictions we place, then the fewer people will use them.
Agreed that many of our MUPs and other bike infrastructure are not made for these, and there’s not enough of it. But instead of trying to squeeze the genie to fit inside the existing bottle, we should make more bottles…or make it bigger…or make a barrel .

Unfortunately, without restrictions, we get jerks who would abuse the trails, and then more calls to restrict them. In other states, they came up with no E-Bikes signs, and trust me, they are not pretty to look at. It disadvantage people with health issues and seniors. See this Google mages link.

My goal for Trail mode is to mimic average cyclist speed(not the fastest cyclist), including slowing to around 10 MPH when going uphill. I prefer the terms Road/Trail modes over California number classification because a potential buyer would ask “What is road mode?”, or “Why there are road and trail modes?”, which leads to educating the buyer about safer E-Bike practices.

We could further divide Road/Trail modes to something like Road Mode 1, 2, etc, and the same for Trail Mode. Trail mode could be divided into full mode(No pedaling, for those who wear work clothes and want to arrive without breaking a sweat, but still mimic average cyclist speed), and Fitness mode(Like in the way back home, when they don’t care if they sweat a little).

@dasgeh 183244 wrote:

Just to pile on: I’ve never seen GPS be precise enough to distinguish between, e.g. the Custis Trail in Rosslyn and Lee Hwy. Having the motor suddenly cap at 10pm while on Lee Hwy beside the Custis Trail would be a bad thing. It would have the effect of encouraging ebike users to use the Trail instead of the street, which is the opposite of what we want (if riders are willing to use the street, they should, so the trail has more capacity).

Also, 200W is ridiculously low. Personally, I’d leave everything on the speed limit, and allow the fact that it’s expensive and eats battery to have more power. But, if you’re hauling a lot of weight, you need that power just to get up the hills. If we want families with kids to bike more, we need ebikes with more power. If we want a future where more deliveries are made by bike, we need ebikes with more power.

Also, have you ever biked 7-8 mph. That’s the speed we go on Kidical Mass rides (rides with kids on their own bikes). It’s difficult for many adults to ride that slowly and stay upright — ask those here who have ridden with us. Any speed limit under 15mph is laughable imo.

The number of Watts is just a suggestion, and also there should be no sudden speed limits. Maybe after a 30 seconds delay the new limit takes effect. As you have noted, GPS is not precise enough when a road is next to a trail. I suppose that instead of GPS/RFID that E-Bikes could have two buttons(Road/Trail), so the user presses one depending on the situation, but there is nothing stopping jerks from using Road mode always.

[Judd]

@lordofthemark 183246 wrote:

Well I’ve finally found a bike skill I am elite at – I can ride at, I guess, 3MPH (maybe its 4MPH?) without falling down – I know this from times where I have used a sidewalk to get a around a bikeability gap, and have found myself behind a ped with no room to pass politely (yes, I know it usually makes more sense to dismount at that point, but not always) This is on a hybrid, not a CaBi. I guess I can do that on a CaBi as well.

Elite bike skill needs the Elite button.

[peterw_diy]

@lordofthemark 183246 wrote:

Well I’ve finally found a bike skill I am elite at – I can ride at, I guess, 3MPH (maybe its 4MPH?) without falling down

Sounds like the beginnings of a Pointless Prize – longest ride under 4 MPH. Sure, vicegrip and dismal can put in double centuries, but can they do that at Kidical speeds?

[Dewey]

@TwoWheelsDC 183199 wrote:

“how would you like me to commute from DC to Virginia on my e-bike and NOT violate the law?” I can either a)take the lane on Key Bridge, then take the lane out on Lee Hwy and add like 7 miles to my commute, or b)ride out Canal Road and take the lane on Chain Bridge. Yeah, sorry no.

I agree, it’s inequitous, but now the local governments provide ebikeshare as a transportation utility (the fleet of CaBi+ Class 1 Pedelecs) it should support arguments for changing the various anti ebike laws and municipal regulations.

[huskerdont]

@lordofthemark 183246 wrote:

Well I’ve finally found a bike skill I am elite at – I can ride at, I guess, 3MPH (maybe its 4MPH?) without falling down

You and me both. My Garmin watch buzzes me with autopause whenever I get down to 2 mph, which makes me laugh out loud when I’m toiling up 41st street and actually too out of breath to laugh out loud.

[Dewey]

@buschwacker 183228 wrote:

max 1000W (1 hp)

POI I understand 750w is 1hp source: https://www.cpsc.gov/PageFiles/93295/low.pdf
Regulating power/current is an issue as newer manufactured ebike controllers use higher quality mosfets for lower operating temperatures/greater reliability at peak power but an unintended consequence of raising the rated controller amperage higher is that it pushes a system outside the 750w CPSC limit which is also the power limit for Class 1 and 2 ebikes under the People for Bikes model ebike legislation. For example, Grin Tech’s Infineon controllers start at 20a which would enable a legal build provided you stick to a 36v battery (36×20=720w), but generally they bundle 25a controllers with their direct drive motors (36×25=900w). This would still meet Virginia’s current 1,000w limit for a power assisted electric bicycle, though that limit would drop to 750w if/when Virginia adopt the People for Bikes 3-class ebike legislation for the purpose of permitting Class 1 and 2 ebikes to ride on trails. AIUI this is why a speed limit which is software programmable, rather than a power limit below 1,000w which is a hardware issue, is preferable. Maybe future legislation in VA, MD, DC might include something like New York City are proposing with a 1-year credit for riders on low incomes to be able to take their ebike into the shop to replace or reprogram the controller as necessary to meet the regulated power/speed limits?

[Author]

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