On E-Bikes…

[Tim Kelley]

@dasgeh 122273 wrote:

To your second, both are governed to no assist past 20 mph, I think. On the box, I’ve only hit that on downhills. On the midtail, I’ve hit it on some flats if I’m riding alone, but I’ve only known that because I have a display that tells me. I don’t think I could tell from riding alone.

Interesting–to give you some perspective from where I’m coming from, with the box ebike setup I’ve been on, it was a frequent and regular thing to bump up against the 20mph limit. The Courthouse to Clarendon false flat was no problem and even the Courthouse hill would only slow it down to 17 or 18 mph at full assist, and that’s with my full sized carcass on it.

[dasgeh]

@americancyclo 122272 wrote:

I think Tim’s position is that an inexperienced rider won’t pedal a standard bike very fast, and is therefore not very dangerous. He assumes that speed and skill will grow together with time.

That same inexperienced rider on a e-bike however, can immediately go 20+mph, and may not have the time in the saddle to control the bike at those speeds.

This argument also assumes that the danger of speed on a bike is somehow not apparent to an inexperienced rider. I don’t think that’s correct. eBike or not (think regular bike on a downhill), you can tell that going faster means the bike gets more squirrelly and that reaction and braking time go up. Which goes back to my first point: inexperienced riders are more likely to be more risk-adverse, so when they start going faster and realize that they need more skill, they’ll simply slow down. Problem solved.

To Steve O’s point, most cars can go upwards of 90 mph. We don’t say “16/18 year olds might be driving those things: we install a device that prevents the car from going over 25mph” (though maybe we should). We govern behavior.

[dasgeh]

@Tim Kelley 122278 wrote:

Interesting–to give you some perspective from where I’m coming from, with the box ebike setup I’ve been on, it was a frequent and regular thing to bump up against the 20mph limit. The Courthouse to Clarendon false flat was no problem and even the Courthouse hill would only slow it down to 17 or 18 mph at full assist, and that’s with my full sized carcass on it.

Well, yes, you can pedal harder than me, Tim. (I also think you were on a Bullitt, which is quiet a bit lighter than our bakfiets).

[dasgeh]

Another problem with the proposal to limit the governor to a lower speed: some motors are calibrated to just cut our at X watts, where X is the amount of power needed to get a rider of 170 lb (?I think that’s the weight in the relevant regulation) and the bike up to 20mph on a flat. That same wattage will not get to 20mph on an uphill and/or with more weight. So if 20mph is lowered, the wattage will be lowered, and those who carry a lot of weight around hilly areas will have less “help” to work with.

[Tim Kelley]

@dasgeh 122281 wrote:

Well, yes, you can pedal harder than me, Tim. (I also think you were on a Bullitt, which is quiet a bit lighter than our bakfiets).

Yeah, it’s likely a stronger electric motor on a lighter bike. I mention that simply because it helps me understand your position–since your speed is considerably less vs someone else who is consistently cruising around at 20.0mph I can see why you have your opinion.

[Tim Kelley]

@dasgeh 122282 wrote:

Another problem with the proposal to limit the governor to a lower speed: some motors are calibrated to just cut our at X watts, where X is the amount of power needed to get a rider of 170 lb (?I think that’s the weight in the relevant regulation) and the bike up to 20mph on a flat. That same wattage will not get to 20mph on an uphill and/or with more weight. So if 20mph is lowered, the wattage will be lowered, and those who carry a lot of weight around hilly areas will have less “help” to work with.

Yeah, you’re right about the weight. Wikipedia has a great article on the the regulations. Looks like it’s 20mph or 750w for 170lbs. But what happens if a heavy cargo load is going downhill–does the assist motor continue even though the rider hasn’t hit the wattage cutoff but the speed is greater than 20? Even if the 20mph limit was lowered, manufacturers could just get around it by using the speed cutoff rather than a watts/kg calculation. In my experience on the Bionx, the assist cuts off at 20mph even going downhill, regardless of watts.

Oh, and it also have a regeneration mode–that’s fun to pedal around and see if you can charge it up!

[dasgeh]

@Tim Kelley 122285 wrote:

Yeah, it’s likely a stronger electric motor on a lighter bike. I mention that simply because it helps me understand your position–since your speed is considerably less vs someone else who is consistently cruising around at 20.0mph I can see why you have your opinion.

On the Boda, which is what I normally ride, my speed is consistently 18 mph on the flats when I let the bike go as fast as it can. Not that much of a difference. But I often don’t think that’s safe, so I brake and don’t go that fast.

[dasgeh]

@Tim Kelley 122288 wrote:

Yeah, you’re right about the weight. Wikipedia has a great article on the the regulations. Looks like it’s 20mph or 750w for 170lbs. But what happens if a heavy cargo load is going downhill–does the assist motor continue even though the rider hasn’t hit the wattage cutoff but the speed is greater than 20? Even if the 20mph limit was lowered, manufacturers could just get around it by using the speed cutoff rather than a watts/kg calculation. In my experience on the Bionx, the assist cuts off at 20mph even going downhill, regardless of watts.

Oh, and it also have a regeneration mode–that’s fun to pedal around and see if you can charge it up!

I assumed that it was cheaper to have the motor cut off at a wattage instead of a speed, but I’m not sure. But, yes, you’re right that manufacturers could get around it and always get to the top legal speed. But some don’t now, so I’m not sure what makes you think they will in the future.

Also, you haven’t addressed the point that cars don’t have speed-limited motors (*or at least not limited to anything close to the legal speed limit*). Why would you spend time arguing that bike motors should be speed-limited when cars kill so many more people?

[GovernorSilver]

@dasgeh 122280 wrote:

This argument also assumes that the danger of speed on a bike is somehow not apparent to an inexperienced rider. I don’t think that’s correct. eBike or not (think regular bike on a downhill), you can tell that going faster means the bike gets more squirrelly and that reaction and braking time go up. Which goes back to my first point: inexperienced riders are more likely to be more risk-adverse, so when they start going faster and realize that they need more skill, they’ll simply slow down. Problem solved.

As an inexperienced rider, I agree! I’ve been riding since May 11, 2015. Yet another reason I don’t agree with that argument, even though I have a better understanding now of the rationale behind it. I still remember how scary it was going just 10 mph on a bike, when I’d just learned how to balance myself on a bike and had questionable control, at best, over turns. It took about a month of practice before I attempted riding on the MVT – and even then that descent from Washington down MVT to Jones Point Park was pretty scary to me.

It’s actually only last month that I started riding between the bollards in Jones Point Park without slowing down significantly for fear of hitting one. I nearly hit a bollard the first time I rode into that park.

[Tim Kelley]

@dasgeh 122290 wrote:

Also, you haven’t addressed the point that cars don’t have speed-limited motors (*or at least not limited to anything close to the legal speed limit*). Why would you spend time arguing that bike motors should be speed-limited when cars kill so many more people?

I don’t think it’s a bad idea to limit the speed of cars either. But this is a bicycle forum.

[Tim Kelley]

@GovernorSilver 122292 wrote:

As an inexperienced rider, I agree! I’ve been riding since May 11, 2015. Yet another reason I don’t agree with that argument, even though I have a better understanding now of the rationale behind it. I still remember how scary it was going just 10 mph on a bike, when I’d just learned how to balance myself on a bike and had questionable control, at best, over turns. It took about a month of practice before I attempted riding on the MVT – and even then that descent from Washington down MVT to Jones Point Park was pretty scary to me.

It’s actually only last month that I started riding between the bollards in Jones Point Park without slowing down significantly for fear of hitting one. I nearly hit a bollard the first time I rode into that park.

So that being said, when you started out on May 11th, would you not have ridden an ebike if it’s max speed was limited to 15mph instead of 20mph? Does that top speed make a difference for you?

[DismalScientist]

@GovernorSilver 122267 wrote:

.

A troll would not attend WABA happy hours, knowing he’ll have to face the music for anything he says in the forums, from fellow forumites.

I most certainly do attend happy hours. Well, not WABA happy hours…:rolleyes:

[DismalScientist]

@Tim Kelley 122293 wrote:

I don’t think it’s a bad idea to limit the speed of cars either. But this is a bicycle forum.

I think aerobars should be eliminated.:rolleyes:
Don’t get me started on brifters…:rolleyes:

[GovernorSilver]

@Tim Kelley 122297 wrote:

So that being said, when you started out on May 11th, would you not have ridden an ebike if it’s max speed was limited to 15mph instead of 20mph? Does that top speed make a difference for you?

Given there was a point in my life that anything faster over 10 mph terrified me as a beginner, the top speed wouldn’t have made a difference.

BTW, the Spokes Etc. guys were saying they could hit 27 mph on that new Trek pedal-assist model (LIFT + STEPS I think was the model name), not that it would have mattered to me. So that’s how the “27 mph” popped into my head as I started participating in this thread. I don’t know if it’s because the display units were prototypes, or production models that hadn’t yet had some kind of limiting mechanism put in place to impose a max 20 mph limit, or something else.

[GovernorSilver]

@DismalScientist 122299 wrote:

I most certainly do attend happy hours. Well, not WABA happy hours…:rolleyes:

Haha, well, I had a good time last month – arlingtonrider, lordofthemark, Dan (something), Bobco, and others whose names I’m forgetting were all cool to me so that’s why I’m going again this month.

[Author]

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