Harry Meatmotor
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Harry Meatmotor
Participant@peterw_diy 97519 wrote:
Why? Many e-bike motors are very quiet — we’re not talking about allowing mopeds on singletrack. If we allow all those wimps with suspension forks, why not e-assist, too? Seriously.
It’s about fat people cheating up the hills.
Participant@jabberwocky 97502 wrote:
FWIW, I’ve seen a few articles lately about e-bike advocates and manufacturers pressuring IMBA to allow e-bikes on trails. See: http://www.bicycleretailer.com/industry-news/2014/08/25/electric-mountain-bikes-are-powerful-topic-imba-world-summit#.VEaflBb3d-M
I’m definitely very firmly against anything with a motor on MTB trails.
This is one insight that i think can be expanded. The industry is pushing this waaaay hard. As you may have noticed at all 3 major cycling tradeshows, e-bikes were everywhere. The reason? The aging boomer market share. Trek, Giant, and Specialized have already sold most of the boomers (and their kids!) MTBs or hybrids in the late 90’s/early 2000’s. At least 1/3 of them* bought Specialized Roubaixs between 2003 and today, and the last hold outs are going to be sold e-bikes soon. The industry needs the trails to be ready for the coming electrification of the cycling activity. Once they’re legal, the next hurdle will be charging stations at the bottom of the DH course (and at the intersection of doom!), and trailer-hitch mounted bike racks with charging ports.
* completely unscientific WAG
ParticipantI think there’s also an underlying view of cycling as a childish activity or something only poor people do (because, if they weren’t poor, they’d be driving a car). Mix in a dose of low-level homophobia (since a lot of us males wear tight fitting clothing while riding) with the moral light-weightedness and you’ve got a perfect storm of ‘Murican scorn.
Participant@AFHokie 97391 wrote:
I believe what you seek is a bicycle version of the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108. I don’t think bikes need anything quite as in depth or specific, but some sort of baseline standardization would be nice. Unfortunately creating one would make herding cats on catnip look easy.
completely unrelated aside: I did all the technical illustrations for FMVSS108! Yay for graphic designers!
edit: actually, not all of them – only those after page 511 or so.
Participant@Oldtowner 97425 wrote:
It’s all relative, I guess.
and generally inflated, imho. much like the n+1 rule, when cycling speeds are mentioned on the forum, they typically follow f(S) = s × 1.25, where f(S) is “Forum Speed” and s is actual speed.
Participant@Geoff 97326 wrote:
Surely that rates a groan!
But what is worse, is that when I read Harry’s post, I immediately thought of other signals!the ambiguity was intentional!
Participant@Geoff 97305 wrote:
* I should get reflective wrist bands so my signals are easier to see. The trail was unlit at that point.
A lot of full finger riding gloves have reflective index and middle finger tips for just that purpose.
Participant@acl 97144 wrote:
Curious if the study emulated real-world conditions including first noticing and recognizing the light as something to pay special attention to? Or was this just looking at the ability to judge speed/direction of something once you were asked to pay attention to it?
Anecdotally, (ie, in my personal experience as a driver), there are a lot of steady-on red lights on the road at night– the tail lights of other cars, which are mostly moving at car-speeds. One more steady-on red light doesn’t immediately catch the eye and trigger the brain to “pay attention to this something different over there that might be moving at a different speed”. I totally believe that, if you are paying equal attention to a steady light vs a flashing light it is easier to judge the speed and distance of the steady light. I am more skeptical that in real-world conditions, people are paying equal attention to judging the speed and distance of those two things.
It was a detection then recognition style study; detect & recognize at different angles of incidence and distance. There was minimal light pollution, too. The best implementation of smart lighting on emergency vehicles that I’ve seen (in VA) is the flash-flash-steady-on brake lights that many emergency vehicles use when the driver hits the brake pedal. That’s probably the best way to imagine a two part detection and recognition cognitive task at it’s most effective. On a bike, some lights have a steady on lower wattage lamp with a higher wattage flashing lamp; flasher = detection, steady-on = recognition.
Participantone little tid bit, too:
I see a lot of riders using flashing rear lights. I’d recommend keeping both front and rear lights on constantly. I used to work a transportation research institute and we did a small study on different flashing and non-flashing lights for both stationary and (slow) moving road maintenance vehicles and found that steady-on lighting greatly improves other motorists’ ability to estimate speed and direction of another vehicle. Flashing lights are good for stationary objects, but not so great for moving objects.
ParticipantDon’t ride with a white-knuckle death grip on the bars. Ride relaxed and let the bike go where it wants to. Steer the bike with your hips, knees, and feet.
ParticipantParticipant@Dickie 96596 wrote:
and thus became part of a make-shift peloton of … GASP… elite riders.
I’m certainly not going to forgive you for this.
ParticipantCrystal City to MVT connector, please!
October 8, 2014 at 7:11 pm in reply to: Bike parking accessible to the public at Federal buildings #1011764ParticipantY U NO crowdsource a public bike parking layer on Google maps?
ParticipantAccording to a buddy of mine that’s lived in London for the last couple years, yes, cycling has indeed replaced golf for many young urban professionals and snooty banker/management-folk there. In one office my friend worked at, almost every male employee would ride every summer weekend, usually riding out-and-back overnight trips.
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