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Comment by eesmith | Hacker News Reader

"Most of the commercial E-Bike uses 250W or 350W motors, because that’s what the European specs are. While that amount of power is able to achieve 20MPH range, it does take its time to get there. In the US, with the open roads, that’s simply not enough power to keep up with traffic. Quite frankly, they still feel like a plain bicycle and it’s a bit boring to ride. Higher adoption require more power."

As I understand it, the EU standard says there's supposed to be no power assist past 25km, which is about 16mh. That is, for e-bikes which don't require a license.

I agree. If you want a more powerful e-bike, you should have a license.

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At least in Germany it's also a matter of insurance. If your motor-assisted bike goes faster than 25 km/h you need insurance and a license plate.

Yeah, in the US, my understanding is that the regulation is much looser relative to the rest of the world. You can have a maximum of 750W with a top speed of 28 MPH without pedal assist, which in my view is plenty fast for a bike. The problem is that because US is such a small market for EBike that most are imported with European specs. In the US with straight and open roads, they just aren't fast enough

No. In the US the top speed is 20mph [1].

The author's bike is not street legal. It's classified as a motorcycle under US and Arizona law.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_bicycle_laws#United_S...

16mph is already surprisingly dangerous in crowded situations

I've found with mine drivers can be surprised, especially on inclines They expect you to slow to a crawl but you keep going and they find they haven't left enough room to pass.

This! I was a semi-professional (CAT 1/2) racer in college and routinely road in the 22 to 30+ MPH range. 30+ MPH is surprisingly easy on busy roads with a good draft coming off traffic. A day wouldn't go by while riding in the city that I didn't have a close call with a car and in fact a bus hit me once while passing me on a corner (the driver cut the corner, going over the white-line). In order to not die I did a lot of accident avoidance training and in fact this was something our team routinely pushed as part of our training. We'd focus on one particular aspect each month like learning how to crash by renting out some time at a gymnastics gym (foam pit).

I can't imagine anything past 15 MPH for the general public is a safe thing based solely on the bike handling skills of the majority of the general public. I literally put hundreds of hours into developing top-level bike handling skills that 99% of the population will never reach in order to ride quickly because once you reach a certain speed threshold, the threats (drivers not expecting you) and risks (more kinetic energy between you and the ground and you and a vehicle) go up significantly.

> I can't imagine anything past 15 MPH for the general public is a safe thing based solely on the bike handling skills of the majority of the general public.

It's pretty easy for most riders to get to 25 MPH or above when going downhill. That's why I take the lane in those situations and keep an eye out at every single intersection.

I think a lot of the situations that you describe could be prevented by taking the lane (riding between the center and left tiretrack position of the lane you're in) to discourage car and bus/truck drivers from passing you when it's not safe to do so. It will also make you more visible to passing traffic as well as traffic at intersections.

That's pretty much where I road most of the time when I was racing but never underestimate how much road rage that causes. It was fine when I was training in Bend, OR. Those drivers were very polite and in fact would always move into the other lane to pass. I honestly can't say enough good things about the people of Bend back in the early 90's. Beyond polite. Boise, ID on the other hand is a completely different world. I've had drivers call the police on me for doing this and the police take this stuff seriously in that if you do this, you are the problem. Oh, how they love to lecture about how you MUST ride as far to the right as safe & if that's in the wheel track of a vehicle, that's not safe. On one stop I had an office try to take me to the station for not having a drivers license to 'prove' my identity to him. He decided not to only after I explained to him how much my bike cost and that if he scratched the carbon fiber frame I'd be filing a claim with the departments insurance.

You're right in terms of one's experience being highly dependent on where they ride.

> Oh, how they love to lecture about how you MUST ride as far to the right as safe

Fortunately, my state (Virginia) has an exception (based on the Uniform Vehicle Code wording) to the keep as far right as practical rule that states that it doesn't apply if the lane is too narrow for a bicycle and other vehicle to safely travel side by side within the lane. If you take the width of a cyclist (2 ft), the distance between the end of the handlebar and edge of the road (minimum 2 ft), and the distance between the edge of the handlebar and the passing vehicle (at least 3 ft in most states), then you can argue that the cyclist needs a minimum of 7 feet. A typical passenger vehicle is about 6 ft wide. At typical lane is anywhere from 10 ft to 12 ft wide.

So for most lanes, you don't have to keep right at all. I haven't checked to see whether that's the case in Oregon or Idaho though.

Slightly OT, but if you want crash training, go mountain biking somewhere with sand. You'll endo a few times onto nice soft sand and learn a lot. That's all the 'training' I've had and it's gotten me through a couple 25+mph spills on the road with just scrapes. MTB is great for bike handling as well.

> While that amount of power is able to achieve 20MPH range, it does take its time to get there. In the US, with the open roads, that’s simply not enough power to keep up with traffic.

If you're talking about keeping up with traffic going more than 35 MPH, then the e-bike should have its brakes upgraded. I've gone down steeper hills before on my conventional bike at speeds up to 35 mph. With my cantilever rim brakes, it takes some distance to stop (quite a bit more than a car since you're effectively limited to a single wheel and a smaller contact patch relative to a car).

So if you have an e-bike that could keep up with 35 to 40 mph traffic, you'll still have to allow more distance to brake and leave plenty of following distance.

I have an ebike with 500 watt motor and I generally love it.

That is the way it works, you need a license, plates and insurance for more powerful ebikes(Speed Pedelec Fietsen), which can go quite fast; upwards of 50kph.

Aren't the >16mph bikes sold in the US too?

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