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Comment by ohmaigad | Hacker News Reader

Somewhat irrelevant in places where motor assist is limited to 25kph (EU for example).

I dunno if it's truly irrelevant,

didn't a celebrity spin out of control in a backyard and break his back at less than that? https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/aug/09/simon-cowell-b...

I think part of it may be familiarity perhaps, which I assume is higher in Euroworld.

It turns out that wasn't an e-bike, it was an electric motorcycle capable of 60 mph.

Nancy the Van Seat, a comfy DIY e-couch conversion vehicle created at the Stupid Fun Club, had tremendously overpowered electric motors, a handheld remote control, could turn on a dime, but had no seatbelts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvXG4gQ2FWI&ab_channel=Digit...

No.

That would not even remotely be classed as an electronic bike in the EU.

It is far too powerful for that.

His electric motorcycle had a top speed of 60 mph (97 km/h) and a motor power of 15 kW.

The legal limits for a pedelec cycle in the EU are a maximum assisted speed of 15.5 mph (25km/h) and a motor of no more than 250w.

The motor in Simon Cowell's electric motorcycle is 60 times as powerful as the legal limit in the EU

thanks for this info!

When I first read the story I had assumed the accident occurred at very slow speed or full stop and mashing the throttle - so the 60mph v 25 would not have been something I would consider..

but 15kW vs 250w - now this is something that makes sense in this scenario for sure!

glad to have learned to eye this metric for this.

The issue is naming - term e-bike is used for everything while most if not all consumer "e-bikes" are actually pedelecs (no throttle, limited to 25kph and 250W, assisting only when pedalling). Every other e-bike is classified as moped/motorcycle which might require licence plate, registration and insurance. At least it should be like that in EU.

I wouldn’t want to go faster. 15 mph is probably faster than I’ve ever gone.

I wouldn't worry too much, I have routinely done about 50-60 km/h on a motorized bike and had 0 issues. Always had the best disk brakes I could buy though.

Anekdata doesn’t prove much here. Some things you might not be considering:

1. At 60 km/h you are going the speed of a car but car drivers don’t expect you to be going that fast and as a result aren’t wired to look for you. Doesn’t matter how fast you were going when a car going 60-90 km/h didn’t see you and ran you over.

2. Brakes are only half the equation. If your tires start slipping your brakes will lock up and then you go splat.

3. If you do happen to get off at 60 km/h you will have road rash that will take off large chunks of skin even if you wear an armored jacket and armored gloves. In spandex you’ll be looking like Deadpool pretty quickly.

4. Your tires will heat up pretty quickly at these speeds. That will affect how they handle quite a bit.

I have to plan for what cars might do at 15 mph.

I certainly wouldn't casually ride the shoulder of a US highway at 35 mph.

Re #1 - If you are driving at places without bike lanes being able to move together with traffic flow is essential. Which then you can ask - do you also not expect motorcyclist to be on road either?

A motorcycle is an order of magnitude more visible than a bicycle and goes in the traffic, not next to it.

How so? If you got lights and hi viz you are about the same. Yes motorbikes are slightly bulkier, but not in a way that's going to make a difference.

Motorbikes are certainly louder which IMO why we should ban motorbikes altogether. I hate visceral hate to them.

Have you ever seen videos of how invisible you look despite all the high viz stuff? In some cases it becomes urban camo. Take a look at this video, especially at 2:30 or so. It’ll show you just how little visibility you’ll have:

https://youtu.be/eqQBubilSXU

Your best bet is to have all your clothing match your bike, Power Rangers style, to increase your chances. And lots and lots of very bright lights. One little handlebar mounted light is going to look like a reflection or a flashlight.

Cyclists going 60 km/h are in traffic, not next to it.

And at the same or greater risk of being rear ended as a car or motorcycle while wearing a foam hat and spandex underwear…

Motor cycles get treated with a lot more respect than bikes. I had a 50km/hr ebike with red back light, front white blnky light. Cars turning left into your opposite lane of travel were the worst. They never judged my speed correctly and there were many instances where I had to emergency brake to avoid a t-bone many times.

I only road residential roads and bike paths, planned my route carefully to avoid highways. Key things are to take the lane if you can do the speed limit and only give it up if safe to do so. Avoid driving close to parked cars that will open their door and kill you. Watch left turns in front of you.

Note that as a cyclist I would also be very pissed if a 50kh/h bike was on a bike lane. Maybe outside the city on long stretches it’s fine.

A road bike on a bike path with a rider worth their salt is a bit silly as well.

The thing with riding that on a bike path was that I had no concerns slowing down amongst pedestrians or on blind corners as it was no effort to get back up to speed. I was less inclined on my road bike due to the effort. Road bikes can get up to that speed, had a few that came close to pacing me. I understand the sentiment but I had zero incidents in four years of commuting. I was courteous, used a bell. Half my ride was up hill on the path and it did 30km/hr there. Everyone went pretty fast down of course.

I'll admit, I did enjoy passing spandex on expensive bikes with my beater bike wearing jeans. This was a decade ago when ebikes were not at all a thing.

> The thing with riding that on a bike path was that I had no concerns slowing down amongst pedestrians or on blind corners as it was no effort to get back up to speed. I was less inclined on my road bike due to the effort.

Many bike paths seem to discourage slowing down for junctions by putting them in dips - the opposite of how some train stations are on a hump as "gravitational regenerative braking".

Motorcyclists get killed very frequently.

All fair points but it is quite an undertaking to build an ebike that does 60km/hr with a useful range. Heavy motor, serious AH high discharge battery and a controller that can handle those amps. Your battery system will need to be above 48volts. Pushing wind above 35km/hr requires a lot more energy for each 5km/hr gain.

45-50km/hr idea fairly easy though with a 48 volt system.

I've already noticed that many cars don't expect cyclists to go 25-30km/h...

>car drivers don’t expect you to be going that fast and as a result aren’t wired to look for you That's why I use hi vis jackets and reflective motorcycle helmets. I am not going like a run of the mill bicylist. I use all terrain tires, I never had an issue and I am certainly not the only one that uses motorized bikes like this, in Argentina and Brazil for example, there are lots of people using them daily for their commute and nothing really happens.

>If you do happen to get off at 60 km/h you will have road rash that will take off large chunks of skin even if you wear an armored jacket and armored gloves Wouldn't that happen with a motorcycle too? I don't see your point

A bicycle goes downhill faster then that with little to no pedaling involved. Doesn't even need to be a steep hill.

15mph is nothing in terms o safety (granted no break problems). On flat lane I hit that regularly without pushing hard, most people can handle that outside crowded areas.

If the builder of a DIY bike choses to adhere to that....

But that is not an issue with e-bikes as a whole (it is also illegal and fineable in places where restrictions apply).

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