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Comment by fragmede | Hacker News Reader

And scooters, electric-scooters, and sit-down electric scooters. And electric wheelchairs, and non-electric wheelchairs and mobility assist carts with handlebars. We also have to delineate between a daydreaming cyclist who's top speed is slow, and a hard-core cyclist with a $3000+ bike that can hit 40 mph in the right conditions. Those cyclists should be banned from using the same paths as the first kind of bicyclist, and should be relegated to the same areas as 'electric motorcycles'. Because it's really about acceleration and top speed, and it matters zero whether the thing has pedals or not.

Or put it another way, if my 'electric motorcycle' is slower to accelerate and has a slower top speed than you could possibly manage on a bicycle, it's really not a 'motorcycle' in any way, no matter how many pedals it does or doesn't have.

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I hate to be the bearer of bad news but even a <$1000 road bike with drop bars and 25-32mm tires can hit 30-40mph in the hands of novice/moderately experienced riders assuming they have a decent baseline fitness and either some straight level road or a long downhill run. If you've got a 52x12 gear ratio and can spin up to a cadence of 90RPM you'll be traveling roughly 31mph. Spin up to 110RPM and you're pushing 40mph.

The only difference is the experienced, lycra-clad cyclists with expensive bikes just get up to speed faster, maybe with less of a tailwind or downward grade. However, unlike their speedy novice kin, they (should, in theory) have better bike handling skills.

Overall, I think a strategy of banning with people the highest cycling skills from bike paths seems like a bad idea. Sure, you got weekend warrior dentists with fancy expensive bikes but their mediocre fitness level doesn't allow them to really extract significant benefit from their high-end cycling equipment. Their fancy aerodynamic carbon fiber bikes are probably only getting them a few mph over a classic steel frame. For more serious enthusiasts and professionals, those seconds matter... for everyone else it's just a flex.

Even at 4.25w/kg I cannot hit 30mph without a tailwind or a downhill. I can push MAYBE 26mph, possibly 27. And that's going to be at something unsustainable for me, like 400-500w. (FTP of 350w).

At threshold power, I'm guessing more like 22-23mph.

And, not to toot my own horn, but that's a pretty damn fit experienced cyclist.

Ah, but you should be able to hit it while drafting with aero bars.

My point here is that it's not the bike that makes you go 40mph - it's the "engine" (the human) and the environment. Expensive human-powered bikes aren't going to magically turn someone who tops out at 20mph into someone doing twice that.

I think there is a big difference in physically working towards the speeds you mention and just rotating a grip to move (fast).

Having to work for high speeds, even if just rolling down a long hill on a “bare” machine, regardless of material or price, will create a much deeper mental involvement of what you got yourself into.

Thus, unassisted cyclists are (my guess and own experience) much more aware of their surroundings, what lies ahead and thus alert.

Things obviously can go wrong either way…

> a <$1000 road bike with drop bars and 25-32mm tires can hit 30-40mph in the hands of novice/moderately experienced riders

A novice rider will have a very hard time hitting 65km/h without going downhill or a strong back wind, even on a light bike. It's a challenge even for trained cyclists. So you won't see this on a city's streets but rather on open road.

But stopping fast and safe at those speeds is even harder than reaching them because you can't take your time to do it. A bike that can make it easy to reach them shouldn't share a lane with much slower and unpredictable participants, like regular lanes on sidewalks.

As someone who has biked for decades and puts on nearly ~1,000 miles per month - August I did ~850 - Sept/oct was less due to some rainy days... (All on a 29" x2.1" hard tail mtn bike)

But I used to bike from Alameda into SF for nearly a decade. I even biked occasionally from Alameda to Menlo Park...

That being said, while I really want an E-bike, I am also cautious: I have fallen a lot, and I used to get my bikes up to 44 was the fastest I ever went, down the long bike path along Lexington Reserviour which we used to bike up every morning...

Going ~40 on ANY terrain on a mike is dangerous/scary as heck.

I've had bikes just literally vanish from beneath me and I went sailing through the air.

Never would I want to do that on something that weighs more than me....

PLUS - how do you carry Jacques bike up/down stairs to transition between trains/levels/whatever...

That wonderful hack looks heavy as heck, but lovely.

It has walk assist if I need to move it uphill while walking next to it, I wouldn't want to move it up or down a flight of stairs but if that would ever be a requirement I'm pretty sure there will be a law mandated elevator nearby as well.

Multi-lane bike ”highways” would be awesome. What matters most (imo) is that all these riders are unprotected, and should be kept far apart from cars. If the unprotected, single rider, narrow vehicles want do drive at vastly different speeds then multiple lanes seems like a good solution.

We have some of these in NL.

In Montréal, Canada, we have the Réseau Express Vélo (REV). They are uni-directional bike paths that are 3 meters wide. They easily allow 3 cyclists to be side by side.

Honestly I don’t know if more rules is it. I think better infrastructure that encourages separation is better.

I live in a bike (and very e-bike heavy) US city and the rules don’t really get followed too much.

And I don’t blame anyone, because while there are inconsiderate people, speed comfortability is really relative. Some of my friends find just being on a bike scary versus my friends who skate through traffic just fine. I can’t invite them to the same things.

If you live in NYC like me enforcing the current laws would be a good start. The rules aren't followed because there is zero enforcement.

> We also have to delineate between a daydreaming cyclist who's top speed is slow, and a hard-core cyclist with a $3000+ bike that can hit 40 mph in the right conditions.

Surely even skilled cyclists should be permitted to use bike paths as long as they don’t tear by everyone at 40 mph. And I’m genuinely a bit unclear as to why no-pedaling-needed bikes shouldn’t be able to mingle with bikes as long as they follow the rules.

I see it as a sort of amateurization/tragedy-of-the-commons that increases the likelihood of injuries.

As a parallel example, from what I can tell, injuries on electric rental scooters haven't really dropped too much, they just stopped being news.

Eh, this is just extending the argument into absurdity I feel.

I didn't see it as absurd at all - there is a huge contingent of bicyclists who should never be on a sidewalk, while at the same time there are massive numbers of casual e-cyclists who should never be riding in traffic.

Ann Arbor recently changed it's laws to reflect that - and I think the cyclists who are aware they shouldn't be on sidewalks, and the e-cyclists who stick only to the sidewalks know who they are.

No e-biker should be on a sidewalk.

There are informal norms. Cyclists who cycle on sidewalks should be relatively new and should make sure to behave explicitly with all of the rules of the road (ie. don't run a red from the sidewalk as a cyclist, very dangerous. if you must, dismount and walk across or wait for the pedestrian light). Cyclists on the street are generally more experienced and do not have to explicitly follow all rules IMO.

Not just informal norms, in many states formal laws, just ones that are hardly ever enforced this century. (Many of them on are on the written part of your driving test, though people don't take those often enough to remember their details.)

For example, Kentucky law requires bicyclists over the age of 11 to use the streets. (Prohibits sidewalk usage.)

Washington state law allows sidewalk usage, but also requires wider sidewalks than the Kentucky minimum, and includes a lot of very specific wording about pedestrian right of way on sidewalks (sidewalks are theirs first) and mandate being very careful in overtaking pedestrians and other cyclists.

If you're piloting a vehicle on the road, you should follow all the rules of the road. This is the reason people hate cyclists.

Laws have social interpretation around them - there are plenty of road laws I see routinely broken for convenience by cars that are effectively unenforced.

"Idaho stops", ie. treating stop signs as yields is both enshrined in law in a few different areas and should be law in many others.

Idaho stops are perfectly acceptable in my view.

Sidewalks? You don't seem to have the first clue about what you are trying to comment on. The only bikes that belong on sidewalks are those ridden by very young kids, and indeed that is the law in much of the world.

In many neighborhoods in California, unless you are a serious cyclist, you genuinely run the risk of being run off the road by a driver in some areas, and will absolutely be yelled at or honked at if you take your "bicycle" (E-Bike or otherwise) onto the road with other vehicles. In 5+ years living in Redwood City, I rarely ever saw what I would call "Utility Cyclists" (Just some person trying to get to their job, or get to the grocery store) ever ride a bicycle on the road.

Ann Arbor changed the law to make this legal: http://www.annarbor.com/news/bicyclists-dilemma-ride-on-the-....

And recently for E-Bikes as well: https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2021/09/ann-arbor-movin....

And yes, I know that California law states that bicycles have to be on the road, but that doesn't reflect reality. And, in fact, at least in Redwood City, I never once (In 5 years of walking every day, and seeing dozens of cyclists every day) saw a police officer cite a cyclist for riding on the sidewalk - though, that isn't the case in Southern California, where I read an NYT article that people of color are routinely stopped/searched for doing so - in much the same way people are cited in some cities for "Jay Walking" - which is a universally accepted behavior in other cities.

But, one thing I think you and I can agree on, that cyclists on the sidewalk have to show the utmost in courtesy to pedestrians, and not go racing along at high (> 8mph or so) speeds - essentially occupy the same speed as your typical jogger might. Also, another topic we might agree on - Bicycle Lanes just make things safer for everyone, cyclist and pedestrian alike.

I don't know that it is -- electric scooters are controversial -- some folks want them on sidewalks; others in bike lines; yet others only in mixed traffic with cars.

That's the point, I read the post as satire making fun of the top level comment.

"Free pass" for electric motorbikes? What is that person on about? Why have meaningless distinctions between pedaling or not, when the overriding goal should be "promote bike use over vehicle use"?

What societal good, what good to the citizen, is it to place burdens on e-bikes that are not pedal assist?

That's a valid and useful rhetorical technique. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

Although it can be applied with a bit much snark sometimes. :)

> We also have to delineate between a daydreaming cyclist who's top speed is slow, and a hard-core cyclist with a $3000+ bike that can hit 40 mph in the right conditions.

Are there not speed limits for bike lanes? Most cars have a top speed well above the freeway speed limit too.

Yes, absolutely. 30 kph in town, 45 kph outside of town.

I'm totally ashamed that I forgot to mention electric skateboards with 4 wheels and electric skateboards with 1 wheel and electric unicycles (larger single wheel vs a 'one wheel' electric skateboard) and it's too late to edit them in.

A really important factor you didn’t mention is weight.

    KE = 0.5 * v * v * m

Yes but probability of a crash is probably related to the spread in the velocities of various agents.

This is why I often ride my 40 km/h max electric moped on bike paths. Cars don't give me enough following distance so I'm not risking my life there. I also slow down drastically when passing pedal bikers.

If you're exerting yourself you tend to pay attention to what's happening around you. I noticed that folks that go very fast on their two-wheeled vehicle without too much effort get distracted quite easily.

I think it may not be the exertion per se, as much as the perception that something is working hard to give the speed you have.

I have been a very very fast cyclist in the past, and when I'm down on my aero bars and doing 40-50kph under my own power, I'm very aware that I'm (a) working hard (b) going fast. This makes me not want to crash, if only because I'd lose all that hard-earned speed.

But I've seen the same effect in cars too. If I drive a very quiet and "smooth" vehicle on a very smooth road, its way too easy to go substantially beyond the speed limit, because I just don't have the perception of "an engine working hard to propel things forward". Switch a noisy, vibrating vehicle on a rougher road, and I'm much more aware of what is going on and will definitely keep my speed under control.

I haven't driven a Tesla or similar, so I have no idea how their near-silent engine affects this sort of thing. On paper, it seems likely to be bad :)

I mean you could just play this on loop while driving the Tesla

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFHqh7Rv2TI

that equation shows velocity is more important though? a small car at 10 mph has about the same KE as a 200 lb person going 40 mph. of course KE doesn't tell the whole story. of the two, I'd much rather be hit by the car. I could run into a brick wall at 10 mph and probably be okay.

I suppose if you absorbed all of the energy from the car, rather than just being pushed back by it, then the damage might be more comparable. For example, I think if someone was standing against a wall and a car rolled into them at 10mpg it might be as terrible as being hit by a 200lb cyclist at 40 mph. Of course, I agree that 10 mph seems a lot less dangerous - it gives many more options to move out of the way, or to spread the impact over time (by walking backwards and pushing against the car). Just throwing out some thoughts on why the same energy from each seems to have such a different destructive force.

True, though most collisions aren't head on, and even when they are, usually only a fraction of the velocity is absorbed because the objects deflect from each other.

Yes but to not give weight a mention isn’t quite right.

Small car: 1500kg

Bike: 10kg

Escooter: 3kg (?)

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