Buying an ebike

You can have a pure electric motorcycle with throttle licenses for street use. No power or speed limits (obviously).

But most bike paths have been designated “No motorized vehicles” from the time before e-bikes. There have been exceptions carved out in some places for pedal-assist bikes, but having a pure throttle would not comply with the pedal-assist requirement.

The problem is that e-bike companies know that a lot of people really don’t want to pedal or be limited to 20mph or 750W, so a lot of the e-bikes you can buy today are easily hackable by design. It’s common for people to buy an e-bike compliant with these regulations and then immediately modify it to remove the limits and add a throttle. Now they have an electric motorcycle that looks like a compliant e-bike from the outside.

And to be honest, they’re ruining e-biking for everyone. My local trails are filled with people flying around at motorcycle speeds while the rest of us are moving at pedal speeds. They’re tearing up the trails because they can put 1500W or more into spinning the rear wheel without feedback while the trails were designed for us manual bikers putting a few hundred watts at most into the rear wheel with direct feedback to feel any spin.

Locally, there’s a backlash of denying any e-bike from common trails because they’ve morphed into a loophole to motorcycle around. It’s unfortunate because I really wanted pedal assist e-bikes to open the sport to older and less physically fit riders, but instead it’s closing the sport to anyone who doesn’t feel like dodging kids zooming around at twice the speed anyone expects.

I take it you've never seen the Tour de France then?

A throttled one with no pedaling is just a moped. Those aren't allowed in bike lanes in most places.

I guess law enforcement can see if you’re pedaling, if they have one eye open. If accidents happen, they can test equipment to ser if it’s illegaly imported / not approved / tampered with / etc.

As usual, «don’t get caught» works up until a point.

If you want to go fast, just get a motorbike. Why bother tampering with a pedelec?

Now the bicycle lanes are taken over by e-bikes going 25km/h and sometimes (illegally, as these must be on the car road) 'speedbikes' going 45 km/h.

It used to be that if you go say 12km/h, virtually every other bike will also go that speed +/- 3 k/m. With a speed difference of only 3km/h, that meant two things: 1) overtaking each other happens, but only every now and then. And (2) you only need to watch a few metres behind you before overtaking, because no bike in the bike-lane could overtake you from further away at such small speed differences.

Now with e-bikes going 25, you're sharing a lane with people who're on average going twice as fast as you. That means you're being overtaken constantly. It also means overtaking yourself requires much more thought and you need to look much further behind you.

Overtaking is statistically the area where most accidents happen, increasing the frequency so much is causing a lot of issues. Second, the 2x as high speeds increase the brake distance by a lot, requires much faster reaction times, and increases the force and damage upon accidents.

It's making me less prone to cycle, and for my parents its becoming outright dangerous to share the bike lane with bikes going 2-3x his speed. My dad broke his hip last year biking already.

I'm super enthusiastic about electric bikes, it makes a lot of sense on many levels. But I'm also a bit scared of what the future holds. In Amsterdam the shift from bikes to e-bikes I feel is turning a great situation for everyone, into an even better situation for some (young e-bike users without issues) and a horrible situation for others (young children, elderly, those who get caught up in accidents)

There's a reason that in recent years in Amsterdam gas-powered and electric scooters were taken off the bike lane and a mandatory helmet was introduced. Yet when recreating such a scooter similarly with some pedals, it circumvents the regulation.

I saw it happen in Paris over the last 10 years. Infrastructure used to be bad or inexistent (though not quite bad enough to have 0 cyclists). Then, with a push from the mayor, incentives it started to get better. The real turning points were the 2019 public transportation strike, then the pandemic.

I'm pretty sure the infrastructure came first (though it's still an ongoing project), but the popularity is not to be dismissed. There is something magical about an intersection I used to consider dangerous (because I was cut-off about half the time by a driver not looking) transform into not dangerous without any infrastructure change, because of popularity (drivers now look and stop for cyclists at this intersection).

I'd happily ride in a neighborhood that runs parallel to a major arterial if the choice is available.

It spills over to other things electric, you have electric scooters zooming on pavements around school kids and unexpecting pedestrians, it’s terrible I think but totally ignored.

It feels like electric mobility is prioritised over pedestrian safety. Maybe because the police think these scooters displace cars (so net safety win) but I still don’t like it.

I think the issue is two-fold: 1) There's not much enforcement. Many units can be set to go say 32km/h with a software update. And speedbikes (which can look virtually the same) can go 45km/h, which require a helmet and must be on the car-road, but are often driven as regular e-bikes on bikelanes or the pavement.

2) The 25km/h really can be too fast, already. One must consider that in-city biking typically is done at say 9 to 15km/h, averaging 12km/h. The speed difference between an average cycler and his low (9) or higher-end (15) peers is typically about 3km/h. An e-bike going 25 changes the calculus, now the difference is 13km/h, or double the speed of the regular bike. And that creates a lot of issues. Overtaking is statistically the biggest source of accidents, and it happens way more frequently if the lane is shared by bikes going 12 and 25, rather than all averaging 12. And the act of overtaking is more dangerous too if it's done on a lane which has a large variance in speeds.

I'd love to see a limit of 20km/h, and a limit to 50% pedal assist, on bike infrastructure. That keeps the speed differences low, and it reinforces that one must bike, and put in effort.

Right now the experience as a biker is that you're sharing a lane with motorised electric scooters, going twice your speed, and doing it by essentially pressing a button.

I think electric motorised two-tire vehicles are still a great solution at 25 or 45km/h, but not regulated as bikes, but rather regulated as a scooter. That could mean having to wear a helmet, having to have a (light) license, a license-plate (to allow enforcement of rules), being 18+, riding on a separate lane with traffic going similar speeds.

In the cases I know of, people had to go vigilante and go out themselves with a bolt cutter. One of them even saw his bike listed for sale a few hours after it was stolen, and went out and stole it back. Of course not everyone has the constitution or inclination to go crime fighting.

I imagine in NYC that would have been the only way to go

[1] https://www.axasecurity.com/bike-security/en-gb/products/Loc...

Thieves generally carry either an angle-grinder or a bolt-cutter, but not both. Angle-grinders work on D-locks, but not on chains. Bolt-cutters work on chains, but not D-locks. If you use one of each, the chances are the thief will steal someone else's bike instead.

Over a quarter century of bicycle commuting I've had 7 bikes stolen, and it cost me about $20k less than if I had been relying on public transport, the next cheapest option.

But maybe the frequency of use is also important for the context, like here you use the bike 2-3 hours a day, every day, weekend included, want to commute? Bike. want to go to the gym? Bike. want to go out with friends? Bike. want to go to visit Utrecht? Bike. When I lived in London (for few years) bike was not used with this frequency and the infrastructure (up to 2018) didn't seem to allow for that kind of use, so maybe if you take your bike once a week, it can survive that long without issues, is that your case? Or your use is compatible with the one in Ams?

Well, my wife's eBike was stolen after only a few months from the parking garage of our apartment complex, which is locked and has cameras (and obviously, the bike was locked). Thieves just wait outside with a van, drive in when some resident drives in, block the view of the camera with their van. Throw in a few eBikes and drive away.

Preventing theft is all about making it harder to steal your bike than everyone else's.

- Get bike insurance with a tracker. A visible tracker will make your bike less attractive to steal. Even when they steal it, they often put bikes with a tracker in a cool-off location near the place of the theft to check that no-one is using the tracker. So, very often, you'll have the bike back pretty quickly, because the insurance company finds it at the cool-off spot. If all those measures fail, the insurance company will cover the cost of a new bike (though bikes are sometimes hard to get during the pandemic).

- Always use two locks. Make sure that both the front and rear wheel are locked (to avoid wheel theft) and ensure that at least for at least one of the wheels is attached to the frame with a lock.

- Always attach your bike frame to a sturdy, unmovable object with a heavy duty chain lock. Again, in a lot of cases, the thieves will just throw your bike in a van and remove the locks elsewhere. If your bike is attached to e.g. a lamppost and it takes them some time to cut the lock, getting caught is a risk that they may want to avoid. Especially when there are other bikes to be stolen more easily in the vicinity.

Although you’ll probably see shell companies and locking out of new entrants if you do that, it still seems better for a lot of situations.

And in some cases the weight can be an advantage. It's it more difficult to steal a 200kg motorcycle then it is to steal a 10 kg bicycle once you're at that destination.

>I don't think the two compare other than they can both be used for short commutes, but you're likely not getting a motorcycle just for that, driving and owning a motorcycle is way more involved. Scooters are a more realistic comparison but ebikes theoretically let you use paths you shouldn't use with scooters.

I kinda look at it the other way. A motorcycle gains access to major highways and freeways cyclists and pedestrians are prohibited from traversing on due being unable to cruise at 100+ kph while retaining a good chunk of the small size advantages that a bicycle has.

They're heavy enough to bruise, cause a sprain, or even skin your hands if you catch yourself badly. But generally that still counts as 'inconvenience', yes; you won't be taking any permanent or long-lasting damage.

Most e-bike usage does effectively mean one less car on the road.

The problem I (and many others) have with e-bikes is that they're putting extra strain on the already-insufficient (in the US at least) pedestrian/cyclist infrastructure. Many of those paths could barely support the users they already had safely; the addition of even more users and yet another speed mismatch has been a bit of a disaster. The real answer, of course, is more such infrastructure, but it's a bit of a classic chicken-and-egg problem. Nobody's going to build such infrastructure (which is terribly expensive due to the fact that it would generally require exercise of eminent domain) without demand, but demand is going to be limited until the infrastructure improves. I don't know of a good way out of that bind, unfortunately.

One can't argue that walking is more environmentally friendly because bikes maximize efficiency so you have less waste.

I believe in 20 years you'll agree with me that spent batteries are a huge problem for humans and the environment

Until then have fun.

Also how do you store it? seems impossible to bring one inside / in the elevator and let alone a walk-up?

That Harley Davidson eBike has elegant inline accelerometer actuated break lights! They must add a bit to the price. And you probably pay a premium just for the cool brand name, too.

It's a matter of picking the features that will actually benefit you, and shopping around for a brand that has the right combination of features important to you.

I took a test ride on a different, less expensive brand of bike that had the automatic Enviolo stepless automatic transmission, and really loved it. And the silent belt drive went really well with the smooth transmission.

Then I shopped around a lot and found a Koga that had the Enviolo, who makes high quality hand made seamless frames, and that drove up the price a lot.

If I was going to pop for a good transmission, it would be a pity to have it on a crappy frame. And the Koga has other useful features like good brakes and crank, shock absorbers, lighting, internal cabling and battery, all seamlessly integrated, etc.

I was getting a bike instead of a car as a primary means of transportation, and I fully insured it in case it's stolen.

I'd recently moved away from the center of the city to the outskirts of town where there's more space, and now I have a whole car-free locked garage to park it in and keep it safe and dry.

It's really made the rest of the city seem much closer, even though I'm now further away from the center!

But it would really suck without a safe parking garage, if I had to lock it out front on the street regularly, like where I used to live in the center.

On the other hand, many motorcycles come with sacrifical rubber ‘sliders’ where if a motorcycle is dropped to the ground, the only thing that touches the ground is still the wheels and the rubber sliders on the dropped side. The slider itself is a block of rubber and it’s $10 to replace when ground down sufficiently to a nub.

I’ve found weight to be a less of a problem than I expected in practice.

The bicycle leaves me exposed in traffic and more often than not wearing a t-shirt for heat control.

Just to give a different perspective on it.

Motorcycles tend to have much larger batteries. Both in absolute and relative terms. For example, a full-suspension electric mountain bike might weigh 25kg and have a 500 Wh battery pack.

On the other hand, a Harley-Davidson Livewire weighs 210kg but has a 15.5 kWh pack. It weighs 8X more - but has more than 30X the battery capacity!

That said, it sure makes commuting more reasonable. I'm for it.

Those commutes would be 2x as long at least if I didn't filter.