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Comment by moonchrome | Hacker News Reader

Sorry but that's delusional - riding in the rain, and especially when it's snowy/icy - is order of magnitude more dangerous - traction/breaking/reduced visibility.

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Have you tried, or are you just speculating about me being delusional?

As I said in my comment, I actually do this, and surprised myself with how practical it is in all but the absolute worse weather (there are about 7 days per year where my bike won’t work, but generally that means that it is dangerous driving conditions as well). I live in rural Canada. I’m no stranger to riding in snow, rain and darkness.

I could equally say that it is delusional to allow minimally trained civilians access to multi ton vehicles with limited visibility, built in devices intended to distract powered by explosive liquids. But that system works as well.

I used to own a motorcycle and I commute with a bycicle in ~mediteranian climate.

The only two accidents I've ever had on a motorcycle were low speed manuvers in heavy rain when I got caught by a shower.

On a bike just riding on a slippery road is terrible and wading through umbrellas, getting splashed by cars in traffic, rain in the eyes.

Riding on two wheels makes you extremely exposed - ebikes are just shit motorcycles (especially self built ones) and have a higher accident rate statistics from what I can tell.

If you're not aware how risky it is compared to a car you are you are being delusional.

Unfortunately, there are some places where the whole city is delusional, like in Finland

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU

It's more like the US is delusional. It was gaslit by General Motors in the 1940s and 1950s.

(Yesterday I watched a youtube called "Retrofuturism", that turned out to be, nearly verbatim, an old propaganda piece by GM. It was only about using cars and roads, not about the future (i.e., our world) at all. Some parts were hilarious, but overall it was deeply depressing.)

So you mishandled a motor vehicle that weighs 4-5x, with 100x the power as much as an ebike in the rain, and you commute using a bicycle which explicitly causes the downsides that I avoid using an ebike. I’m not surprised your experience is different

It sounds like your experience is different because haven’t actually tried using an ebike. I used to think that a bike and an ebike were basically the same use case. After having used a bike, an ebike, and a motorcycle for commuting I can say that they are three very different machines.

Please let me know what your experience was commuting in northern bad weather using an ebike before you call me delusional. It sounds like you are extrapolating incorrectly based on inexperience

I actually worked for a company making ebikes for a while so got my chance to try them out - like I said - motorcycle with cheap components, handles better for sure because it's lighter - but it's not built for traffic speeds.

People think because kids can drive it that it's safe - like I've said - quick Google search shows higher accident rate for ebikes than motorcycles ! And we are comparing to cars here - that's like >10x risk increase.

And every self built one I've seen had a way to remove speed limiting block (interested if have yours limited ?). That's a recepie for disaster.

I'll be another voice to say you're speaking from a myopic perspective. The Dutch bike through rain, sleet or snow without any difficulty. Modern electric cargo bikes like their favorite, Urban Arrow, are fantastically balanced and need only a trained rider to handle through a wide variety of inclement weather.

Yeah I dunno where they're going with this.

You can ski in the snow perfectly comfortably if properly attired, but you can't bike?

In fairness icy streets can get extremely dicey on two wheels-- no arguments there. The US in particular has a lot more extreme weather than Holland. You'll have extended periods where biking on icy concrete is not a great option.

Icy streets are extremely dicey on 4 wheels as well, except that cars tend to externalize the risk.

I.e. a bike slipping and falling tends to hurt the risk taker. A car slipping and crashing tends to protect the occupant at the expense of whatever gets crashed into.

> Around two-thirds of the 110,000 traffic victims treated in Dutch hospitals in 2021 were cyclists, according to VeiligheidNL.

www.techtimes.com/amp/articles/274249/20220413/e-bike-injuries-rise-despite-safety-precautions-according-dutch-organization.htm

And that's in a place with top tier biking infrastructure.

The victims are cyclists because so many dutch people cycle! (Because the infrastructure is so good)

Per Capita, cycling in the Netherlands is far far safer than cycling in the US.

Yes but far more unsafe than using a car !

> “The Dutch data for last year (2019) shows that in absolute figures more people died in car crashes (237) than on a bicycle (203). If you calculate the figure per kilometre travelled that is reversed. Per one billion kilometres travelled the figure for cycling is 11 while the figure for car occupants is 1.6 fatalities.”

Why do I have to google these self-evident facts ? No matter how good your bike lanes are two wheels are very sensitive and unforgiving and the vehicle offers 0 protection (and in fact gets in the way of softening the landing/balancing back).

The bike enthusiasm seems to override rationality - like if I strapped a child seat on a rear seat of a motorcycle social services would take my child - meanwhile if I do it on an ebike I'm praised for being environmental - despite the similar risk factor.

Cars are far more likely to kill people, and quite a few at once. In fact it is almost certain death if a pedestrian is hit by a speeding car. And if that speeding car collides with another vehicle, there's death abundant.

You're being told repeatedly by Europeans your take isn't right but you keep digging in and entrenching. Why is that? Have you considered you might actually be wrong?

The unsafest I've ever been was commuting between Brooklyn and Manhattan for two years as a cyclist: the number of near misses and actual side swipes (yes from cars) would shock you.

Cause of death counts as well. If I get hit by a car on my bike it is a counted as a cycling injury even though it was a fatal accident because a car was involved.

This doesn't mean much absent ridership statistics.

Not the person you're responding to, but I agree with that argument. I have commuted by bike daily in a relatively dry climate for years. I had no problem with rain in terms of wetting my clothes, as you said the rain gear is easy to put on and off. But even though I think of myself as a fairly careful rider, I had a couple falls, one due to slipping on leaves on a wet bike path that left me with a concussion, the other due to a hobo riding a narrow bike path the wrong way, causing me to arrive a work with bloody knuckles. I haven't fallen since and I continue to ride, but I do feel I'm much less at risk of injury in an enclosed car.

And the same applies to every other vehicle, but I suppose you would still get in a car on a rainy day?

You adjust speed and cycling style to the conditions, and for winter cycling there are plenty of good options for studded tires. The Nordics have succeeded in making winter cycling a more common activity, and you might want to check out the "winter cycling capital of the world": Oulu, Finland.

Last year a friend broke 2 ribs and forearm by slipping over some wet leaves on a bycicle - I don't see how that's comparable to a car.

Also I don't have windshield wipers on my face (or windshield for that matter) - but maybe I'm just wired like that.

> I don't see how that's comparable to a car.

Yesterday, local news, a car crash with all three involved drivers dead.

By slipping on wet leaves ? I guess it could happen but how likely is it ? Mind sharing the link ?

"in slippery conditions": https://eng.lsm.lv/article/economy/transport/snow-and-ice-ma...

(It's only a one-sentence mention in the article. There were only a few more details in the local news: two semis, one passenger car. All three drivers dead, two people in hospital. No details on what exactly happened, who caused it.)

And you think riding an ebike in those conditions on the road would not be suicide ?

2 wheels make you extremely sensitive to small traction loss - hitting a patch of wet leaves/gravel/mud/ice with a car tire is a nuisance at best - and a potential fatality on a ebike/motorcycle.

It would be a bad idea. And that specific road, even in good summer weather, I've had a truck pass me on my bike so close I could have touched it with a hand if not elbow.

But my point is, while you're better protected in the car, with speed and kinetic energy the stakes go up. If they were three cyclists instead of three drivers in heavy vehicles on that road yesterday, they would likely all still be alive.

My commute is 4mi each way in quite-rainy Portland, rain on my glasses isn't too much of a problem, though fine mist I need to wipe off occasionally. I haven't ever had any serious problems with road conditions (in ~20yr of bike commutes), though I do have to slow down / watch the turns until later in the winter when most of the leaves are out of the road.

That's unfortunate. I seen that a family of four where crushed to death and burned alive in their Nissan X-Trail yesterday when it veered off the road on ice and hit a truck full of propane tanks.

Last year I sprained my wrist slipping on ice while walking to my car, but I never fell off my bike even though I live in a temperate rainforest.

What should I learn from this one off incident?

I'm 60, and I bike everywhere.

I have a non-zero chance of getting into an accident, but on the other hand, I haven't been so fit in 30 years.

My guess is that my expected lifespan is increased by this decision. (I would add that I live in a very bike-friendly city.)

---

There's a further ethical calculation I would do, which is that using a car is wildly irresponsible giving that we are systematically eating through our resources and destroying our climate and with it our biosphere. (Electric cars are better, but still tremendously consumptive of resources.)

So even if I were less safe and the fitness issue were less important, I would still choose not to use a car, like I have chosen for my entire life.

> riding in the rain, and especially when it's snowy/icy - is order of magnitude more dangerous - traction/breaking/reduced visibility.

Yes, it's more dangerous. No one said it's not. No one even mentioned safety until you brought it up yourself.

If you want to bring up safety: great! Go for it! But no need to start calling people "delusional" right from the bat.

But that's the worst part about bad weather - you have to ride much slower and be on high alert - so you're in shitty conditions for even longer - and ebike only makes that worse. For some reason people on ebikes don't realize that they are riding on a shitty motorcycle and how risky it is to remove speed restrictions/zip around traffic on those things - at least that's my impression of the few friends that really got into it. And the accident rate statistics seem to back my impressions.

Sure, I understand your point; it's a perfectly reasonable. My gripe was with the "that's delusional".

Maybe if you don't have the infra, but here in the Netherlands its perfectly normal to do this.

Studded tires work well enough that I’d be really surprised if it was an order of magnitude more dangerous on snow/ice with them.

Riding increases with proper infrastructure, even in areas with extremely bad weather.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU

Hello, I come from the land up over

As in I come from Norway and winter tires for bikes work just fine :)

Tell that to people of Vietnam.

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