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Comment by hbarka | Hacker News Reader

> and I cannot think of a logical reason to not provide that information.

The reason is simple. Omission is deception.

If it had a “good” square footage, it would be touted front and center. Because it’s not, you know it doesn’t.

I see this all the time with motorcycle PPE. If something was CE A, AA, or AAA rated, it’d be at the top of the description/specs. When it’s not, I know it’s not so I just move on.

Where it gets tricky is when the good people and bad people start working together because they both sell bad products. What I mean is: purposefully not advertising your good traits front and center, so that your worse product then "shine" more. And then everyone catches on and all your signals are gone. It happens sometimes.

I wish that e-bike ads had the classification. The bike classes are well-defined AFAIK - it's the class legality that's regional, if any. Right now, they're actively helping riders skirt/evade the laws.

I'm pretty sure if they stopped skirting the laws, it'd eliminate a decent cohort of their customer base. Watching someone come through a pedestrian area at 45 mph on a "bicycle" that clearly is an electric motorcycle is pretty interesting.

Holy crap! How do they stop at that speed with those thin bicycle tires?

Very slowly. Stopping is not as a big of an issue as cornering though - not only they don't have adequate traction for the speed and mass but they also don't use the front brake. Which is great as the trails which are fun to ride because of all the bends are also e-bike free other than old people riding their pedal-assist bikes at 15 mph.

My e-scooter reaches 45 mph (advertised as 53). Normally, you would stop using the brakes or regen.

What thin bicycle tires - they are much thicker than normal.

However yes they are a problem.

No value is essentially "smaller than you would find acceptable."

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