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this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2023
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the_dunk_tank
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One the one hand, fuck the NYT’s smear campaign against e-bikes, but on the other hand, fuck e-bikes.
The ease of pedaling is great, they get people riding bikes, and the acceleration capacity feels a lot safer in stop and go traffic, which is nice. Obviously in the presence of cagers I will defend e-bikes, because they’re better than cars, but I have a lot of issues with them if I’m talking with other cyclists. To do 20 on a real bike, you’re at least going to have the experience to to handle the bike at those speeds. Additionally, a road bike takes some space to get up to 20- you won’t be doing that on a sidewalk or an urban bike lane, which I have seen with e-bikes.
Look up something like a Sur Ron and tell me you’d want to share a bike path (or god forbid a MUP) with a 12 year old on that 50 kilo electric motorcycle. They’re heavier, less maneuverable, and objectively more dangerous than a real bike.
That's not really an argument against e-bikes though, it's an argument for lowering the maximum speed they're allowed to reach using assistance from the motor.
I’m pretty strongly against motorized vehicles on bike paths unless necessitated for accessibility.
The problem here is if you live in a place with hills and want bike paths to be major transportation pathways that serve double-digit percentages of the population, you need to.
Grandma is not cycling unpowered for 10 min up a 10 degree incline to get to the shops, even if she can in principle do that. As long as speed limits are enforced, it's fine to have a motor.
You know who is, though? Joe Biden.
You know who else is?
Learning that Bush is a pretty good mountain biker and would drop his secret service agents in technical sections was the only part of the W Image Rehabilitation Tour that came even close to working on me.
I’m willing to flex the bounds of accessibility, and I’m far more in favor of e-bikes on roads, but I don’t want electric mopeds on my bike paths
What difference does it make if e-bikes are restricted to a speed that the average "analog" bike can easily do though?
A better solution might be capping the power output of the rider and motor combined at something like 300W (ie a good sustained effort for a strong cyclist), and disabling power assist if the rider breaks that threshold.
This is almost exactly what is done in the country I live in and it seems to work, the only difference being that it's capped at 250w rather than 300w
So that's what I was trying to say, but I should have been clearer lol
Reasons why E bikes are actually better than presented here
My knees like the support of E-bikes, after having argued against them for more than a decade for similar reasons to yours.
I also take them when I am exhausted, since I can tune in some support if I need it.
My friend with MS does use her E-bike and when that isn't possible her electrical wheelchair.
I use the bike even for hilly and steep routes since then I can add a bit power
I have more control over when I get to some points, meaning that I ride the bike more (since I can add/reduce the power that is supplied by the motor)
long trecks and tours are much easier with a group of five when everyone got E-bikes (as long as no wheel gets hurt). In our case that involved kids who we normally had to curate routes for very well. Now we have an ease of use that wasn't there before.
the overall product quality of the E-bike is higher and that means it is much easier to ride and the components do last longer than what I would've bought instead. The maintenance though is slightly more expensive.
driving in cities is much less a problem since I am not angry having to stop in front of signals and also getting speed is much faster, meaning I can cut a few minutes from most distances
transporting heavy things is actually much easier (this includes material from shops, food, but also bike trailers for kids
I feel much more save with E-bikes next to cars. For various reasons, one is that the base speed I got is good and when I use a short muscle power burst I can get the 28-33km/h that are at tempo 30 zones usual. Couldn't ride that speed the whole distance though.
I just use the bike much more than my non E-bike during similar times and get more distance covered with it.
Yeah, even on an E-bike...going over 35km with motor is getting dicey. Luckily where we are they are already illegal (though the government is looking at moving to slightly more permissive NZ standards that allow 300w motors up to 30kph.