Fuck Cars
A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!
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Should we come up with stealth ebikes and make regular bikes look a bit like ebikes, they can't tell the difference.
Do you mean an ebike that is as slow as a pedal bike, and you have to move your feet round and round whilst it goes?
It feels like there might be a way to do this and save some expensive parts, and a whole letter of the alphabet.
Don't be silly. We'll engineer en expensive solution to hide it all in the downtube.
There are plenty of bikes like that already.
Not this expensive there aren't
Not sure about that but Ride1up makes an affordable one. There are definitely multiple expensive ones out there too though I don't remember their names.
This is about registration for 20mph limited ebikes and 28mph limited pedal-assist bikes, with only 20mph pedal-assist staying free.
I don't actually get why ebike vs. pedelec should make a huge difference. But the speed limits to require registration don't actually look unreasonable high. At least I don't know many people casually biking at 28mph (or even 20mph...).
Have you never heard of hills? Even with gears anyone can hit those speeds on a flat.
Sure, but we are talking about bikes and ebikes as a mode of transportation, not as a professional sport. Nobody is casually biking above 20 miles per hour on a flat, much less in actual urban and suburban traffic.
If you want a moped or motorbike, although an electric one, that's fine. Get a license, insurance and ride it at the matching speeds between the cars but not in bike lanes normally intentionally protected from that traffic.
Dude, I can do that and I'm not even every fast. If you rode a bike with good gear range I bet you could too.
You can drive at speeds that are around (or in dense urban areas above) the general speed limit? That's nice for you every time you are on a race track but totally irrelevant for biking as a general mode of personal mobility.
How the hell is that irrelevant exactly? It's not hard to get to that speed for anyone, you don't need to be an athlete, therefore, treating ebikes like motorcycles or mopeds is, in short, fucking dumb.
Ebikes are motorcycles, just not with combustion motors for once.
So why treat them like otherwise when they have weights and speeds matching those smaller motorcycles and mopeds? Oh, I know... to terrorize actual bikers on their infrastructure with your license-free much heavier and much faster vehicles.
Those ebike users (preferably with oversized impractical fat bikes they would never voluntarily move without that equally oversized motor) that cry if they can't use bike lanes at car speeds and without any license are the modern version of those "the best bike infrastructure is no bike infrastructure because we should just drive between cars" idiots amd MAMILs... somehow fighting against biking in the name of biking.
You are factually incorrect, the worst kind of incorrect.
Ebikes are certainly not motorcycles, you have absolutely no clue what you are saying.
Sure, electric motorcycles driving at car speeds are totally not motorcycles and should drive between much slower and lighter bikes (and ebikes with sane speeds) on bike infrastructure, without a license of course. And if you want them to be regulated you are somehow just hating regular bikes, ebikes and pedelecs. 🤣
But OP is already argueing how every unfit regular biker casually drives above 28mph in urban areas (which Incidently is above the car speed limit where I live...), so sanity has left the room long ago...
I re-read to double check and no, they are not arguing that.
Also, 28 mph is a class 3 electric bicycle, not a motor vehicle, which is an entirely different class of transport. You can argue otherwise but you'll be wrong aka full of shit.
Don't feed the trolls, this person is clearly just here to fuck around and mess with people.
The whole argument OK is making is that such a "class 3 electric bicycle" should be treated like a totally normal bike, because it's somehow, magically not much faster and much heavier than normal bikes as everyone is totally driving at 30mph in regular bike commute...
Which indeed is wrong and a pile of shit argument.
I never said that an 28mph ebike is legally a motorcycle. I argued that a "class 3 electric vehicle" with the weight and speed of a moped (just electric) should be treated as one and not as a bike. And since that statement OP tries to convince me how 28mph is a total normal everyday thing in casual biking even for unfit people. As someone actually commuting by bike daily... that's insane.
You clearly aren't arguing in good faith here and I'm not going to entertain any more of your bullshit. Have a nice day!
Says the guy who is either lying or has never actually commuted by bike... because no, you don't regularly do 30mph, and if you'd do everyone else on an urban bike lane becomes an obstacle.
Ohh mph, that puts it at moped speeds then which makes more sense
UK requires bikes to be pedal assist anyway, pedal at 1w and the motor does the effort. Yes I am training for the tour de France sprints, that is why I am going so fast.
They do have bike motors you can install on a standard bike. It's not going to be as powerful as a moped or anything, and you risk having it stolen off your bike, but they exist.
Some can be pretty powerful. Not sure what you could get stealthily though. Backpack with the battery pack and run a cable down your leg to the motor?
Now I wonder how much thrust efficiency you get from a high powered electric turbine fan...
Battery in a frame bag or under pannier bags on the rack.