Comment by nousermane
4 years ago
> S-Pedelec (...) top speed 45 kph (...) in many places you are forced to ride in traffic
Yes. This is the way. Thank you, Dutch government.
If somebody feels like wheezing an almost completely silent 200kg projectile, godspeed. But please gtfo from the urban bike paths, if at all possible.
It weighs half that, including me, and the average speed over a longer trip is about 33 to 35 Kph. In cities you ride just as fast as the rest of the bike traffic, there isn't any point in trying to go faster, and top speed is rarely achieved, you'd need a 100% full battery and a rider in very good condition. More usual you'll be around 35 to 38 kph in open country where there is very little other traffic.
My 'commute' is 64 km, it takes me two hours on the dot door-to-door.
Using my Stromer ST1X — which lacks the top of the line motor of the ST3 and ST5 — I can bike at 45kph at any battery % above 30.
I am probably 140kg with bike, battery, laptop, clothes, and stuff.
Outside the cities I can go in the bike lane, and I am absolutely twice as fast as most bikes.
I live in the Netherlands, so everything being flat helps.
I recently sold my ST2. I could get only 30-60km on a full (1kwh) battery at max speed (46 kmh). But then why would you go below max speed om a 7k bicycle? I got rid of it because it was also very expensive in maintenance, and because cycling on the road slightly slower than cars really sucks (a few too many encounters with aggressive cars). The stromers are near impossible to ride without assist, think because of the regenerative engine. When the battery was empty or I had one of those weird error 18 things I could go abou 17kmh with a lot of effort. I got a vanmoof bike instead niwy, so much nicer. 30kmh, easy to pedal past assist speed cause of light front wheel motor. Lightweight, 500wh battery is pretty ok (also same 30-60km range). Lots of repairs (under warranty) though, build quality is subpar. My 30km commute is 65 minutes now on my vanmoof, where it was 50 minutes on a stromer.
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That's a very neat bike and that motor is twice as strong as the one on the Bosch models. What kind of range do you get out of it at 45 kph?
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My concern at those speeds is traction. I prefer fat tires so a bit of loose gravel or a pothole doesn’t ruin my day.
I go at that speed on my road bike under my own power with teeny tiny tyres to reduce drag. By comparison this thing is safer since it has disk brakes and larger tires.
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2 1/4" tires on it, traction is pretty good. Haven't fallen yet, had to brake hard for animals (cats, dogs, deer, a rabbit or two, and once a boar). So far so good, but having already had a pretty bad bike accident I'm pretty careful now.
All the speed of motorcycles without the sound awareness, what could possibly go wrong? My overall experience is that E-bike riders generally have decent cycling manners, it's the scooter and unicycle riders that seem to think they can just crank their walking speed up to 30mph and go everywhere a pedestrian would. I usually just give them a firm "heads up next time" when I get buzzed by an electric motor whine at 20mph.
I used to ride a motorcycle, now I have an ebike. They seem equally safe to me, which is to say neither are safe at all if there are other people on the road. The only solution is extremely defensive driving/riding, assume no one (including pedestrians) can see you. This attitude has been embedded deeply in the motorcycle culture and is the best way to all-around responsible riders -- and it needs to be propagated to ebike riders. I don't think it's about having manners, really. Also, sound awareness is a myth propagated by Harley riders.
>Also, sound awareness is a myth propagated by Harley riders.
This pisses me off so much. I know harley riders that have straight pipes and ride around with ear plugs in to keep from going deaf. Anyone caught over the legal noise limit should have their ride confiscated. It's asshole behavior masquerading as 'safety'.
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> assume no one (including pedestrians) can see you
Exactly. I'm in the same situation. I used to ride a motorcycle (that I still own but almost never use now) and am on an ebike every day.
It's not about "assuming" no on "can" see you: it's that nobody does see you, and nobody cares.
It's also the fact that people don't think about your speed or your ability to slow down fast -- they only care about your general volume. People will be more careful around a big parked truck than when faced with a small barrel rolling down a hill at full speed.
The way to stay alive is to be able to predict what everyone is about to do. I think I have become quite good at this, although one is always learning.
I find the e-bike that the article talks about (S-pedelec) to be the peak of unsafeness for two wheeled vehicles. A colleague had one and let me try it - I quickly noped out.
He's doing 40mph in traffic with his bike shorts and a flimsy helmet. The power to weight ratio also gives him enormous acceleration, so he can jump from the red lights in front of everyone. Other drivers often misjudge how quickly he can move and he had some close calls like this.
If I were the author I would reconsider using one of these, especially with his history of accidents...
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100% agreed, defensive driving is the key, and a good part of that is to know when to slow down: when there are other cyclists near you.
Yes the problem with ebikes isn't other people being aware of the bike's sound, it's the rider being aware of the risk to themselves and others. Maybe this is ingrained in the motorcycle culture, but it seems like most buyers of ebikes I know have never ridden a motorcycle before and were not riding bicycles regularly either. They just go "oh this makes my commute like that time I biked when I was on vacation" and approach safety with a lackadaisical attitude. That makes them relatively irresponsible riders in my opinion. This problem hopefully fixes itself over time as they learn from accidents and an ebike safety culture emerges, but for now it's pretty sad.
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> unicycle riders
You probably mean "one wheel" riders? (As in the electric, low profile, self balancing type, not the traditional large wheel, seated, fixed axle unicycle) Unless you live around an inordinate amount of rude unicyclists. In that case, I must see that as it sounds very humorous.
Scooters are a plague (and this bike is classed as a scooter, unfortunately, so I'm lumped in with the worst), but a bigger danger is mobile phone use by cyclists. That's roughly 1/3rd of all the adults and 2/3rds of the teenagers here.
> but a bigger danger is mobile phone use by cyclists.
Or by pedestrians!
My brother curses the number of pedestrians in Glasgow that cross the road while looking at their phones... they're by far his biggest hazard.
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The biggest danger is cars that kill 2 million people every year around the world.
Everything else is so tiny as to not count.
you should get a "trail bell", you can turn it on to make a constant noise to make people aware, much earlier, that you are coming
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRLZ1MMk3mc
I have a class 3 and I don't feel safe riding in bike lanes at full speed, zipping by slower bicycles. There's no place to go if someone swerves. I will usually ride in traffic instead.
Riding in traffic here is suicide. Drivers get very irritated when you are not exactly at the speed limit and I've had more than one instance where someone essentially overtook and then forced me into the bike lane. And that's just here in town, where there is absolutely nothing to gain.
> forced me into the bike lane
hold up, forced your bike into the bike lane? Why were you not there in the first place? (Not meant accusatory, I must be misunderstanding or missing something; I don't even know where "here" is.)
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