Comment by TacticalCoder
4 years ago
We really need a terminology to differentiate better between pedal-assist only e-bikes ("pedelec") and electric motorbikes. A "bicycle" that can accelerate without the need to pedal at all is an electric motorcycle, no matter if you put pedal on it or not.
I see the two as totally different things: I've tried pedal-assist e-bike and they're great. But... Although I have nothing against motorbikes I'm not cool at all with basically motorbikes getting a free pass because they're disguised as bicycles.
BTW this reminds me of the old french "Solex / VéloSolex": basically a real engine put on top of the front wheel, and able to accelerate by itself without the need to pedal. But the thing still had pedals. I used to use one and still have one in a garage. But I didn't use it on the bicycle lanes...
And scooters, electric-scooters, and sit-down electric scooters. And electric wheelchairs, and non-electric wheelchairs and mobility assist carts with handlebars. We also have to delineate between a daydreaming cyclist who's top speed is slow, and a hard-core cyclist with a $3000+ bike that can hit 40 mph in the right conditions. Those cyclists should be banned from using the same paths as the first kind of bicyclist, and should be relegated to the same areas as 'electric motorcycles'. Because it's really about acceleration and top speed, and it matters zero whether the thing has pedals or not.
Or put it another way, if my 'electric motorcycle' is slower to accelerate and has a slower top speed than you could possibly manage on a bicycle, it's really not a 'motorcycle' in any way, no matter how many pedals it does or doesn't have.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but even a <$1000 road bike with drop bars and 25-32mm tires can hit 30-40mph in the hands of novice/moderately experienced riders assuming they have a decent baseline fitness and either some straight level road or a long downhill run. If you've got a 52x12 gear ratio and can spin up to a cadence of 90RPM you'll be traveling roughly 31mph. Spin up to 110RPM and you're pushing 40mph.
The only difference is the experienced, lycra-clad cyclists with expensive bikes just get up to speed faster, maybe with less of a tailwind or downward grade. However, unlike their speedy novice kin, they (should, in theory) have better bike handling skills.
Overall, I think a strategy of banning with people the highest cycling skills from bike paths seems like a bad idea. Sure, you got weekend warrior dentists with fancy expensive bikes but their mediocre fitness level doesn't allow them to really extract significant benefit from their high-end cycling equipment. Their fancy aerodynamic carbon fiber bikes are probably only getting them a few mph over a classic steel frame. For more serious enthusiasts and professionals, those seconds matter... for everyone else it's just a flex.
Even at 4.25w/kg I cannot hit 30mph without a tailwind or a downhill. I can push MAYBE 26mph, possibly 27. And that's going to be at something unsustainable for me, like 400-500w. (FTP of 350w).
At threshold power, I'm guessing more like 22-23mph.
And, not to toot my own horn, but that's a pretty damn fit experienced cyclist.
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I think there is a big difference in physically working towards the speeds you mention and just rotating a grip to move (fast).
Having to work for high speeds, even if just rolling down a long hill on a “bare” machine, regardless of material or price, will create a much deeper mental involvement of what you got yourself into.
Thus, unassisted cyclists are (my guess and own experience) much more aware of their surroundings, what lies ahead and thus alert.
Things obviously can go wrong either way…
> a <$1000 road bike with drop bars and 25-32mm tires can hit 30-40mph in the hands of novice/moderately experienced riders
A novice rider will have a very hard time hitting 65km/h without going downhill or a strong back wind, even on a light bike. It's a challenge even for trained cyclists. So you won't see this on a city's streets but rather on open road.
But stopping fast and safe at those speeds is even harder than reaching them because you can't take your time to do it. A bike that can make it easy to reach them shouldn't share a lane with much slower and unpredictable participants, like regular lanes on sidewalks.
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Multi-lane bike ”highways” would be awesome. What matters most (imo) is that all these riders are unprotected, and should be kept far apart from cars. If the unprotected, single rider, narrow vehicles want do drive at vastly different speeds then multiple lanes seems like a good solution.
We have some of these in NL.
In Montréal, Canada, we have the Réseau Express Vélo (REV). They are uni-directional bike paths that are 3 meters wide. They easily allow 3 cyclists to be side by side.
Honestly I don’t know if more rules is it. I think better infrastructure that encourages separation is better.
I live in a bike (and very e-bike heavy) US city and the rules don’t really get followed too much.
And I don’t blame anyone, because while there are inconsiderate people, speed comfortability is really relative. Some of my friends find just being on a bike scary versus my friends who skate through traffic just fine. I can’t invite them to the same things.
If you live in NYC like me enforcing the current laws would be a good start. The rules aren't followed because there is zero enforcement.
> We also have to delineate between a daydreaming cyclist who's top speed is slow, and a hard-core cyclist with a $3000+ bike that can hit 40 mph in the right conditions.
Surely even skilled cyclists should be permitted to use bike paths as long as they don’t tear by everyone at 40 mph. And I’m genuinely a bit unclear as to why no-pedaling-needed bikes shouldn’t be able to mingle with bikes as long as they follow the rules.
I see it as a sort of amateurization/tragedy-of-the-commons that increases the likelihood of injuries.
As a parallel example, from what I can tell, injuries on electric rental scooters haven't really dropped too much, they just stopped being news.
Eh, this is just extending the argument into absurdity I feel.
I didn't see it as absurd at all - there is a huge contingent of bicyclists who should never be on a sidewalk, while at the same time there are massive numbers of casual e-cyclists who should never be riding in traffic.
Ann Arbor recently changed it's laws to reflect that - and I think the cyclists who are aware they shouldn't be on sidewalks, and the e-cyclists who stick only to the sidewalks know who they are.
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I don't know that it is -- electric scooters are controversial -- some folks want them on sidewalks; others in bike lines; yet others only in mixed traffic with cars.
That's the point, I read the post as satire making fun of the top level comment.
"Free pass" for electric motorbikes? What is that person on about? Why have meaningless distinctions between pedaling or not, when the overriding goal should be "promote bike use over vehicle use"?
What societal good, what good to the citizen, is it to place burdens on e-bikes that are not pedal assist?
That's a valid and useful rhetorical technique. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum
Although it can be applied with a bit much snark sometimes. :)
> We also have to delineate between a daydreaming cyclist who's top speed is slow, and a hard-core cyclist with a $3000+ bike that can hit 40 mph in the right conditions.
Are there not speed limits for bike lanes? Most cars have a top speed well above the freeway speed limit too.
Yes, absolutely. 30 kph in town, 45 kph outside of town.
I'm totally ashamed that I forgot to mention electric skateboards with 4 wheels and electric skateboards with 1 wheel and electric unicycles (larger single wheel vs a 'one wheel' electric skateboard) and it's too late to edit them in.
A really important factor you didn’t mention is weight.
Yes but probability of a crash is probably related to the spread in the velocities of various agents.
This is why I often ride my 40 km/h max electric moped on bike paths. Cars don't give me enough following distance so I'm not risking my life there. I also slow down drastically when passing pedal bikers.
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that equation shows velocity is more important though? a small car at 10 mph has about the same KE as a 200 lb person going 40 mph. of course KE doesn't tell the whole story. of the two, I'd much rather be hit by the car. I could run into a brick wall at 10 mph and probably be okay.
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This is a pedal assist e-bike. There are people that cheat and that install throttles so they can move without pedaling but that's a great way to get your vehicle confiscated.
A typical ride has me providing 40 to 60% of the Joules and the remainder comes out of the battery. If there is a very heavy wind up (not rare here) that might drop to 30/70 and if I have a tailwind it is the reverse. The bike has a nice stats display where it tracks all this stuff. Maximum assist is 350W (10A current out of a nominally 36V battery), at the wheel considerably less than that, this is only used when starting up from a complete stop. The rest of the time you're at a small fraction of that.
> There are people that cheat and that install throttles so they can move without pedaling but that's a great way to get your vehicle confiscated.
Note that this varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In the US e-bikes with throttles are legally classified as Class 2 electric bicycles and are generally legal for use in bicycle infrastructure as long as they don't exceed 20 MPH.
FYI, the US classes are as follows: (1) 20 MPH (32 km/h) max, pedal-assist; (2) 20 MPH max, throttle; (3) 28 MPH (45 km/h) max, pedal-assist.
I'm not in the US.
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NY only allows pedal assist. In NYC they will crack down on electric motorcycles using the paths but ignore the delivery guys.
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My wife just bought an ebike (from RadPower) that has both pedal assist and a throttle that doesn't require pedaling. You can also adjust the amount of pedal assist so you can "feather pedal".
Who's going to confiscate this bike????
> Who's going to confiscate this bike????
Most european cops if they catch you: some countries may treat s-pedelecs as bikes, but in most it's a moped, you need a driving license, insurance, a license plate, and all the legal equipment of a moped (e.g. lights, rear view mirror), and commonly type approval (which is going to be very, very expensive). Also can't use cycle paths.
Over the last few years many (but probably not all) member countries have passed laws to treat devices not exceeding 25km/h to bikes, but that's only for hard-limited devices, not "I swear I don't go faster than 25", the latter? mopeds.
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Here in NL that e-bike would not be legal. It's quite possible that where you live that such a bike is legal. Do check up on it though to make sure!
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Depends on your country, really. Throttle ebikes are legal in the USA so long as they don't go faster than 20MPH on throttle alone.
And really speed is what matters here. Who cares if it's pedal-assist or throttle so long as you aren't going markedly faster than normal people without any motor at all? There's no safety concern.
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It depends where you are. Most EU countries forbid throttles, but they're ok in the US as long as your under 1000W motor output (Federal laws), but local laws can make this stricter.
I've built several e-bikes, for fun, and like the author of this article, I've got a long range one, but only with about half of his battery capacity, which is enough for me.
Looking at those power numbers, I can't help but wonder how much you'd gain by doing this sort of modification on a bike that is more efficient and/or aerodynamic even without the motor attached.
A touring bike frame with 700c wheels and a more stretched out position would likely allow you to travel at the same speed for lower total power output - and make your battery go further (or not require such a large battery).
There are velomobiles here, and also e-bike versions of those that go wicked fast. They also ride on the bike paths. I think they're quite dangerous because they are so low that you are riding below the height of a car hood (or a mirror for that matter).
Here is a picture of one:
http://dutchbikes.nl/artwork2/kv4/passing.jpg
and a video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAcy7EVRpXc
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But why does anyone actually care if you technically need to be pedaling in order for the electric motor to engage? Surely an electric bicycle could still go arbitrarily fast while arbitrarily requiring the pedals to turn. Isn't this whole thing just a silly loophole in what is considered a "bicycle"? What if instead, bicycle lanes just had rules regarding top speed, weight, form factor, etc.
> This is a pedal assist e-bike. There are people that cheat and that install throttles so they can move without pedaling but that's a great way to get your vehicle confiscated.
I really need to understand what's the difference with a throttle and a pedal assist whose curve is basically so that it gives all power at a ridiculously low pedaling rate...
I object to the pejorative "cheat" as to suggest that non pedal assist is morally worse than pedalling.
Edit to say nice job on the project, this is awesome. Here in Texas, I would love to see a lot of people using these in the bike lane.
Cheats as in 'breaking the law'.
> I see the two as totally different things: I've tried pedal-assist e-bike and they're great. But... Although I have nothing against motorbikes I'm not cool at all with basically motorbikes getting a free pass because they're disguised as bicycles.
Eh, it depends if you see pedal assistance being the defining difference between a bike and a motorbike.
From a safety perspective, speed may be a better differentiator.
Speed (or better, momentum) is important. But pedal assistance is definitely material to me. Switching from pedal-assist to throttle-controlled changes the proportionality between impulse and real-world results.
As a kid my first response to pretty much anything with a dial was to turn it up all the way and see what happened. That's a behavior I saw quite a bit during the brief plague of VC-funded scooters: novices at 100% motor output rocketing down sidewalks, etc. That's much less likely to happen it they have to pedal hard to get the top speed.
E bikes also have a dial, all it does is it limits the speed when it stops accelerating. You can dial the bike all the way up, peddle but not apply any force and still accelerate to top speed.
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I think something like average real world speed and weight are the two important metrics. Maybe this is the intuition with petal assist vs throttle controlled e-bikes. I do sort of think it should take some work to get a bike up to it's top speed so that riders don't just cruise at that speed.
> so that riders don't just cruise at that speed.
Do you actually ride bikes on roads? This is there because if you're going slow on an actual road you're more likely to get killed because of a car hitting you.
I'm honestly exhausted at this FUD when it's actively fucking with my life as a bike rider on a main road. Even Netherlands allows fully motorized vehicles that are small on their bike paths.
Stop thinking of this as a "free pass" and more of "what's actually the safest for bikers and pedestrians.
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A typical scooter will blow right by my bike, no matter how hard I work at it. Anything over 40 kph is very intense, 36 to 38 is doable over the longer term traffic permitting.
> From a safety perspective, speed may be a better differentiator.
Or perhaps momentum, which is far higher in motorised vehicles.
While I agree with this, there are the caveats that both light electric bicycles and heavy analog bicycles exist, and that in many cases the additional mass of the motor and battery may not contribute much to the overall momentum once the mass of cyclist and cargo are factored in.
Note: I commuted by electric bicycle before I switched to working remote, and I have to say that riding a vehicle that tops out at ~30mph when you're slamming the throttle _and_ pedaling as hard as you can on a road with cars and trucks going 45mph (or faster) is a harrowing experience. The few miles where I rode on bicycle paths, though, I capped my speed at 15-20mph (around what a decent cyclist would do) and slowed to 5-10mph when I was approaching foot traffic or other cyclists - and nobody ever batted an eye (except a few people who wanted to know where they could get one, heh).
> I'm not cool at all with basically motorbikes getting a free pass because they're disguised as bicycles
Why? Seems like a pointless distinction in regards to any sort of rules. Surely where they're allowed to operate, for example, should be based on things like speed and weight, rather than "whether or not the operator is moving their legs in a circular motion."
This. There's an element of snobbery often in this discussion where there's a disdain for people who haven't "worked for" the movement they're getting.
Which seems besides the point. The reason you can't ride a motorcycle in the bike lane isn't because you haven't worked hard enough to deserve it, it's because of the top speeds and mass of the vehicles presenting a danger to others in the lane. It's the same reason cars present such a danger to cyclists - the scale of kinetic energy going around is just too high.
I think fast e-bikes are a technologically interesting thing, but from a regulatory point of view I'm much more mixed. ~30 kph seems eminently reasonable for bike infrastructure, and I'm excited about the ability for that to displace car trips - both from a sustainability perspective and a road capacity perspective. Much faster than that though?
My ebike cuts out the assist around 32kph (20mph) but I apparently hit a max speed of 45kph (28mph) sometimes, so even faster than that must be easily achievable on a much lighter normal bike. So 30 seems too low for a general statement.
Yeah that argument for forcing pedaling to me seems like a way of gatekeeping to keep something a little more "pure" without any actual reason.
On a cargo bike carrying children in a hilly area the throttle is nearly essentially to safely get going from a stop and then to have pedaling take over.
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Speaking of gatekeeping...
A lot of people, adults in particular, appear to have an aversion to riding bicycles due to their inability to place both feet on the ground while seated (and I'm speaking here about the standard bicycle geometry, not recumbents, etc.).
It's too bad too because you would love to get more people out of large steel cars and into efficient e-bikes/scooters.
I wish we could lighten up a bit with regard to requiring pedals/pedalling and try saving the planet a little.
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Not really, without the pedals it's no longer a bicycle but a moped. We have e-mopeds already and there are plenty of rules for those.
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Read jacquesm's reply to my comment: there are people hacking their pedelec so that they accelerate without you pedaling and that's illegal. I think it's a good thing it's illegal. I do also believe only pedelec are allowed on bike lane in Belgium/Brussels.
A bicycle which you can use without using the pedals is, to me, not the definition of a bicycle.
> Surely where they're allowed to operate, for example, should be based on things like speed and weight, rather than "whether or not the operator is moving their legs in a circular motion."
speed / weight and acceleration. But I'm still not sure about that. Bicycle lanes were made, at first, for people cycling. In European cities it's part of an overall move to be "greener": what's green about a vehicle with can be used without doing any exercise at all? You basically took the ICE engine of a motorbike and put instead an electric motor.
KTM (motorbike company) is already in to e-bike game. These companies are going to come and game the system as much as they can if limits aren't set: they'll otherwise build ultra light full-carbon e-bike with crazy fast acceleration and the selling point is going to be "It's a motorbike you can use in a bicycle lane".
I do honestly think saying: "if you don't need to pedal at all, it's not a bicycle and hence cannot use the bicycle lanes" (like they're apparently doing in the Netherlands) ain't a bad rule.
> In European cities it's part of an overall move to be "greener": what's green about a vehicle with can be used without doing any exercise at all?
The "green" movement is about the environment, not exercise.
> You basically took the ICE engine of a motorbike and put instead an electric motor.
That's the "green" part. ICE is not "green". Electric is.
> A bicycle which you can use without using the pedals is, to me, not the definition of a bicycle.
My point is what difference does it make? Like I said, if you want to cap weight or speed, or maybe acceleration, within given areas, fine. But who cares whether or not you classify it as a "bicycle." If a person wants to exercise on their way to work or get there in a suit without having to shower, I don't care.
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That and there are fixed maximum ratios between the pedal input and motor assist.
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> I'm not cool at all with basically motorbikes getting a free pass because they're disguised as bicycles.
As long as they'r not causing problems for other cyclists, they're still a big win in terms of transportation: way less carbon usage and occupies less space.
> As long as they'r not causing problems for other cyclists,
They cause problems. Maybe not every e-motorcycle rider, but most of them take full advantage of the power to out-accelerate other bikers and double the top speed of everyone around them.
Bike paths were design with typical cyclist speeds in mind. It's not uncommon to see a young kid flying down our local bike paths at 40mph or more on a modded e-bike, forcing all of the pedestrian and other cyclists to get out of the way as fast as possible. Worse, two e-bikers flying toward each other at 40mph in opposite directions is the same as one of them crashing at 80mph. Those speeds aren't really appropriate for bike paths, yet here we are.
I frequently run into young e-bikers or e-motorcycle riders on my local trails who are flying at unexpectedly high speeds. They're also tearing up the trails at a rate much faster than normal bikes because the rider has less control over wheelspin and is more prone to throttle out of corners than someone with a direct connection to the drivetrain.
I was a fan of e-bikes when they first came out, but the current incarnation of e-bikers and e-motorcyclists is quite bad in the real world. Again, not every e-biker, but many of the most prolific e-bike riders on my local trails are the same ones running modified e-bikes with too much power and manual throttles.
E-bikes should stay off trails. And in NL it is forbidden to use e-bikes on paths marked cyclists only, which is all of the scenic routes (the difference is the rectangular 'fietspad' sign versus the iconic blue one).
> Maybe not every e-motorcycle rider
I'm not sure if people are using these terms colloquially or if they are codified in law or generally accepted, so I may be making some false assumptions here: as an ICE motorcycle rider, using the term 'e-motorcycle' to refer to what is effectively a no-pedal bicycle dramatically overstates the capabilities and gives a false impression of what such a vehicle/device is.
While some no-pedal electric bikes probably can move at a decent clip, I have to imagine that they're much closer to pedal bike than motorcycle performance.
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>but most of them take full advantage of the power to out-accelerate other bikers and double the top speed of everyone around them.
The full throttle mode of a eBike is limited to 20mph (specifically in the US). I have one, and even when in full assist mode have been passed by dayglo spandex wearing bikers like I was sitting still.
two e-bikers flying toward each other at 40mph in opposite directions is the same as one of them crashing at 80mph
- only if one of them weighs infinitely more than the other.
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Trails are a different matter, and I'm more skeptical of the really fast ones there. For getting around town, I think treating them advantageously, on the other hand, makes some sense, because of the reasons I cited above.
E-bikes on singletrack are incredibly destructive. So are horses, believe it or not. The analog MTBers I know take very good care of their trails.
> They cause problems.
Okay, but if they cause problems then that's already...a problem.
As long as they'r not causing problems for other cyclists
And if a frog had wings, it wouldn't bump its ass when it hops. "Other cyclists"? They're not cyclists, they're motorcycle riders, for starters. Now any jackass can zoom down the bike path at 25-30mph, but yeah, as long as that doesn't cause problems...
In Belgium we have pedelecs (max 25kmh) and speed pedelecs (max 45kmh). Pedelecs are catagorized as bicycles, and speed pedelecs as scooters, which require a license plate and all other stuff, including their proper place on the road.
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Details like that certainly need to be worked out but such criticisms are usually made in a way that ignores the bigger picture.
Internal combustion engines contribute substantially to pollution and human-caused climate change. Motor vehicle accidents maim and kill lots of people every year yet fans of that form of transportation hand wave it off as irrelevant.
We don't have to speed blindly into the future on our current vector. We can change course. It will take work and creative solutions.
Not to say such concerns shouldn't be brought up but they shouldn't be brought up in a manner that sounds entirely dismissive of a new solution with a lot of promise. Ideally, it gets brought up in a more constructive fashion overall that is more conducive to meaningful engagement and less prone to simply making people mad or defensive.
I worry more about the added mass of the e-bikes in the case of a collision with a pedestrian, another cyclist, or a traditional motor vehicle. Potential speeds are relatively the same.
I own and frequently ride e-bike, and am an advocate. That being said, operating one should be done responsibly.
Perhaps your comment could inspire some useful discourse if it were worded less negatively?
You are strongly suggesting it yourself, that if not for the speed the difference would be negligible.
The other factor dividing the two realms in practice is control: in a bicycle the speed is directly a function of leg activity: does the "legs independent" motor-bicycle offer the basically same degree of control?
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What's the difference between that claim and the claim "if cars which can go 120mph are legally considered cars then every jackass can zoom down the highway at 120mph"? The difference, of course, is that highways have speed limits.
You realize it is not hard for a cyclist to hit 25-30mph without motor assist, right?
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> Although I have nothing against motorbikes I'm not cool at all with basically motorbikes getting a free pass because they're disguised as bicycles.
A free pass for what ?
You dont need a motor to reach 40kph on a bike, plenty of people can do it with only their legs. What we can do is limit the speed on bike lanes, but that means we could allow any vehicule on it. There is no reason a motorbike couldn't go on a bike lane if it goes slower than 20kh as most people on bike reach that speed.
It is not because you are on a bike that you have to go on a bike lane.
> What we can do is limit the speed on bike lanes, but that means we could allow any vehicule on it.
No, we can't because of momentum. We could never allow a car or a heavy motorcycle to drive on pedestrian/bike lines even if they are at low speeds.
Less momentum than the rapidity with which momentum can change (power output vs weight, i.e., energy output).
Speed limit on bike lanes in the city is 30 kph, outside it is 45. So those rules already exist (here, in NL).
What is the max speed of the bike you made jacquesm? I note from the start of the article that low speed of alternatives was one of your motivations. I saw the range stats in the last paragraph but didn't notice speed stats (perhaps I missed that?)
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> A "bicycle" that can accelerate without the need to pedal at all is an electric motorcycle, no matter if you put pedal on it or not.
That sounds very American. Don’t we have Vespa scooters and mopeds in the USA as well? There are plenty of bike formats between bicycle and motorbikes.
In China most e-bikes aren’t pedal assists and no one would ever claim they were car road worthy vehicles, they got bike lanes or the side of the road, and are not allowed on the ring road. American bike lanes seems to be recreational, whereas in other countries that are oriented much more at daily life and more heavily used.
Vespa style scooters are motorcycles in many US states, but there are exceptions.
Mopeds with engines under 50cc and that have pedals are often treated differently than motorcycles but some states still require licensing and registration similar to a motorcycle.
If its got a motor and it looks like a bike...
An an American, I agree with your assessment. to me, Vespas and Mopeds are motorbikes. they burn gas.
Pedal assist ebikes are a new category to me, and I don't think any of the current rules make much sense for that.
Pedal assists were the original e bikes back in the early 2000s. But the Chinese found that just making throttle only e bikes was more economical, so that’s what came to dominate the biking ways in China (for people there, biking is more about practicalities and economy than recreation).
I’m sure most American heads would explode if they ever saw how moped, scooter, small motorbike traffic mixed with cars in Southeast Asia.
I would not feel comfortable bicycling in Chinese "bike lanes", they are basically just separate lanes for the mopeds.
In China, the rich drive while the poor make do with e-bikes. Yes, you wouldn't feel comfortable in those lanes, but people still need to live.
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I never understood while we regulate on the mechanism to engage the motor instead of top speed or max power.
Agreed, 70mph but you have to pedal to keep the bike going = e-bike (although an illegal one)...
15mph and has a throttle = electric motorbike (and also illegal)...
But make that 15mph illegal electric motorbike 10mph faster and add extra hardware so users have to waggle their feet around in a circle to trigger the motors... SUDDENLY LEGAL!
I highly doubt there are any safety benefits from pedalling - it seems like an arbitrary limit.
> it seems like an arbitrary limit.
Of course it is, all limits are arbitrary, even if informed. Lawmakers probably picked limits which would be reasonably achievable by average healthy humans over long distances.
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Pedelecs are regulated on all three: maximum continuous power of 250W, assistance only from 6km/h, top assisted speed of 25km/h.
The point of pedelec regulations (in europe anyway) is to be a baseline: anything which satisfies the pedelec specs must be treated as a bicycle by all member states, so if you have a pedelec you know that it will be usable as a bike throughput the union. Member states can go beyond if they want to.
The pedaling aspect is also not really what matters, because you can in principle reduce the load factor so much that the pedals also just become a fancy throttle, no?
No, there is a direct relationship between the power exerted and the power the motor will add. There is a nifty torque sensor built into the cranks.
You're describing one particular kind of (high-end) e-bike. Many perfectly legal, unmodified e-bikes do not have torque sensors. If the bike has a cadence sensor, like mine does, then it doesn't care about how much torque you're applying to the pedals. All it cares about is how fast they're turning. And at the higher speeds (around the 20 MPH limit) the gearing and small wheel sizes on mine are such that one would need to pedal very fast to exert any significant pressure on the pedals. A much lower pedaling rate with no pressure will still maintain the top speed on level ground.
There is no significant difference between "pedal assist" and a hand-operated throttle. It would be really nice if the politicians would recognize this and remove the meaningless class 1 / class 2 distinction based purely on the location of the throttle. (Though to be fair there are many more sensible places which already treat them the same.)
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What I am saying you could hack the power to torque factor to be so high you don't really have to exert very much force at all.
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I've found this to be correct on most every e-bike I have rented. You can "feather pedal", just spinning the cranks without engaging any energy, and the e-bike will send power to "assist".
I'll try that and see what my top speed is.
The laws where I live do not see it this way. If it has pedals, and is under 750 watts, then it is an e-bike. This includes the ability to use a mid-drive motor that supplies 750 watts but makes full use of the bicycle's gearing system.
Where I grew up a bike with a motor and pedals was a moped and was legal to drive without license if under 50cc. They’re still considered bikes.
Here too, but today you would need a license for those. Ditto with my bike, you can't ride it without a drivers license.
> A "bicycle" that can accelerate without the need to pedal at all is an electric motorcycle
Most pedal-assist-only ebikes can run without you pedaling (and without a throttle either). You just need to pedal fast at first, and then take your feet off the pedals. (You can rest them at the center of the frame for example.)
Usually, if there is some friction in the system (but not too much) the pedals will keep on turning, making the bike think actual pedaling is going on. And then the system is self-sustaining (battery permitting, of course).
It's quite funny to do; not very practical, or elegant, but fun.
In my opinion the throttled e-bikes should be treated as bicycles as long as they have pedals and are under 25kg and 250W power.
That would legalize my e-bike that I have used for 14000km in city saving a lot of carbon emissions and not sacrificing much as I can park it in bicycle stand.
Of course going faster than 20-25km/h in pedestrian traffic (where bicycles are allowed) is extremely dangerous. But from my experience going fast in car traffic 35-40 km/h (where bicycles are allowed) is safer than chugging along slowly as cars don't have a need for overtaking between traffic lights.
Is that with or without the weight of the battery ;)
With the battery. Normal bicycles can be as light as 8 kg when using carbon frame. Should be able to fit your battery in a 25kg bike if trying very hard.
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Surely top speed matters more than pedaling?
No one argues that people in electric wheel chairs are really driving ATV quads.
This one is my first sight of a "bicycle with engine" ever (sorry article is in Italian). It was used in the movie "Bread love and dreams".
https://www.cronachemaceratesi.it/2017/04/18/il-museo-del-si...
That's a beauty.
The reality is that there is no useful bright-line rule to distinguish between bicycles and motorbikes. Historically, the two have been very distinct, so we haven't needed one. Now, we are starting to see more of the space between the extremes be explored.
We do absolutely need good laws and conventions here, for safety and fairness. But i don't think basing them on a classification is the way to write them.
Right, but there's a large question at least in the US as to what & who the bike lanes and infrastructure are for. There are commuters who travel via bike, casual bikers, and then there are also extreme bicyclists that compete.
There are bike lanes that are on normal streets and then there are bike paths that are often shared with pedestrians.
I think there is a solid case that bike lanes adjacent to streets are for commuters. The main argument is that the entire argument for installing bike lanes was to provide an alternative to driving.
The bike paths are a bit different. A lot of places in the US will have paths that ban anything with a 'motor'. In the past this just meant that motorcycles including small [sic] mopeds were banned as well. However, in recent years it isn't unusual for someone to use these paths wile riding a e-bike or e-scooter. IMO the main reason for banning motors was that those vehicles were loud and larger than a bike/scooter.
I think that since it's practical to use a e-bike/e-scooter at the normal non-assisted speeds the proper solution is to just have speed limits in places to protect pedestrians and other bikers.
A bike lane far from a city center could have the same speed limit as the road since the it's going to be mostly commuters using it. A bike lane closer to a university campus might have a speed of 15 or 20mph since those lanes will have a lot more traffic and a greater mixture of e-bikes and regular bikes.
A bike path that connects the bike lane to the bike parking area would be like 15mph. A shared sidewalk/path with pedestrians might have a max speed of <10mph.
I think the only group that might loose out is the pure-bicyclists that are used to using the bike lanes more like a gym so having to share the bike lanes with e-bikes could be an issue. But even then I think very few of them tend to ride during the peak commuter hours.
It used to be simple.. if it has a motor and pedals, it's a moped. But yeah, whatever you call it doesn't solve the regulation problem.
As a motorcyclist, I would call them e-mopeds ;).
I think that is the best name, since mopeds also have pedals that nobody uses.
Not sure where you are located but they already do have this. I have a class one pedal assist which cuts out at 20 mph. Allowed on most Mnt bike trails and to do 20 for any amount of distance requires substantial effort. I get passed on the paved bike trails all the time by road bikes with way more gears. Then class 2 which has a throttle and can go 30ish. Then class 3 with a throttle and speed is essentially whatever you can do. 2 and 3 are not allowed on any Mnt bike trails and depending on city, county, are crazy to ride on the paved bike trails, not legal, but do see every now and then. Most people that own them respect the rule.
The most important thing should be the speed, not the method. A fit enough cyclist could easily go fast enough to be dangerous to other cyclists with a normal bike on cycle paths too.
Sure for a while. But a e-bike can do it all day. They can be a hazard for hours every day.
the ebikes I'm familiar with cannot travel at top speed all day. more like slightly more than an hour.
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E-bike is basically the smaller version of electric cars, whose sustainability depends on how we power our energy (not that they have a circular manufacturing process of course).
Differentiating between pedal assist & throttled e-bike serves no great purpose.
There should be no distinction, legally, between a normal bicycle and an electric bike of any kind (throttle or otherwise).
Personal Electric (micro) Mobility is the answer to many problems, let's not add any roadblocks to adoption. Other than keeping powers-that-be comfortable and sparing the feelings of cycling puritans, the distinction is useless, bordering on harmful to the environment.
The recent explosion of high speed scooters has been a menace since my city recently allowed them and e-bikes on bike paths and the local bike rental places purchased whole fleets.
The problem is that tourists and knaves are constantly riding them on paths that are marked pedestrian-only (sometimes due to unfamiliarity with the path system, though often intentionally). Even when they stick to the adjacent bike lanes the scooters accelerate and go so much faster than bikes they are constantly putting pedestrians and slower cyclists in danger. If they stuck to bike lanes on streets it wouldn’t be so bad, but I worry there will soon be a raft of Bernie Goetz style vigilante clotheslining of irresponsible riders.
I don't think there is a meaningful clear demarcation between pedal-assist and electric motorbike. The throttle control just looks different.
On good e-bikes I've ridden, the pedaling is basically limited to telling the motor to go, no meaningful force involved. Sure, you can put "controls motor with button" and "controls motor with pedal" into different legal categories, but I doubt there is much of a benefit in doing so.
Why not just have reasonable rules for bike lanes, like a speed limit and perhaps size/weight limits? Cars with a top speed of 85mph and a 0-60 of 10 seconds are treated with precisely the same rules as cars with a top speed of 170mph and a 0-60 of 3 seconds. We don't really need separate terminology or separate lanes for them.
That's not the law in the UK. A throttle electric bike is still an electric bike, as long as it has pedals that can propel it:
https://www.gov.uk/electric-bike-rules
I see it more as a matter of power produced, I'd probably use 1hp or 750w brushless or something thereabouts as the line to draw. With most pedal ebikes you go faster by pedaling anyways.
I come across modern Solexes with regularity on the bike lanes here, never seen one in traffic.
And they're legal there? With the ICE engine running?
Yep. Speed limited to 26 kph.
They're simply called mopeds in my book. We don't call electric cars, e-cars.
Moped?