Comment by nybble41
4 years ago
> You're not really a regular bicycle anymore due to your speed…
The top speed (with assist) for class 1 & 2 e-bikes is well within the speed range of a regular bicycle. 15 MPH is considered a reasonable average speed for beginners, and 18-22 MPG is not out of the question with training. I've ridden my own e-bike past 20 MPH with no assist on occasion, and being a foldable model designed for electric assist it has a higher mass, smaller (20") wheel radius, higher rolling resistance (due to low-pressure 3-4" tires), and lower gearing than your typical non-electric commuter bike.
> … but you're also not a motorcycle that deserves its own lane.
Bicycles should have their own lane, whether electric or not, regardless of speed. It's not safe to share the lane with another vehicle.
I've tried driving over the top of the motor on this bike and it is almost impossible. I'm a pretty strong cyclist and I never managed more than 48 kph and that only very briefly. The drag is insane.
This is my biggest gripe with ebikes. On a regular bike, there's a nice curve where you can always push yourself a little more to get a little extra speed, tapering off a little as your speed becomes too high for your gears. On an ebike, you have the assist until you don't, and (especially in high power mode), the wall when exceeding the assist threshold is too extreme to be worth fighting.
I wish someone would make an ebike that gradually dials down the assist in the last 5-15kph (depending on max speed; my experience is mostly on a US class 3 bike that caps out at 45kph; I'd like it to gradually ease off starting at ~30kph).
Trying to exceed the 32 km/h limit on my ebike is similar. It's like hitting a brick wall when the assist drops out.
I assume it's a combination of the extra weight and the extra losses from pedalling the motor as well as the wheels (mostly the second part I think). Going faster on my non-electric mountain bike is significantly easier.
22 mph = 35 kmh. The average speed of Tour de France is 40 kmh: https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/tour-de-france/2016/gc/...
The average speed over the TdF is completely irrelevant, they cross the alpes. Generally on a race bike riding at 40kph if you have a slight tailwind is very doable over extended periods. If you are riding in a group of riders riding along at 40 is very straight forward, you can easily go over 50 (the fastest TdF stages are around 50 average over more than 180km distance. I can easily ride 30km/h on a regular commuting bike over extended periods (and I'm currently quite unfit).
30 is pretty easy to do, 35 is significantly harder and 40 is insanely much harder.
People saying regular bicyclists do 40-45 kph seldom have much experience on bikes. And someone going that in city traffic, like a lot of ebikes do, is just not a thing =/ too much stopping/starting and with dedicated lanes you still have to slow to traffic. O ly ebikes get up to those speeds in that encironment
I believe your speedometer is broken!
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I wasn't talking about a long-distance race like the Tour de France. This is average speeds over a one-hour period. If an ordinary cyclist can reach those speeds, even for just a few minutes at a time, then cars need to be equipped to deal with it. The fact that an e-bike can sustain such speeds over a longer interval doesn't fundamentally change anything.
> If an ordinary cyclist can reach those speeds, even for just a few minutes at a time, then cars need to be equipped to deal with it.
Cars per se have the technical equipment to deal with that; it's the drivers' brains -- experience / expectations, basically -- that need to catch up.