I appreciate the fact that e-bikes are bringing biking to the masses. I really do. But from this post I also read a lot of coping, because your cycling infrastructure is bad. Like the speed argument is completely bogus if you wouldn't need to cycle next to cars that are going that fast. If you had separated bike lanes, maybe not even attached to streets. Proper bike infrastructure is what gets people to bike, e-bikes get more people to bike.
So yes, it is absolutely great that more people are on the road on an e-bike, now more people can demand their taxes to be invested in proper bike infrastructure helping both e-bike and regular bike riders.
"Better bike infrastructure" and "a bit of pedal assist" are both good things that we need more of.
Even in the best possible future, I believe cycling in US cities will involve some amount of mixing with cars for the rest of my natural life (unfortunately!), so I'm not sure "completely bogus if…" is fair.
And anyway, a little extra speed is still useful because it's transportation.
Here's a fun thought experiment: define "places I can go" as "the locus of points within 1hr bike ride of a train station." If e-bikes let me go 50% faster (say, avg 15mph instead of 10mph), that multiplies the accessible area around each train station by 2.25x! I can go more than twice as many places now!
Are e-bikes bringing biking to the masses? At least here in the UK it seems that standard cycling is very common among ordinary people (and a basic bike can be bought for £50-£100). Whereas e-bikes are mainly owned by the relatively wealthy as they sell for upwards of £1000.
My observation is that ebikes broaden the group of cyclists to people who (for example) might otherwise consider themselves too unfit or elderly, or who would be put off cycling due to living in a hilly area, etc.
They also broaden the times a bike is used vs. some other mode of transport - for example commuting for people who would not want to arrive at work wringing in sweat and in need of a shower, or carrying heavier loads, or towing a child to school in a trailer over a longer distance, etc.
I ride in rain and the only part that I don’t like is my face getting pelted, but the rest of me stays dry with the right clothing.
I admittedly do go camping in snow and whatnot but I find the biggest barrier people have to doing these things is not knowing the equipment that you can bring to make it nice.
The worst part is actually probably mitigating rust IMO.
Living in the UK myself, I just wouldn't dare owning an e-bike and using it for anything outside of recreation, the theft of bicycles is crazy high, and the high purchase price is just not worth the risk. Yes you can get insurance but they usually have loads of exclusions so if you actually want to commute to work or to shops and leave the bike anywhere(even with a good lock) it's dodgy in terms of insurance. On the other hand my £50 scrappy looking bike deters theft by just looking too cheap to steal so I don't mind using it for commute.
£1000 is relatively cheap for a one off transport cost. An annual tube fare is between £1480 and £2708 depending on how many zones you want to travel in.
Conversion kits start at around £150 and can be fitted to that £50 bike.
The biggest issue I see for higher priced bikes is secure parking (as mentioned in the article). No one provides secure/supervised parking and its tricky to get insurance. You can't really lock any nice bike outside the supermarket and always expect it to be there when you get back.
If you want 250 watts or less for a bit of assistance with pedaling and ~20 miles of range, a conversion kit is fine.
But if you have to deal with serious hills or want to use throttle-only, 250W won't be enough. IMO 750W is the bare minimum for that, and it requires a bigger motor, bigger battery, and disc brakes.* That costs a lot more and it's easier (and probably cheaper) to just buy the whole bike than convert what you have.
*Disc brakes are essential for higher-powered e-bikes because such bikes move faster and are much heavier than regular bikes. They need more serious stopping power than rim brakes can provide.
Currently 250W and 15.5mph are the current legal limits in the UK. If want buy bigger and take it on the road without registering it as a motorbike, getting an MOT and insurance or paying your road tax, then you may find the rossers feeling your collar.
I ride with a friend who has gone MTB electric. I leave him behind on the flat but he gets it back on the hills. He's fine for well in excess of 40 miles. Range is mainly an issue of battery size not the wattage.
If you want to use throttle only, then you're no longer riding a pedal-ec and are riding an electric motorcycle (and will consequently need the appropriate licence, insurance and vehicle type approval).
In the US if the bike is powered by a 750 watt or smaller motor and travels at 20 mph or less, it's still an electric bike -- not a motorcycle -- even when powered solely by the battery.
> 250W won't be enough. IMO 750W is the bare minimum
Those numbers seem huge. I can only put out about 150W sustained, so a 250W motor boost on top of that sounds like a lot. That would have me at 400W combined which is nearly pro-rider territory.
Pro riders are riding 17-lb bikes. An electric bike with a big motor and battery is closer to 60 lbs. Electric bikes are governed by something similar to the rocket equation.
You are right. My minimal research was inadequate. There are some shonky kits on EBay for £53 that don't include the battery. At least one on Amazon for £80, but looking more carefully its probably looking more like £350 to £400.
I am an amateur e-biker. Luckily I live in a city with bikeshare so I don’t have to own one, I just rent it for my commute. 5 miles each way. It takes half the time as public transit used to. Before the bike share I would waste at least 90 minutes a day waiting for and commuting on public transit. Now it’s no more than 24 minutes door to door each way. I get mild exercise, and it’s fun! I still own a non e-bike (fat tire mountain bike) and I am in the 10-15 MPH range with that, plus it makes me sweat and be out of breath. The small difference of e-assist puts me in the 15-20 MPH range, and as described in the article it’s a night-and-day difference. I feel safe and assured, confident, like on a motorcycle. Almost can keep up with traffic. I don't identify as a cyclist like many of the true bike commuters in the area, but I often pass them on the bike routes. I try to be friendly, but I’m smoking them with my rental bike in my street clothes for 20 cents per minute. Today I got cursed out by a spandexed “real biker” as I passed by with my electric whirrrr. It really feels great to ride these bikes. What a time to be alive!
> Today I got cursed out by a spandexed “real biker” as I passed by with my electric whirrrr.
So, a motorbike a passes a human powered vehicle? That should come as no surprise to neither of you. :)
To be honest, I don't get the appeal of e-bikes for the type of riding you do. Getting up to 15 MPH when you're riding for 8 km in a city when stopping for lights should be no problem without disabilities on a decent bike. An 8 km ride takes 20 minutes at 15 MPH. At 20 MPH it's 15 minutes. You'd add 5 minutes off your ride and get some proper exercise.
As a reference, my grandmother rode her bike 12 miles to school and then back at the age of 10.
E-bikes make a lot of sense for longer rides with cargo bikes packed kids, trash, food and whatnot.
> To be honest, I don't get the appeal of e-bikes for the type of riding you do. Getting up to 15 MPH when you're riding for 8 km in a city when stopping for lights should be no problem without disabilities on a decent bike. An 8 km ride takes 20 minutes at 15 MPH. At 20 MPH it's 15 minutes. You'd add 5 minutes off your ride and get some proper exercise.
Morning commute is not a moment where I have any interest in exercise, arriving sweaty at work, needing to always carry multiple sets of clothes, ...
I'd rather see it like the dutch, the bike is a tool for moving from A to B. If you want to do this while exercising more power to you, that's not my jam.
> To be honest, I don't get the appeal of e-bikes for the type of riding you do. Getting up to 15 MPH when you're riding for 8 km in a city when stopping for lights should be no problem without disabilities on a decent bike.
I think most people in the North America and Europe live in cities that are so flat biking is just like walking faster. Maybe that's where your frame of mind comes from.
Where I live the hills are so steep that it's impossible to bike them solely human-powered unless you're an actual athlete. And even the more modest inclines will make a regular person give up on the thought of biking since it'd be a workout.
E-bikes are awesome for this, as they make tough inclines much easier.
Lol, where I'm from(Polish mountains) you can have a proper mountain bike with 30 gears, and even in the lowest gear I can guarantee 90% of people wouldn't be able to cycle up to my house without at the very least standing on the pedals - most people just give up and walk pushing the bike in fact. It took me years of training to comfortably cycle up some of those roads while sitting, and it takes a lot of effort.
You'd add 5 minutes off your ride and get some proper exercise.
But I don't want "proper exercise" to be a part of my commute. I want to get to work or to a client quickly, efficiently and with a minimum of effort. I absolutely do not want to sweat through my shirt or arrive at a meeting in need of shower.
> I don't get the appeal of e-bikes for the type of riding you do
Sweat. I do 2km twice a day for the school run in my unassisted mtb. On anything but a cold day, I work up a mild sweat. I wouldn't want to arrive at work in the state I get back in on a warm day.
Many commuters don't want to get "proper exercise" on the way to work. Hard enough getting secure bike storage, let alone a shower.
8km each way on my commute isn't a problem as such, but in summer 'm drenched in sweat in the first couple of minutes. An e-bike lets me skip that. It also lets me cycle 30km leisurely around my city without getting exhausted. I can turn off my motor if I want some exercise, and turn it back on again when I want to sail through the streets.
>To be honest, I don't get the appeal of e-bikes for the type of riding you do. Getting up to 15 MPH when you're riding for 8 km in a city when stopping for lights should be no problem without disabilities on a decent bike
As mentioned there is more than that. An entire accelerates from stop MUCH more quickly which adds a significant element of safety.
By the way the bike share ebikes are like 30lbs and speed limited so there are plenty of times when my "motorbike" has been passed in the road by a well-geared human powered vehicle, friend.
> To be honest, I don't get the appeal of e-bikes for the type of riding you do.
Snow =D I live in Canada and we have quite a bit of snow and ice on the roads in the winter. I'm currently waiting for an electric fat-tire bike (RadRover 6) which should allow me to ride to work without getting soaked in sweat.
IMO, the number one hurdle for ebikes is theft. The things cost a decent chunk of money and there is basically no way to secure them properly. I have owned an ebike and it's such a fun way to get around, but I quickly sold it because I was in constant fear of it being stolen. And shortly after, one of my cheap non ebikes was stolen while locked inside my apartments bike storage area.
I think electric scooters might have a bigger impact on transport as they are easier to store inside.
> I have owned an ebike and it's such a fun way to get around, but I quickly sold it because I was in constant fear of it being stolen.
A foldable / small form factor bike seems like a good mitigation factor, and also helps when moving the bike around (e.g. on public transports).
With regular bikes it's way more of a tradeoff because the smaller wheels tend to lower top speed or increase effort a lot, but an ebike compensates for that.
The big issue is an SFF/foldable bike is way more expensive than a regular, and when you add ebike on top it gets into pretty ridiculous ranges.
A good U lock for quick stops, and storing in a secure area overnight and at work does a lot to prevent most theft.
Additionally, renters/homeowners insurance. Just make sure it covers ebikes (some do not, like Travelers). Policies usually cover theft away from home.
Foldable bikes to bring in your home are also a solution if you do not have a safe place to secure your bike overnight.
HN will hate this but the solution is likely to serial number every part on the bike and software lock it down so if you take a battery or something from one bike, it becomes bricked when you stick it in another bike. This would get hard with non electronic parts like wheels though.
The frame already has a serial number on it and in most places you can file your bike's S/N with the local police department so that if you file a report and they find it they can look it up and reach out to you. This part is already done and works pretty well for recovery (not for reducing theft).
For e-bikes in particular the batteries have a lock, and the motor has DRMed firmware on most big name bikes. It hasn't helped theft, it's just annoying for the user. In general the thief can just grab the entire bike and throw it in a truck, then once they're offsite they have as much time as they want to rewrite the firmware or pick the lock so this doesn't really help.
you should see what's happening to rental ebikes and scooters in SF. I've got a giant pile of hub bldc motors and battery packs I've picked up off the street that the scrappers left. all of those had gps and were ostensibly only unlockable with the service.
I don't see any way the rental company is going to stop that. its certainly not like the police here are going to be anything but abusive if you called them about a bike or scooter that you left out for anyone to get at.
iPhones had a similar theft problem till they implemented decent anti-theft DRM. Now it's rare to see iPhones stolen.
Ebikes could do the same. It would be a shame for the 'hacker' crowd, but with locked down firmware and all parts cryptographically linked by serial number, there would be no valuable parts to strip from a stolen bike.
That's not true, because the bare battery cells are still valuable, and can be easily stripped from the battery module and sold separately. Also, the mechanical parts are difficult to secure with DRM.
VanMoof has some phone home anti theft as a service with integrated tracking. I guess e-bikes could use some kind if location tag embedded in a non removable part like the frame. Rental e scooters have anti theft feature that they sound an alarm and block the wheels if moved although it's useless unless it also phones home. I move them when people park them in our apartment building's courtyard which is private property and against the TOS.
The ability to click "I lost my iPhone" and be confident that no thief can just erase the phone and use it himself.
It normally involves ensuring the device has secure boot, non-rollbackable firmware, tamper-resistant storage for a 'when I last talked to my server' timestamp, and network connectivity to be able to talk to a server to get the lock/unlock status.
It's more than that. To factory reset an iphone, you _must_ be able to log in via the current apple account. Regardless of whether the owner has marked it as lost or not. The lost mode simply allows you to remote wipe the phone to reduce the risk of hackers getting in somehow.
An ebike costs usually less to replace as a car catalytic converter which are stolen more. I wonder if there will be similar solutions. Around my part of the world, bikes are usually insured against theft, for one.
Theft is a problem for all bikes, for sure, but my ebike[1] cost me less than many road bikes do. I live in Chicago so theft is definitely a concern, but the ebike has replaced roughly 80% of my public transportation trips since Covid came down.
Yeah, that's what I found to be the biggest problem for these citybikes (rental/bikeshare). If I need to be somewhere on time then I cannot rely on using one of those ebikes because there might not be any available.
I put a relatively low power (250W) mid-drive conversion kit on my commuter bike last year, along with a decent front rack and a child seat for my 18 month year old.
It's incredibly useful for doing short journeys. The motor doesn't make the bike any quicker than a normal bike, but it makes hills a breeze and removes that "can I be bothered" feeling from cycling. If I'm feeling more energetic I drop the assist down to 0 or 1 and it turns into a regular cycle ride. If I'm feeling lazy I blast it to max.
There's a lot of negativity around ebikes here, but I think they're heralding a revolution in city transport. Cycling is a great way to get around, but if you're tired or hungry or going uphill it can be a chore. Ebikes remove all that drudgery, and enable people to ride much heavier cargo bikes. Anecdotally I've seen absolutely loads of people riding cargo bikes in my part of London over the last year - way more than ever before. Bikes like the Tern GSD or the Bakfiets can carry multiple kids or a full food shop uphill with minimal effort. They are actually more useful than a car in a lot of situations.
Once I have a secure place to store it, I'm seriously considering getting a long tail cargo bike like the Radwagon or Tern GSD soon. Driving is so much effort compared to a bike.
i have a long tail cargo, non-electric, Yuba Sweet Curry.
It is awesome, the kids go on the back and have a blast. Way better than a three wheel cargo bike. Much lighter and can pop up on the footpath.
> Previously, you had to be a serious cyclist to access this speed (and corresponding ability to simply exist on car-dominated roads), but now almost everyone can.
Wow, interesting that they frame this as a positive. I'm a general advocate for e-bikes but this has been the absolute biggest drawback I've noticed with them: e-bike riders suddenly get all of the speed of a very fit cyclist but absolutely none of the road awareness.
Most "serious" cyclists in my area generally behave pretty well, or at least when they're breaking the law they are usually doing it in a way that has manageable risk to them (I'm not approving it, but I understand it's calculated), while I've seen a lot of ebike riders do some phenomenally dangerous things because they just didn't realize it was dangerous.
I don't necessarily blame the ebikes for this -- I just think riding on "car-dominated roads" requires some experience rather than just more speed. Ebikes aren't a replacement for safe infrastructure.
Yeah. I agree with this. I tend to be very law abiding. And I think e-bikes enable me to be more willing to come to complete stops, and generally follow traffic laws than most bike riders I know.
But I’d definitely acknowledge that a lot of e-bike riders seem to be engaging in risky behavior, quite possibly without realizing the risk.
That's a good point about stops. Starting off on an ebike is so much easier haha.
> I tend to be very law abiding.
Same. I've always tried quite hard to follow the letter of the law on my bike; it seems every counter example is otherwise held against cyclists as a whole. I'm hesitant to criticize ebikes as I do think they're a net good. More people biking is better for everyone.
> it seems every counter example is otherwise held against cyclists as a whole
This made me think of Mr. Riah from Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend, a Jew who had been operating a money-lending business:
> “It looked so bad, Jenny,” responded the old man, with gravity, “that I will straightway tell you what an impression it wrought upon me. I was hateful in mine own eyes. I was hateful to myself, in being so hateful to the debtor and to you. But more than that, and worse than that, and to pass out far and broad beyond myself—I reflected that evening, sitting alone in my garden on the housetop, that I was doing dishonour to my ancient faith and race. I reflected—clearly reflected for the first time—that in bending my neck to the yoke I was willing to wear, I bent the unwilling necks of the whole Jewish people. For it is not, in Christian countries, with the Jews as with other peoples. Men say, ‘This is a bad Greek, but there are good Greeks. This is a bad Turk, but there are good Turks.’ Not so with the Jews. Men find the bad among us easily enough—among what peoples are the bad not easily found?—but they take the worst of us as samples of the best; they take the lowest of us as presentations of the highest; and they say ‘All Jews are alike.’ If, doing what I was content to do here, because I was grateful for the past and have small need of money now, I had been a Christian, I could have done it, compromising no one but my individual self. But doing it as a Jew, I could not choose but compromise the Jews of all conditions and all countries. It is a little hard upon us, but it is the truth. I would that all our people remembered it! Though I have little right to say so, seeing that it came home so late to me.”
So you think that you can calculate it as dangerous but they can't? It seems to me like the dangers of riding a bicycle fast on the road is really obvious and the e-bike riders are calculating the risk just as experienced riders are. Not everyone has your risk appetite.
> So you think that you can calculate it as dangerous but they can't?
I'm sure they know it's dangerous at some level but there's fundamental differences in riding patterns between someone who has thousands of hours in the saddle and someone who just got on a bike. For example in the last week I've seen ebike riders swap in and off the sidewalk, not use helmets, and change lanes without a shoulder check. Experienced cyclists don't typically do these.
The dangers are obvious, but the experience and ability to read your surroundings comes with time spent.
So, yes, I do believe AP when if they say their experience in getting to that speed with a regular bicycle gives them an advantage in those situations to someone jumping on a bike that artificially empowers them to that speed.
You would rather this type of person drive a 2 ton vehicle? “Well people are going to have poor judgement” isn’t really a good argument against anything.
I don't think this is comparable. People driving a two ton vehicle have to be licensed, which means they have a general understanding of the rules they're supposed to follow and a general mentality that they should follow them. More experienced cyclists are similar (not in the license, but mentality). A lot of amateur cyclists don't have this mentality on the bike when they start out.
I'd rather they drive a machine that is fast enough to keep up fully with traffic, outfitted with proper safety mechanisms like ABS and turn signals, and wear protective DOT-approved safety gear.
Motorcycles are not that much more expensive but they're much safer. The only reason that ebiking isn't killing people is because it's new and rare, but when that changes it's obviously worse for people to be sitting on the edge of the road at around 30mph with nothing other than a cycling helmet and airpods.
What's weird to me is that motorcycles can be had for cheaper than many e-bikes despite the e-bike being a much simpler machine, less range and far slower.
For example, a Kawasaki Ninja 400 has MSRP in the $5200-$5800 range, a nice small local commuter bike but still very capable. Many nicer e-bikes are quite a bit more expensive than that.
I agree.
I used to ride a recumbent in the rural parts of The Netherlands to work. Since those are notorious for being overlooked, I looked into why. Flags and such didn't seem to make as much of a difference as just behaving predictably. Drive slower in the city. Match your speed with the traffic around you when it gets crowded. And try to make eye-contact with drivers if you doubt they noticed you.
Now I live in a city and just got an eBike. I think it's more or less the same, even though you are more visible. Acceleration can be handy, but speed itself feels more of a risk if you don't have enough situational awareness.
Off course I am heavily biased towards separate bikepaths or roads where bikes have priority[1]
This is something i'm also concerned with when it comes to electric vehicles. I don't necessarily think the average 4000 lbs family sedan should be doing 0-60 in 3 seconds.
This post made chuckle with recognition. I'm typically a fast and very occasionally aggressive cyclist, on a fast bike with 15 years of experience. Lately I've been seeing aggressive moves that I recognize from visibly unathletic cyclists on heavy loaded up ebikes in very much upright postures. If any of the things that have gone wrong for me go wrong for them, no way do they have the reaction speed or maneuverability or stopping power needed to get out of the situation.
Yeah, for the most part, speed comes with experience (genetic freaks of athleticism aside). I can ride at 30mph as comfortably now as I could 20mph 10 years ago. 10 years ago, 30mph was sprinting, and I was not as skilled at maneuvering the machine as I am today. Even with my lack of current fitness (I quit racing and training years ago) I can still comfortably ride with groups of people much more fit because of the experience I gained when I was racing.
Yes I can. In a group, rotating out quick pulls on the front but largely drafting. Most cyclists with a few years under their belt can.
I'm was never a track racer, never even much of a road racer, but at peak fitness I could do a 40K time trial in ~56 minutes, on a time trial bike and a flat course. That only won races where the fast guys didn't show up. 10 years ago if memory serves a 50 year old guy almost broke the 50 minute mark. It's really not as fast as you think it is.
Alex Dowset did nearly 55KPH his last track hour record attempt, and didn't set the record. Power required to go a given speed follows the cube of the velocity so it's nothing near linear to go 10kph faster into the wind at those speed, but yes, in a group, 48kph is attainable for a moderately fit cyclist.
Furthermore, my point wasn't about being "comfortable" as in "breathing easy" it's "comfortable" as in "feeling ok going that fast on a bicycle and knowing I'm relatively safe because of the experience I have.
You’ve put your finger on a real problem for me. I live in the UK countryside, and we get a lot of serious cyclists visiting here. The most dangerous pattern I see is occupying the middle of the road - which is fine when they’re doing 25mph in a 30mph road. But they stay there in 60mph sections, causing drivers to accelerate and veer round them. If we had more riders doing the same thing on ebikes, I imagine there’d be more accidents, not fewer.
If you ride around in the gutter then you will get cars squeezing you all day long. Taking your position in the road is absolutely the right thing to do.
This sense of self-righteousness helps nobody. It creates a phoney war between different types of road user, as opposed to looking for ways we can coexist peacefully.
It's not self-righteousness to want to ride safely.
If you ride in the gutter then drivers will squeeze pass without making a conscious overtaking decision. That is not safe. Most car drivers will take your distance from the curb as an indication of how far out they should pass you.
Not only that but the gutter is full of potholes and sunken drains, these are a major hazard to cyclists. You can't ride around them if you are being squeezed by cars.
It also gives you more room to manoeuvre in case someone in a car does make a mistake.
>It creates a phoney war between different types of road user, as opposed to looking for ways we can coexist peacefully.
Something tells me your idea of peacefully coexisting means me being subservient to you.
It's not a sense of self-righteousness, what they're describing is the recommendation of most cycling groups and association and is entirely about safety.
The sense of self-righteousness is entirely on your side of the network.
> as opposed to looking for ways we can coexist peacefully.
Being squeezed into the gutter with cars zooming by at twice your speed a hand's breadth away is not peaceful coexistence. What you're doing is tantamount to suicide suggestions.
The actual way for "peaceful coexistence" is well-known: grade-separated independent infrastructure (which, to nobody's surprise, is how the netherlands do it all over). Any interaction is a risk except in very low-speed areas (20mph and below). There's a reason why intersections are where most accidents happen.
Forcing a full lane pass is necessary when many drivers will not change their lane position when riding on the side. I wouldn’t do this on all streets, but when I’m on a problematic one I self righteously decide I’m not dying that day.
E-bikes are limited to 25kmh in Europe (and that also applies to the UK - for now). If you are seeing e-bikers doing 25mph (are you really?), then those are illegally modified. They exist, but are a distinct minority.
Also, e-bikes are typically ridden by people who would never think of riding a bicycle in the middle of an A-road, so no need to worry.
Just meeting anecdote with anecdote, but in my experience the overwhelming majority of accidents and near accidents with bicycles happen because either a driver isn't paying attention, or the bicyclist intentionally cuts in front of traffic to get hit or fuck with people (San Francisco).
E-bikes make the first case safer because, as described in the article, the faster you go the more time the driver has to notice you and slow down before crushing or swiping you. Similar but slightly different, you also spend less time in intersections when you go faster, lowering your chance of getting hit by turning or cross traffic
Oh yeah I don't have any data at all, and I don't doubt that statistic about accidents for a second.
> E-bikes make the first case safer because, as described in the article, the faster you go the more time the driver has to notice you and slow down before crushing or swiping you
I think this is true in some degree, but has a corresponding elongation in the time required to pass the cyclist (which increases the chance that drivers gun it to do so) and reduction in the time to respond when you're going to be cut off. I would suspect it's mostly a wash.
The vast majority of accidents happen at intersections. At an intersection the faster you go the less time somebody in the cross direction has to see you, so speed makes you much less safe.
I've only seen one good study about this, and it was in Sweden where people drive very differently. That study suggested faster speeds do lead to more collisions or near collisions with cars.
But in the absence of more relevant and recent studies, I prefer to trust my own experience. I feel safer on a bike when I go faster because I'm moving at a slower speed relative to the cars more likely to hit me, and I can get out of the way of others more quickly.
Hi, I'm the site creator, just saw this posted! Happy to field questions.
The site is due for an update, I've been compiling a lot more resources and bolstering some of the arguments with more data, but lately I've been spending a lot of time on these cyclist PoV videos https://twitter.com/CarsDontFitJC
To briefly touch on a few common q's I see cropping up here:
- Yes, cycling infrastructure is really bad everywhere in the US (some places worse than others). That's orthogonal to most of the things that are great about e-bikes though. Better infra, and more e-bikes, are both part of fixing the US's horribly broken urban transportation landscapes.
- "Rain and snow": it's just not that hard to make biking reasonable in all but the most inclement weather, and anyway, solving {traffic, parking, traffic violence, air pollution, noise pollution, emissions} on the other ≈95% of the days would be extremely good for everyone (including drivers). Making everyone wear a "$40k internal combustion parka" everywhere is not a good solution either!
I really appreciate the thoughtful feedback and discussion I have some related projects with cool software angles I am hoping to post here as well, soon™
This sounds great in theory, but I don't find it convincing.
Motorcyclists say the same thing about speed being a benefit and maybe it is in some cases, but if you look at the stats, the faster the bike, the more likely you will die. Speeding is a factor in 32% of fatalities.
I'd be surprised if it's significantly different on an e-bike.
Maybe I need to caveat it more, but I'm really focused on the range from, say, ≈5mph (uphill on a "leg-bike", or starting from a stop at a light or stop sign) to ≈25mph (roughly my top speed on a leg-bike or e-bike).
In that range, and in mixed traffic (which is unfortunately most urban riding in the US), a 5mph difference can be a step change in terms of whether drivers even feel the need to pass me at all. 15mph is only 50% faster than 10mph, but can totally flip the "who's passing who" dynamic from "cars passing me frequently+aggressively" to "cars hesitate, back off, and then I get ahead / pass the next cars in line at the next light."
Also, the stats for cars show that speed increases cause deaths to go up non-linearly, so your chances of dying in an accident are way more than double at 100 vs 50 km/h.
I would assume the same about motorcycles and ebikes, but presumably the threshold would be lower due to lack of protection (motorcycle helmet and armour not as safe as a metal shell with airbags).
So I wonder where that curve starts to rise up on bicycles and ebikes considering they wear just a bicycle helmet and no armoured clothing usually.
(I loved riding ebikes in China (Kunshan) with wide protected lanes that were totally separate from traffic outside of city center (where speeds were low and congestion high, negating they need)).
Definitely. Though I feel that many people may not know that the probability of a fatality in cyclist/pedestrian accidents increases dramatically between 20-30mph, and I certainly see a lot of ebikers doing 25mph+ in crowded areas that would be 12-15mph if not assisted.
True, but I still don’t want to hit something going 20 on a bike.
There’s a pretty big difference between going 10 and going 20 too. Physics lets us know that 2x the speed of a mass carries 4x the energy, so a 20mph crash does 4x the damage of a 10mph crash. I’ve had a bike crash into rocks at under 20mph that could have killed me were it not for a helmet and padding. (I did not walk away unscathed, years later I can still feel the injury to my shoulder…)
Crashing at 60 on a motorcycle is pretty likely to kill you. Crashing going 20 on a bike might break bones - as long as you hit something stationary, rather than throw yourself in front of a car doing 40. Crashing at 10 mph and you might be able to jump off or walk away with only scratches.
It’s also fun to think about how crashing at 1000 mph is not that much more likely to kill you than crashing at 60 mph on a motorcycle. At some point, the speed is enough to do all of the damage.
Some good points, but the focus seems to be on e-bikes vs. cars. I rarely see any opposition to e-bikes from drivers. The push-back mostly comes from regular cyclists and pedestrians, and those interactions are hardly addressed. Personally, I think putting e-bikes on paths already suffering from contention among cyclists and pedestrians is not something the stewards of those facilities should approve by default. If a particular path can support it, that's great. I wish more did. But I've also seen a bad situation become worse because of e-bikes on trails that were already at or over capacity. "Better than cars" isn't enough.
I am excited by e-bikes and love riding them, but I'm not nearly as bullish. If you're single living in a bike-friendly city, sure. But I and many others have moved out of cities and often have to transport more than just our own bodies around. Roughly 80% of my rides include my dog (I take him to the park, to day care, to family outings, etc.), and I also appreciate the car as a second informal storage space - climbing shoes, first aid kit, and the like.
Basically, ebikes are great when you don't need much anything else besides your self.
I have a kid and biking with him worked great in Munich, which has decent bike infrastructure (by US standards, mind blowingly good bike infrastructure). We didn't have a car, just an electric cargo bike.
It's true that there are certain compromises compared to a car, but a car has its own set of compromises (mostly cost + parking being more annoying in a city).
Legally in the Boston area nothing with a motor is supposed to go on bike paths. It was a law put in place in the 80s to prevent people on mopeds from using bike paths. The end result is rarely enforced from my own experience and from what I've heard from the local electric skateboard group there.
I don't know about Boston in particular, but in a lot of places these laws only apply to class 2 ebikes (ones with a throttle). Pedal assist often doesn't count, even though it's got a motor too.
I would say regular (analog) bikes are great when you don't need much anything besides your self. The wonder of the ebike is the fact that I can transport myself, 2 kids, picnic, toys, etc on one device. Granted your pup may be too big for even a modern longtail, I can understand you don't want to leave your best friend behind!
It's amazing how many people think bikes only work if you're a fit single person with no kids in a big city.
On some level they're aware of ebikes existing, or, y'know, the Dutch, but for some reason the thoughts of "the Dutch bike everywhere" and "the Dutch have children" never quite connect in their heads.
Perhaps I'm wrong but I did think the Dutch were quite fit when I was borrowing a bike and riding around in Amsterdam. I wondered if it was about riding bikes. Perhaps other parts of the country are different.
Sure, because the Dutch are champions of active transportation: rates of walking and biking are very high there, due to urban design that supports those things. People who exercise will be in better shape than those who don't.
That said, you definitely don't need to be particularly fit to bike there. The bike infrastructure is quite good, and yes it helps how flat the country is (though this is becoming less of an issue with the rise of ebikes).
I ride an ebike every day. In Chicago they are very prevalent on every other block as part of the bike share system (so no need to worry about storage, theft, recharging or maintenance), and for 15 cents a minute it has become my main form of transportation.
In Sydney it’s just too treacherous to cycle, and the risk of injury is too high to me to make it worth it.
In addition there are places where bikes are massively inconvenienced vs cars.
The classic example is the (I’d guess) 6 story flight of stairs to walk your bike up to use the harbour bridge. There are other examples like this, around bridges.
These add a lot of time and sweat to a commute making it more convenient to drive or eat a train or bus.
Cycling for pleasure, if you drive to the right places, is still possible.
We will be moving to a house in the suburbs next year, and then we probably will get a cargo bike, as there we will have space to safely store it and the roads are better for cycling than the city centre.
Bikes also need a good amount of infrastructure, and most cities do not have that right now. Given its usually car drivers that pay taxes for roads (either a direct road tax or through fuel) it not really a suprise that they are designed for them.
I calculated this out 2 months ago: The US spent 416 billion dollars on roads in 2014 [1]. At 123 billion gallons of gas [2] and 44 billion gallons of diesel [3], that would require $2.50 worth of tax per gallon. Gas near me is $3.40 with a 60 cent tax so $1.90 short or 24%.
Something I've been wondering is in what region(s) Ebikes are becoming popular - it seems to be mostly the UK, East Asia, and maybe some larger coastal US cities.
Hopefully this will (in the US) lead to cities taking the idea of low-speed vehicles more seriously, which are a good fit for medium-density US cities with room for putting in grade-separated paths. For a bonkers example of how it isn't all that hard in moderately wealthy US new development, see Tom Scott's video "The City of Golf Carts" [1] which describes the Atlanta suburb of Peachtree.
It is not accurate to use $40,000 as the amount of money needed to get a car. A good new car can be purchased for half that, not to mention the used car market.
I bought a used car 6 years ago, and since then I've spent €2,200 on maintenance - that includes oil and tire changes. I'm quite strict on following the manufacturers guidelines, so if you were a bit more laissez-faire or did more work yourself it would be cheaper.
Insurance costs €150/year. I drive around 10,000km per year, which at today's prices (€1.50 per litre) fuel costs €900/year.
I paid €10,000 to buy the car and today the same aged cars will sell for around €6,000. That gives a total cost of ownership (excluding fuel) of €1,100/year or €2,000/year including fuel.
For my family's usage that works out cheaper than public transport + renting a car for longer trips.
I think this must be a US phenomenon. My used car in the UK costs me about $600/year plus $0.14/mile (including fuel, taxes, inspections, maintenance, depreciation, parking, insurance). And that's in a country with ~$0.09/mile in fuel taxes.
Granted this is not the average cost of car ownership but a car chosen for low total ownership cost.
I own and drive a car that I bought with the intention of owning and maintaining cheaply, too. I am fairly anal about maintenance, so the costs associated with that are actually inflated from what they could be.
I live in Southern California, apparently a very expensive place to be.
I own a reliable used car that I bought for fairly cheap (sub 5000usd).
I pay about 82 dollars a year for registration, and 85 dollars a month (with a good DMV history) for insurance.
I spend around 1200 dollars on maintenance a year generally, but it has been as low as 500 a year.
So, 2400-2900 a year after the initial purchase. It's more expensive than some places -- but not ourageous.
Insurance seems to very high compared to Japan. With good history, 35yr old, and having Prius, unlimited insurance with car insurance takes below $300/yr.
Tax is high here. $330/yr (after 2yr) and $210/2yr (after 5yr).
$840 for me in IL even with Anti-Theft Discount, Auto Multiple Line Discount, Short Annual Mileage Discount, Vehicle Safety Discount, Good Driver Discount.
I'm comparing new cars to new e-bikes and, sure, in both cases you can get something "pretty good" for ≈half the average new {e-bike,car} price. Some people will get something "very good" for 2x the average!
From what I can tell the research supporting the $40k average (or, alternatively, $800/mo) seems reasonable:
If good infrastructure is in place, like it happens in the Netherlands, e-bikes are not all upsides. From personal experience, I have identified a few problems.
(a) speed = reduced reaction time. No more riding with your headphones on ---that's pretty safe and common to do in the Netherlands--- as you need all your senses on alert to react on any road emergency. (b) speed = less excercise for short-midrange routes. Your 20' bicycle ride to work becomes a 12' e-bike ride, and requires less effort. (c) speed = more room to be an asshat. Most e-bike riders behave, but as more and more youngsters can afford an e-bike, things change. Worse, youngsters often go for those heavy, fat-tire e-bikes that are just as dangerous to crash with as a regular moped. And just wait until those become popular with the (already annoying) bicycle-riding tourists.
But to be fair, an e-bike can also pay of its purchase within a year in cities with high rent prices. This includes Amsterdam.
More funding for bike paths would have been great, but what would you have cut to get it? I kind of like things like water I can drink and bridges that don't fall down. This bill was hard enough to pass as it is. Trying to add funding for bike paths would have been difficult because (a) right-of-way issues tend to make them hideously expensive relative to the constituencies they serve and (b) that constituency tends to be more liberal than the fence-sitters were. Even those who aren't in the pocket of the fossil-fuel industry like Manchin still had to satisfy their own constituents who are more oriented toward giant pickups and SUVs than bikes. Proponents needed to attract votes, not drive them away.
Yes, it's a missed opportunity, but no bill at all would have been an even bigger one.
I'm going to make a wild guess that there are more pork eaters than cyclists in America. Bike lanes are compicated issues but everyone has to eat. Politicians are always going to make these calculated decisions. I have also observed that the quickest way to fire up an angry mob is to say something perceived to be critical of cyclists.
Pork doesn't mean literal pork- in fact, as far as I know the infrastructure bill doesn't spend a cent on subsidies to pig, or any other, farming, though it does include improvements to rural roads, water supplies and broadband which will help farmers.
Pork, short for "pork-barrel politics", is a US term originating in the 19th century which refers to the practice of spending money in a legislator's district to get their support.
The thing about ebikes is they sit in a speed niche that hasn't really been seen before, and it's going to cause lots of problems.
Before ebikes, you either rode a bicycle, or moved up to a motorscooter or motorcycle, which are much more regulated. The problem is, ebikes are stealth motorscooters. They go really, really fast, for sustained periods of time, and yet are as thin and quiet as a pedal bike.
I just started riding motorcycles and you are told that you should ride as if you are invisible, and it's totally true. Ebikes, however, are even worse. You're still going 30, 40 or more and yet, you're even less visible to traffic and less protected should something go wrong. This is going to be a huge issue as these things get more popular. Which they will be.
My son and I are getting really into ebikes and e-dirtbikes and e-motorcycles. We're building our third right now [1]. They really are a totally new and interesting area which, like how Tesla changed perceptions of electric cars, ebikes are going to do the same with two wheeled vehicles. For those of us in temperate areas like California, it might represent a real fundamental shift in how we all commute. Laws are going to need to be changed quickly.
For those of you interested, definitely start looking at all the activity around ebikes and e-motorbikes online [2]. There's a quickly growing community of enthusiasts who are building their own bikes from scratch, modding/upgrading their off-the-shelf bikes, converting old dirtbikes and more.
It really feels like we're at a tipping point. Even HN has had several articles about it in as many days, even though I think most of the articles and conversation really missed the point: Ebikes are a 10x innovation and we should really be thinking of what that will mean.
> The thing about ebikes is they sit in a speed niche that hasn't really been seen before, and it's going to cause lots of problems.
At least in the EU (and the UK) e-bikes are limited to 25km/h, about 15.5m/h. Even I can cycle faster than that. And vehicles like moped's were extremely common in European cities a decade or two ago, which fit the same characteristics as en e-bike today.
> They go really, really fast, for sustained periods of time
Not really. The various e-bike classes all have assist cutoff speeds which are lower than what one can pedal a regular road bike, so e-bikes aren't any faster. It just takes less effort and sweat to keep the speed, but the actual speed isn't higher.
> They go really, really fast, for sustained periods of time, and yet are as thin and quiet as a pedal bike.
Not really? Class 1 and 2 ebikes in the US top out at 20 mph. Ebikes in Europe usually top out at 25 km/h (15.5 mph). Even 20 mph is achievable by a moderately fit person on a road bike for a sustained period of time.
Thanks for the support. I really don't think most people realize the power of ebikes. You used to need at least a 50cc engine to get to these speeds, and they were relatively big/heavy vehicles (dirt bikes, Vespas, etc.) and always loud. Not any more. Your bike can look like a regular road bike and easily hit 45mph with a kit from Amazon or eBay.
I know because I've done it.
And it scared me so much, I had both myself and my 19yo son go take a motorcycle course this summer to get our M1s before we ended up wrapped around a tree or under a truck.
It may be based on a bicycle and have an electric motor, but the vehicle in that video is not a class 1, 2, or 3 e-bike. Due to the speed and motor size (2 kW) most places would classify it as an electric motorcycle and require the corresponding license. The limit to be considered a class 3 e-bike (in the US), the highest e-bike class, is a maximum speed of 28 MPG on level ground with standard passenger + cargo mass before the assist cuts out. (You may be able to exceed that speed with pure pedaling, or on a downhill slope.) Class 1 and 2 are limited to 20 MPH, with only foot-controlled throttle ("pedal assist") or the option of hand-activated throttle, respectively. All three classes are limited to 750 watt or smaller motors. Quite a few places treat class 3s as motorbikes or motorcycles rather than bicycles.
The main problem I see with bike ascendancy is the theft issue. E-bikes seem to exacerbate this issue (they're definitely more expensive thus juicier targets) but perhaps some basic ability to remotely lock & brick the bike (a la Apple's Lost Mode/remote wipe) might prove useful to start deterring thefts.
Ultimately, law enforcement need to start paying attention to bike thefts (ie, we need a "grand theft auto" type infraction). Not sure how this happens.
One thing that's concerned me about ebikes is helmets. I ride one that can pretty easily handle 25, and if a person is using an old helmet from preMIPs, or has been through a crash that's not going to offer enough protection at those speeds. You need snell, or dot or something certified for faster speeds.
So many cringe statements in this post I'm not going to reference them here. One note which I think is missed often with heavy electric cargo bikes is a simple equation, used in car collisions to determine safety requirements.
F = 0.5 mv^2
The electric nature of these bikes makes them go faster than regular bikes so the force in case of an accident is increased by the square of increase in velocity. Add the increased mass of these cargo bikes and the force on impact is very large. It's very surprising there is no regulation on use of these bikes on normal bike lanes or sidewalks which I see often in places like San Francisco.
I'd be surprised if it makes that much of a difference on impact, since the differential with a car doesn't change much.
What will hurt is whether the brakes are sufficient to stop that mass, which naive conversions have. That makes the difference between stopping in time or not.
Exactly. I support banning e-bikes (and anything with a motor) from barely existent bicycle/pedestrian paths/infrastructure. E-bikes can simply use the current beautifully supported motorized roadways.
So yes, it is absolutely great that more people are on the road on an e-bike, now more people can demand their taxes to be invested in proper bike infrastructure helping both e-bike and regular bike riders.