Ebikes, bicycles, scooters, skateboards, longboards, eboards, motorcycles, skates, unicycles, heelies, or an office chair: Whatever floats your goat, this is all things micromobility!
"Transportation using lightweight vehicles such as bicycles or scooters, especially electric ones that may be borrowed as part of a self-service rental program in which people rent vehicles for short-term use within a town or city.
micromobility is seen as a potential solution to moving people more efficiently around cities"
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It's a little sad that we need to actually say this, but:
Don't be an asshole or you will be permanently banned.
Respectful debate is totally OK, criticizing a product is fine, but being verbally abusive will not be tolerated.
Focus on discussing the idea, not attacking the person.
I live in such a flat city, almost never think about switching gears.
Which is kind of funny as I drive a manual car because I like feeling connected and shifting in the car, but the e-bike, I set it and forget it, use the throttle and pedal when going up a hill and gravity going down a hill. On the few occasions I encounter a hill.
Boo. This is an advertisement masquerading as a review.
Never read Forbes before?
Of course I have. How does that preclude me commenting?
Guess they haven't heard of Rohloff before lol
Also, aventon released one a month ago
Out of curiosity, when do bikes cross over to "motorcycle" or some other vehicle that requires insurance, registration, training, etc.?
Because feature creep is very quickly blurring the lines, and I don't see that as a good thing.
Saw a kid riding an ebike the other day. Full tinted motorcycle helmet and leathers. Zoomed away from full stop. Guessing a souped up controller. Easily exceeding Class 3 speeds. Didn't pedal once.
I've got a Class 3 bike and an M1 license. They should just drop the pretense and create a midway category.
When they lack pedals and/or exceed the statutory power limit (250w, 500w, 750w for EU, Canada, USA respectively)
Well, that's how it is now, but things are changing quickly.
Automatic gears lower the barrier of entry by removing a skill needed to ride a bike/e-bike, but that would also increase the risk, since... we're removing a skill.
Having pedals on for cosmetic purpose doesn't really make it less of a motorcycle, right? Sure, lower power, but man that doesn't matter too much when they fly by inches away from you on a multiuse path.
Gears are already not an issue on a lot of budget ebikes. Mine is a fixed gear, it's nice to not have to worry about changing gears on it and it makes it simpler for basic repairs. And that one gear was just fine the time I had to ride a half mile home on a dead battery, maybe having gears would have helped but pedaling a dead 50 pound ebike is going to kind of suck regardless.
Depends on terrain (and how much of a hurry you're in). Mine weighs nearly 90 pounds and I've often ridden it miles without even noticing that the battery is turned off.
Flat or slightly downhill, yeah, but I think I was riding slightly uphill that night (and had already gotten off and hiked it up one really steep hill). I definitely notice the topography more on a bike but I bet someone who rides a regular bike could confirm or reject my idea that there's a slope down towards the river.
Automatic gears lower the barrier of entry by removing a skill needed to ride a bike/e-bike, but that would also increase the risk
It would probably need to be studied before you can conclusively say it increases the risk.
Not being distracted by gear changes, and not being stuck in high gear at a stop because you forgot to down shift could actually represent a decrease in risk greater than the increase caused by more riders.
People don't generally drive worse in automatic transmissions than manual. Actually you could probably look up actuarial tables to find out if manual transmission is more or less safe than automatic
The problem is, we're comparing apples to oranges.
On a regular bike, where someone is using their own power to move, changing gears manually requires focus on the riding, but this is all at a pace that the rider settles into naturally.
On an ebike, the rider isn't as focused, because the manual work is being done for them. Add automatic gears, and it removes them even further from being an active participant.
In cars, I don't think we could apply the same stats for manual vs. automatic. Both are going high speed, and screwing up would result in far more dangerous outcomes compared to screwing up a gear change on a bike (which would slow the rider down, nor cause them to lose control at high speed, at least not on a human-powered bike).
Still, I agree that data should be used to make that determination. My point was that we already see harm in having inexperience riders on e-bikes. My assumption is that lowering the skill barrier even further would likely have a negative impact.
Still, I agree that data should be used to make that determination. My point was that we already see harm in having inexperience riders on e-bikes. My assumption is that lowering the skill barrier even further would likely have a negative impact.
And see my assumption is that inexperienced riders (and the public at large) would benefit from automatic gear changes, as that's one less distraction for the low skilled.
I really don't think the transmission is a skill barrier to riders of ebikes though, as the motor assistance helps negate a poor choice of gear.
as the motor assistance helps negate a poor choice of gear.
Is this way accident rates are so much higher, though? 😱 We need riders, especially the inexperienced, to slow down and be deliberate about their riding behaviour.
It will be interesting to see what happens, since everything is so new. But I really don't want to see bikes being pushed into the same category as motorcycles, because any reason to force licensing, insurance, registration, etc. will be used against all cyclists.
That's very much a topic in some European countries like the UK and the Netherlands. There's already regulations about this but vendors of those bikes don't give a damn and sell these overpowered units so cops now have to find ways to spot them (like if they see you're not pedaling), stop them and fine them.
Depends on the jurisdiction. US is state by state, with most having classes A,B,C, then up to moped or motorcycle.
(troll is mass downvoting all my comments)