@lioracle@TheWarOnCars that's easy it's because pickup trucks and SUVs are tools for hauling important stuff like groceries or wood or driving in snow or rain. Whereas bikes are just expensive toys for exercise. Pictures unrelated
The good news, such that it exists, is that there are some emerging local/state programs to subsidize ebike purchases -- and when their effects are studied, they're great! Folks drive less, burn less fuel; towns have less traffic; the results are woven from win-win
E-Cars consume more electricity than E-Bikes, meaning the power companies make more money supplying the electricity. Secondarily, E-Cars must still be registered for road use, meaning municipalities make money on their sale and use.
#regenBraking on #eBikes can save you the cost of your first replacement battery in brake pad maintenance (assuming that your max regen amps setting correctly limits the current into the battery so you don't destroy it... 😖 why is it that mine is set to 12A but the CA says we're only doing 6A, 250-300W instead of 700? The energy is there, it just quits resisting, we keep picking up speed until I engage the mechanical brakes. Best advice was to set it at 24A!? 😬)
Need some kind of rectifier and two-way fuses, or just trust the battery's BMS to keep it safe? The last battery pack I got had a fuse under a rubber cover. Another route to go (wish I could buy it off the shelf) would be supercapacitors plus the battery pack, like enough to take 1500W charge for a minute or two. I'm pretty sure 700W isn't going to handle Corbett unless I hold it at ~5mph, and the motor charges less efficiently below the 10-20mph range.
@enobacon there's probably some way to set up a resistor that you can dump any excess power into so that you get more effective braking, but ideally you would be putting all that into the battery
🚲 Die #Zoll-Fahrradstaffel im Einsatz – Aufgriffe von Munition und Rauschgift:
Beim Hauptzollamt #Krefeld gibt es seit Anfang letzten Jahres eine #Fahrradstaffel, die mit #EBikes im Streifendienst entlang der deutsch-niederländischen Grenze unterwegs ist.
Die Grenze zu den 🇳🇱 im Kreis #Viersen ist geprägt durch den Naturpark #MaasSchwalmNette. Über kleine Waldwege gelangt man hier ins Nachbarland. 1/2
Der Zoll kontrolliert auch in unwegsamen Gelände immer wieder #Waren, die nach 🇩🇪 Einreisende mitbringen.
Bei Kontrollen der Fahrradstaffel im Mai und Juni wurden unter anderem über 500 Schuss Munition, Cannabis und Amphetamin sichergestellt und entsprechende Strafverfahren eingeleitet. 2/2
"hopped on my e-bike, and set out. I cruised past cars stopped in traffic. I sailed up a long hill. I zipped right up to the doors… locked my bike to the rack, next to two other e-bikes."
"Freed from traffic and parking worries, faced with a ride in the fresh air rather than yet another trip in a car, I go out more. My suburb has come to feel like a place newly worth exploring."
@enobacon I was pleasantly surprised to find I actually got to my physical therapy appointments faster on my e-bike because the route is shorter and avoids some slow stoplights, plus "parking" is a snap (literally!). It's longer to the grocery store but way more fun.
people are like: "Bikes are nice if you have time, I have to drive my kid to school."
taking my kid to school on #eBikes + #CargoBikes = 8min round-trip 😎
@CurtAdams we would need to legalize that for the first five grades though, at least in Oregon, children under 10 cannot be "unattended". See also child helmet law that makes it illegal to ride a bike
In Bloomberg CityLab, I wrote about a new study that explores the power (and limits) of e-bike rebates.
TLDR: E-bike incentives can compel more people to ride (especially those with moderate/low incomes), unlocking benefits for public health, street efficiency, and urban quality of life. But they're an inefficient way to fight climate change.
I think that from a local administration point of view, investing in bikes with the only objective of reducing CO2 emissions would be very short-sighted. I would love to see if this could affect traffic ( and so public space use) more than everything. Moreover an investment as such would work best accompanied to infrastructure improvement towards active mobility, is this happening too?
@davidzipper this conclusion only accounts for the cost of carbon emissions and likely way underpriced, besides my experience that e-bike miles each displaced 3 car miles, and the safety-in-numbers impact where each person on a bike encourages others to ride.
Dismantling car supremacy has way more climate impact than your individual car's co2 emissions
"[at $51/2500 miles] an individual e-bike would need to replace over 200,000 miles of car travel..."
@cyclingelectric My kids will never get that many bikes back in it. The front bike no problem, but if they want the middle bike the front bike needs to come out and won't get put back. Woe be to the person who wants the back bike. It also doesn't have space for a trailer, tandem or cargo bike. I have to give it a fail to be useful for the job.
There has been a deluge of articles in the last couple weeks about the danger of #eBikes and California's push to require licensing to ride them.
As a bike rider it's never surprising to see the media and drivers blame riders for their own deaths, no matter how egregious the driver error was. And some of the cited examples are quite egregious.
But this push for education and licensing made me wonder:
How effective is Driver's Ed at improving road safety?
did some shopping on our Rad Bikes today. were immediately approached by an elderly couple asking "how do you like your Rad Bikes??", so we shared how much we love them.*
the reason they were familiar with the brand was that a lot of their friends apparently had bought a Rad Bike over the past year, and every single one of them just loves it.
<eeeexcellent>
I am not earning a commission, although maybe I should be. 😅
@robyn glad for them. I was caught in the RadWagon4 problem, where they told me I shouldn’t bike my bike for nine months. Customer service was pretty bad and waiting nine months was… a fail. You get what you pay for. Still riding my Rad, but… not thrilled.
ran out of #eBikes battery on the tandem coming home from Tigard, tried both of us pedaling on what few downhills with ~200W regen but that only amounted to maybe a few minutes total. The baserunner did give us maybe 100W on Multnomah + bits of climb after that, but it was, overall, a sweaty ordeal. I have not been keeping this one parked on the charger, since we've been experimenting with the regen setup, need to plan ahead better if it's not always fully charged. 😅 💦 #pdxBikes#BikeTooter
The key to biking in the heat, and what e-bikes are extra great for, is to always keep the air speed up, at least if it's a dry heat, splash some water on your face etc. But when you're stuck grinding up a hill at 4mph 😞
So my range from some random last charge level ~90% is some random number of 1.5mi trips up and down the hill to school with 0-2 stokers plus a 2-then-1-stoker trip to spring garden park, plus riding to Tigard and cook park and back... numbers swirling in the air etc... 36-ish hilly miles on the 14.5Ah pack.
@enobacon I have to admit I feel a little guilty passing regular bikes on my e-bike. Not even sure they care. In my defense, I’m trying to give up driving the car altogether.
@enobacon I wonder what the polite passing speed is for ebikes. I don't feel awkward riding 15mph +/-1 on an analog #cargobike, but on the #ebike, 18mph +/-2 seems a bit cheesy.
The UPP battery I got for the tandem #BikeFriday project has been okay, afaict (or might be part of the hangup that happens in regen braking), but I hate that it has this XLR plug with that fiddly sliding plastic cover, also seems to lack a fuse, unlike the previous generation of generic downtube pack (dolphin) that had a barrel connector charge port. I can see the argument against the barrel connector, but why have a 3-pin port and not include a thermistor? #eBikes
in any case, I'm thinking of a generic charge controller to cut off at a given voltage or temperature, and maybe report the charge level over http / ethernet, if anyone has hardware+software suggestions. I think there's a teensy in a box here somewhere, maybe lacking an ethernet module or something, or do we just do a raspberry pi with a whole linux stack and plug in 3-5 somethings on USB for the voltage sensing and relay thingy? (not all e-bikes are in the same spot but maybe 15ft of usb...)
direct drive #eBikes motors don't much mind being rusty, with water and bits of metal rolling around inside of them. 🤯 Or just drill huge holes in the side of it and let the water come and go as it pleases.
@Edelruth My family have one of each, which we use for groceries and family trips with two little kids. I generally prefer the basket-up-front model: it's nice to be able to see the kids, and to be able to chuck a bunch of stuff in the basket without having to pack it into paniers.
"Finally, we find that even when #eBikes incentive programs are designed cost-effectively, the costs per ton of #CO2 reduced still far exceed those of alternatives or reasonable social costs of GHG emissions. We conclude that the argument for allocating public funds for e-bike incentive programs must be based on the co-benefits of e-bike travel and ownership, and not solely on GHG reduction" (like the 40k/yr people killed with cars, injuries, asthma & sedentary diseases)
Or we could account for the cost of driving as simply road wear and maintenance, plus the high cost of housing for cars (through subsidizing car parking, mandatory parking requirements, that non-drivers pay in their rent and groceries, anywhere that charges below market rent for parking spaces.) Or, who pays for all of the space between destinations, that makes it too far to walk?
From the perspective of a non-technical user, an e-bike that is built and designed to use a motor will generally be superior to a regular bike turned into an e-bike with a conversion set.
At least in Finland conversion sets are fairly rare. Arguably there are obvious issues with the vendor lock-in that major brands like Bosch push on their users, but the reliability is okay and there are certified maintenance shops. #ebikes
🎶🎸 'I want to ride my bicylcle' ist nicht nur eine Strophe aus einem bekannten Queen Song, sondern auch in 🇩🇪 Programm. 🚴 #SchonGewusst: Bei uns gibt es mehr Fahrräder als Einwohnerinnen & Einwohner!
Eine Studie des Zweirad-Industrie Verbands (ZIV) zeigt, dass der #Fahrrad- bzw. E-Bike-Bestand im vergangenen Jahr auf 84 Millionen angestiegen ist. 🥳
Darunter sind 11 Millionen #EBikes, welche auch im Rahmen des steuerbegünstigten Dienstfahrrads gefördert werden.
