The problem here is if you live in a place with hills and want bike paths to be major transportation pathways that serve double-digit percentages of the population, you need to.
Grandma is not cycling unpowered for 10 min up a 10 degree incline to get to the shops, even if she can in principle do that. As long as speed limits are enforced, it’s fine to have a motor.
Learning that Bush is a pretty good mountain biker and would drop his secret service agents in technical sections was the only part of the W Image Rehabilitation Tour that came even close to working on me.
these speed limits are easily circumvented and some bikes are designed to make that possible
the acceleration of an e-bike is way higher, which means that riders can get going at very high speeds in tight spaces where regular bikers couldn’t.
A better solution might be capping the power output of the rider and motor combined at something like 300W (ie a good sustained effort for a strong cyclist), and disabling power assist if the rider breaks that threshold.
A better solution might be capping the power output of the rider and motor combined at something like 300W (ie a good sustained effort for a strong cyclist), and disabling power assist if the rider breaks that threshold.
This is almost exactly what is done in the country I live in and it seems to work, the only difference being that it’s capped at 250w rather than 300w
So that’s what I was trying to say, but I should have been clearer lol
I’m pretty strongly against motorized vehicles on bike paths unless necessitated for accessibility.
The problem here is if you live in a place with hills and want bike paths to be major transportation pathways that serve double-digit percentages of the population, you need to.
Grandma is not cycling unpowered for 10 min up a 10 degree incline to get to the shops, even if she can in principle do that. As long as speed limits are enforced, it’s fine to have a motor.
You know who is, though? Joe Biden.
You know who else is?
Learning that Bush is a pretty good mountain biker and would drop his secret service agents in technical sections was the only part of the W Image Rehabilitation Tour that came even close to working on me.
I’m willing to flex the bounds of accessibility, and I’m far more in favor of e-bikes on roads, but I don’t want electric mopeds on my bike paths
What difference does it make if e-bikes are restricted to a speed that the average “analog” bike can easily do though?
A better solution might be capping the power output of the rider and motor combined at something like 300W (ie a good sustained effort for a strong cyclist), and disabling power assist if the rider breaks that threshold.
This is almost exactly what is done in the country I live in and it seems to work, the only difference being that it’s capped at 250w rather than 300w
So that’s what I was trying to say, but I should have been clearer lol