Slashdot Mirror
The Year of the E-Bicycle
theodp writes "Electric bicycles have been around for more than a century, but they have never quite captured the imagination of auto-obsessed Americans. That may be about to change. At CES this month, Sanyo showed off its sleek, lightweight Eneloop Hybrid Bicycle. Priced at $2,300, the e-bike sports a black lithium-ion battery strapped to the frame beneath the seat. Press a button on the left handlebar, and a 250-watt motor kicks in, providing about twice as much power as your own pedaling. Some basic e-bike models, like the Ezip Trailz can be had for as low as $500. Both Trek and Schwinn began selling e-bikes last year, and Best Buy is offering e-bikes in three test markets: Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Portland, OR."
I love the idea of using one of these bikes for my daily commute to work and back, however they don't come anywhere close to solving the beer bottles from pickups aimed at cyclist problem, or the Houston has no safe way to ride a bike much of anywhere problem.
I love to ride my bike, but Houston is a city built by politicians with pockets lined from oil companies. The oil companies decided people in Houston should drive individual cars to get around and dammit, the politicians not only saw that it happened, they made sure the public transit system sucked as well. Sure there's a great bus to get downtown and back, but you still have to drive locally to the bus stop, even if it's only a mile or two away unless you want to become road pizza. Then it's only to downtown, not across town. You can go around your area, you can go downtown, but getting from one area of Houston to another isn't easy, and unlike Phoenix and certain other cities putting a bike on a bus is hit and miss. Some drivers forbid it if they don't have a bike rack and bike racks are rare.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
Probably Lance Armstrong can produce over 250W for much of a day. I on the other hand, break a sweat just thinking about it. A hardworking horse can keep up about 750W (definition of a horsepower). Imagine yourself and two buddies playing tug-of-war with a Clydesdale.
There are places where you can drive a low power scooter without a license, but you still have to register it and pay taxes for it.
However, bikes are not registered nor taxed.
The average in-shape 70kg person can produce 200W for a more than an hour on a bicycle (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_performance)
Ever sat on a bicycle in a gym with a wattage meter? It is actually very hard to only produce 125W on a bicycle. On the road you'd go very slow and risk falling over, and in the gym the pedals almost spin faster than your legs.
And of course Lance Armstrong can do that. I am a "recreational" amateur cyclist who does no more than 2500 km/year and can maintain more than 250W for hours. It's not difficult.
Some folks there are in the multi-KW range, others commuting almost daily testing various motors and batteries. Lots of, well, roll-your-own activity.
In NY state , ebikes are illegal. It's dumb, but true.
The electric bicycle rules need to be changed. A 20 mph limit is just not useful to commuters. I can't even fathom the 15 mph limit set for other countries. If I want to use it to commute, I want it to be able to keep up with traffic in a 25mph zone and not block traffic. Even with a 20mph limit, it should maintain at least 20mph going uphill. 275 Watts is just insufficient to keep it going even 5mph up the hills where I live. The only advantage to these e-bikes, is that they can prevent you from sweating profusely when you arrive at work, especially if you had no access to a shower there. Which is what I used it for when I started out. I didn't have to sweat going up the hill.
I tried out an older 375W Charger Bike when I got back to bicycling to work and my muscles had atrophied from 7 years of having to drive an hour each way to work. It sells for around $750 from a guy who bought the remaining stock ( http://abc.eznettools.net/D300013/X300109/eBike1.html ) and it just wasn't enough power to really go up the hills where I live. It went about 7 mph uphill unless you stood up and forcefully assisted it and possibly doubled the speed. Has anyone seen how fast Lance Armstrong biked up a hill while huffing & puffing? He's not exactly speeding up a hill.
The 20 mph limit is also too low for me since I now pedal faster than that on a level surface. It's absolutely useless for going downhill too. The motor would cut off at the legally set speed of 20mph. The only time I got the extra power was when I went up a hill and at best it added 5mph to my peddaling. It's been sitting in storage for several years now since I use a more convenient folding bicycle for easier commuting on public transit legs of my trip. The batteries are likely dead now, and I haven't used that in a while. Luckily, the bicycle is still usefull by itself without the battery pack.
Electric bikes have been used and encouraged in Toronto for over three years. They can appear like stocky bicycles, or scooter-style. They have a maximum speed of 20 mph, and you don't need a drivers license, motorcycle license, license plate or insurance. A whole industry has sprung up around the legislation with many models of electric bicycles being sold.
Ontario Ministry of Transportation e-Bike FAQ
When passing a cyclist, the motorist may need to slow for a minute or so, but then is able to catch up the the next car in traffic anyway. If that person was not on a bike, they would be in a car, and would be contributing to congestion -and congestion does slow overall travel time.
"Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns" -Journal of Political Econom
A good philosophy -- but I'd urge you not to compromise your own safety simply for others' convenience.
One of the things they teach in the TS101 class from the League of American Bicyclists is that getting on and off the sidewalk is considerably more dangerous than staying in the road -- and that while using an improved shoulder is legal (and often the safe thing to do, if it's clean and in good condition), getting too far over to the right within a lane can encourage cars to pass you when it's unsafe to do so.
The classroom portion of the course spends a fair bit of time on accident statistics breakdown and discussion on how each class of accidents can be avoided or mitigated. I think it's time well spent.