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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.
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The price point for these seems way off.
In China, riding an electric bike conveys professional achievement, even a certain degree of wealth. People in the United States, said Ed Benjamin, an independent consultant in the bike business, don't quite know whether these bikes are fashionable. The e-bike is "an ambiguous statement," Mr. Benjamin said.
I'm not entirely sure what the cultural significance of that is, but it must mean something.
Qxe4
We had those here (Japan) for 5 years now, they're quite popular in rural areas or for shopping but otherwise everyone takes the train.
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.
An brand-name electric scooter is ~$300, and much more portable.
A Honda motor scooter is under $2000, can seat two people, and go 30mph.
$2300 for an electric bike is just silly.
Not all ebikes are built alike.
I ride a mid-drive bike. The motor (built into the bottom bracket) is optimized to work with a rider pedaling with a cadence in the 85-90 range, and the bike just doesn't feel right unless you're working along with it. Indeed, one proponent of a competing product has made a point online of calling us "Optibike huffers", referring (I presume) to our tendency to be getting enough of a workout to be panting at the end of a ride. (My commutes are fast, and fun... but not by any means sweat-free; thankfully, work has showers).
My heart rate is regularly in the 150-170 range for about 90 minutes a day while I'm riding -- which is pretty much where it should be for the kind of exercise I'm trying to get -- and the regime has my employer's health coach downright thrilled with my weight loss, lowered cholesterol, lowered resting heart rate, etc.
So -- enough of the stereotyping, 'kay?
Because of the anger among the cyclists, Critical Mass was started which generally only pisses off the drivers but also is a lot of fun.
And you wonder why so many drivers get pissed off to the point of violence? Golly gee, I can't imagine how that could happen.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
It's not the weight. I can easily do that distance around here (some long hills), although my commute is about 33.
It's that I have no place (shower) to become tolerable to my co-workers for the rest of the day.
With an electric (not the silly Sanyo, but a proper one with a decent CG, and the drive to the rear wheel, if I can ever find one), I can "ride" to work and pedal home. Dragging the extra weight of the batteries would be even better exercise (for that trip) than just a bicycle.
A bicycle is unusable for most people where I live because our town is on the sides of a steep sided valley, and the combination of traffic going up the hills at 30mph, and cyclists at 3mph, on narrow English roads, is lethal. To be really useful, an electric bike needs to be able to go up those hills at 20mph.
If there was a political will for this, there would be a Europe-wide specification for an electric bicycle of, say, about 1200W maximum output and a continuous rating of 800, with a test and licence requirement but zero tax and a State-sponsored insurance scheme to overcome the objections of insurance companies, who detest anything new in the way of risk.
Of course there would be a need for new regulations - such as limiting them to 12mph on cycle tracks - but this is nothing that technology couldn't handle (e.g. a "cycle track mode" which flashes a green light, to assist law enforcement.) But an electric bicycle that was fast enough to be safe in European urban traffic would be vastly better than the current situation, where only the very fit can ride a heavy, limited electric bicycle on anything other than the level.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Surely humans can produce well in excess of 250W.
Yes. 250W is only "twice as much power as you provide" if you're taking it very easy. Based on measurements provided by the exercise bikes at my gym, I know I'm able to produce around a kilowatt for 5 minutes or so at a time, and can sustain 500W practically indefinitely.
OTOH, there are regulatory reasons for the motor being 250W: at least here in the UK, you'd need a full drivers licence, annual vehicle inspection and all-around crash helmet to ride it if it were more powerful. It should also be designed so that the motor cannot make the bike go faster than 15mph.
Errr... according to this:
Lance Armstrong can ride up the mountains in France generating about 500 watts of power for 20 minutes, something a typical 25-year-old could do for only 30 seconds. A professional hockey player might last three minutes and then throw up. (source)
...it sounds like you're either an olympic-level athlete... who reads slashdot... or your gym equipment is severely miscalibrated. I've tried those bikes at the gym, and 250W is
my limit for a 10-15 minute stretch, and I'm by no means unhealthy. Are you sure those weren't imperial units? I know the UK has switched to metric, in theory, but I know some of you poms still get confused. 8)
The Critical Mass events are held once a month, in a Saturday. A once-a-month event will piss you to the point of violence?
Yes. Deliberate and rude obstructionist behavior that impedes thousands of innocent people does that.
(Not to violence, of course; just to outrage and contempt.)
mountain biking mecca. And I had much the same experience cycling in the city. There are few bike lanes, but the roads are pretty wide. You wouldn't think there would be a problem. But the motorists often got angry at bicycles simply because they were there. I OFTEN got honked at by passing cars (they'd wait until they were right on your tail or next to you, then HOOOOONK while they yelled out the window) and I got a decent number of things thrown at me.
Worst was a 7-11 double gulp cup that was full. It hit me on the side of the head, the lid came off, I got drenched in Coke and then the edge of the cup got stuck between my crank and my chain causing me to wipe out. I was sticky, covered in soda, and had to walk my bike home and use tools to get the thing out and the bike cranking again.
This was in the '90s before the "national concsiousness of greenness and cycling" hit. Hopefully things are different now.
These days I live in NYC and would cycle everywhere (there are a lot of cyclists and motorists are aware of them) only my wife forbids it, being absolutely terrified that I will succumb to NYC traffic. :-P
STOP . AMERICA . NOW