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A Smart Electric Bike: Taking the Copenhagen Wheel Out For a Spin
New submitter mlamonica writes Bikes are a great way to get around the city. But what if it's just too hilly or far to commute by bike? That's where Superpedestrian wants to come in. With a license from MIT's Senseable City Lab, they're commercializing the Copenhagen Wheel, a bike wheel replacement that gives riders electric assist, and through 12 embedded sensors, lots of information on a smart phone app. I took the bike for a ride at the Cambridge office and offer this review.
I'm not sure the wheel is the best place for the battery! TFA says the wheel weighs 13 lbs, which is a ton, and it's rotating mass. I'd rather have a hub motor but have a small battery pack affixed elsewhere, maybe in a bottle cage, where it doesn't have to rotate.
Also the topping out at 20 MPH is a little low. It would surely be useful in conditions of headwinds or uphills, where you cannot ride very fast, so that's nice. But for normal cruising, 20 MPH can be sustained by a fit rider who isn't elderly. I can just do it on flat ground with no winds, and I'm 52. Younger riders have no problems at all. I understand it's a regulatory issue but it would be nice if the top speed could be upped just a little, maybe to 25 mph. It's far harder to ride 25 mph on a bike - I cannot do it for more than a minute unless assisted by hills or wind. Power demand is not linear with speed. It would be nice to have that power difference made up by a motor.
The problem with bikes is weather.
We are getting into (the northern hemisphere) winter. Snow and ice on the roads make cycling too dangerous, and then theres the wind chill...
Which part of "For longer distances, vehicles designed from the ground up for motor assist seem a better choice than this" did you not understand?
Electric bikes are useful (I have one). Retrofits of mechanical bikes by stuffing tons of electronics into the rear wheel seem like a lousy compromise.