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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 don't see the point of all this electronics or intelligence in a bicycle. If anything, the location tracking means that bicycles now also are starting to invade my privacy.
For regular distances, a purely mechanical bike is simple, robust, and inexpensive. For longer distances, vehicles designed from the ground up for motor assist seem a better choice than this, and the additional design freedom from designing bike and assist together likely results in a better and cheaper bike.
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.
here in Boston, where I live
Narrow twisty roads, and when the snowbank gets high, narrower roads
non highway routes are often circuitous
Dark at 5PM much of the year (and add in the snowy, narrow twisty roads...)
Potholes
Did I mention potholes ?
Rain snow sleet
weather down to teens to single digits many days of the year
lack of decent bike racks (some day, some smart person will write a n y times op ed about how bad bike racks are)
no showers, or cruddy showers
not so good when you have to go pick up your kid at school, or dance recital, or...
maybe inside Cambridge or Boston itself, a bike might work
For much of MA, no so good
the problem is NOT that we need easier to use bikes
the problem is that we have a car suburban orientation; change tax laws and zoning so people are packed into citys, and bikes will take care of themselves
First, don't think of the copenhagen wheel as an electric bike. Think of it as a wheel - that can be used to retrofit nearly any compatible bike. It's wireless capabilities means that you don't even need a controller on the bike wired to it.
As for the weight, it's at least around the axle, not the rim, so that reduces the effects. One can certainly argue about the max speed, but keep in mind that the non-linear power increases would also rapidly increase the cost and weight of the batteries and motor.
I don't read AC A human right
There is a limit on how many CC a gasoline powered bicycle's engine can be just because of random laws in the USA. If you look to China, a great deal of people get around cheaply on a bicycle with gasoline powered engines. But we can't, because we have laws. Now if you turn your bicycle electric, it will be heavier, more inefficient, but there are no ways of measuring how many CC an electric motor has ^^. Voila, sneak around the laws, and maybe you have a market for this.
God spoke to me
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...
I've been there and indeed you do see bikes everywhere. I did not see a single electric bike though. When I asked around, I've heard that bikes get stolen all the time so it is not worth putting too much money into them.
In many jurisdictions it is ILLEGAL for a power-assisted bicycles to exceed 30km/h. If something goes faster and is power-assisted, it is no longer considered a bicycle (or power assisted bicycle), but a motorcycle (or scooter or whatever), and different laws and licensing requirements govern said vehicle.
Exactly. In the United States, the speed limit is 20mph. What you buy is often capable of more than that as a top speed (to deal with steep hills,etc) but the speed is artificially limited
There is also different sub-categories which can vary considerably depending on state
e.g.
"Electric-assist" bicycle (where the user still needs to pedal to some extent keep accelerating)
"Motorized bicycle" where it can be self-propelled (controlled by throttle) after a the user used the pedals from a stop
"Motor-Driven cycle" can be self-propelled from a start, and often allows a higher top-speed but must be smaller than a motorcycle. Per State, may or may not require a full motorcycle license and/or follow motorcycle safety regulations.
See Wikipedia for more
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...