So, this got posted again I see. A few years later: the pack is still going strong and has not - so far - shown any signs of wear. I've put close to 15000 Km on it now and there is no degradation worth mentioning, though I suspect that if I do a precise capacity measurement that it would definitely show some reduced capacity.
The really neat thing is that at the end of a long ride the cell groups still track to within 2 mV of each other, which is a strong sign that all cell groups are discharging equally fast and that there are no cells or welds that are causing problems. Of course with 17P the cells are only mildly exercised compared to what they would be going through in a regular pack.
What surface conditions do you ride this in? I spent this morning on my Specialized Levo (1) and ran down the entire battery over the course of about 2.5 hours, covering 36 km and 1400 meters of elevation, much of the downhill being at "mach chicken", with drops, doubles, locked up dirt surfing, etc. There is 0% probability I would take this long range e-bike to that terrain. Which is fine. But I'm pretty sure your frame wasn't designed to carry this 22 pound battery or anything like it, so are you exclusively riding this on buttery smooth Dutch roads?
I'm curious, how much does this weigh? I've ridden e-bikes a few times, and it's always surprising how much heavier they are than ordinary bikes. I can't imagine how heavy this must be.
170 cells, they're 45 grams each, the pack mounting hardware and box adds another two kilos or so, so say 10 Kg in all for the pack. Definitely not a lightweight :) But once it's going you hardly notice the weight other than when you have a pothole or bump. It also obviously isn't as nimble as a lighter bike but it is still very well manageable because the weight is relatively low.
What's interesting is that the duct tape is still the same, it never even cracked or tear. I don't particularly care about the looks, it just needs to work.
190 cells is 9-9.5kg, a mid-drive motor like the one in the picture is typically 3-7kg depending on power. This is roughly 12-17kg/26-37lbs of extra weight plus the enclosure, electronics, and wiring.
Yeah the assistance you get from a bike being light is huge. I wonder if expensive light bike > assisted bike in terms of saving human effort per trip.
Obviously if the e-bike requires no pedalling at all it wins but then that is not legal everywhere.
Human effort just isn't worth very much. The strongest humans on earth can manage about 400W for an hour. Even very small ebike motors are usually capable of 500w continuous/forever, so long as the motor does not spend too much time stalled or at very low speeds.
For a normal human, a "legal" 250w motor is easily doubling or tripling their normal power output, so hauling around an extra 20kg on top of the existing ~100kg body + bike is not a big deal.
A heavy battery makes an ebike extremely unpleasant to pedal manually. You should try it.
I built almost exactly the same size pack (2 kWH) as Jacques in 2020 on a hybrid road bike and hated it so much that I only rode it 20 times or so. The battery still sits in the corner of my house doing nothing.
On a flat road I disagree, but uphill you notice it a lot of course, but way worse is carrying the heavy bike. I take mine into trains a lot and unfortunately there are often lots of stairs and no escalators involved.
I think the main difference due to weight boils down to you riding in one gear lower when not using assistance.
On flat roads, I usually ride on 3rd or 4th gear (out of 7), now i ride in 2nd or 3rd.
But where i ride, the road isn't even and has a lot of steep slopes. There I'm on 1st gear all the time anyway and the assistance i get totally saves my knees, and ensures I'm not all sweaty when i reach my destination. Even compared to the light weight regular bicycles i rode before, this is better.
Sort of a hijack, but it rides on the awesomeness that e-bikes can bring about. They truly are incredible if you have never gotten to ride one.
E-bikes with throttles should not be refereed to as e-bikes
E-peds, e-motos, electric motorycle, whatever. Just don't call them ebikes.
The problem is people (especially kids) getting what are essentially electric motorcycles, thinking they are ebikes, and then causing all sorts of chaos on roads and bike paths. This inevitably leads to the public hating "e-bikes" and the government passing totally confused laws about "e-bikes". This also leads to kids getting killed because mom and dad bought them an "e-bike" and let them loose on the roads with it.
Pedal assist ebikes are incredible, and really just turn weak cyclists into strong cyclists, while still providing exercise. It's a revolution for society, but we have to be careful to not totally fumble it with electric motorcycle death machines.
As an oldster who used to do weekly century rides and lost that ability due to nerve damage in my foot (thanks to decades of wearing pointy Italian riding shoes), I’d love it if we could focus on simply enforcing laws that exist rather than saddling arbitrary blanket regulations on lawful citizens.
I built an ebike and hell yes I put a throttle on it because it enables me to ride more technical trails. This bike has dramatically increased my quality of life. Please leave me alone and if someone uses a throttle bike in an illegal manner give them a ticket.
I'm sypathetic but ... unlike cars, bikes don't have large each to read license plates. People will scream about facial recognition. I'm not trying to take away your freedom. I've just wished they'd enforce traffic laws on cyclists but it's just not going to happen and cyclists know it so they almost all break traffic laws with impunity.
Large license plates don't prevent cars from regularly breaking traffic laws. The percentage of cyclists who come to a complete stop at all stop signs and red lights is higher than the percentage of drivers who strictly follow the speed limit.
It's hilarious to see all the responses that are effectively "others break the law more!"
The license plate issue is that cities can, and are, adding more and more license plate scanners to catch cars. Those won't work for bicycles and ebikes (who drive like cyclists) unless they require license plates on bikes/ebikes and enforce. Yes, and enforce more on cars too.
I can stand at any corner in any city in the USA and count the percent of cars that stop vs the percent of bikes that stop. Bikes about 1 of 10 will stop. Cars at least 4 of 5 will stop. So, cyclists, 10% compiliance. car drivers, 80% compliance.
As for license plates, I'd like both cars and bikes to obey the law. The only way I see that happening is cameras and scanners. For that to stop bikes requires the bikes to also have plates.
Unclear what you traffic scenario you are referring to, but in some localities (such as WA state) it is legal for bikes to roll through stop signs in certain scenarios. This makes sense considering a bike’s speed, its rider’s engagement, and the overall difficulty of killing a pedestrian with a bike (compared to a vehicle).
You know what happens when a cyclist is involved in a traffic accident they cause? They might get hurt or cause some minor property damage. When the driver of a car is at fault they kill other people, so I'm not too worried about even negligent bike riders causing an accident.
We recently had a funeral for people killed in an accident that was not caused by the car driver. When cars and bikes share the same space, it might be an impact with a car that kills somebody, but that impact might be the result of a chain of actions initiated by a bicyclist.
Drivers are actually not supposed to crash into people, regardless of where they are. If you can't react fast enough to the situation around you while driving a car, you were driving too fast, full stop.
False. If you jump in front of a car who has the right of way and is not speeding it's not the driver's fault. The victum in this case is the driver who has done nothing wrong. The perp is the person who broke the law and faces the consequences.
You know who generally stops at a stop sign or stoplight? People on an e-bike, compared to people riding for sport or commuting on road bikes. It's not a big deal to stop and get started again when you have a motor. It's a pain in the ass when you're trying to make it to work on time with your legs.
Why is having a license plate even relevant here? Most traffic enforcement is done when an officer sees something happen.
>> Please leave me alone and if someone uses a throttle bike in an illegal manner give them a ticket.
Well in most jurisidictions just the throttle is an "illegal manner", and if you're riding technical trails because of it I have no sympathy for your condition or improved quality of life; you're screwing it up for the rest of us. Maybe you should be the one who leaves.
I agree. I thought the electric motorcycle problem was overstated by people complaining online at first. Then they became popular around my house and I agree it’s a huge problem.
I’m fortunate enough to live around a lot of walking and mixed use trails for bikes and pedestrians. Recently they’re unsafe to use in the evenings because you have to be ready to jump out of the way of groups of kids (plus a few adults who should know better) going 45mph on electric bikes with throttles. They don’t even pretend to be e-bikes any more.
The big problem is that there is zero enforcement. If there was at least a chance that someone breaking these laws could lose their bike or have to pay thousands of dollars in fines I think we’d see a lot less of it. Right now everyone knows that they’re not going to get caught, so it’s a free for all.
why is the throttle the issue and not just the 45MPH? would it be better with pedals and people peddling along in some only-would-ever-make-sense-on-an-ebike gear, but still going 45?
the problem is recklessnesss and speed, restrict and enforce those things, don't just let the bike makers shift the product 10% and re-create exactly the same issue, but "legally"
> why is the throttle the issue and not just the 45MPH?
The bikes with throttles are not legally e-bikes, so the products on the market ignore all of the other e-bike restrictions too. They have much more power and higher top speeds.
Even if they were fully limited, pedaling ensure more rider engagement and changes how people ride them. When you have to put some effort, however small, into moving the bike around you ride differently than if it's an effortless throttle input.
There are plenty of ebikes with throttles that have less power than ebikes without throttles. E.g. a lectric xpress 500 has 500 watts, there are some pedal assist only bikes with 750 or more watts.
It's power and speed that matters, as you point out, so make regulation built on that. Heck, arguably pedal assist is a throttle, it's just a different mechanism vs a twist handle.
I believe this to be growing pains. Legislation hasn't yet fully adapted, some of the legislation I've seen makes the mistake of conflaing these, and enforcement is nonexistent in most places. I suspect that as time passes, we'll find ways of allowing ebikes to flourish. Around me the biggest thing I've seen is parents on cargo bikes taking their kids, and that's a demographic that elected officials tend to listen to.
We have the laws. What they’re doing is illegal. I think they need a higher tier of penalties for the repeat offenders, but that would require anyone getting caught first.
It’s an enforcement problem.
The riders know they’re riding where police cars can’t get them. They also know that the bike cops aren’t allowed to ride ultra powerful electric motorcycles. They also know they can just drive off across some grass into a park if anyone tries to stop them.
It’s a hard problem.
> I suspect that as time passes, we'll find ways of allowing ebikes to flourish.
Electric bikes are flourishing here. Electric motorcycles on bike paths are the problem.
I think the electric term is confusing the issue. If it helps, imagine that these were just really quiet but powerful gas powered dirt bikes riding on the pedestrian path. That should give you an idea of what’s going on.
I'm not sure how I feel about them. I like that the made a way to get you off your bike. I dislike that the path seems plenty wide enough to accomodate bikes and that it would be a useful bike path or 1/2 bike path, but they want it to 100% pedestrian path, even though it's not remotely crowded.
Why are they illegal in the first place? Obviously people see value in such devices. They don't ride them for the sake of riding them without getting caught.
They have great utility, with their power, weight and size. They can be fast for sure, but it's also not on the same level as even a 300cc motorbike either - should they really be put into the same basket? How can that be enveloped by law - if it really has to be - without taking their utility away?
If the law is too restrictive, current users won't bother following, since the enforcement is so rare.
I know what you're talking about, but a lot of people are conflating them. In some cases it is legislators like a recent attempt to require ebikes have to register and have a drivers' license for them. In others it's parents not realizing that they got their kids an electric dirt bike instead of an ebike. Of course, you do have the antisocial element of people not caring and actually seeking out these, but we need to separate the different problems to address them, as you are doing.
I made a comment below about the law that just passed in New Jersey. The short of it is "Anything with two wheels and a motor is now legally a motorcycle, and must follow all the laws and regulations of motorcycles.
Both sides are to be blamed, only one side are professional adults who are trained protect our community. A pursue is always dangerous, not only for the suspect but also for the cops and bystanders so it should not be done if not absolutely necessary.
Setting aside the question who is to be blamed, using motorcycles to pursue kids on bikes will cause the deaths of more kids. Is that a price worth paying? No.
As someone who has spent a lot of time riding both bicycles and motorized things, this is not true at all.
I could hop my bicycle over curbs that would bring a police motorcycle to a halt, or even toss a bike over a fence and then pick it up on the other side if I wanted. Or I could dip into the trees near the bike path where a police motorcycle has no chance of maneuvering.
again, you're confusing/conflating the definition of ebike. The problem is not a senior or disabled person using a pedal assist bike; it's electronic motorcycles being ridden like they're bicycles, by underage, inexperienced kids without protection. This is going to turn out much worse for everybody; look what New Jersey has done for ALL ebikes because of the lack of understanding that there is a big difference between a pedal-assist mountain bike and an electronic motorcycle.
>> Starting January 20, 2026, all e-bike riders in New Jersey need three things: a license, registration, and insurance. You have until July 19, 2026 to get these sorted out.
Easy for you to say. I’ve almost hit a couple stupid kids on an e-bikes with throttles riding on suburban roads at night with no lights.
And I’m seeing more and more fuckwits ride fast on side walks and accelerate to jump of the sidewalk and into traffic. Almost hitting unsuspecting people on the sidewalk.
Community needs to police itself. Otherwise it’s just going to be waiting for a critical mass of deaths.
I really like a low speed throttle, like 3-5mph max is fine. 20mph is too fast and results in ebikes basically designed a motorcycles that cannot be pedaled. The throttle is so nice to have to get started quickly like turning left at a light, if you didn't have time to downshift before stopping, on a hill, or if the bike is heavily loaded with stuff. Its also nice to be able to use to slowly move between cars with your feet off the pedals to keep balance if needed.
A throttle is excellent on an e-bike especially for city riding. It is far easier to move at slow speeds by applying a small amount of throttle vs. trying to torque the pedals just the right amount, if behind someone or near pedestrians.
Many e-bikes don't have torque sensors and instead use a cheap rotation sensor so the motor engages almost randomly at certain points in pedal rotation when moving at slow speed.
> Pedal assist ebikes are incredible, and really just turn weak cyclists into strong cyclists
The more useful case ime is turning cyclists with reduced mobility into regular cyclists.
In particular quite a few elderly people seem to have picked it up in my city, they aren't quite strong riders but definitely seem able of adapting to normal traffic. It also seems like a significantly safer option for individual transport than cars (especially in regards to the other traffic participants).
I am impressed by your solution and I took have at least one bad leg. I have decided against batteries in favour of a basic bike that I can park anywhere and carry up stairs. I want the little and often mobility with a few longer rides over summer. I also have a neighbour in his late seventies that rides 'naturally aspirated' with a buddy that is two years older. His buddy has an ebike and he is giving it a couple of years before he goes electric.
Being younger than him, I feel that I need to stick with 'naturally aspirated'.
I am interested in going the other way to get a dynamo with that switchable between lighting and USB power, for my phone and speakers. There is 3A at 6V to play with.
Ultimately I would want mild hybrid, with regen so all assistance is pedal powered.
I'm 60+ it was either the e-bike, wreck my leg even further or take the car. That was an easy choice :)
Be careful with what you've got... I wish every day that I could do the day I messed up my leg again without making that particular mistake. I rode a low racer recumbent at speed and had a nasty case of leg suck when hitting a (new to me) speedbump.
No. Reduced mobility doesn't mean "weak." It means reduced mobility. It's right there in the words. People who cannot pedal much at all, even the motion, no matter how light it is. Joint issues / surgery, deformities, etc.
I think there are many more factors to it than that. I own a Radwagon, a cargo e-bike and I take my kids to school on it. It’s both pedal assist and has a throttle and maxes out at 20mph. I find the throttle very useful because the bike is pretty damn heavy with two kids on it and moving from a standing stop is much easier when I can give it a quick throttle burst then start pedalling.
All that said, I do agree the term is overloaded. The bike lines in NYC often have people riding electric mopeds in them and that feels dangerous. Their max speed is clearly way above 20mph and they’re bulky. They belong on the road with other mopeds. So IMO the definition of ebike should factor in max speed more than it should throttle vs not.
(And also, seconding the awesomeness of ebikes. My kids love riding on it and it’s allowed us to take so many trips that would have been difficult otherwise. It’s also allowed us to avoid buying a car, for now at least)
The problem with max speed is that while big legit ebike manufacturers respect it (e.g. you can't buy a Bosch ebike in the UK that will go above 15.5mph), you can easily get Chinese models that don't care, or you can mod other bikes that do fairly easily.
Why not just define the law in terms of maximum speed and be fine with it? Why nitpick over control modes?
I can guarantee that if I asked 10 random cops what the restrictions are of a Class 2 e-bike not more than 1 could answer, but if I asked them to stop people who were going over 30mph on the bike trail they could figure it out.
I agree the control mode restrictions are dumb. Lime-style ebikes have their assist set so high that you don't need to put any effort at all into pedaling. Effectively the pedals are the throttle.
But anyway that's nothing to do with the problem of ebike hooligans. The law is also defined in terms of maximum speed. Anyone going over 15.5mph (without pedaling really hard) is breaking the law.
It's not ambiguous when this is happening; it's just impractical for the police to do anything about it.
You can't "easily" modify an electric brushless motor to go faster than its Kv limit, to handle more current than its magnetic saturation limit, or to exceed the limits of back-EMF.
99% of the people whinging about ebikes have no idea what they're talking about.
There are people claiming in this very thread that kids are modding their "e-bikes" to go "45mph."
The power levels required to push a hybrid bicycle to 45mph is north of 3000W and thus well beyond the capabilities of the motors and battery packs in nearly all electric bicycles. Even the e-motos struggle to hit those speeds; you need a pretty high end, expensive one to do so.
I don't understand that point. Why do e-bikes become better or more safe when you have to rotate your legs? Its really frustrating and silly that I have to go through the motions (literally) of riding a bicycle if I want to get the priviledge of using a bike lane or going without a license plate. (At least that's the case here in Germany AFAIK).
They could go ahead and make "fast electric bikes" and "slow electric bikes" or something as categories and that would make sense - but hinging the decision on whether your legs or your wrist is turning is illogical. I think it is actually morally charged - like you have to put in the work if you want the privilege.
We can focus on clamping down of "faux pedal ebikes" when the time comes, but for now it looks like we'll be throwing out everything to just to stop teenagers on surrons.
> Why do e-bikes become better or more safe when you have to rotate your legs?
Because you're directly engaged in operating them. Electric handcycles are also legal, the problem isn't which body part it is, it's whether you're moving muscles to move your bike - and, perhaps more importantly, that your bike will stop accelerating when you stop your body.
"hinging the decision on whether your legs or your wrist is turning is illogical"
No it's not, it's recognizing the psychology between "big push with foot makes go fast" and "pressing button makes go fast".
Besides, if the only thing that matters is speed, then logically you'd have to require normal pushbikes to register as well, once cyclists are able to pedal sufficiently fast.
> recognizing the psychology between "big push with foot makes go fast" and "pressing button makes go fast".
And what is the psychological difference? As far as I'm concerned when I'm using torque-sensing pedal assist, I'm just pressing the button with my foot. The distinction between throttle and pedal assist is non existent in my eyes: pedal assist is just pressing the throttle with your foot.
The point in distinguishing the different classes is about where the bike should fit into the ecosystem. Should it ride on the shoulder, interacting with pedestrians and slower bikes, or should it ride on the road, interacting with cars and motorcycles.
It doesn’t matter how much riding it takes, it matters how fast and controlled it is moving compared to the other traffic in that class.
Its easy, the accelerations are completely different and very hard to gauge. Also you have the elderly going speeds that does not mach their reactions, while also being unaware of how fast they are going. If you try biking with them it become very obvious how many dangerous situations they cause compared to true e-bike and normal bikes.
Pedal assist feels like amplifying your natural power. The boost it gives is perfectly matched with your own movements so it feels more like you are just super fit. And there is far less chance you can just slip and apply too much power unlike throttle controlled.
It's because absolutely everyone understands the proportional nature of "press pedals to go" while nobody without special training understands "turn wrist to go", especially not the crucial details of "untwist wrist to stop" and "by the way don't yank open the throttle while attempting a sharp turn".
To me, that sounds like a task for your country’s lawmakers, rather than “Just don't call them ebikes”
Motorbikes need training, a license, insurance, registration, a minimum age, etc - and you’re competing with small petrol motorcycles which are cheap new, and plentiful on the used market.
E-bike makers aren’t going to volunteer for that - it’d destroy their business.
yeah this seems to be the catch 22 to me.
the laws are out there to limit the e-bikes to speeds and power.
i want an irresponsibly powered one because i have an endorsement and
want a non-sketch electric motorcycle that isn't mad expensive compared to petrol bikes in north america.
but because that would indeed kill their market because most people don't have motorcycle licenses,
no one gets them approved, or countries won't allow them.
New Jersey just passed some of the most onerous and short sighted ebike laws in the world last month.
Basically anything that has two wheels and a non-human energy source drive is now a motorcycle, requiring a license, registration (including a license plate), insurance, and a DOT approved motorcycle helmet, as well as This law came on the back of two teens being killed on ebikes last year.
This is the exact kind of idiotic knee-jerk legislation that will come from the public and governments general ignorance on the state of electric tandem wheel transportation.
So now in New Jersey, Betsy with her class 1 250W pedal assist ebike must get her license and don her motorcycle helmet while only riding on roads with her insured, registered, and license plated 15 mph bicycle.
Lawmakers aren't going to do their homework, they will just kneejerk appease the general public.
This is what happens when ebike companies take every opportunity to skirt the laws like putting easily removable limiters on motorcycles with pedals and a chain with a gear ratio that makes pedalling practically impossible.
I don't know if there was an existing attempt at regulation in NJ specifically but that's happening all around the country.
The problem is that, while ebikes have a ton of really good use cases, the big market for them is basically kids who want to drive a motorcycle before they're allowed. Ebike companies are going to try to sell to that market any way they can.
Why is it even legal to import illegal bikes into a country? Shut this thing at the source, make Amazon & co liable for ebikes that don't respect national legislation. The entire problem disappears in 6 months.
Disagree, the wattage of the motor is what's relevant. A 750 watt ebike with pedal assist has more potential to cause harm than a 250 watt "emoto" with a throttle.
The whole throttle vs pedal assist distinction makes way less sense than delineating the difference based on power.
As an alternative mode of transportation, that could/should replace car usage for many people, I think we need to separate the two completely as well. The throttle version needs to be regulated more like a motorcycle or moped. This would take it out of the hands of most kids and cause license suspension worries for young adults and other reckless users. I agree they are essentially death machines and governments generally have no sane approach to regulating them.
That said, I think the e-moto versions have more potential towards alleviating traffic or being an alternative mode of transportation as most people don’t want to peddle at all. E-bikes are great, but I don’t think it’s reasonable to assume that would ever be on the average Joe’s list of feasible alternatives.
There is nothing standing in the way of electric motorcycles.
People get e-motos because it is effectively a motorcycle, except it doesn't have any road legality requirements. People treat them like bicycles that can just magically go 50mph.
Most people don't want a two-wheeler, period. Otherwise everyone would be riding motorcycles. People want a vehicle that will keep them dry, comfortable, and safe. Two-wheelers of all types fail at all of those things.
Plenty of people will ride two wheelers if the infrastructure is good. Most places in the world just have crap infrastructure for using bicycles safely and calmly.
Motorcycles already did that. E-bikes or E-motos do not bring any advantages compared to normal motorbikes, so you shouldn't expect many people to switch.
Cheaper, quieter, smaller footprint for storage, can be easily brought up a few stairs or put in the back of your car (by one person), slower (a perceived safety advantage by some, as most motorcycles can go highway speed), maintenance is less daunting (again, perceived), culture (perceived) as some people are quite turned off by motorcycle culture, and many many more.
One of the major problems with ebikes is the existence of cars and related infra.
Is $$$ not an advantage? Motorbikes are at least triple the price AIUI, not to mention more regulated. The main advantage of an ebike is that it's basically a pushbike (in terms of cost) but it lets you be lazy and unfit while still using it successfully as if you were fit.
Yes, there's a few extra hundred bucks in cost, and there's an electricity bill for charging it, but frankly that's nothing. You can buy an ebike for 3 digits, and you could include the power bill in that figure and not notice.
Have you ever owned a motorcycle or are you making up dramatic terminology to prove a point?
The quick e-bikes aren’t motorcycles, not even close. Something in the Sur Ron class (30-40MPH) would be equivalent to a 50cc 2 stroke which you can ride with nothing more than a drivers license. Even then hopped up Talaria’s are a pit bike and don’t remotely approach a low end sports bike.
Fast e-bikes aren’t bicycles but they aren’t motorcycles. We already have a term for that, mopeds and scooters. Instead of banning everything the clear solution would be to treat them the same as mopeds (Have to be 18, wear a helmet, may or may not need a license) and call it a day without all the drama.
“E-bikes with throttles should not be refereed to as e-bikes”
This is simply wrong and does a disservice to the growing eBike interest. The US-federally defined classes are proper and while IMO overly limiting (max speed should be 60kph and still classified as an eBike as it’s simply safer in traffic), they adequately classify what is an eBike and what is not, and having a throttle does not make something not an eBike, but max speed and power.
People have this urge to classify their limited version of what something is by how they use it with some desire to belittle others, and want to limit everyone else who have completely different requirements and capabilities and desires. eBikes in most US states can be ridden on sidewalks, in bike lanes, in traffic, on trails, and across a grassy meadow. There is no justifiable reason to require someone to have different eBikes to be able to do all those things with comfort and safety and capability and utility when a well engineered eBike can do all of them. That they might be safer with circumstantially restricted speeds, such as overtaking pedestrians, etc. again does mean multiple eBikes should be mandated to be able to do each of them.
In the US, hopefully the next administration will buy a vowel and realize they need to set federal standards and eliminate this hodgepodge state and county and city and park and street and neighborhood capricious variety of who can ride what when and where, and with what gear and at what times and for what reasons. If decisions are made that no one under 13 can ride an eBike, and then only to school until you’re 16, and you must wear a helmet until at least 19, then at least there will be consistent rules for people to argue for and against.
60kmph / 37mph is very fast for somebody who might just be wearing a bicycle helmet (hopefully). If traffic is going that fast, I think it may just not be the appropriate place for a bicycle to be. I've gone that fast on an e-bike before, and it doesn't feel comfortable nor safe.
I agree with having a good helmet, however to be honest my first motorbike ride and car drive at 60kmh were terrifying. Also many people never bicycle even in a 30kmh limites zone because they don’t feel safe.
But I don’t want to downplay speed, as you noted it’s probably the key: most motorbike death are because speed or loose of control without involving any other vehicle. Also small cylinders (< 50cc) are almost absent in the death toll. If suicidal motorbikes with good helmet are allowed, so should be the bicyclists (with good helmet).
Suicidal motorbikes are allowed with license and insurance though. Not saying that's optimal for public safety, but that's a big distinction.
I think that's the logical line between e-bikes an electric motos: at what power or speed do you want to start requiring some kind of licensing or insurance?
Yeah licensing and plates would be interesting. Although an e-bike is lighter than a scooter and will make less damage to the other person, the driver weight is probably signifiant too.
Not sure how that works in the US but in France (and probably Europe?) everyone supposed to get a "civil responsibility insurance" that will cover many thinks including accidents on non-insured (legal) vehicle.
People ride analog pedal bikes all the time in places with road traffic and they impede that traffic when they are going slower - I’ve known more people hurt because someone tried to pass them when they’re departing a traffic light or needing to turn across traffic than from falling down while going “too fast”. It’s frequently more than getting yelled at when multi-ton vehicles intentionally pass by you so close you feel the wind push you away. Being able to go about 35mph puts you at a pace where someone in a car stuck behind you is much more likely to exhibit a little patience.
EBikes are popular and growing like crazy, especially outside the US. There’s somewhere over 30 million in India alone, estimated to double in five years. Their presence is not going away, even in the US, but it takes serious time and desire to get protected bike lanes built. Where I live there’s 6 grocery stores within 3 miles in either direction - and all on the other side of a 4 lane road. You end up riding in the road for part of the trip, and it’s more dangerous from relatively heavy traffic if you’re going 15 instead of 35 for even that short distance.
Because if a eBike meets already well defined federal class specifications it is considered a eBike, and not a motor vehicle, and other than setting reasonable speed limits in high foot-traffic areas, local regulations do nothing but complicate life.
I wouldn't want an e-bike precisely because I can't trust my government not to introduce some new legislation with onerous rules or extra costs. Maybe if they were cheap, but since they cost an arm and a leg there's no reason to get them.
You can get a perfectly workable brand new E-Bike for about $1,000 in the US. While that isn’t cheap as chips it’s also not a major investment for middle class individuals.
I propose a new and improved e-bike classification scheme:
Class A: Bikes that can not go over 10mph via a throttle. And can’t go over 28mph with pedal assist. Or set the pedal assist limit at 20mph if you’re feeling especially conservative.
Class B-Class infinity: These aren’t considered bikes. Class A is the only class of e-bike.
>Class A: Bikes that can not go over 10mph (16km/h) via a throttle. And can’t go over 28mph (45km/h) with pedal assist. Or set the pedal assist limit at 20mph (32km/h) if you’re feeling especially conservative.
In Australia, the pedal-assist limit is 25km/h (~15.5mph). And frankly, that's plenty.
A major problem is there not being a way a city can legally speed limit a road such that it can ticket cars who go faster than what the bikes allow assisted.
If you take away their legal reasons for overtaking you while you go as far as the bike let's you and there's nothing ahead of you, you've already massively reduced the amount of dangerous overtaking, and you can aggressively police the remaining overtaking for speeding without having to prove they are overtaking in a dangerous manner.
There's not much difference between a throttle and a sufficiently powerful pedal-assist. Switch to your top gear, and the torque-sensor will say "gee that's a steep hill, let me give you a boost" the moment you start pedalling.
Banning throttles just makes manufacturers install token pedals on the motorbikes.
In theory maybe, but in reality pedal assist bikes are far more likely to be compliant with speed and power restrictions and designed to feel like a bike. While throttle bikes are almost always sold as dirt bikes for use on private property.
When I think of throttle assist in an e-bike my thought is not about dirt bikes but instead the incredibly common low end cadence sensing e-bikes that are hard to get started from a stop.
I have a disability and can't pedal for many minutes or hours straight, but my electric scooter with a throttle is absolutely amazing for helping me get around areas that would otherwise require tons of walking (or pedaling). I guess I'm a demon that needs to be regulated out of existence?
I think e-motos should be as lightly regulated as possible. The regulations on bike paths should be speed, not pedal vs. non-pedal. And since "bikes" aren't regulated but "mopeds" are, you see people avoiding government BS by shipping e-bikes that have "off-road" mode that enables no-pedal throttles.
I have two failed EM3ev battery packs. The BMS is toast after less than 50 cycles over 6 years.
I’m looking for a replacement BMS (52V, 14S5P) but can’t figure out which would be more reliable. I would prefer to avoid buying a replacement from them because I dont think they should have failed so early and with such a light use.
How to find a suitable BMS that does Bluetooth and will fit the existing connectors, including the SoC indicator and power button? That’s an 8 wires daughter board that uses actual SoC information to display the value rather than voltage alone.
Reading the comments here, let’s take a moment to mourn another technology that so called HN hackers want to see regulated en masse by their big daddy government.
Like drones, 3D printing, and now the simple pleasure of building your own e-bike. It seems like a certain demographic of NIMBY/Karen has taken over and is hell bent against makers and anything remotely cool, DIY, that could even be slightly more dangerous than a game of Pickleball.
Every time a cool thing becomes popular I only envy the early adopters who didn't have to worry about regulation too much, and build their companies or brands when the rules were still light. Then with the resources they get, they can spend some of them on adhering to the new requirements, which newcomers have to struggle with. Oh well.
Gotta keep on the edge if you want to enjoy things or be successful.
Like it or not, if people who aren't big brained HN genius hackers like yourself do reckless things with powerful technology, like a stupid teenager killing someone's baby by running them over with an e-bike at max speed on a sidewalk around a sharp corner, then broader society will hate that technology, and then that woke freedom you crave will get wiped out by those small brained normies. The point is that it is better to set some rules ahead of garnering that hatred, so that the whole practice doesn't get wiped out by the 95% of the public who are those aforementioned idiots (at least as you see them).
But as a morally righteous big brained HN edgelord, feel free to live your anarchist life on a seastead in the middle of the ocean running drones into icebergs and enjoying the whiz of throttling your exquisitely powerful ebike on the deck of your boat if you please.
This doesn't seem to actually be the case. A stupid teenager ran over a baby by driving onto the sidewalk and killing the child there and broader society does not actually hate cars. In fact, last night another stupid person killed a two-year old by my home. The eye-witness accounts are unholy things (you can go find them on /r/sanfrancisco but I honestly am trying to purge it from my mind). It is not actually the case that the "woke freedom is wiped out by small-brained normies" in my experience.
electric bicycles, are just smartly marketeered motorcycles as bicycles. Give it the health sauce of a bicycle, and the comfort of a motorcycle. You excercise but dont get tired at all, you dont sweat, the bike works for you... to me that sounds like electric fitness, where you do power assisted weightlifting, so that you can do more reps, and lift more weight. Beeing a cyclist who regularly cycles with an unassisted bike distances over 200 km i see no added value of an electric bicycle over a normal bike. Disclaimer, it is a velomobile
In my city, travel habits and condition, I find I wish for more torque and lower speed. Every place I want to go has significant hills that the motor can't handle, and easing climbing hills is the main reason I want an ebike. My ebike's minimum speed for the motor is 15kph, which is ok by myself, but my family likes to go slower, so I have to go fully manual with them. When I look at ebike ads it feels like nobody else cares about these two areas of performance. When I talk to local ebike shops they are unprepared to talk about torque and minimum speed.
I fitted a Bafeng mid-drive motor to my city bike and it's fabulous for hills. Because the power goes through the existing drivechain you can get high torque simply by switching to first gear. No minimum speed, power kicks in after half a turn of the pedals. Coupled with hub gears you can change at rest it's a marvel.
Even at the European street legal limit of 250W it makes acceleration trivial.
This is what gearing is for. Get an ebike with a mid-drive motor and some form of gearing -- a conventional derailleur, or an internally geared hub (Shimano makes a decent one, Rohloff makes a great one).
Internal gear hubs are pricy but great. I’ll strongly advise against a conventional derailleur with a mid-drive motor: the derailleur needs a thinner chain which wear faster, especially with a motor that apply more torque than a normal human. Internal hubs allow to use a 1s chain or better: a belt. Then you’re good to go for a loooong time. There’s also the (super expensive) Pignon mid drive with integrated speeds, a bit like the Schlumpf’s but for e-bikes.
Pro of derailleur’s e-bikes: their price.
[waited long time to do that] - a former bike mechanist
edit: the problem with faster wear isn’t the risk to break but the decease in efficiency which will affect your motor health (heating) and batterie capacity. If you’re on a budget there’s a compromise: find your favorite gear and replace the derailleur and cassette with a single speed front and back sprockets (and chain). Beware that might not be adapted to hilly roads as GP environment.
This gets repeated a lot, but isn't true. Cheaply made single-speed and 6/7/8 chains aren't any more robust than nice modern 10 and 11-speed chains. Shimano CUES (11-speed) works fine for ebikes.
Belts are fine, but less efficient than well-maintained chains. And they require special frames with some way of breaking the rear triangle.
I wasn’t comparing 6/7/8 with 10 and 11 but with 1 speed. Those are indestructible. But as you noted the quality of the chain is also important.
As for the chain you might be right, but a well maintained chain over time needs more work that many wants to invests. It’s an option for the hobbiest and sportmans but not for most of daily commuters which want something that just work, days after days and years after years.
Also, e bike users tends to user the higher speed way more than others so that sprocket wear off faster than others, accelerating wear even more. I’ve replaced many cassettes with all the speeds almost brand new and the faster one totally destroyed.
> I wasn’t comparing 6/7/8 with 10 and 11 but with 1 speed.
I covered 1 speed in my earlier comment (“single-speed”) too. There are some nice graphs at https://zerofrictioncycling.com.au/chaintesting/ (although that testing doesn’t cover single-speed chains).
> As for the chain you might be right, but a well maintained chain over time needs more work that many wants to invests.
Right! Totally reasonable to prefer not to maintain a chain.
Assuming it's a relatively cheap e-bike with a motor on the rear wheel (a hub motor), that's likely the motor being starved out of phase amps that create torque, rather than the motor being weak. Especially if it's large and heavy Direct Drive motor with no internal gearing. These need a strong controller (power supply) to feed them current, as voltage doesn't matter for torque.
But generally it's not the motor itself that's weak, it's just got a weak power supply (and potentially weak battery BMS. Some controllers tie phase amp output to battery amp input by some 2 to 2.5x multiplication ratio.)
Going from a generic KT 22A controller to a 35A KT will give over +50% torque. Up till the motor hits magnetic saturation, torque scales linearly with the amps. The thinnest kind of direct drive (27mm magnets) can hit 80-90nm too. Most of those are 30mm nowadays and can push 100nm tho.
On the geared hub motor side, the G062 (most 750w bikes use clones of it) can push 90nm before there's a risk of stripping nylon gears. Smaller ones like the G310 may strip gears earlier. These generally need less amps to produce torque than direct drive, so they work better with poor electrical systems.
Worth mentioning that wheel size matters for torque on hub motors. Larger wheels need more torque to climb (thrust). And also motor wattage doesn't mean much for torque (phase amps from the controller and gearing affect that even on bikes sold with the same wattage rating).
I also find the throttle gatekeeping or wattage gatekeeping a bit silly. Going 25kmh by throttle or peddling has no difference in how dangerous a cyclist is on the road. They should cap top speed and acceleration on throttles, but banning them outright unless someone is doing a minimum cycling motion on the pedals is a wrong regulatory approach and limits accessibility.
Throttles above 6kmh (walk assist) are banned across the whole of Europe. Judging by how heavily the Netherlands pushed for the EU-wide throttle ban, and putting my tin foil hat on, I can assume this was done as regulatory capture to ban Chinese ebikes from local stores, as they come with throttles and aren't usually capped at 25kmh on pedal assist. Netherlands produced ebikes are all pedal assist only, mid-drive, and have very poor batteries and electrical stuff for the (over 2x) price they're sold for. And now they have less competition. EU also has a 45% tariff on "e-bike part" imports...
I would also like a regulatory framework to register and insure a faster e-bike (as imo they should not cap wattage and cripple the hill climbing torque, only speed/acceleration) for adults. Right now you can only register one that has a license in EU. If you build your own, it can never be legal, even if you have a motorcycle license and want to insure it. This class of e-bike is impossible to drive legally right now.
L1-b class registration can technically do this, but it needs the bike to be registered in Europe. No e-bike has this. No manufacturers sell class L1-b e-bikes registered in the EU. Only some electric motorcycles afaik.
Depends on the bike. On some bikes the motor is mounted in the rear wheel, in which case there's no gear between the motor and the wheel. On other bikes the motor is mounted between the pedals and sent to the rear via the chain, in which case shifting works as you expect. But the latter style (a.k.a. mid-drive) demands custom frames (because mid-drive motors are nonstandardized), which increases costs and decreases repairability. In contrast, rear-wheel motors can fit on literally any frame, so they're much more accessible.
eBikes are such a game changer. I do most of our family of four's grocery shopping with ours.
Because of the assist, I find myself more comfortable in a wider range of weather conditions:
* If it's hot, I use more assist and there's an instant cooling effect. Much better than climbing into a hot car.
* If it's cold, I dress up to be warm outside and if I start to warm up on the ride, I use more assist. I don't have to try and balance staying warm and not getting sweaty.
* Same thing if it's wet out: I can wear heavier waterproof gear and not get sweaty.
For years we’ve been grocery shopping with e-bikes and a burley flatpack trailer. The trailer can hold 50kg/100lbs and we used to live up a steep hill. No problem at all. If it fit on the trailer we could haul it back. 52V e-bikes limited to 25km/h.
I see loads of those around my neighborhood, usually ferrying kids.
At the same time, I don't need to go 5 miles for groceries, so you might be picturing using a cargo bike in sparse suburbs. If your built environment is car centric then almost definitionally using any other mode of locomotion is going to be subpar.
We’ve moved the goalposts from “Food, beer, and cat litter would be too heavy for a bike.”
Also, my grocery stores are 0.7, 1.1, and 1.6 miles away, not that it matters. 5 miles is just not very much time at 20-28 mph. I think theft and weather/comfort are bigger obstacles to most people than distance.
I live about 3 miles out of town, fortunately directly on a rail trail. I ride my e-bike in to town to get groceries weekly. I have saddlebags on the bike and I pull a kids trailer with the seat folded down and have never run out of room, or had issues with weight. Sometimes I'll even get a few bags of water softener salt. I have a fat tire ebike (aventon), it's pretty sturdy. I've got about 2k miles on the bike, I'd guess half those are from grocery runs.
I don’t know how often you’re buying cat litter, but carrying food and beer in a pannier on a pedal-powered bike is perfectly reasonable, let alone an ebike
You don't think a family of four buys 'food' ? I also get beer occasionally, although sometimes I get it from the corner store a few blocks away.
I do get kitty litter with the car on the occasional trip to Costco because I'm not set on using the bike for every last thing. Just that the eBike makes a lot of things a lot more convenient.
I can get three or four days of food for my family of four on my regular bike with no problem (I also have a cat). I live somewhere where I ride past half a dozen super markets on my regular commute, so stopping at the shop is no big inconvenience.
That’s a fantastic build, I only wish e-bike manufacturers would offer similarly spec’s bikes, a days ride is very rarely 30 km, so 200 min or more like 200 km range would be a bike worth investing in.
I feel similarly about electric cars too, charging mud route or at destinations is rarely possible so 300 miles or greater are the only vehicle ranges I see as remotely practical. ( yes, I cycle in km and drive in miles , weird maybe)
Oh yes an edit - speed, who rides so slowly, those ebike speed restrictions are crazy low.
You can get off-the-shelf ebike batteries at least half as big as the author's.
Speed restrictions are somewhat better in the US -- class 1 is allowed to assist up to 20 mph, and class 3 is allowed to assist up to 28 mph. Both are higher than 25 kph (15.5 mph).
That's why you don't touch Lithium Ion packs unless you know what you are doing. I've repaired many Bosch packs before I tried building my own and seeing the guts of professionally designed and robotically assembled packs after they're a few years old is a very sobering exercise in what to do and what definitely not to do.
There are a bunch of youtubers that go out of their way to give massively dangerous advice to people and I always wonder what their liability situation is.
While you are Not My Engineer and <disclaimers> .. are there any bloggers / vloggers that are or at least seem to be giving good advice that you are comfortable passing on?
Yes, always have a fire plan in mind when starting a lithium battery project. They go up very quickly and generate a ton of choking smoke. It only takes one oopsie with a screwdriver or dropping a cell to start a fire.
I was working on an LED project that involved some reasonably-sized lithium batteries, and the guy in the hardware store said "I don't want to hear about you in the news tomorrow". That really stuck with me, and I say it sometimes when I think someone's going to do something dangerous.
I'm a total sucker for ebikes and built my first ebike around 2006, powered by 40lbs of lead acid motorcycle batteries.
I recently outfitted a trailer with a large battery made for an efoil (my other obsession) where the non-battery components went bad, the company went out of business, and "Hey, this would make a bitchin' ebike battery.
It's weird that these restrictions apply: 25km/h, 55km range? The Evolve Carbon skateboard tops out at 50km/h, and 80km range. Granted, you have to be a little bit crazy to ride that fast on a skateboard, and having owned an earlier version, I guarantee it's not pleasant riding that far on one. But people do it. Someone must be putting out faster/longer distance bikes that don't look like/ride like mopeds.
The blue one is actually an S-Pedelec, governor kicks in at about 43 kph and indeed, you need to keep pedaling and quite strongly if you want to maintain that kind of speed.
I think that size of battery would move it into requiring a motorcycle license here in Switzerland, just based on the size alone. And if it goes faster than 45km/h then definitely.
I have my motorcycle license and have been considering getting something that I can ride all day. Only problem is that if it's classified as a motorcycle license I don't think I can take it in the train like a bike if I run out of juice far away.
While I don’t think anyone should be allowed to take a 2150Wh home made battery on a train, I’m not sure why battery capacity should affect classification. Limiting power delivery makes much more sense.
Quite common for Bosch powered cargo bikes to allow fitting two 800Wh batteries and you can always carry spares. They’re just horribly expensive.
I’m very glad my US spec e-bike is 28mph/45kmph rather than 15mph/25kmph limited as I feel much more comfortable taking the lane closer to car speeds on residential roads even if I rarely go above 20mph.
I would never take that pack on a train (or any other closed transport). That would be criminal, but then again, I think that that's the case for all e-bikes. I've seen way too many videos of packs going up without a warning and there is a ton of really bad advice out there from well meaning individuals who have absolutely no idea what they are doing.
The welds on this pack are very good, I have checked and re-checked all of them, inspected the pack using a FLIR while running at maximum charge / discharge just to make sure there is no hidden jump in resistance or a bad cell. The whole thing is wrapped in shock absorbent foam but it still is a massive pack and if it were to go into thermal runaway there is just too much energy there to be dealt with.
It stays outside and is charged outside and I'm monitoring the cells groups to mV precision to make sure that they're not misbehaving. I'm not taking any risks with 170 charged 18650s, if I would so much as drop or bump the bike I would discharge the pack and dismantle it.
> I'm not taking any risks with 170 charged 18650s, if I would so much as drop or bump the bike I would discharge the pack and dismantle it.
I know it was not your intent, but when people hear this stuff about the fragility of EVs, it really makes them feel safer with a gas motor and a tank of liquid that can take a few dents and whacks without completely exploding.
The article mentions using Trespa, which I had to look up. It's a type of cladding that is fire resistant but is also not metal. It's a laminate type. The author is in the Netherlands, the infrastructure there must be really good to be able to ride 160km on an e bike between cities.
It does feel like this is such an untapped market. Think commuters, credit cart tourers, tourism around a spread out city. Something that is safer than a motorcycle and faster than a bike.
Being in a train certainly improves safety, but being kind of slow is not very safe when you're forced to share the road with cars going at least twice your speed.
In Germany at least the routes are a lot prettier because they go through forests and villages. It's what got me to cycle more and ride my motorcycle less.
It's not safer than a motorcycle. Motorcycles have lights and signals and can accelerate away from danger. Plus the riders are generally covered head to toe in safety equipment, whereas nobody is ever going to wear leathers on a push bike.
Right after the pandemic of 2020, I joined an “outside squad” of OneWheel enthusiasts, PEV daredevils, and E-bike low riders. We would ride around the city in 70 man packs. It was the most fun I’ve had as a grown up. :) Even broke my olecranon in a nose dive but rode my wheel out of the hospital. Best money spent.
high quality heavy 18650s weigh about 2 oz. 190 of them would weigh about 24 lbs. Throw in another 6-10 lbs for bms, wiring, casing and errata and it's not that bad.
I don't know if this figures into the engineering formulas, but an e-bike needs to be stronger due to the higher speeds and power levels. On a human powered bike, if you're hauling 150 pounds, you're probably going pretty slow.
My friends who have e-bikes go through a lot more "consumable" parts such as chains, tires, brakes, cogs, and bearings.
> My first e-bike, a pretty crappy one but enough to get my appetite whetted had a 500 Wh battery, enough for a 55 km trip one-way, and it would be dead on arrival, range anxiety to the max.
What? 55km with a 500Wh battery? Was he not pedaling at all? Why does he even have range anxiety on an ebike? You can just pedal if the battery is low.
E-bikes suck pedal if the motor is not helping. Also, someone going that far is almost certainly doing it at the maximum speed of the bike, and power use goes up quadratically with speed. You could probably do that trip with plenty of power to spare at 15kph or arrive with no charge remaining at 30kph.
Yes, I'm pedaling just fine, thank you for asking.
The range on this thing is not that large even when you are pedaling strongly, it just uses a lot of power. As you probably know the power consumption of a bike goes up considerably as the speed increases, this is NL and while we don't have hills we do have wind, and plenty of it. Add in a 40 to 45 kph top speed and you can see the battery dwindle in real time.
As for pedaling if the battery is low: I have a bad leg, which is why I ride these to begin with, they help me to get started at traffic lights, which we have a lot of. Once at speed I can ride just fine but getting up to speed really hurts.
On my ebike the power consumption goes to zero when traveling faster than 25kph because then the engine is not allowed to assist you past that speed.
Anyway, if you use high power settings due to your bad leg, I understand. With assist set to low or even medium, you can get a lot more than 55km out of a 500Wh battery.
... put your (e)bike on a train, that's where the range come from.
Very cool experimentation but in term of making the practice sustainable best to rely on the infrastructure. It's a bit like in sports having to use the big muscles, e.g. you climb with your legs, not with your fingers no matter what super strength grip you have.
99% of the time it's food delivery workers who have to live in the outer edges of the city while all the orders are in the inner city.
The solution to this problem is to run enough trains that they aren't so crowded a bike wouldn't fit. These people are paying for tickets so their usage should be funding the running of more services.
The aerodynamic situation of a bicycle is so disadvantageous that the easiest way to get a long range e-bike is to simply ride more slowly. People internalize beliefs about energy-range ratios from electric cars, but they don't translate well to bicycles.
It is kind of a shame that recumbent bikes are expensive and bike nerd coded. A recumbent e-bike with an aeroshell would be fantastically efficient and useful in so many situations, but if you tried to buy one today it is going to cost as much as a car and have everybody else sneering at you.
No, that is not true. If you ride a velomobile, you are protected by its aeroshell. Consider it a full body helmet. You are rather flipped/ pushed away, than coming under a car. Of course you are not happy after a crash, but you mostly survive. And you also have other benefits, such as weather protection. In heavy rains you are sitting dry in your bicycle, listening to your radio, where your fellow ebiker gets soaking wet. And did i mention carco capacity :-)
But cars have much larger constants and linear terms in their efficiency equation and they hit peak efficiency at 15 MPH or higher, whereas a bicycle peaks at half that.
Very cool. Thanks for sharing. I have an ebike myself and have considered just strapping extra battery packs to the frame so that I can just swap when required. In the end, I mostly take shorter trips (I’ve had it since Dec and my odo only reads three figures).
Speaking of R&M, I have wanted to get one of their bikes that has the child container area in the front. I saw one guy with one and it looked pretty awesome. A large bike like that would benefit from some larger battery pack. And those have a flat area in front on the frame where you can host a few parallel to the floor (hard in a normal bike frame).
One annoying constraint is that it’s hard to find a place here in America where people won’t tacitly kill children. As more people here become online only child-free characters driving large EVs they don’t think too much about killing children and will only delay someone’s license for a couple of years for doing so.
> Speaking of R&M, I have wanted to get one of their bikes that has the child container area in the front. I saw one guy with one and it looked pretty awesome. A large bike like that would benefit from some larger battery pack.
I'm planning to buy one of these (Load 60 or 75). I think they can mount two battery packs (2x 800Wh = 1600Wh) on the frame.
I was disappointed to discover that my e-bike could not charge and power the drivetrain at the same time. Visions of range extending backpacks were dashed in an instant.
The really neat thing is that at the end of a long ride the cell groups still track to within 2 mV of each other, which is a strong sign that all cell groups are discharging equally fast and that there are no cells or welds that are causing problems. Of course with 17P the cells are only mildly exercised compared to what they would be going through in a regular pack.
(1) a few years old now, but keeps up with my buddy riding the new-new version https://upway.co/products/specialized-turbo-levo-comp-carbon...
What's interesting is that the duct tape is still the same, it never even cracked or tear. I don't particularly care about the looks, it just needs to work.
Obviously if the e-bike requires no pedalling at all it wins but then that is not legal everywhere.
For a normal human, a "legal" 250w motor is easily doubling or tripling their normal power output, so hauling around an extra 20kg on top of the existing ~100kg body + bike is not a big deal.
I built almost exactly the same size pack (2 kWH) as Jacques in 2020 on a hybrid road bike and hated it so much that I only rode it 20 times or so. The battery still sits in the corner of my house doing nothing.
On flat roads, I usually ride on 3rd or 4th gear (out of 7), now i ride in 2nd or 3rd.
But where i ride, the road isn't even and has a lot of steep slopes. There I'm on 1st gear all the time anyway and the assistance i get totally saves my knees, and ensures I'm not all sweaty when i reach my destination. Even compared to the light weight regular bicycles i rode before, this is better.
E-bikes with throttles should not be refereed to as e-bikes
E-peds, e-motos, electric motorycle, whatever. Just don't call them ebikes.
The problem is people (especially kids) getting what are essentially electric motorcycles, thinking they are ebikes, and then causing all sorts of chaos on roads and bike paths. This inevitably leads to the public hating "e-bikes" and the government passing totally confused laws about "e-bikes". This also leads to kids getting killed because mom and dad bought them an "e-bike" and let them loose on the roads with it.
Pedal assist ebikes are incredible, and really just turn weak cyclists into strong cyclists, while still providing exercise. It's a revolution for society, but we have to be careful to not totally fumble it with electric motorcycle death machines.
I built an ebike and hell yes I put a throttle on it because it enables me to ride more technical trails. This bike has dramatically increased my quality of life. Please leave me alone and if someone uses a throttle bike in an illegal manner give them a ticket.
The license plate issue is that cities can, and are, adding more and more license plate scanners to catch cars. Those won't work for bicycles and ebikes (who drive like cyclists) unless they require license plates on bikes/ebikes and enforce. Yes, and enforce more on cars too.
As for license plates, I'd like both cars and bikes to obey the law. The only way I see that happening is cameras and scanners. For that to stop bikes requires the bikes to also have plates.
Don't victim blame.
Why is having a license plate even relevant here? Most traffic enforcement is done when an officer sees something happen.
Well in most jurisidictions just the throttle is an "illegal manner", and if you're riding technical trails because of it I have no sympathy for your condition or improved quality of life; you're screwing it up for the rest of us. Maybe you should be the one who leaves.
I’m fortunate enough to live around a lot of walking and mixed use trails for bikes and pedestrians. Recently they’re unsafe to use in the evenings because you have to be ready to jump out of the way of groups of kids (plus a few adults who should know better) going 45mph on electric bikes with throttles. They don’t even pretend to be e-bikes any more.
The big problem is that there is zero enforcement. If there was at least a chance that someone breaking these laws could lose their bike or have to pay thousands of dollars in fines I think we’d see a lot less of it. Right now everyone knows that they’re not going to get caught, so it’s a free for all.
the problem is recklessnesss and speed, restrict and enforce those things, don't just let the bike makers shift the product 10% and re-create exactly the same issue, but "legally"
The bikes with throttles are not legally e-bikes, so the products on the market ignore all of the other e-bike restrictions too. They have much more power and higher top speeds.
Even if they were fully limited, pedaling ensure more rider engagement and changes how people ride them. When you have to put some effort, however small, into moving the bike around you ride differently than if it's an effortless throttle input.
It's power and speed that matters, as you point out, so make regulation built on that. Heck, arguably pedal assist is a throttle, it's just a different mechanism vs a twist handle.
It’s an enforcement problem.
The riders know they’re riding where police cars can’t get them. They also know that the bike cops aren’t allowed to ride ultra powerful electric motorcycles. They also know they can just drive off across some grass into a park if anyone tries to stop them.
It’s a hard problem.
> I suspect that as time passes, we'll find ways of allowing ebikes to flourish.
Electric bikes are flourishing here. Electric motorcycles on bike paths are the problem.
I think the electric term is confusing the issue. If it helps, imagine that these were just really quiet but powerful gas powered dirt bikes riding on the pedestrian path. That should give you an idea of what’s going on.
Because some people think laws only ever exist to restrain as a show of power over others and something is only illegal if you get caught.
And some people just want to be contrarian and acting against the law is the ultimate punching-up.
Some laws are just a good idea, and provide benefit, or even just expectation/predictability, to everyone.
https://pasteboard.co/IlXSlFUOgULW.png
I'm not sure how I feel about them. I like that the made a way to get you off your bike. I dislike that the path seems plenty wide enough to accomodate bikes and that it would be a useful bike path or 1/2 bike path, but they want it to 100% pedestrian path, even though it's not remotely crowded.
They have great utility, with their power, weight and size. They can be fast for sure, but it's also not on the same level as even a 300cc motorbike either - should they really be put into the same basket? How can that be enveloped by law - if it really has to be - without taking their utility away?
If the law is too restrictive, current users won't bother following, since the enforcement is so rare.
Has any legislation been passed or was this only a proposal?
Crazy legislation gets proposed all the time with no possibility of passing. Some times no intent of passing, either.
[1] https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2025/06/03/12-year-old-boy-dies...
Setting aside the question who is to be blamed, using motorcycles to pursue kids on bikes will cause the deaths of more kids. Is that a price worth paying? No.
I could hop my bicycle over curbs that would bring a police motorcycle to a halt, or even toss a bike over a fence and then pick it up on the other side if I wanted. Or I could dip into the trees near the bike path where a police motorcycle has no chance of maneuvering.
>> Starting January 20, 2026, all e-bike riders in New Jersey need three things: a license, registration, and insurance. You have until July 19, 2026 to get these sorted out.
You either ride responsibly or you're a selfish asshole. The vehicle doesn't matter as much.
And I’m seeing more and more fuckwits ride fast on side walks and accelerate to jump of the sidewalk and into traffic. Almost hitting unsuspecting people on the sidewalk.
Community needs to police itself. Otherwise it’s just going to be waiting for a critical mass of deaths.
I'm going to respond every time I see this: not ebikes; these are electronic motorcycles.
And this is from someone who thinks ebike are pretty stupid; justified for old and disabled people but only ever seen ridden by fat dentists.
Many e-bikes don't have torque sensors and instead use a cheap rotation sensor so the motor engages almost randomly at certain points in pedal rotation when moving at slow speed.
The more useful case ime is turning cyclists with reduced mobility into regular cyclists.
In particular quite a few elderly people seem to have picked it up in my city, they aren't quite strong riders but definitely seem able of adapting to normal traffic. It also seems like a significantly safer option for individual transport than cars (especially in regards to the other traffic participants).
That's exactly my use case. I've got a bad leg and this thing made all the difference for longer rides.
Being younger than him, I feel that I need to stick with 'naturally aspirated'.
I am interested in going the other way to get a dynamo with that switchable between lighting and USB power, for my phone and speakers. There is 3A at 6V to play with.
Ultimately I would want mild hybrid, with regen so all assistance is pedal powered.
Be careful with what you've got... I wish every day that I could do the day I messed up my leg again without making that particular mistake. I rode a low racer recumbent at speed and had a nasty case of leg suck when hitting a (new to me) speedbump.
You mean, turn weak cyclists into strong cyclists, like GP said? :-)
Don't be smarmy.
All that said, I do agree the term is overloaded. The bike lines in NYC often have people riding electric mopeds in them and that feels dangerous. Their max speed is clearly way above 20mph and they’re bulky. They belong on the road with other mopeds. So IMO the definition of ebike should factor in max speed more than it should throttle vs not.
(And also, seconding the awesomeness of ebikes. My kids love riding on it and it’s allowed us to take so many trips that would have been difficult otherwise. It’s also allowed us to avoid buying a car, for now at least)
I don't know what the solution is tbh.
I can guarantee that if I asked 10 random cops what the restrictions are of a Class 2 e-bike not more than 1 could answer, but if I asked them to stop people who were going over 30mph on the bike trail they could figure it out.
But anyway that's nothing to do with the problem of ebike hooligans. The law is also defined in terms of maximum speed. Anyone going over 15.5mph (without pedaling really hard) is breaking the law.
It's not ambiguous when this is happening; it's just impractical for the police to do anything about it.
99% of the people whinging about ebikes have no idea what they're talking about.
There are people claiming in this very thread that kids are modding their "e-bikes" to go "45mph."
The power levels required to push a hybrid bicycle to 45mph is north of 3000W and thus well beyond the capabilities of the motors and battery packs in nearly all electric bicycles. Even the e-motos struggle to hit those speeds; you need a pretty high end, expensive one to do so.
That can readily double your speed on flat or downhill terrain if normal torque is sized to give good acceleration from standstill.
(FWIW buying the bike had nothing to do with environmental concerns, I got it for financial and practicality reasons)
They could go ahead and make "fast electric bikes" and "slow electric bikes" or something as categories and that would make sense - but hinging the decision on whether your legs or your wrist is turning is illogical. I think it is actually morally charged - like you have to put in the work if you want the privilege.
We can focus on clamping down of "faux pedal ebikes" when the time comes, but for now it looks like we'll be throwing out everything to just to stop teenagers on surrons.
Because you're directly engaged in operating them. Electric handcycles are also legal, the problem isn't which body part it is, it's whether you're moving muscles to move your bike - and, perhaps more importantly, that your bike will stop accelerating when you stop your body.
No it's not, it's recognizing the psychology between "big push with foot makes go fast" and "pressing button makes go fast".
Besides, if the only thing that matters is speed, then logically you'd have to require normal pushbikes to register as well, once cyclists are able to pedal sufficiently fast.
And what is the psychological difference? As far as I'm concerned when I'm using torque-sensing pedal assist, I'm just pressing the button with my foot. The distinction between throttle and pedal assist is non existent in my eyes: pedal assist is just pressing the throttle with your foot.
Motor wattage and top speed is what matters.
How much riding does it take to twist your arm 30 degrees?
You don’t see a difference?
The point in distinguishing the different classes is about where the bike should fit into the ecosystem. Should it ride on the shoulder, interacting with pedestrians and slower bikes, or should it ride on the road, interacting with cars and motorcycles.
It doesn’t matter how much riding it takes, it matters how fast and controlled it is moving compared to the other traffic in that class.
Motorbikes need training, a license, insurance, registration, a minimum age, etc - and you’re competing with small petrol motorcycles which are cheap new, and plentiful on the used market.
E-bike makers aren’t going to volunteer for that - it’d destroy their business.
but because that would indeed kill their market because most people don't have motorcycle licenses, no one gets them approved, or countries won't allow them.
Basically anything that has two wheels and a non-human energy source drive is now a motorcycle, requiring a license, registration (including a license plate), insurance, and a DOT approved motorcycle helmet, as well as This law came on the back of two teens being killed on ebikes last year.
This is the exact kind of idiotic knee-jerk legislation that will come from the public and governments general ignorance on the state of electric tandem wheel transportation.
So now in New Jersey, Betsy with her class 1 250W pedal assist ebike must get her license and don her motorcycle helmet while only riding on roads with her insured, registered, and license plated 15 mph bicycle.
Lawmakers aren't going to do their homework, they will just kneejerk appease the general public.
I don't know if there was an existing attempt at regulation in NJ specifically but that's happening all around the country.
The problem is that, while ebikes have a ton of really good use cases, the big market for them is basically kids who want to drive a motorcycle before they're allowed. Ebike companies are going to try to sell to that market any way they can.
One that prevents consumers from buying an electric motor and some batteries to run around their own property on? Good luck with that!
Arguably, complete bans will be even worse for business.
The whole throttle vs pedal assist distinction makes way less sense than delineating the difference based on power.
That said, I think the e-moto versions have more potential towards alleviating traffic or being an alternative mode of transportation as most people don’t want to peddle at all. E-bikes are great, but I don’t think it’s reasonable to assume that would ever be on the average Joe’s list of feasible alternatives.
People get e-motos because it is effectively a motorcycle, except it doesn't have any road legality requirements. People treat them like bicycles that can just magically go 50mph.
Most people don't want a two-wheeler, period. Otherwise everyone would be riding motorcycles. People want a vehicle that will keep them dry, comfortable, and safe. Two-wheelers of all types fail at all of those things.
Motorcycles already did that. E-bikes or E-motos do not bring any advantages compared to normal motorbikes, so you shouldn't expect many people to switch.
One of the major problems with ebikes is the existence of cars and related infra.
Yes, there's a few extra hundred bucks in cost, and there's an electricity bill for charging it, but frankly that's nothing. You can buy an ebike for 3 digits, and you could include the power bill in that figure and not notice.
The quick e-bikes aren’t motorcycles, not even close. Something in the Sur Ron class (30-40MPH) would be equivalent to a 50cc 2 stroke which you can ride with nothing more than a drivers license. Even then hopped up Talaria’s are a pit bike and don’t remotely approach a low end sports bike.
Fast e-bikes aren’t bicycles but they aren’t motorcycles. We already have a term for that, mopeds and scooters. Instead of banning everything the clear solution would be to treat them the same as mopeds (Have to be 18, wear a helmet, may or may not need a license) and call it a day without all the drama.
This is simply wrong and does a disservice to the growing eBike interest. The US-federally defined classes are proper and while IMO overly limiting (max speed should be 60kph and still classified as an eBike as it’s simply safer in traffic), they adequately classify what is an eBike and what is not, and having a throttle does not make something not an eBike, but max speed and power.
People have this urge to classify their limited version of what something is by how they use it with some desire to belittle others, and want to limit everyone else who have completely different requirements and capabilities and desires. eBikes in most US states can be ridden on sidewalks, in bike lanes, in traffic, on trails, and across a grassy meadow. There is no justifiable reason to require someone to have different eBikes to be able to do all those things with comfort and safety and capability and utility when a well engineered eBike can do all of them. That they might be safer with circumstantially restricted speeds, such as overtaking pedestrians, etc. again does mean multiple eBikes should be mandated to be able to do each of them.
In the US, hopefully the next administration will buy a vowel and realize they need to set federal standards and eliminate this hodgepodge state and county and city and park and street and neighborhood capricious variety of who can ride what when and where, and with what gear and at what times and for what reasons. If decisions are made that no one under 13 can ride an eBike, and then only to school until you’re 16, and you must wear a helmet until at least 19, then at least there will be consistent rules for people to argue for and against.
But I don’t want to downplay speed, as you noted it’s probably the key: most motorbike death are because speed or loose of control without involving any other vehicle. Also small cylinders (< 50cc) are almost absent in the death toll. If suicidal motorbikes with good helmet are allowed, so should be the bicyclists (with good helmet).
Maybe those should be more tightly regulated.
I think that's the logical line between e-bikes an electric motos: at what power or speed do you want to start requiring some kind of licensing or insurance?
Not sure how that works in the US but in France (and probably Europe?) everyone supposed to get a "civil responsibility insurance" that will cover many thinks including accidents on non-insured (legal) vehicle.
EBikes are popular and growing like crazy, especially outside the US. There’s somewhere over 30 million in India alone, estimated to double in five years. Their presence is not going away, even in the US, but it takes serious time and desire to get protected bike lanes built. Where I live there’s 6 grocery stores within 3 miles in either direction - and all on the other side of a 4 lane road. You end up riding in the road for part of the trip, and it’s more dangerous from relatively heavy traffic if you’re going 15 instead of 35 for even that short distance.
Class A: Bikes that can not go over 10mph via a throttle. And can’t go over 28mph with pedal assist. Or set the pedal assist limit at 20mph if you’re feeling especially conservative.
Class B-Class infinity: These aren’t considered bikes. Class A is the only class of e-bike.
>Class A: Bikes that can not go over 10mph (16km/h) via a throttle. And can’t go over 28mph (45km/h) with pedal assist. Or set the pedal assist limit at 20mph (32km/h) if you’re feeling especially conservative.
In Australia, the pedal-assist limit is 25km/h (~15.5mph). And frankly, that's plenty.
If you take away their legal reasons for overtaking you while you go as far as the bike let's you and there's nothing ahead of you, you've already massively reduced the amount of dangerous overtaking, and you can aggressively police the remaining overtaking for speeding without having to prove they are overtaking in a dangerous manner.
Banning throttles just makes manufacturers install token pedals on the motorbikes.
Kids riding out of spec motorcycles has always been illegal and always will be. The only problem is that they are a lot cheaper than they used to be.
I’m looking for a replacement BMS (52V, 14S5P) but can’t figure out which would be more reliable. I would prefer to avoid buying a replacement from them because I dont think they should have failed so early and with such a light use.
How to find a suitable BMS that does Bluetooth and will fit the existing connectors, including the SoC indicator and power button? That’s an 8 wires daughter board that uses actual SoC information to display the value rather than voltage alone.
Like drones, 3D printing, and now the simple pleasure of building your own e-bike. It seems like a certain demographic of NIMBY/Karen has taken over and is hell bent against makers and anything remotely cool, DIY, that could even be slightly more dangerous than a game of Pickleball.
Gotta keep on the edge if you want to enjoy things or be successful.
But as a morally righteous big brained HN edgelord, feel free to live your anarchist life on a seastead in the middle of the ocean running drones into icebergs and enjoying the whiz of throttling your exquisitely powerful ebike on the deck of your boat if you please.
Replace e-bike with bike or tricycle and you still have a smushed baby.
Even at the European street legal limit of 250W it makes acceleration trivial.
Some pedicab folks in Austin used to use them.
Hill climbing video YouTube https://share.google/iLrHXvjAKMO4esAux
Design info https://share.google/iLrHXvjAKMO4esAux
Pro of derailleur’s e-bikes: their price.
[waited long time to do that] - a former bike mechanist
edit: the problem with faster wear isn’t the risk to break but the decease in efficiency which will affect your motor health (heating) and batterie capacity. If you’re on a budget there’s a compromise: find your favorite gear and replace the derailleur and cassette with a single speed front and back sprockets (and chain). Beware that might not be adapted to hilly roads as GP environment.
This gets repeated a lot, but isn't true. Cheaply made single-speed and 6/7/8 chains aren't any more robust than nice modern 10 and 11-speed chains. Shimano CUES (11-speed) works fine for ebikes.
Belts are fine, but less efficient than well-maintained chains. And they require special frames with some way of breaking the rear triangle.
As for the chain you might be right, but a well maintained chain over time needs more work that many wants to invests. It’s an option for the hobbiest and sportmans but not for most of daily commuters which want something that just work, days after days and years after years.
Also, e bike users tends to user the higher speed way more than others so that sprocket wear off faster than others, accelerating wear even more. I’ve replaced many cassettes with all the speeds almost brand new and the faster one totally destroyed.
I covered 1 speed in my earlier comment (“single-speed”) too. There are some nice graphs at https://zerofrictioncycling.com.au/chaintesting/ (although that testing doesn’t cover single-speed chains).
> As for the chain you might be right, but a well maintained chain over time needs more work that many wants to invests.
Right! Totally reasonable to prefer not to maintain a chain.
Mine sits between the pedals. That means I can just go down in gear and the motor helps with going up the hill.
But generally it's not the motor itself that's weak, it's just got a weak power supply (and potentially weak battery BMS. Some controllers tie phase amp output to battery amp input by some 2 to 2.5x multiplication ratio.)
Going from a generic KT 22A controller to a 35A KT will give over +50% torque. Up till the motor hits magnetic saturation, torque scales linearly with the amps. The thinnest kind of direct drive (27mm magnets) can hit 80-90nm too. Most of those are 30mm nowadays and can push 100nm tho.
On the geared hub motor side, the G062 (most 750w bikes use clones of it) can push 90nm before there's a risk of stripping nylon gears. Smaller ones like the G310 may strip gears earlier. These generally need less amps to produce torque than direct drive, so they work better with poor electrical systems.
Worth mentioning that wheel size matters for torque on hub motors. Larger wheels need more torque to climb (thrust). And also motor wattage doesn't mean much for torque (phase amps from the controller and gearing affect that even on bikes sold with the same wattage rating).
I also find the throttle gatekeeping or wattage gatekeeping a bit silly. Going 25kmh by throttle or peddling has no difference in how dangerous a cyclist is on the road. They should cap top speed and acceleration on throttles, but banning them outright unless someone is doing a minimum cycling motion on the pedals is a wrong regulatory approach and limits accessibility.
Throttles above 6kmh (walk assist) are banned across the whole of Europe. Judging by how heavily the Netherlands pushed for the EU-wide throttle ban, and putting my tin foil hat on, I can assume this was done as regulatory capture to ban Chinese ebikes from local stores, as they come with throttles and aren't usually capped at 25kmh on pedal assist. Netherlands produced ebikes are all pedal assist only, mid-drive, and have very poor batteries and electrical stuff for the (over 2x) price they're sold for. And now they have less competition. EU also has a 45% tariff on "e-bike part" imports...
I would also like a regulatory framework to register and insure a faster e-bike (as imo they should not cap wattage and cripple the hill climbing torque, only speed/acceleration) for adults. Right now you can only register one that has a license in EU. If you build your own, it can never be legal, even if you have a motorcycle license and want to insure it. This class of e-bike is impossible to drive legally right now.
L1-b class registration can technically do this, but it needs the bike to be registered in Europe. No e-bike has this. No manufacturers sell class L1-b e-bikes registered in the EU. Only some electric motorcycles afaik.
This is somewhat overstated. Bafang middrive conversions fit on most frames with a BSA bottom bracket.
Because of the assist, I find myself more comfortable in a wider range of weather conditions:
* If it's hot, I use more assist and there's an instant cooling effect. Much better than climbing into a hot car.
* If it's cold, I dress up to be warm outside and if I start to warm up on the ride, I use more assist. I don't have to try and balance staying warm and not getting sweaty.
* Same thing if it's wet out: I can wear heavier waterproof gear and not get sweaty.
Food, beer, and cat litter would be too heavy for a bike.
None, because noone wants to bike 5 miles for 3 bags of groceries.
At the same time, I don't need to go 5 miles for groceries, so you might be picturing using a cargo bike in sparse suburbs. If your built environment is car centric then almost definitionally using any other mode of locomotion is going to be subpar.
Also, my grocery stores are 0.7, 1.1, and 1.6 miles away, not that it matters. 5 miles is just not very much time at 20-28 mph. I think theft and weather/comfort are bigger obstacles to most people than distance.
I do get kitty litter with the car on the occasional trip to Costco because I'm not set on using the bike for every last thing. Just that the eBike makes a lot of things a lot more convenient.
Beer and cat litter alone are the heavy items, and don't fit stable in a bike, especially in bad weather.
Plus 2 weeks of groceries, depending on what you need can really add up.
On a bike? Fah-get-a-bout-it. Guess I'd be biking my ass to the store every day.
Or I could live in the present and drive an actual car.
Clearly GP buys 1 day worth of food if he can bike groceries for a family of four.
I had Uber drivers struggle to bike 1 MEAL for my family.
The off-the-shelf pack I was looking at if I had to make an ebike for commuting (if my employer ends WFH) was about 1100 Wh (about half the homemade pack in the article): https://www.ebikessentials.com/collections/batteries/product...
Show HN: Long Range E-Bike - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29198205 - Nov 2021 (615 comments)
Speed restrictions are somewhat better in the US -- class 1 is allowed to assist up to 20 mph, and class 3 is allowed to assist up to 28 mph. Both are higher than 25 kph (15.5 mph).
There are a bunch of youtubers that go out of their way to give massively dangerous advice to people and I always wonder what their liability situation is.
https://www.youtube.com/c/HBPowerwall
I like the simplicity, I don't like some of the wiring choices but I'm not sure if that is to be code compliant in Australia. Enjoy!
I'll look up his name tomorrow, it's been years since I last looked at that (it's 5 am after a night of hacking so I'm off to bed).
I'm a total sucker for ebikes and built my first ebike around 2006, powered by 40lbs of lead acid motorcycle batteries.
I recently outfitted a trailer with a large battery made for an efoil (my other obsession) where the non-battery components went bad, the company went out of business, and "Hey, this would make a bitchin' ebike battery.
Here's me cruising around the Oregon back country with said setup last summer: https://imgur.com/a/lmvJSBW
Okay, a quick google and this seems somewhat moped-ish but 200 mile range, 28mph top speed: https://aniioki.com/products/aniioki-aq177-pro-max-electric-...
Crazy price, but a real bike with 300 mile range and 36mph top speed: https://shop.optibike.com/shop/r22-everest/
I have my motorcycle license and have been considering getting something that I can ride all day. Only problem is that if it's classified as a motorcycle license I don't think I can take it in the train like a bike if I run out of juice far away.
Quite common for Bosch powered cargo bikes to allow fitting two 800Wh batteries and you can always carry spares. They’re just horribly expensive.
I’m very glad my US spec e-bike is 28mph/45kmph rather than 15mph/25kmph limited as I feel much more comfortable taking the lane closer to car speeds on residential roads even if I rarely go above 20mph.
But something about travelling in crowded and closed space like train with a fully charged diy (or even commercial) battery pack sounds risky.
This is one of the reasons I didn't go for a diy replacement of TWS pair with dead batteries.
The welds on this pack are very good, I have checked and re-checked all of them, inspected the pack using a FLIR while running at maximum charge / discharge just to make sure there is no hidden jump in resistance or a bad cell. The whole thing is wrapped in shock absorbent foam but it still is a massive pack and if it were to go into thermal runaway there is just too much energy there to be dealt with.
It stays outside and is charged outside and I'm monitoring the cells groups to mV precision to make sure that they're not misbehaving. I'm not taking any risks with 170 charged 18650s, if I would so much as drop or bump the bike I would discharge the pack and dismantle it.
I know it was not your intent, but when people hear this stuff about the fragility of EVs, it really makes them feel safer with a gas motor and a tank of liquid that can take a few dents and whacks without completely exploding.
* Goes about as fast as a horse
* Goes about the same distance as a horse
* Sitting on a saddle like a horse
* Out in the weather like a horse
* But no feed or vet bills
* No need for lots of land or infrastructure
* Little ongoing maintenance
* Little skill needed to ride :-)
I don't know what the difference is with what op has, but for me it's no extra issue to drive above the top speed. It's a gradient transition.
I use mine daily and charge it every two or three weeks.
https://en.eurovelo.com/
You: “Yes.”
Right after the pandemic of 2020, I joined an “outside squad” of OneWheel enthusiasts, PEV daredevils, and E-bike low riders. We would ride around the city in 70 man packs. It was the most fun I’ve had as a grown up. :) Even broke my olecranon in a nose dive but rode my wheel out of the hospital. Best money spent.
My friends who have e-bikes go through a lot more "consumable" parts such as chains, tires, brakes, cogs, and bearings.
What? 55km with a 500Wh battery? Was he not pedaling at all? Why does he even have range anxiety on an ebike? You can just pedal if the battery is low.
The range on this thing is not that large even when you are pedaling strongly, it just uses a lot of power. As you probably know the power consumption of a bike goes up considerably as the speed increases, this is NL and while we don't have hills we do have wind, and plenty of it. Add in a 40 to 45 kph top speed and you can see the battery dwindle in real time.
As for pedaling if the battery is low: I have a bad leg, which is why I ride these to begin with, they help me to get started at traffic lights, which we have a lot of. Once at speed I can ride just fine but getting up to speed really hurts.
Anyway, if you use high power settings due to your bad leg, I understand. With assist set to low or even medium, you can get a lot more than 55km out of a 500Wh battery.
Very cool experimentation but in term of making the practice sustainable best to rely on the infrastructure. It's a bit like in sports having to use the big muscles, e.g. you climb with your legs, not with your fingers no matter what super strength grip you have.
The solution to this problem is to run enough trains that they aren't so crowded a bike wouldn't fit. These people are paying for tickets so their usage should be funding the running of more services.
The term of art here is "velomobile."
Speaking of R&M, I have wanted to get one of their bikes that has the child container area in the front. I saw one guy with one and it looked pretty awesome. A large bike like that would benefit from some larger battery pack. And those have a flat area in front on the frame where you can host a few parallel to the floor (hard in a normal bike frame).
One annoying constraint is that it’s hard to find a place here in America where people won’t tacitly kill children. As more people here become online only child-free characters driving large EVs they don’t think too much about killing children and will only delay someone’s license for a couple of years for doing so.
The hard problem seems to be other people.
I'm planning to buy one of these (Load 60 or 75). I think they can mount two battery packs (2x 800Wh = 1600Wh) on the frame.