Electric bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil
December 8, 2024 3:19 PM Subscribe

The world’s 280 million electric bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries (96 comments total) 48 users marked this as a favorite

I believe it. E-bikes really are the best for most short trips around town. In fact, this weekend I've been assembling my second e-bike--upgrading to a beefier Bafang BBSHD over my first bike's BBS02 motor--and am stoked to keep riding!
posted by flod at 3:30 PM on December 8, 2024 [12 favorites]

the impact on local air pollution is probably even higher- if they're displacing two-stroke engine mopeds, which are just unbelievably, mindbogglingly more dirty than cars
posted by BungaDunga at 3:38 PM on December 8, 2024 [19 favorites]

Mopeds used to infest the college campus I work on worse than mosquitoes.

Now it's ebikes and those e-scooter things which I hate because students ride 'em way too fast and too carelessly, but they're still a massive improvement over those wretched mopeds.

So yeah, I believe this. Sticking with my acoustic bike for a while yet, though.
posted by humbug at 3:55 PM on December 8, 2024 [15 favorites]

I recently bought an e bike and it's been so much fun. Really lovr how it makes short trips easy to and using the car.
posted by Carillon at 4:08 PM on December 8, 2024 [6 favorites]

While the article is focused on Australia, the impact of replacing (particularly) two-stroke mopeds that form huge swarms in so many Asian cities with electric equivalents would be enormous. Not just for the demand for oil, but more so for the breathability of the air in those cities.

If I ever go back to commuting into the city, it will be via an e-scooter to and from the train station rather than a car, for sure. There are even secure storage spaces for them at my local train station.
posted by dg at 4:21 PM on December 8, 2024 [10 favorites]

I have an old Yuba cargo bike. It came with an electric assist option from new, but those guts died years ago and the company that made them is long gone. I bought it for cheap locally, found and installed all new generic ebike gubbins, and I've been using it since mid summer. It's saved me a lot of car trips and I've added a second battery so it can get me to work and back for a couple of days on a single charge. Each charge cycle costs pennies and saves me lots of driving, walking, or riding on crowded and slow buses. It's been such a boon that my wife is considering one for herself. And it all cost me about $1k. Totally worth it.
posted by 1adam12 at 4:28 PM on December 8, 2024 [12 favorites]

One side effect of e-bike uptake in Australia is the corresponding uptick in Li-ion battery charging fires.
posted by zamboni at 4:43 PM on December 8, 2024 [3 favorites]

Yay e-bikes! And I appreciate The Conversation as a great source for highly authoritative info on this kind of research.

I take my kid to school on my ebike, I've put on 1300 miles on it in two years and virtually all of them are car-replacing trips. I'll probably get close to another thousand next year due to changing schools while lets me ride it more. That doesn't sound like a lot but I drive very little too so it's a big relative reduction.
I don't ride it for dedicated fun or exercise, but they are a nice perk that makes the necessary trips much better.
posted by SaltySalticid at 5:01 PM on December 8, 2024 [6 favorites]

Si much less tar and energy going into heavy roads wearing out quickly, too. And less tire dust!
posted by clew at 5:32 PM on December 8, 2024 [8 favorites]

It really does help to put things in perspective to think of e-bikes in practice not as an alternative to a bicycle, but as an alternative to a motorcycle/motor scooter or even an alternative to a car in some cases. They really are just fantastic, and a lot of fun to boot. I've heard about things like cargo trailers or even sidecars available for some models, though I'm considering probably just kind of picking up a Panasonic one for ¥100,000 or so one day, as a more convenient way to get downtown and back without having to take the car out or wait for a crowded bus. Friend of mine recently bought one of the "parent with small child" e-bikes they sell in Japan, where there's a child seat just kind of built into it. They're rapidly becoming very popular with parents who have small children but who want to still get around town to do shopping (they also generally have a basket built in on the other end).

And yeah, living in Japan's most scooter-heavy city, VERY MUCH seconding the air quality value of removing two-stroke engines from the roads whenever possible.

Anyway yeah everyone go buy an e-bike because they're just great
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:39 PM on December 8, 2024 [8 favorites]

And more cyclists deaths...

I have seen so many e-bike/scooter people behaving badly.

But, America.... So you are fucked when that SUV plows into you...
posted by Windopaene at 5:40 PM on December 8, 2024 [2 favorites]

Round here, an area where cheap transportation is an issue, there was a fad a few years ago for those horrible tiny two-stroke motor kits that strap onto a regular bike. Incredibly noisy, smelly and unpleasant, not to mention slow. I only realised the other day, when one went past me, that they have essentially disappeared*; superseded unless you’re actively trying annoy your neighbours (the kids on their scooters popping wheelies are still around, but that’s an entirely different motivation and demographic). E-bikes are everything those kits promised, but didn’t deliver, so that’s what you see instead.

I have my problems with the way people ride e-bikes and I think they should be pedal assist only on bike paths, but I have not the slightest doubt that they’re a vast improvement over the alternatives.

*The fact that a State grant has made local buses free to ride since the beginning of the pandemic may also help.
posted by Quinbus Flestrin at 6:00 PM on December 8, 2024 [6 favorites]

I live 3km from my office, so my wife and I share a car instead of having to have two. About once a month there's all-day rain that makes it a serious problem, but I just WFH that day, which is privileged but hey. Saves us a shit ton of money: a parking space near my office is $200/month, but I can wheel the bike right into my office.

I think they should be pedal assist only on bike paths

Wait, what?
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 6:18 PM on December 8, 2024 [3 favorites]

My partner bought an e-bike earlier this year when she was forced back to in-person work three days a week. Pre-covid she used to ride her road bike, but it is 18km each way, and she has to bring a laptop back and forth post-covid (no dedicated desks any more). She immediately adored the e-bike commute and the ease of coming home against the prevailing winds especially. In fact, she loved it so much that on the days she was working at home I started taking the e-bike to work (15.7km each way for me). Quite a few people we've spoken to about this start joking about how we (and they) are too young for e-bikes, but I took to asking them how often they've cycled to work on their road bikes and that shut most of them up. It's honestly a pretty good light workout! I generally keep my heart rate in zone 2, maybe getting up to 3 from time to time. That's a heck of a lot better than what I get driving our car, and I'm riding for 1.5 hours as opposed to walking for only a 30 minutes if I take the commuter train. The commute time ends up being a little longer but the view is gorgeous. Our bike has to be pedalled and maxes out at about 30km/hr.

We are lucky to have a pretty good bike route infrastructure here, but temperatures have now dipped below freezing, there's snow and ice on the roads and bike paths and the battery does not do well in cold temperatures. The bike is parked for the next few months. We are looking forward to bringing it back out in the spring.
posted by Cuke at 6:45 PM on December 8, 2024 [8 favorites]

California e-bike rebates are finally coming on line.
posted by gingerbeer at 6:57 PM on December 8, 2024 [7 favorites]

I'm biased because I've been a life long cyclist, but in my opinion ebikes are the most revolutionary and efficient transportation option since the invention of the bicycle itself.

The energy and total costs are so low it's practically magic. It's the best thing since sliced bread, and it comes with almost all of the joy and magic of riding bikes with almost none of the pain and effort.

It's so damn fun and cool it's like owning a jetpack that actually works and doesn't try to kill you.

I have my problems with the way people ride e-bikes and I think they should be pedal assist only on bike paths, but I have not the slightest doubt that they’re a vast improvement over the alternatives.

I don't like people riding aggressively or irresponsibly either but this isn't exactly a new phenomenon with riders behaving badly.

Or being forced to share and use MUPs and pedestrian paths because we don't take cycling as transport seriously in the US and it's relegated to a recreational past time and sport and not vehicular traffic.

It's just that the barrier to entry via effort is a lot lower now and the usual tragedy of the commons, and I'm not sure how to fix it besides education and enforcement. And cops are barely enforcing motorized vehicle laws as it is anyway, soooo idk what to do about all of that.

But I do know that the issue isn't really throttles or currently legal ebike power classes, it's a behavioral issue the same way that people who buy more car/truck than they need and drive like assholes and idiots is a behavioral issue.

I also know that throttles are useful and important for accessibility AND as a safety feature.

I wasn't expecting to care much about having throttle when I first built my ebike but I quickly learned how useful it is to have one, and that was before I came down with a pretty heavy case of long covid and ME/CFS issues.

And keep in mind I'm saying the following things as someone who has been riding bikes their entire life and who still refuses to own a car. I have a LOT of skill and experience riding bikes from dirt and MTB riding climbing and descending mountains, commuting, bike touring and even urban courier riding, and I'm now coming up on 5 years of ebike riding experience.

Throttles make starts from a stops much straighter, cleaner and easier even if you're headed uphill from a dead stop, which is very nice for riding in traffic.

It also makes traversing sketchy terrain like sandy spots, mud and even snow and ice much safer because you can focus on balancing while applying smooth, low speed and consistent power to your wheel without trying to pedal and balance at the same time, and even frees your feet up from the pedals so you can dab with them or use them as outriggers.

I also use my throttle all the time at low speeds with high torque to traverse narrow single tracks with lots of ruts, shrubs or pedal strike hazards because I can temporarily put my pedals wherever I want and keep moving in places where I would normally have to hike-a-bike and walk or even carry my bike.

And on the health, aging and accessibility side of things having a throttle means I can still ride and really pace myself so I don't have PEM/CFS crashes from pushing myself too hard.

I use my throttle to give my legs short mini breaks to let lactic acid clear out of them and then resume pedaling so I can warm up to more effort as I am able, or I use the throttle for short bursts of extra power when climbing hills and other similar pacing uses.

Because with PEM/CFS issues I really can't just stop riding and stand there to take a break. It's better if I keep rolling because my bike fits me very comfortably and if I stop riding I have to either stand there and still use my leg muscles, or I have to sit down on the ground or something.

Being on my bike is like the difference between standing with a walker or sitting in a wheelchair and standing or sitting without either.

And then the recovery/break period takes longer and there's more effort involved getting on and off the bike and getting off of the ground or whatever, or laying my heavy bike down and picking it up again, etc.

And even if I did do all those breaks by dismounting from my bike to pace myself it would probably take me 90+ minutes to get to town just to start to run errands instead of like 20-30 minutes.

So at this point for me having a throttle is very much an assisted mobility and accessibility tool, and if the US outlawed all throttle use on all ebikes and/or all bike paths or MUPs it means that I would have to ride in traffic OR I would have to hack in a fake hidden throttle even if it was just an on-off switch or a pair of bare wires hidden somewhere.

And the power restrictions in both the EU and the US are ridiculously low. For the EU it's so bad it would be like limiting all motor vehicles to like 50 HP engines even if they were cargo trucks. Sure, 250 watts is probably fine for most urban EU environments if it's not hilly, but it's definitely not enough for the US

The states in the US that allow up to class 3 (750 watts + throttle, 28 MPH max assist) is a little better but still really underpowered if you're a larger rider, live somewhere hilly or windy and actually want to use your bike as a car replacement to haul a useful amount of groceries and stuff.

I have a BBSHD with a really big gear range suitable for climbing steep hills. For all intents and purposes I operate my bike in power ranges in the class 2-3, 250-750 watt range because I have a controller and program that actual dials the power of the BBSHD way, way back for better efficiency.

ButI definitely use all peak 1500-2000ish watts when climbing steep hills with a load of groceries, and even with that gear range and watt class we're talking about crawling up a steep hill at like 8-10 MPH if I'm not assisting with the pedals.

To be honest I would totally use about another 1000 peak watts, or 40 nm of torque, or just about another equivalent horsepower. I wouldn't really want or need much more than that.

And it's definitely not because I want to hoon around on the throttle at 30+ MPH skinny tire touring bike with no suspension or ride unsafely around other people. It's because I can actually use it for easier climbing with heavy loads, and more consistent low speed torque for sketchy riding conditions and terrain AND my bike would be even more efficient at bike-equivalent speeds.

Because that's what most people out there are actually using BBSHDs for. Not only do they have the torque for climbing hills with heavy loads and/or heavier or less able riders, they're way more efficient than lower wattage mid-drives, and especially hub drives because they're not being run as hard all the time.

Anyway, please don't advocate for throttle bans. They're actually an essential safety and accessibility feature for a lot of people.

What we really need is more people to advocate for more cycling and ebike-specific infrastructure so we're not being forced to share space with pedestrians OR cars all the time. We need more riders who understand their local areas and what it means to ride, both good and bad.

Seriously, if I added up the number of miles of bike-only and protected paths I've ever even seen, ridden or heard about it would be some minor fraction of a percentage point of all of the miles of streets, on street "bike lanes" and MUPs I have ridden.

And the very few "bikes only!" paths I've seen have people walking in them or parked in them anyway.

Maybe don't get mad at cyclists being forced to use MUPs. Maybe get more mad at cars and car drivers forcing cyclists off the road.
posted by loquacious at 7:32 PM on December 8, 2024 [42 favorites]

While the article is focused on Australia, the impact of replacing (particularly) two-stroke mopeds that form huge swarms in so many Asian cities with electric equivalents would be enormous.

Absolutely, China did this by simply banning two-stroke or all gas mopeds from various urban areas, driving rapid adoption of electric alternatives. It worked quite well.
posted by ssg at 7:45 PM on December 8, 2024 [8 favorites]

On my 3rd ebike since 2006. love them. but they are expensive. been watching when the capital cost is amortized against other ways to commute. proudly, the usage of the latest one (blix) just recently paid for itself against my theoretically using an using uber to commute, but it will be a while before it pays for itself vs the incremental cost of driving my own car (electric smartcar).
posted by Darwina at 8:37 PM on December 8, 2024 [2 favorites]

I recently bought a super scooter. It can produce so much torque that it needs traction control to avoid spinning both tyres during peak acceleration. But that's not why I got it.

This thing is safer than my previous lower powered escooter. It has really good dual suspension, incredibly stable handling, amazing dual disc brakes with ABS, turning indicators and high visibility lighting. I have configured it's default drive mode to be compliant with proposed legislation limiting escooter speeds to 20kph but I'll toggle a faster mode if I'm on a dedicated cycle way and faster still if I'm sharing the road with cars. Slower is not always safer, particularly with cars involved. As far as I'm concerned, my escooter is no more dangerous than a similarly massed cargo laden ebike.

When governments drag their heels for years and we're left navigating a world where a 17kph capable escooter is just as illegal as a 70kph capable escooter the legislative vacuum itself creates certain incentives. Particularly when the 70kph capable machine is far better engineered. So far I have clocked thousands of kilometres of city escooter riding without provoking any response from the police. I follow the maxim of only breaking one law at a time, meaning I adhere to the remaining road rules better than most of the cyclists I encounter.

I have no qualms about using this thing. Bicycles are not suitable for me personally due to injuries sustained thanks to a distracted car driver. Escooters have a legitimate a place in our evolving world of personal electric vehicles.
posted by neonamber at 9:35 PM on December 8, 2024 [7 favorites]

Two wheels are great, but one more than necessary. >:)
posted by Verg at 10:13 PM on December 8, 2024 [4 favorites]

Darwina makes the excellent point that amortization is the best way to view the cost of an e-bike. I bought one for a hair under AUD$2000 in February this year for a commute of between 11-14km depending on route, and I'm about 50% of the way toward it having offset the cost of taking the bus to work (walk-bus-walk takes about as long as the bike, door-to-door), and more than 100% past the cost of what parking a car in the city would have cost. And when you take into account the time walking to and from and crawling in 1st through the parking structure, driving wouldn't have saved me much time.

It's also inspired my 7yo twins to take up riding their bikes to school most mornings, which has made integrating the school run into my commute that much more pleasant for all concerned, and encouraged them to get out of the house on their bikes on the weekend. Seems to have been a win-win all round!
posted by MarchHare at 10:33 PM on December 8, 2024 [3 favorites]

Sure, 250 watts is probably fine for most urban EU environments if it's not hilly, but it's definitely not enough for the US

Eh? Are the laws of physics different on the two sides of the Atlantic or something?
posted by Dysk at 11:59 PM on December 8, 2024 [9 favorites]

I'm sympathetic to ebikes and I believe they can be a useful replacement for mopeds and cars in many cases, but the data is mixed about which trips they actually replace. Sometimes, ebike adoption replaces mechanical bike usage and sometimes it replaces public transit trips.

See Review of Current Practice and Research on E-Bikes in Transport Models, especially Table 3.

For a well-targeted program, see What is the substitution effect of e-bikes? A randomised controlled trial (n=98 frequent drivers) and note that "the e-bike trial was aimed at a major company in Skövde, a medium-sized industrial city in Sweden with 55,000 inhabitants. Skövde was chosen because of its relatively low cycling levels and due to its diversity of large companies." Ebike trips replaced a percentage of car trips, without replacing other kinds of trips.
posted by Grimp0teuthis at 12:10 AM on December 9, 2024 [2 favorites]

posted by chariot pulled by electric cassowaries
posted by taz at 3:13 AM on December 9, 2024 [9 favorites]

E bikes are great. My only concern is that they let people who don't have a ton of cycling experience go faster than they have the skills to manage, and just generally put traffic into cycling spaces with riders who don't know the hand signals or other best practices of safe cycling. I have narrowly avoided a few accidents on my analog bike when e bike riders made bad decisions. But that's only a few incidents, and there's always going to be some safety risk among any population of riders/drivers/whatever. You just learn to give people space. Personally, I welcome the revolution.
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 4:27 AM on December 9, 2024 [1 favorite]

Round here, an area where cheap transportation is an issue, there was a fad a few years ago for those horrible tiny two-stroke motor kits that strap onto a regular bike. Incredibly noisy, smelly and unpleasant, not to mention slow. I only realised the other day, when one went past me, that they have essentially disappeared*

I generally agree with you on that, and have started to come around on ebikes--not enough to actually get one, but definitely still e-bike curious.

BUT

It has to be said that there seems to be an economic divide between the majority of people that I see riding e-bikes and those riding the two-stroke conversions; the latter are way more affordable, with a lot of conversion kits running below $200 US versus decent quality e-bikes starting in the low $1000s.
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:34 AM on December 9, 2024 [1 favorite]

(And yes, I know that it's possible to find e-bikes under $1000. I know all about the googles, thanks. But most of those seem to be quick cash-in-on-the-fad models. This might be more suitable for an AskMe, if someone knows of more affordable e-bikes that are actually decent bargains.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:39 AM on December 9, 2024

That's a lot of wheels!
posted by Captaintripps at 5:44 AM on December 9, 2024

Just gonna drop in the chat here to mention that I paid about $5K (USD) for my custom acoustic bike a decade ago, and she has been worth every single penny of it.

(For bike nerds: belt drive, disc brakes, powder-coated steel frame, 36-spoke wheels because I am a big 'un, butterfly handlebars. She's perfect, especially considering how low-maintenance she's been. TCO is beautifully low.)

When I age to the point that I need an ebike, I expect to pay at least that. Plus inflation.
posted by humbug at 5:46 AM on December 9, 2024 [2 favorites]

Seriously? I paid $399 plus a hundred bucks for shipping for my 500W ebike almost exactly 2 years ago, and it still runs like a champ after >2000 miles.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 6:01 AM on December 9, 2024 [1 favorite]

Just to reiterate don't skimp on standards when buying. You don't want one with a cheap charger/battery that will burn your house down.

(I'm also frustrated by this because despite having a high quality one, all the idiots getting cheap illegal rubbish and having fires mean I can no longer recharge at work.)
posted by edd at 6:05 AM on December 9, 2024 [2 favorites]

We got ours for free! Many years ago we kept passing a disused, dusty, muddy ebike perpetually parked out front of an apartment building -- every time we went to one of our favorite hangouts (so pre-Covid). And every time, my husband would say, "I should take that bike." Until one time I finally made him ring the bell that seemed like it might belong to the apartment it belonged to. The bell was answered, but not by the owner. This fellow was well tired of that bike being out there, so said he'd try to find out from someone, as the original owner had moved on. Next day he called and said come get it. That day we went and got it. My husband worked on it a lot (he's a wizard, truly), and we are still using the same ebike! Of course, it's basically Theseus's Ebike now, but very, very handy!
posted by taz at 6:08 AM on December 9, 2024 [9 favorites]

outgrown_hobnail, make and model?
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:19 AM on December 9, 2024 [1 favorite]

I have a relatively crappy Amazon brand copy of a better regarded company's "cafe" style step-through that I have yet to wear out enough to replace. I have replaced some of its components, but the same as you would on a regular bike -- most importantly, suspension seat post, different handlebars. Which I could transfer to a new bike. Likewise, panniers, rack bag, lights, etc. Really, all accessories. I think I paid around $700 for it (before added or replaced items).

It has been fine as a starter eBike, and now I'll feel more confident about choosing bikes in the $1,500 - $3,000 range next time around. Ultimately it's the same Bafang rear hub motor plus cadence sensor setup that I'd be getting until stepping up to a mid drive w/a torque sensor. And though it's not cool to admit around cycling purists, I rather like having the throttle.

The bike and the charger are UL Certified (or claim to be).
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:41 AM on December 9, 2024 [1 favorite]

“Pedal assist” means e-bikes that only provide assistance if you’re pedaling

right. Practically speaking, these tend to be the much more expensive Bosch mid-drive models with torque sensors. Like, around at least 4x more expensive than a basic Bafang hub motor ebike.

rather than being strictly throttle controlled

no, most bikes with throttles also have cadence sensors. And remain "Class II" so long as the power assist doesn't exceed 20 mph.

Under the Class system, pedal-assist only bikes are allowed to go faster. (28mph.)

What's unclear is whether the same bike is allowed to be reconfigured for use with different infrastructure (i.e. with a controller that allows the rider to raise the assist limit by disabling the throttle and operating on pedal assist only).
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:55 AM on December 9, 2024

I bought my latest e-bike six months ago, and use it daily to commute to work here in the Netherlands, which is about 10 kilometers. I could not imagine going back to driving a car.
posted by Pendragon at 6:57 AM on December 9, 2024

Make is Ancheer, Sunshine Commuter E-Bike, 750W. The only thing I don't like about it is that it has the kind of brakes where there's a metal ring near the hub of the wheel instead of the standard grab the outer rim caliper brakes. And yes, I'm sure those have proper names but I don't know what they are. The brakes need real adjustment every 100 miles or so because the surface of the pad is very small so it wears down way more quickly than the caliper kind. I had to spend just hours on YouTube sorting out how to adjust them myself instead of paying for it. But seriously, that's the only thing: it runs like a champ, otherwise.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 6:58 AM on December 9, 2024 [1 favorite]

You definitely want disc brakes rather than rim brakes on an ebike. But the quality of the disc brakes on my rando-brand Amazon bike is probably my biggest gripe about it.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:01 AM on December 9, 2024

In my suburban Houston neighborhood, there's a family that uses one of those large, rugged, 4-person golf carts to move their kids around the neighborhood and to the park. The park is absolutely within walking or bicycling distance.

But I get it: There are no sidewalks in the neighborhood (purposefully to not attract "the wrong kind" from walking through). Houston has terrible drivers, so I'd hesitate putting my kids on bikes too. And that family's vehicle is almost certainly a F-150 or large SUV.

It is a tragedy and a farce that this oversized electric golf cart is actually a practical way to get you and your kids around the neighborhood (if you're the type that has a spare $12k or $20k to throw at the problem of "my car is too big for street parking at the park a quarter mile from my house".)

Yay America.
posted by AlSweigart at 7:03 AM on December 9, 2024 [2 favorites]

Here's the one I bought: Actbest Core ST. It was $500 before tax and shipping when I bought it. Down to $300 now, so ~$500 shipped (for that color, without accessories).

If you buy one in this price range, consider it a starter bike; to become the backup/guest bike if you decide you like it enough to rely upon as your primary transportation.

You may also need something more if you're going further than around 10mi round trip (with a little reserve) or are in a hilly area or are a large person or some combination of those (as this is a 350W motor despite the puffery).

I'm not sure how independent these reviews really are, but having owned the bike for a year they're fair representations.

I review the cheapest commuter ebike on Amazon. Actbest Core

LOW Price, Lightweight! Actbest Core City
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:11 AM on December 9, 2024

You definitely want disc brakes rather than rim brakes on an ebike

Why is that? I am not a mechanically handy person, so I presumed they put the disc brakes on because it was cheaper.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 7:14 AM on December 9, 2024

Disc brakes have much more stopping power and higher reliability. They are more expensive than rim brakes. Which is not to say there aren’t cheap crap disc brakes out there, but (good) disc brakes are absolutely what you want on an ebike.
posted by notoriety public at 7:17 AM on December 9, 2024 [3 favorites]

More mechanical (or hydraulic) advantage and/or the same braking force with less physical effort, same reason you see them on mountain bikes.

Though I suppose the difference between cheaper mechanical disc and higher-end rim brakes may be less pronounced, especially modern v-brakes rather than old cantis.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:18 AM on December 9, 2024 [1 favorite]

As someone who rides vintage 3 speed bikes, disc brakes are the one upgrade I would kill for. Rim brakes suck top to bottom
posted by Ferreous at 7:31 AM on December 9, 2024 [1 favorite]

I switched earlier this year to commuting on a cargo e-bike (Velotric Go 1) basically full time. I don't live that far from work, but also do all the cooking and such and so this bike gets used for a ton of errands as well. It's been fantastic, much more pleasant than I was expecting, to be honest. I can easily carry three full grocery bags + work backpack, using front and rear baskets and cute little cargo nets. I gave my primary car to my newest driver (17), and unless the weather is truly horrible, it works out.

Having had a terrible experience with cheap e-scooters via Amazon, I chose a bike dealer and decent bike that would allow for reliability and local service. The dealer also let me test drive the bike first. I know it's more expensive but lots of horror stories out there about parts shortages, etc.
posted by Ella Fynoe at 7:47 AM on December 9, 2024 [2 favorites]

Trigger warning: pedantry and threadspoiling. I support ebikes etc indeed i think regulations and subsidies should flip to favor them.
We should use them to replace as much essential travel as possible.

When you use a 50% off coupon (or 90% off or whatever) you are still spending money, not saving it.

Fossil fuel consumption is still rising, not falling. Ebikes and emopeds are allowing us to get a lot more bang for our GHG buck, but we are still spending more GHG bucks.

The atmosphere cares about total GHG levels, Ebikes (and alt energy generally) do not lower the amount of GHG in the atmosphere, they slightly raise it (mostly in manufacture and somewhat dependent on energy mix used for the charging) They raise it by a lot less than we would raise it by other transport and enery means.
The assumption is that since we could have polluted even faster than we do now, they "reduce" emissions by avoiding greater new emissions that those they create.
But they make real emissions and avoid hypothetical larger emissions.
This judges the eco impacts of tech by assuming a constant lifestyle and admiring the potential avoidance of hypothetical emissions from worse ways to achieve that lifestyle (here per capita distance traveled). Any serial killer in court could argue their choice to use a knife instead of a grenade saved lifes because there are so many fewer people killed in the crowd when they went "a stabbin". So yes, there are much worse ways to accomplish travel, but there is no reduction in emissions.

Also, this avoidance of emissions (and not reduction in GHG) only is realized if two things are true. The Ebike replaces a fossil fuel trip AND the trip was unavoidable. Evidence is needed. We just assume 1:1 that ebike trips are replacing fossil trips and are not infact additional trips (probably most are but in many households they are additional vehicles enabling more simultaneous family members to travel to different places). And unavoidable trips is so fraught with lifestyle politics and consumer identity that its hard to discuss.

But we typically don't discuss the state of the atmosphere but the rate at which we are making it worse.

If your accountant says you are broke you have to stop buying watches. And you say, how can that be, i'm saving tens of thousands of dollars a week by buying a $1,000 fake rolex each week insteat of a $30,000 real Rolex. well, you can't buy food with the money you "saved" by avoided spending.

The GHG level in the atmosphere must fall, which means we have to stop spending GHG and also stop destroying the habitat that captures GHG. Actions (like hybrid cars and nat gas electricsl generators) that get us more bang of our buck don't solve the problem that we have no bucks to spend.

We should ban and tax fossil transport as much as we can and subsidize ebike and ebus transit as much as we can and switch all the charging to renewables etc. But it wont make climate change better, it will make it worse, but it will be worse by a whole lot less than it will be worse otherwise and so we should absolutely do it. Ok, start stabbin'
posted by No Climate - No Food, No Food - No Future. at 7:58 AM on December 9, 2024 [3 favorites]

That's all fine, but even if there was a prayer of consensus to "ban and tax fossil transport as much as we can and subsidize ebike and ebus transit as much as we can and switch all the charging to renewables" that could not be done all at once.

As, among other things, it's not possible to revitalize the nuclear power industry overnight. And nothing else is sufficient for that kind of macro-scale, epochal shift with what's on the table right now. Maybe we shouldn't let Microsoft contract to monopolize a restarted Three Mile Island's output to run fucking LLMs.

...If Three Mile Island comes back online, Microsoft will be the one benefiting, as its long-term power purchase agreement would secure it enough energy to power roughly 800,000 homes every year. Except in this case, it’ll be used to help run the company’s data center infrastructure in the region....

But, practically speaking, we're going to get feverish exploitation of US shale oil products and the relatively cheap energy that provides vs. OPEC+ producers for the next four years at least.
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:06 AM on December 9, 2024 [2 favorites]

Right, the role of articles that put a positive spin on eco developments is to reassure people that they can remain passive, that progress is being made (things are getting better not worse) that they can make small changes and preserve their lifestyle.

Whether that is done by activists convinced that a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down or by polluters who know we consumers want permission to have hopium so that business as usual can continue... its a problem.

This article talks about a 1% reducting in global emissions due to etransport, readers might be surprised to know that GHG increased by the most they ever have and that this years increase was larger than previous years.

An alcoholic who tells you her plan is to switch from booze to coffee celebrating her progress as she increases both how much coffee she is now drinking AND how much more booze she is drinking isn't making progress and neither are we.
posted by No Climate - No Food, No Food - No Future. at 8:29 AM on December 9, 2024

and switch all the charging to renewables etc.

Duck Curve

Do you charge all your bat's with power you yourself generated locally? The growth of solar (and wind) are incredible unexpected fantastic but it's complicated. California produces too much electricity at certain times and has to shut down it's solar farms to avoid destroying the grid.

Complicated.
posted by sammyo at 8:35 AM on December 9, 2024 [1 favorite]

An alcoholic who tells you her plan is to switch from booze to coffee celebrating her progress as she increases both how much coffee she is now drinking AND how much more booze she is drinking isn't making progress and neither are we.

okay but by this metric the only good action you could take is mass murder-suicide, since breathing releases CO2
posted by BungaDunga at 9:31 AM on December 9, 2024 [4 favorites]

at a guess, a world where the most environmentally heavy transit was by ebike and electric train would have climate effects gentle enough that we'd have decades to work out how to start pulling sufficient CO2 out of the air to remediate them
posted by BungaDunga at 9:33 AM on December 9, 2024

Re disc brakes: they're also more trustworthy than rim brakes in rain and snow. (Though admittedly decidedly squealy when wet -- that's just a thing I had to get used to.)
posted by humbug at 9:34 AM on December 9, 2024 [2 favorites]

Anecdotally, here in Toronto I'd say the majority of ebikes are ridden by delivery drivers who are terrible at following traffic laws and rules of the road. But that's still better than the alternative which is that these same drivers would be driving cars and would still be terrible at following traffic laws and rules of the road. Ebikes at least create less pollution and won't cause as much damage when they crash into things. At the same time the fact so many delivery drivers are riding ebikes is good evidence that they're good value.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 9:44 AM on December 9, 2024 [1 favorite]

Trigger warning: pedantry and threadspoiling.

Yeah, you nailed both of those.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 9:58 AM on December 9, 2024 [8 favorites]

I'd definitely want rim brakes on a bike that could reach 20 MPH; if I get a new analog road bike (which I might not, at my age), my dream bike would be a Surly Disc Trucker.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:27 AM on December 9, 2024 [1 favorite]

Here in the Netherlands, it's not easy to know whether an e-bike ride replaces a car ride or a bike ride. It seems like a lot of kids that used to get to school under their own power, now ride an e-bike to school. It's a bit worrying because kids don't get much exercise anyway these days.
posted by Too-Ticky at 10:28 AM on December 9, 2024 [1 favorite]

California produces too much electricity at certain times and has to shut down it's solar farms to avoid destroying the grid.

Most electric providers in the US produce too much electricity at certain times, and have to shut them down, or sell at low rates. Prices can even go negative, as in big consumers are paid to take electricity. This is nothing new, and far easier to scale with wind and solar. It's partially a sign on under-built transmission grids, and partially the sparse population of the American west.
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:45 AM on December 9, 2024

Eh? Are the laws of physics different on the two sides of the Atlantic or something?

No, it's because the US is much larger and more spread out, vehicular traffic speeds are higher, there's less cycling and transit infrastructure and other issues. In many parts of the US (especially in the west) there's a lot more hills and mountains, too.

I live somewhere rural or semi-rural and it's roughly a 20 mile ride to get to town, run errands, and then back again with about 2,000+ feet of elevation gain/loss, and much of that is on dirt/gravel. It's really nice dirt/gravel, but about 90% of this particular route is unpaved.

This distance about the same as crossing a major part of urban London and back again except with a LOT more hills. Or from one extreme end of San Francisco and back again taking the hilly way.

It's a lot more pleasant than either of those with better scenery, less traffic and less starts/stops in urban riding but it's not a short distance, either.

Occasionally I take to the two lane country roads because I just want to get home faster on a smoother surface and slightly more direct route and when I do I really appreciate having my Class 3+ bike, throttle, large battery and rear view helmet mirror.

When I do this route it's not uncommon that I'm hitting 35+ MPH on the long, smooth downhill segment on a road with a 45 MPH speed limit.

The faster I go and/or the higher I keep my average speed up including climbing hills the less likely it is someone can actually catch up to me and want to try to pass me on a twisty narrow road that's mostly double-striped no passing before I finish my segment and can pull off the road to climb the steep 300 foot shared dirt road to home.

So when I do this route I'm using the max power of the BBSHD to clear and climb hills as fast as I can, and then barely using it at all on the descents.

And this is what the helmet mirror is for. If I see someone approaching (or speeding in excess of the posted speed limit) then I pull off on the nearest available country driveway or shoulder to wait for them to pass and clear the road. The only times I take to the road like this is when I feel and know that traffic is low on an already fairly low traffic country road.

This speed might sound bonkers to more casual cyclists or ebike riders - but, again, I've been riding bikes my whole life since I was about 5 years old, much of that on dirt, and my personal speed record on an unpowered bike on a descent is 65+ MPH on pavement and 45+ MPH on dirt. At this point in my life I probably have over a million miles of riding experience.

I will never even attempt that kind of speed again, but it's not unusual for me to hit 40+ just coasting down steep, smooth hills around here without any ebike power needed at all because I'm large and heavy and so is my bike so I fall like a brick when I let go of the brakes and send it.

Yeah, 30-40 MPH is a bit spicy on no suspension bike with 1.25" tires and I definitely do not recommend it. I should probably be wearing a full face MTB helmet with a chin bar, but I'm also not prone to crashing, and when I do it's always at very low speeds doing something silly on sketchy terrain and I just fall over into some mud or bushes.

And in the last, oh, 15-20 years of riding every time I have crashed - which is maybe six times total in all that time and all of that riding - I've kept my head and helmet off of the ground because I grew up skateboarding, so tuck and roll bails are just muscle memory to me.

And I'm not saying everyone should have a BBSHD or class 3+ or X-class ebike. For commuters and many urban riders and/or smaller, lighter riders than me 250-500 watts is probably enough.

250 watts wouldn't be enough for me and I'm sure glad I have a 1000+ watt mid-drive with a killer drive train and lots of gear range for hills and low speed torque. And managing that much power on a bike takes some skills the same way riding a larger motorcycle takes more skills than riding a moped or scooter.

For fuck's sake, I'm like 300+ pounds now thanks to the pandemic and CFS/PEM issues. Throw in a load of groceries or cargo and I'm pushing a 400-500 pound total curb weight on a damn bicycle.

The fact that I'm still riding with all of this going on and still avoiding using cars or dial a ride - which I qualify for and I am subscribed to due to disability - or even buses is either stupid or heroic or both.
posted by loquacious at 10:47 AM on December 9, 2024 [6 favorites]

Both.
posted by Dr. Curare at 10:55 AM on December 9, 2024 [3 favorites]

Central Helsinki is saturated with gig delivery drivers on a variety of electric thingies
posted by infini at 10:55 AM on December 9, 2024

Got an cargo ebike this spring, it served me well on numerous trips and I've exclusively used it to carry my 6yo to school/summer day camp until last week, and I work from home so that's most of my daily transportations needs. It was actually faster to go to day camp with it, since I keep it at 30km/h the whole way, and I can follow a long bike path in park on the side of the river for most of the way and I skip at least 20 intersections with traffic lights.

No Climate - No Food, No Food - No Future., while it's true that an ebike still has emissions associated with it (no avoiding having to offset the manufacture of the bike), I find that kind of comment anti conductive to a resolution of the issue.

Considering people aren't definitely not going to stop moving around their cities and fossil fuels aren't getting banned any time soon, and that ebikes solves a mobility problem a pleasant way, with an order of magnitude lower carbon footprint, promote a more active transportation with health benefits, adds more cyclists so helps justify adapting our roads for them, and actually help you connect with your neighborhood more than being in car... dissing on them is throwing away a very good improvement to the current situation (on many levels), without bringing any practical solution.

Is it going to solve the problem by itself? Nope.

But it's another arrow in our quiver of solutions and we'll need all of those.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 12:19 PM on December 9, 2024 [3 favorites]

Where I am (like, specifically my apartment), the biggest disadvantage of the ebike to car is storage: there's no on-site bike storage, bikes are regularly stolen even when pretty securely locked (neighbors had a fire because someone with an angle-grinder caught their tarp on fire while cutting through a huge u-bolt), and I live up a flight of stairs that's fine to carry my acoustic bike up, but an e-bike would be a pain in the ass.
posted by klangklangston at 1:20 PM on December 9, 2024 [1 favorite]

I have a really nice retro acoustic bike* that I really like but I'm hankering for just a little more power when pulling the kid trailer. (Uphill, into the wind) - I don't want to get a whole new bike. I'll have to look into wheel replacements or something.

*Love the appropriation of acoustic to this.
posted by freethefeet at 1:54 PM on December 9, 2024 [2 favorites]

It seems like a lot of kids that used to get to school under their own power, now ride an e-bike to school.

I noticed this in Belgium recently too — e-bikes as the standard for teens. What a terrible trend. I don't think I've seen more than one or two kids on e-bikes ever in Berlin, which seems the way it should be. I have an e-cargo-bike to haul my kid and tens of kilos of family stuff. I can't think of a good reason for kids to have one.
posted by daveliepmann at 1:55 PM on December 9, 2024 [1 favorite]

Trigger warning: pedantry and threadspoiling.
Yeah, you nailed both of those.
Also, I suggest you consider the saying 'Perfect is the enemy of the good' when suggesting people shouldn't use eBikes except for 'unavoidable' trips. Most trips being taken in cars are avoidable with some level of inconvenience or difficulty, so presenting what almost everyone would consider extreme views (never leave home unless it's impossible not to) as gospel doesn't help advance your argument. You often make lots of good points about climate change, but at least pretending you're on the same planet as the rest of us would make your arguments far more persuasive.

We definitely need more arrows in this fight and eBIkes are an imperfect but actually pretty straight and strong arrow compared to private motor vehicles, so I'd much rather support them than condemn them.
posted by dg at 2:01 PM on December 9, 2024

I recently had to go back to car commuting and hate it. But our office is moving close to a light rail stop. If got a scooter, I could zip to my end of the rail, ride 30 minutes then zip to my office and be able to store it easily. The boyfriend already has an ebike.
posted by emjaybee at 2:07 PM on December 9, 2024 [2 favorites]

“Pedal assist” means e-bikes that only provide assistance if you’re pedaling, rather than being strictly throttle controlled. It generally also comes with a governor that cuts the electric assist out as you approach 20mph, at least that’s what e-bikes here in Chicago are supposed to limit to if they are to be classified as e-bikes instead of mopeds.

Another technical detail here that I always forget to mention is that cadence-sensing pedal assist bikes do not sense any rider torque or input at all and they are effectively functioning as on-or-off throttles with no variation beyond whatever your controller/display is set at for PAS.

As long as the Hall sensors detect pedal movement they output whatever power your bike's PAS level is set at. (PAS = pedal assist setting)

So one of the things you can do with a cadence-sensing ebike even without a throttle is crank up the PAS level and just slowly "ghost pedal" without any effort at all beyond slowly spinning the pedals, and the motorized chain ring just spins faster than you're pedaling because there's a freewheel/clutch in there so your pedals don't move if you're using a throttle.

I actually use this feature/bug sometimes when I don't want to hold my thumb throttle down and I'm just cruising. I just shift to some gear that's slower than my actual chain/crank speed, turn up the PAS a bit higher and just lazily spin my pedals to keep the cadence sensor going so the motor keeps going.

You can also do this on most torque-sensing pedal assist bikes by turning up your PAS levels so it takes less pedal input per motor-watt output, except it's going to still respond to how much torque you're pushing into your cranks.

This is one of the reasons why throttle bans are silly and don't actually reflect the technology or mean anything at all beyond political posturing that it's not a bicycle if it has a throttle.

In this way ALL ebikes HAVE to have a throttle to be able to go when you want them to go and stop when you want them to stop, otherwise your motor would just be on all the time or off all the time.

And, yeah, if I wanted or needed to this means I could do some silly things like install a Hall effect sensor hidden on my handlebars or even under a hand grip, and then wear a ferrous ring or have a washer or something sewn into my gloves and use that to trigger the Hall sensor, thus neatly turning it into a throttle even if it's not actually, really or technically a "throttle" in that it has a lever or twist and some kind of graduated sensing ability.

Or I could have one wire grounded to my handlebars and another wire with a bare end somewhere and use that as a makeshift on-off switch to trigger the cadence sensing or throttle circuits.

The "no throttles!" regulations are stupid and they don't understand how ebikes actually work. It's really, really silly.

And for the record I DO support speed limits and regulations for ebikes. I just think that the current class systems and power levels aren't wide or useful enough or take into account heavier riders, people with mobility issues, cargo or terrain needs, or even bother to consider that throttles are valuable and useful accessibility or safety features.

I also support safety testing and stuff like UL certified batteries and chargers so people can safely charge and use them.
posted by loquacious at 2:53 PM on December 9, 2024 [4 favorites]

THE COPHENHAGEN WHEEL

I did a short test drive on one of these and it was just amazing, don't think it became a viable product and a bit pricey when it was for sale. Seemed to automatically sense what you wanted.
posted by sammyo at 3:06 PM on December 9, 2024

I noticed this in Belgium recently too — e-bikes as the standard for teens. What a terrible trend. I don't think I've seen more than one or two kids on e-bikes ever in Berlin, which seems the way it should be. I have an e-cargo-bike to haul my kid and tens of kilos of family stuff. I can't think of a good reason for kids to have one.

It's worth remembering that some kids need e-bikes due to health conditions like

Asthma;
Ehlers–Danlos syndrome;
Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome;
Long COVID;
and similar issues around breathing, or fatigue, or chronic pain.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 5:59 PM on December 9, 2024 [2 favorites]

I wholeheartedly support etransit, the replacement of non-e transit with etransit, and the reduction of the need for transit with better town and city zoning, redevelopment etc. My pedantry (in this case) is reserved for pointing out the difference between the actual continuing increase in GHG and the articles accounting if avoided emissions.

And its true, my participation in this site is largely as a crank who keeps beating the drum that things are worse than they seem and more drastic commitment to action is needed. Its not particularly effective. But you can spend all day reading posts and articles about powders that capture co2 and ebikes and the Inflation Reduction Act and get the impression that we are making progress when the physical reality is that the problem is getting worse and the rate at which the problem is getting worse is getting larger. And that the solutions presented aren't just not "the whole solution" and not just not large enough or fast enough, they are things that address a different and also very important problem of "we want better lives" and not "the GHG line has to go down not up". /soap box.
posted by No Climate - No Food, No Food - No Future. at 6:23 PM on December 9, 2024 [5 favorites]

"the GHG line has to go down not up"

I'm with you. This is why I've been car free and biking for my whole life. I've flown in a commercial jet exactly once and have never taken any kind of an overseas vacation, I have never flown for work or for any reaasons. I don't buy very many things that are brand new. I use so little power and light at home it's practically a rounding error, because I often just make due with a single light, and use a very efficient flashlight for almost everything else as needed. I try to shop and eat local and not use/abuse online shopping and Amazon as much as possible. I also haven't ever wanted kids due to the this issue and I've known that since before I was legally an adult.

My ebike is the first powered vehicle I've ever owned and as far as I'm concerned me and my knees have earned it, at least more than most.

And, sadly, living by example and telling everyone about it hasn't seemed to make a damn bit of difference.

Even my friends that are highly aware of the climate change and greenhouse gas issues still fly all over the place both for work and for fun, rarely ride their bikes even though they have them, and basically never replace any of their errands or trips with a bike ride instead of hopping in their car to go get some groceries, even when their shopping for that trip can easily fit in a small backpack.

Meanwhile the people who don't believe in climate change at all go around in lifted double-turbo diesel trucks rolling coal and assaulting and threatening cyclists like me because they're mistaking my kindness for weakness and it's so, so fucking dumb it makes me non-figuratively scream sometimes.

I appreciate your efforts, even in a thread about ebikes were people are trying to change their behavior and consumption.

Anyway, welcome to Costco I love you.
posted by loquacious at 8:04 PM on December 9, 2024 [4 favorites]

some kids need e-bikes due to health conditions

Except you can tell at a glance that this is not what's going on. When nearly every kid is riding one it's clearly some sort of status marker, which is gross and counterproductive to entirely reasonable goals around health, wealth, and exposure to dangerous high speeds.
posted by daveliepmann at 12:39 AM on December 10, 2024

[*Waves to all the E-ramblers!* We've added these hot wheels to the "It Could Happen To You" collection on the sidebar and Best Of blog!]
posted by taz (staff) at 1:35 AM on December 10, 2024

chariot pulled by cassowaries: It's worth remembering that some kids need e-bikes due to health conditions

True. Most kids, however, do not, and would in fact benefit enormously from riding under their own power. Dutch children are on average getting heavier, and they're gaining at a faster rate than Dutch adults.

Here in the Netherlands, so called fatbikes are currently de rigeur, and while they are cleaner and more silent than scooters with combustion engines, they do have disadvantages. We're seeing a rise in accidents among young teenagers (too young to be allowed to ride a scooter, but they do ride fatbikes) with pretty horrendous damage.

I'm not going to say that e-bikes are something that should't exist. They do have their place and they can definitely fix transport problems.
posted by Too-Ticky at 1:39 AM on December 10, 2024 [2 favorites]

The fat bikes are definitely a scourge on the fietspads in the Netherlands, and every time I get angry at some jerk going above the speed limit on their absurd ride, I have to remind myself that at least they aren't driving an SUV. The oversized and overpowered headlights on those things, however, need some serious regulation, as does the ease of increasing the speed above the legal 25kph.

The e-bike has also helped many older people keep riding, although the speed of the bikes means that accidents are going up in that age group since they are so much faster than they would be on an acoustic omafiets.

And it's not just the elderly that are having problems adjusting to the speed difference... My office window looks out on a narrow bridge and almost once per day I see someone on an e-bike going way too fast thinking that they can make the 90-degree turn onto the bridge while threading the path through the bollards. However, their turning radius at 25kph is unexpectedly high and the bollards are unexpectedly stout, so it doesn't end well.
posted by autopilot at 2:29 AM on December 10, 2024 [3 favorites]

Bonus electrification news: starting in 2025 Amsterdam is banning gas powered scooters and company vehicles (private vehicles have until 2030) as well as banning gas powered boats from the canal rings. I'm really looking forward to the quality of life improvement from the reduction in both air- and noise- pollution from getting rid of the snoorfietsen.
posted by autopilot at 2:37 AM on December 10, 2024 [4 favorites]

If attitudes in NL permit regulating kids bikes for health purposes, just restrict them to torque sensor bikes with smallish motors. So they have to pedal to get above a certain speed, and boost is proportional to effort, but mobility is provided to those with challenges.

If memory serves, the max PAS assist in the UK (for everyone) is already rather low by US standards.

In a US context, if 'fatbikes' are the gateway to reviving interest, so be it. Presently, most kids no longer get bikes, or hardly ride them and promptly forget about them.

But ebikes are cool.
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:22 AM on December 10, 2024

Here in north Seattle, I've seen way more recent adoption of scooters than eBikes. Maybe not, see a lot of eBikes. Haven't seen a ton of the "fatbikes"? that I used to see. Just essentially off road motorcycles.

Electrify all our transportation options. Get them sodium batteries up and running. We are running out of time to fix this shit. I likely won't make it to the Jackpot, but it just keeps getting closer, (been on a Gibson reading stretch lately, apologies).

I see people, many times every day, on Lime Escooters. Most are wearing helmets. And lots of folks on their own private eScooters. Looks fun as foretold. OTOH, motorcycles seem so fun...

Which is when Death comes out of the closet and says, "motorcycles are so fun..."
posted by Windopaene at 11:55 AM on December 10, 2024 [1 favorite]

When my relationship got accelerated from serious, but still mostly noncohabitating, dating to marriage-adjacency-complete-with-a-kid by the C19 lockdown, I ended up moving from my cozy spot in Laurel, Maryland, a place with a respectable walkscore of 88, where I'd lived for 32 years, and which was 14 miles from work, with a commuter train station ten minutes' walk from my front door, to Catonsville, Maryland, which has an abominable walkscore of 24, mostly roads with deathtrap pinch points, sidewalks that either don't exist, or which appear and disappear randomly, and a paltry few safeish bike routes to places that are either downhill for miles (and uphill to get home) or require a little bit more speed to quickly navigate road bottlenecks than I could generate after years in office work, a 30 mile commute to my much-loved job, and no nearby bus or rail access (I have to drive 15 minutes just to get to a commuter rail station).

When pondering the rubicon of actual take-me-to-the-courthouse marriage, I specified my dowry (which I could provide myself, so it wasn't a gimmie) as being that I wanted the following before I fully settled in:

• shed - because I have writing to do and need some space
• goat - because I hate mowing and enjoy goats
• electric car - because it's stupid to fire up a fossil fuel engine to drive 5 minutes to the H-Mart, which I can't walk to because there are no effing sidewalks, and besides, catalytic converters never get up to full operating temperature in a 5-minute drive, so they're just polluting extra the whole damn time, and plus, short run cycles like that mean your drivetrain fails sooner because the internal condensation never boils out

I borrowed a test goat for the middle one, realized I'm not cut out for goat husbandry, so agreed to substituting a really nice clothesline with pulleys for a goat, and the shed's pending while I decide if I want a copy of Dylan Thomas's shed, George Bernard Shaw's shed, or a wholly original shed of my own design.

As for the electric car? Even used, EVs are really expensive here, essentially because America is largely a backwards pile of chattering narcissistic cow excrement (to generalize unfairly) and we only buy the absolutely most idiotic vehicles we can take out a 72-month loan for, and the ones that suit my taste (Fiat 500e or Smart ED/EQ) can't actually manage the entirety of my stupid long commute on a single charge and there's no charger at my office, so I'm left to pout.

I did buy an electric bike, though, and it's oddly more useful than the EV car would have been, because I can use it to make lots of little trips (groceries, library, karaoke, weirdly located bakery, bookstore, etc) that I couldn't do with my regular bike because I'm 56, fat, out of shape after eight years of unwalkability, and I live in an extremely hilly region where I can noodle through icky suburban neighborhoods until I get to a path in the park, but holy living word of the almighty Ba'al, every damn time I ended up walking my bike up miles of hill to get home.

My electric bike can barely carry me without pedaling on flat ground, but most of the time, I have to pedal all the way, and what it does is to make it so I can actually make it up hills (even so, I'm properly worn out after pedaling up some of them) and extends my range a bit so that I can use it for more purposes. My little smog-spewing Fiat stays for now, since driving it to work a couple times a week is survivable (if borrrrring), and driving it to the train station is okay, even though it fills me with a simmering pent-up rage against being trapped among savages, doing savage stuff until some time in the future. When the next generation of Fiat 500e shows up on the used market, hopefully around time I wear out my ICE model, I'll be jumping into that.

There's a part of me, as a overly defensive moped enthusiast, that enjoys the advent of the fat-tired small-wheel EV bike as a modern take on the old 25-mile-per-hour top speed utilitarian motorbike, but I'd never dream of unpedaled or too-fast transit on a bike path, because I'm not a pendulous cretin.

Around here, though, even with more little EV cycles around, it's still us against a wall of SUVs driven by phone-addled nits, so it's a struggle out there.
posted by sonascope at 12:59 PM on December 10, 2024 [9 favorites]

Unexpected goat! Well played

We are on our 5th EV. Not all were super expensive. We have a charger and solar panels, so, works. Would be so wet here in Seattle to eBike everywhere. The eScooters look fun though.
posted by Windopaene at 4:22 PM on December 10, 2024

the shed's pending while I decide if I want a copy of Dylan Thomas's shed, George Bernard Shaw's shed, or a wholly original shed of my own design.

I am amused that you've managed to literally bikeshed the shed, all by yourself!
posted by notoriety public at 5:11 PM on December 10, 2024 [2 favorites]

Practically speaking, these tend to be the much more expensive Bosch mid-drive models with torque sensors. Like, around at least 4x more expensive than a basic Bafang hub motor ebike.

Not necessarily!

For higher powered motors look for the To7 DM-01 ($540, 1000w and also comes in a 750w version) or Tongsheng TSDZ8 ($399, 750w).

For something smaller you want the To7 DM-02 ($330) or TongSheng TSDZ2 ($369) both 500w.

I have each of the To7 motors and absolutely love them both. The DM-01 bike gets used to pull my kid around on a tailer and run errands (where I ride it basically as a moped). It's especially handy because I often have to get across a highway at a traffic light in a car and it's a very long red. On my bike I can take the foot bridge and skip the light entirely.

The DM-02 bike was mounted on a hardtail mountain bike over the summer and I now have a full suspension mountain bike I'm putting on it for next spring. There are a log of great single track trails around me that I really enjoy. I'm in amazing shape for my age but at 43 some of those climbs are absolute murder with out a motor to help me out. So I'd end up having to stop and rest before it was safe for me to continue and I get wiped out and pack up a lot sooner.

I'm only using a bit of the motor's full power on the trails but by taking the edge off those climbs I end up going harder for longer on the trails. I take my rides on strava and I end up with a higher average heart rate using the motor than without it.

It'll also be really handy in the spring and summer for me to ride to catch train to the office without getting all sweaty and then riding the bike the whole way home (where I will sweat profusely).

Big shout out to Loquacious for getting me into cycling again after about a 20 year hiatus and turning me on to the world of mid-drive DIY e-bikes.
posted by VTX at 7:48 PM on December 10, 2024 [3 favorites]

Re: Cheap DTC fatbikes. (dtc = direct to consumer)

Happily, the tide seems to be turning against these on the ebike forums and a bunch of people who are brand new to cycling seem to be learning how to see and look for quality bikes and parts and how to do their own maintenance and bike wrenching.

These are popular for the same dumb reasons SUVs are popular. They look tough and beefy. The reality is they aren't. The cheaper varieties use really crappy frames and frame designs, the rubber on the fat tires are actually thinner and more prone to wear and punctures than good commuter or hybrid tires, and the bikes often have skeuomorphic parts like handlebars that pretend to be triple-crown handlebars that connect to the forks/shocks, but they're just standard threadless headset bars with needless extra weight.

While fat tires might be good for absorbing potholes and obstacles, they're mainly making up for deficiencies in frame design and fit and don't have very good handling because they suffer from "tire scrub" where the soft, large tires fold over on themselves and cause steering input issues.

Yes, high performance motorcycles use "fat tires" but they're not the same. Those tires are much thicker and sticker, run at higher pressures with more power and lean.

99% of riders and commuters have no need for a fat tire bike unless they plan to do a lot of riding on deep sand or snow. Fatbikes are fun and have their place but good fatbikes are expensive.

And the key to a comfortable ride on any bike starts with the right size and type of frame and the right wheel size.

There's a reason why bike commuters and tourers and bikepackers use 700c or 29er wheels these days, they roll over bumps easier, and I will take my no-suspension steel 700c touring bike with 1.25" tires for most gravel, dirt and road riding over a 20" fat tire spring suspension moped or cafe racer style bench seat any day.

Re: Copenhagen Wheel and Hub drives.

The Copenhagen wheel is very out of date but it's a cool design and concept. I remember I really wanted one when they first came out and there weren't really any good consumer kits for ebikes, but the world has moved on. I question the logic of putting the batteries in the hub/wheel because it's a lot of rotational mass and stress.

But hub drives have their place, and there are some nice hub drives and systems out there.

They have some serious drawbacks, though, and torque is one issue as they don't take advantage of your drivetrain and gears.

Another disadvantage is that if you bend a rim or break spokes on your hub-drive wheel it means you need an expensive rebuild on your hub motor hub. On many hub drive ebikes this can mean that you need to go to a shop that has a spoke cutting machine to cut custom spoke lengths. Your bike is out of commission until the wheel is rebuilt.

Fixing flats on a hub drive is also generally much harder. In the best case scenario it usually means you have to cut cable ties to free up the power/wiring harness going into the axle so you can pull out the wheel to fix the flat or change the tube. It's doable for a roadside repair but takes more time and care.

And on some DTC ebikes it can be a huge pain in the ass because it can mean taking apart some of the back end of the frame. I saw a job in my local shop that was like a 3-4 hour, $300-400 job on a cheapish $1000 dollar DTC moped style ebike to fix a flat because they had to take apart the rear brake caliper mount, frame and integrated rack to get the wheel off. This is usually a $15, 15 minute job and at most shops that includes the cost of a new tube.

Hub drives have another known fault and issue called "spin out" or "overtorque" where the hub drive's slotted axle and capture bolt spins in the bike frame dropouts (dropouts = wheel axle holders). This is really bad because it usually ruins the bike frame and totally chowders and chews up the dropouts. It also usually tears out the wiring harness and really does a number on the wiring that has to feed into the axle to the motor, which can include tearing out the delicate and thinner wires that attach to the magnetic Hall effect sensors that govern motor control and speed and it's a huge mess.

But hub drives have their place and have some advantages with weight, being able to do regenerative braking on some models, looking cleaner and more stealth and more.

Personally I wouldn't want a hub drive on anything but a steel bike with a good torque arm to prevent spin-outs, and steel would be easier to repair in case of a failure because you can bend and cold set it and weld on it.

RE: DIY Mid drive conversions.

As far as I'm concerned this is where it's at and is the best bang for your buck even compared to ready to ride ebikes from major manufacturers, and they have many, many advantages.

And there are now a wide variety of options for DIY mid drives in a wide variety of power classes.

One advantage is that you can start with the acoustic bike of your choice that you know that fits you and your riding needs whether it's a comfort/casual hybrid and commuter, a hard tail MTB, a full suspension mountain bike, a touring bike, a cruiser, a tandem, an upright cargo tricycle, a two-wheel recumbent, a three wheel tadpole tricycle recumbent and even four wheeled bike cars. Heck, I've even seen BBS02 and HD drives on 20-26" single speed BMX bikes.

A couple of months ago I met a retiree aged lady on a two wheel recumbent and a Bafang BBS02 on my local trails and she was absolutely cooking along the trail and I could barely catch up to her even though I have a more powerful drive. Getting low and more aerodynamic looked like a lot of fun.

If it has a bottom bracket and a chainline you can probably install a mid drive on it. You can even combine mid-drives with belt drive bikes with or without internally geared hubs, chain drive internally geared hubs,

Besides the obvious advantage of being able to power the bike through the chain and drivetrain to take advantage of all of the gears, mid-drives generally leave the rest of the bike alone. Need to fix a flat? Cool, it's the same as any other analog bike. Trash a rim? Cool, go buy a new one. It's just a standard bike wheel and rim. Want to add racks and customize the heck out of your bike? Your bike is a normal bike and you have all the options of the normal analog bike world.

Need to repair or upgrade the mid-drive itself? Easy. The Bafang BBS drive system has more aftermarket parts than any other drive out there, and other systems like the Tongsheng TSDZ2, To7 and CYC drives are catching up.

The TSDZ2 is quite affordable, has torque sensing, and even works with advanced computers/displays like the Eggrider V2 for DIY programming of power levels. I've even seen TSDZ2 setups that keep the front derailler and gears on 2x and 3x drives, which the Bafang BBS series can't do.

The main disadvantages to mid drives is, yes, they cause more wear and tear on chains and gears, but this is preventable with keeping your drive train clean and well tuned and not shifting under heavy power loads just like a normal analog bike.

Another known issue with the BBS drives in particular is getting a "clean" chainline on some bikes, IE keeping the drive chainrings and chain inboard towards the bike enough so it doesn't have too much cross chaining to the rear gears and cassette. This can be finicky on some bikes, especially if you're trying to run a smaller chainring on the drive for more torque and climbing ability.

They also tend to weigh a little more especially at higher power classes, but one thing you can do with a mid drive is if you're tall enough to be able to handle a normal double triangle frame like a touring bike or old school mountain bike is you can mount the battery on the seat tube instead of on the downtube or rear rack, which puts all of the weight of the motor and battery right under your body mass, which improves handling and the feeling of weight a LOT.

In my opinion may be one of the most ideal DIY ebike builds to date for do-it-all ebiking.

If you're curious about DIY mid drives ad want more info I highly recommend the Johnny Nerdout YouTube channel, and his store. The Endless Sphere forums are a good resource for DIY ebikes, too.

If you find a good used host bike in the $100-300 range you can build a pretty decent mid-drive ebike for under $1000 these days, including the host bike and battery if you use more affordable mid-drive options like the TSDZ2, To7, etc, and it will absolutely smoke any DTC ebikes in the same price range, and even most ready to ride big name brands like Trek/Bosch bikes.

There are some serious bargains in the ready to ride catagory, too, especially from REI and their Co-op house brand, which come with warranties and service plans so if wrenching on bikes isn't your thing, it's a totally valid option.

And the Bosch drives are really nice. The main problem with those is they are proprietary, so it's nigh impossible for a user to do their own repairs, custom programming, etc. And they're noticeably much more expensive per power class and options.

For a frame of reference if i had to build up my Surly Trucker + BBSHD combo from scratch at current full retail prices and brand new everything, I'd be looking at a minimum of about $3500 and would not include things like my front/rear cargo racks, bags, lights and other accessories and stuff.

A ready to ride retail Disc Trucker goes for about $2k right now, and BBSHD kits are $1500-1800ish for my fairly large battery size.

My total cost was significantly less than this because I bought my BBSHD kit at the start of the pandemic before battery prices blew up, I scored my bare frame/fork set for less than half of the $900ish MSRP, I live near a good bike co-op and a couple of other good shops and I already had a ton of parts and stuff.

Yes, this is up there with a brand new Trek/Bosch drive commuter/hybrid bike with an aluminum frame, but they don't sell steel touring-class ebikes with anything close to the kind of power (and repairability) that a BBSHD has. If Trek, Specialized or Giant tried to market a steel touring-grade ebike like this they'd probably be asking AT LEAST $5-6k for it.

The nearest ready to ride option I've ever seen was the Surly Big Easy cargo ebike that MSRPs for like $5.5k, and that also still doesn't have anywhere near the power and torque of a BBSHD.

And, yeah, it kind of freaks me out that my bike costs as much or more than a crappy used car, but I love it so much. It's been a long dream of mine to own a bike exactly like this for decades.

At this point, there isn't much that I would change about it at all. Like I would love some Rhyno Lite 36 spoke touring rims, or maybe a really beefy internally geared hub drive and a belt drive or something, but it's not really necessary.

It's total joy to ride, it handles an intense amount of cargo and my increasingly fat old ass and my poor old knees and all the hills around here, the steel frame is super plush and comfy even on some pretty rough trails.

My only regrets are my health issues and the fact I can't go ride it every single day. If I was in better health I'd probably buy/build a portable solar charging kit and maybe a spare battery and go ride all the way around the world a few times.

If someone handed me a blank check to go build my dream ebike it would pretty much be the same thing except it would be a custom fit steel frame in even better steel and even more mounting points for cargo and racks.
posted by loquacious at 10:17 AM on December 11, 2024 [7 favorites]

Ah, hills. Hills don’t figure much into my worldview, because I live in Flatland Chicago. So my gut instinct of “why would anyone need more than 250W of assist” is definitely colored by that. And I also don’t do any towing or heavy cargo (nothing more than two big panniers full). 250W still feels like a lot of assist to me, but I expect I would feel differently if I had a more challenging commuting environment.

It's worth noting here that when I'm on flat ground and providing even the most minimal pedaling input and using the right gears and accelerating at normal bike speeds - I'm totally sipping power in the 100-250 watt range, and it's plenty for cruising around on flat ground even with a fair amount of cargo in my bags.

I spend the majority of my time in my lowest stock power settings, and in fact upgraded to the Eggrider V2 display/computer specifically to be able to easily reprogram a second "eco" profile to dial back the power even more for longer range, more efficiency and way more chill for normal bike speeds and pedaling.

What I use the maximum power settings of the BBSHD for is absolutely obliterating and erasing hills, headwinds and being able to keep up with vehicular traffic when on the road.

With my 11-50T extended range cassette drive train is just a totally insane amount of very docile and easy to control low speed torque. It's like the bicycle equivalent of a rock-crawling jeep or truck, but also the speed of a rally car or supertruck, and the cargo capacity of a reliable old farm truck.

Just the other day I dropped a chain while ascending a steep hill and it doesn't even blink about starting up from a stop when in a low gear.

I've taken that bike up hills so steep, sandy and technically challenging that I wouldn't have been able to do it even when I was young at peak health on a mountain bike with fatter tires because I would have lost traction or fallen over backwards, because with a mix of throttle use and the right gears I have more options about my stance on the bike to improve traction and balance because I can choose *when* to pedal and different lines than would be possible with pedaling and gear selection alone.

But when cruising around on flat ground, no headwinds, at normal analog bike speeds? Yeah, 250 watts can be plenty!
posted by loquacious at 10:36 AM on December 11, 2024

Those are some seriously eponysterical posts, loquacious.
posted by notoriety public at 10:50 AM on December 11, 2024

Most cheaper hub drive bikes over here have the hub on the front wheel. It mitigates a lot of the issues with access for fixing flats, as well as just being mechanically simpler than putting so many of the moving parts in the same place.

I meant to touch on this.

In my opinion front hub drives should be avoided, especially cheaper DIY front drive kits on analog host bikes.

They can really mess with your handling and steering, they have less traction than rear hub drives due to weight distribution, and they can also suffer from "spin out' problems with the dropouts, and most bicycle forks aren't really designed for those kinds of loads and forces happening on them.

The handling issue is not to be understated. I've tried a few front hub drives and it's totally frickin' weird to have your front wheel pulling, especially in turns. It just feels weird and wrong to me, and while I didn't crash I could feel how easy it would be to have the front tire scrub out in a sandy or slippery turn while applying power and get dumped.

They can also be more complicated than rear hub drives because you need to install pedal cadence sensors somewhere else on the bike so there's often even more wires to deal with than a rear hub drive, and you still have a wiring harness to deal with if you need to fix a flat.

For short commutes in flat areas they're... fine I guess, but not ideal. There's a bunch of reasons why no reputable bike makers sell front wheel hub drives.

That being said?

There's some really interesting 2WD ebikes out there that use both front and rear hub drives, and I've seen that these are really popular with people who actually ride in snow, mud or sand or use their ebikes for stuff like backwoods camping and hunting, including hauling big trailers full of camping gear around, or bringing back a large deer from a hunt.

If I was going to build something like an off-road, touring grade tadpole trike I'd strongly consider doing a dual front wheel hub drive or even a triple drive. Something like that would be a total blast to ride off road and even do some pretty serious low speed rock crawling.

And one of the very real benefits to any hub drive with a throttle is that if you break a chain you can still get home. It doesn't care if you even have a chain or pedal at all.
posted by loquacious at 10:50 AM on December 11, 2024 [1 favorite]

Those are some seriously eponysterical posts, loquacious.

I can't help it.

Bicycles are revolutionary, transformative and they're just plain fun and good for the soul.

Even as a life-long rider, commuter and general all around cyclist I strongly think and feel that good ebikes are even more of all of that and add to the experience and joy of riding a bike.

It's really rare that technology like this comes along and can make something that's already pretty great even better.

I am incredibly thankful that really good DIY ebike kits like my BBSHD came along just as I was getting too old and fat and tired to ride as much as I used to.

It means I still can get that flying-soaring joy and freedom of riding a bike on tap even if I'm tired or in pain from health issues and old age.

Yes, I wish I could get more exercise and lose a bunch of weight but it's not really possible or easy to do when dealing with PEM (post exertional malaise) and chronic fatigue syndrome health issues. I've certainly tried.
posted by loquacious at 11:20 AM on December 11, 2024 [3 favorites]

if nothing else, I feel like I've seen enough Turns Outs about how in aggregate, e-bike riders get more exercise because even though it's less work to go a given distance, e-bike riders tend to ride significantly more and further on average than most bike owners, so the total result is better
posted by DoctorFedora at 6:47 PM on December 11, 2024 [2 favorites]

I did 6000 miles with just a front hub motor on a Cetma Largo before addding a rear hub motor (and giving up the belt drive). Linkage steering plus a front hub motor is kind of the worst case of weird handling, but like any other kind of bike, you kind of get used to it. I only dumped once from accelerating and turning at the same time on a slippery surface.

My favorite bike at home lately hasn’t been my mega-hauling 4000w Cetma, it’s a Tern GSD with a Grin All Axle up front with one of those shiny expensive bidirectional throttles. It can’t haul a trailer with a refrigerator up a 20% grade like the Cetma, but it’s totally luxurious. Having a silent direct drive hub motor for both braking and acceleration feels so futuristic. I don’t really notice any handling weirdness from the front hub motor on that bike, maybe a side effect of just being so close to front wheel.

My only experiences with DIY mid drives were a Stokenonkey (which was way harder to get used to than a front hub motor!), and a little time with a Tsdz2, which was fine but a little flaky. If Revel Propulsion comes back with another round of mid drives, I want to try one out. Maybe in combination with a front all-axle, to replicate what the GSD has but in an all-diy form.
posted by kevin is... at 11:19 PM on December 11, 2024 [2 favorites]

I want someone to do a Top Gear style show, but for bikes.
posted by antinomia at 2:36 AM on December 12, 2024 [2 favorites]

I want someone to do a Top Gear style show, but for bikes.

Propel Bikes is kind of like that, and well done.
posted by daveliepmann at 2:51 AM on December 12, 2024 [1 favorite]

with a Grin All Axle up front with one of those shiny expensive bidirectional throttles

I wasn't even aware this was a thing, that's wild. Both the two-way controllers or brushless direct hub drives.

I've had this random idea and thought experiment for a while for some kind of ridiculous electrified swing bike - possibly with 2WD because why not - and now I'm wondering if it would be possible to make one that can go backwards.

And to explain "swing bike" to the uninitiated, it's a bike frame or style that steers both at the normal place at the head/steerer tube, but also just below the seat in the middle of the frame, so you can do weird stuff like crab both wheels over sideways and steer with your hands and butt at the same time.

No, there's no real point to them other then the fact that they're lots of fun and they look super weird to see rolling around, because a skilled rider can do wacky things like ride along with one wheel up on a curb and one wheel down on the street since both wheels can be offset yet parallel.

One of the really wacky things about riding one is pedaling it because the frame kind of wiggles all over the place and tries to collapse on itself when you pedal, so with a hub drive wheel or wheels you could skip the pedaling and just cruise around on foot pegs.
posted by loquacious at 7:28 PM on December 12, 2024 [1 favorite]

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