In terms of personal transit, I’ve never felt safer than I do on my cargo ebike capped at 32kmh/20mph. That’s the perfect max urban speed for balancing safety on bicycle components with getting around as fast as driving. I can stop quickly, have great situational awareness, can match my speed to the situation without risking being rear-ended, and can communicate to other pedestrians. Given the proper infrastructure for it, I could ride daily for the rest of my life and probably never put a person or animal at risk. It’s such a pleasant lifestyle compared to driving and I have way more control.
lmao, I saw this thread and thought “e-bike mentioned, can’t wait for the happybadger comment”. Based e-bikeposter.
I can’t think of another individual consumer tech/infrastructure project that induces demand for all the urbanist things I want. My city is right on the edge between bike-friendly/car-dependent and it could rapidly transform into a garden city if ebike adoption continues spiking. They’re the thing that makes 21st century urbanism attractive to the average schmuck.
man i wish i lived somewhere that didn’t suck ass
It’s now my deciding factor for any city I’d move to. Cutting out driving instantly halved the stress in my life and now my commutes are quiet nature photography sessions. The psychogeography of the place is so much better when you have a slow connection to it.
I finally got an E-bike for Christmas this year and I’m so happy with it that I’ve already named it.
It’s name is Bike.
Which is short for Bichael Winslow.
copying my YouTube comment:
Love my electric motorcycle and my ebike, and frankly if you go at motorcycle speeds, you need to be on real roads with real safety gear. I don’t think we should require lightweight electrical vehicles to all get registered at the DMV and get plates, but there should be clear categories and enforcement on riders and manufacturers. Under 25 mph, bike paths okay, bike parts/gear okay, over 25 mph, roads required, motorcycle parts and gear required, over 500 lb, license plate/vehicle registration required, something like that.
I would prefer speed limits to be applied to what speed people are actually going than to what speed their machine could go
This was supposed to be in c/urbanism, but whatever. Website UI keeps fucking up for me.
This is c/urbanism
Lemmy communities can have a different name than their community url, just to confuse and distress people.
I am the ebike classes hater. I am very glad my electric unicycle, and electric unicycles in general, are made by Chinese scofflaws and have no artificial limits. Mine tops out at 55kph/34mph which is just about enough to reasonably exist on the suburban streets I am forced to use for lack of bike lanes and paths.
(I am also an ATGATT type and always ride with full on motocross gear.)
IMO there should definitely be a class in between “license plate required” and “allowed to use bike paths” though, the problem with ebike regs as they exist is just that they suck. Pedals shouldn’t matter, form factor shouldn’t matter, the only things that should matter are weight and speed.
Once I get out of the suburban hellscape to the city, bike paths are the perfect place for this very same contraption, but to even get to the bike paths I need to deal with about six miles of suburb.
I found a YouTube link in your post. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
