The Future of eBikes: How Fast is Too Fast?

[Roamers]

It was a one hit wonder. Back to your regular scheduled program today...

Sitting on the balcony of our cabin; pretty nice out right now.

 

[DaveMatthews]

Sitting on the balcony of our cabin; pretty nice out right now.

Def could be worse...

 

[stompandgo]

I saw my first National Park Ranger on the rail trail this week. He was riding a recumbent with a "RANGER" sign on the back of the seat. Rangers here are law enforcement officers, so they can detain offenders, impound vehicles, call town or state cops, etc. I slowed down when I passed him

 

[6zfshdb]

A few of the kids I see on the trail would do a wheelstand on their Surron as they passed. Not much chance of catching him with a recumbent.

 

[stompandgo]

A few of the kids I see on the trail would do a wheelstand on their Surron as they passed. Not much chance of catching him with a recumbent.

A radio has a chance.

 

[Chargeride]

Suronster is probably the most infuential 'safe' influencer for road riding high power emotorcycles.
He has covered the Bonnell CYC powered mountain bike and his surprise is genuine, you can see deep down he wants to be accepted by society, but of course its still ludicrously overpowered and very dangerous on shared trails.
But now hes involved you are going to see a surge of these on the trails with riders trying to justify them because of
the way they look, of course no one is going to be fooled, these are 6KW bikes.
But I will admit, I would love one if we had dedicated trails for them, which isnt going to happen.
You can see him on the trails interacting with legal bikers frrom around 5min onwards
It is restricted to 30mph in 'street' use, but has a race mode as well.
This motor and battery are 2 grand to buy as a kit, you can fit it to any mtb that can squeeze the battery in the frame

 

[stompandgo]

That is the sickest e-bike I've ever seen.

 

[stompandgo]

The fastest I've gone on my race bike is 63mph (indicated). At the front of the field, closed caravan. I also worked as an official at the Tour of Utah when Sepp Kuss rode away from the field solo for the GC win. Descending into Park City, he hit 74mph. My driver was smoking the tires in the switchbacks. Scared the crap out of me.

 

[jabberwocky]

But I will admit, I would love one if we had dedicated trails for them, which isnt going to happen.

Moto/4x4 trails have existed for a long time, and bikes like the Surron/Talaria would be great on them! But if you mean new moto trails at places that only have hiking and MTB trails, no, probably not. Most managing agencies and volunteers from other user groups have been fighting motos poaching and tearing up trails for decades and their opinion of moto riders are (in my experience) extremely negative. If the Surron guys want to get together and work on access and trail building, more power to them, but from what I see they aren't really interested in doing the work and have a massive uphill battle ahead to build a positive image of themselves if they ever wanted to start.

Certainly possible! Skateboarders did it in the late 90s-2000s. But not easy and wouldn't be fast.

 

[MrHyak]

had fantasies of MBTs around here,the forest service was not interested,then reality checked in.

When I was younger we did a lot of riding on forest service roads on our motorcycles but there were restrictions in some areas due to risk of fire (sparks from the exhaust). At least there is no concern of that from the ebikes.

 

[Art Deco]

One of the things a lot of people miss about the non-street-legal electric bikes is the liability issue.

On one side, if somebody hits you with a motor vehicle and injures you, chances are you are SOL on getting any compensation from them or their insurance because you were operating an illegal vehicle. To some extent that depends on the state though.

If you, god forbid, cause an accident with your illegal bike than you are in for a universe of pain and suffering. Chances are whatever insurance you have won't help you, and chances are when you get sued you will lose and lose badly. Given what even modest personal injury payouts can be chances are that you will lose your home and your retirement savings and be squeezed dry by lawyers. Oh, did I mention the legal fees you'll have to pay to defend yourself? Nobody will help you with those either.

So even if something isn't "enforceable" by a cop on the bike path you could still find yourself in a world of hurt when things go wrong. That also means if you bought an illegal bike for your precious little offspring to ride to school you could also be sued into the dirt.

For myself I'd rather pay fines and have my bike confiscated than be on the losing side of a personal injury lawsuit.

Yep. Insurers have no sense of humor. If the claim can be denied, under any law or municipal ruling, it will be.

 

[PedalUma]

The fastest I've gone on my race bike is 63mph (indicated). At the front of the field, closed caravan. I also worked as an official at the Tour of Utah when Sepp Kuss rode away from the field solo for the GC win. Descending into Park City, he hit 74mph. My driver was smoking the tires in the switchbacks. Scared the crap out of me.

In the big descents around here the sides of the switchbacks are lined with rusted barbed wire. It is like an evil human cheese cutter.