Ravi Kempaiah
Well-Known Member
- Region
- Canada
- City
- Halifax
New Motor from Bosch for 2020
- Thread starter Ravi Kempaiah
- Start date
Would be great if someone could review the history of why Europe felt that a 25kph/15.5mph assist limit was so important when traditional road bikes are commonly ridden at faster speeds. Why didn't an adult in the room stand up and say let's just put appropriate speed limits on the various path/sidewalk/lanes that bikes travel in?
It is so obvious that there were commercial interests behind the restricted assist speeds and that they are the ones that also claimed it was all about safety. That is a full pitcher of false claim koolaid and yet far too many have been convinced it's true.
It is so obvious that there were commercial interests behind the restricted assist speeds and that they are the ones that also claimed it was all about safety. That is a full pitcher of false claim koolaid and yet far too many have been convinced it's true.
Dmitri
Active Member
Okay, imagine a group of Eurocrats sitting somewhere in the main EC building in Brussels. They're off on one of their myriad wine breaks, enjoying being paid upwards of €5k/month for basically less than 1hr/day of work. In between idle conversation, one of the Eurocrats casually brings up these "ebikes" and how the higher-ups want some sort of framework with dealing with this. Clearly nobody is actually interested in researching this topic because, umm, that's actual work and the EEC (as it was called) doesn't actually engage in that unless absolutely necessary.
So they think "hmm, can't we just steal a similar regulatory note somewhere?". They find some unlucky intern and ask them to come up with anything serviceable to show to management. The intern opens Bing and searches for something like "ebike regulation". And he hits jackpot, finding that Japan has put in place a framework that, among other things, restricts speed to 25kph and also mandates that PAS be installed and that throttles are a no-no. The intern hands in the report, unchanged, to his manager and is never mentioned again.
The next day, at one of the wine breaks, the guy tasked with making draft regulation is boasting to his colleagues how easy it was to come up with something sensible. "Oh, sure, there are issues," he says, "like, the Japanese are not as tall nor as heavy, but you know, if I had to adjust this for Europe, that would be actual work."
"Mais oui," picks up another Eurocrat, "it's not like we're going to have public consultations over this. We just put it in place and the peasants will swallow it like a stale croissant anyway." Laughter erupts, people cheer.
J.R.
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
- City
- Piedmont Highlands
I remember reading several surveys and studies several years ago that the average adult recreational and commuter speed was 13 to 16 mph. The last year (2013) I commuted 34 miles r/t on a standard bike I averaged 14 mph. Road bikers and gravel grinders ride much faster, but the average adult riding a regular bike doesn't. That's especially true in urban areas.
We do so much more on ebikes. My last year commuting on a standard bike I achieved about 2000 miles. First year ebiking, just shy of 6000 miles. I wish everyone could be trusted to ride the speed limit, so I do agree with you that would be ideal. I don't think limits work now though. Most cyclists don't obey stop signs or one way signs. They laugh at no riding on the sidewalk prohibitions in the nearest city to me. We just don't live in an ideal world. Thank goodness I don't have to live with a 15.5 mph restriction in the U.S. 20 and 28 works well.
PaD
Well-Known Member
It’s complicated
And I don’t have the full explanation but I will give you my picture.The short explanation is that there was a 25km/h limit before e-bikes turned up.
Long before the e-bikes ( as we know them today) turned up there were mopeds in Europe and each country had their own regulations concerning max speed, cylinder volume, hp and weight etc.
In Sweden ( when I was young half a century ago) a moped was allowed to go 30km/h. 50cc and 1 bhp was max. You could ride without any drivers licens but you had to be over 15 and an insurance was mandatory if I remember correctly. Many other Europen countries had higher speed limits. 40 - 50km/h.
Some time ( 2003?) after the formation of EU there were different classes for mopeds formed. ( EU was formed 1993 I think) They differ a bit from country to country but now there was this 45km/h moped ( called class 1 in Sweden and requires registration etc.) which was new to us up north and the old 30km/h changed to 25km/h but I can’t find out why that was decided.
So my take is that the e-bikes were just put into existing classes.
An interesting thing is these new kickbike e-scooters. To me they’re just electric mopeds that should have traffic assurance ( as all other mopeds in Sweden) but someone set a speed limit to 20km/h and all talk about responsability was sort of forgotten.
I don’t think all these rules have anything to do with the car or oil industry even if there are of course politicians in the EU parliament that can be ”influenced”
Dentman333
Member
Yup! If the CX Speed has the same torque as the current CX I'm waiting. The Powerpack 600 might be better than the current 500x2 system...save some weight
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