Electric Bikes

I think you just amped it up.

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Put about 30 miles on the bike. A few observations.

With the motor turned off, it feels like there isn’t a ton of drag. It’s heavier than my other bike (duh) and the tires are wider, with a little more tread, and therefore lower air pressure. Which is likely costing me a bit. I’d say at my usual level of effort it goes about 1-1.5mph slower than normal. Good to know.

It seems to be learning how to estimate range, I’m not sure exactly how it estimates this. It seems that on the lowest level of assist it’ll likely do ~65 miles, I know that’ll come down a bit as the battery ages. On max boost it’s around 25 miles, or so it thinks.

There’s a hill near me, I’d say around 8% grade, maybe a tad more, pretty steep. Normally I’m plodding uphill at like 5-6mph. I set it on turbo and shot up at 16mph and I wasn’t really trying. Flattening hills, indeed.

I find that the lower two settings are generally plenty, the lowest setting has me riding about 4mph faster than I normally ride at what I think is about the same effort. Notching up to level 2 puts me about 8mph over normal, it’s quick.

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This happened in the UK in June 2023.

He bought a generic battery to replace one that got stolen from his bike and it caught fire while charging, and eventually exploded.

Not sure about the US but over here you can buy a generic second hand battery online and they are not checked or regulated.

Same in the US, tons of random Chinese batteries. More and more reputable brands are now getting UL certification.

This is part of why I got a bike with a Bosch battery.

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Geez… of all the things you might worry about …

Buncha hippies in this thread. Electric bikes…

How else am I supposed to get to the farmer’s market?

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True older hippies like me eschew electric bikes. We still rely on old-fashioned leg power.

Those also have a problem in the UK. They were apparently not designed to be ridden in wet conditions outside. Which is kind of amusing given how much it rains in the UK

I saw that on Reddit. I don’t ride much in the rain, so not a huge deal for me. And they also had a lot of similar complaints about other brands and water, so whatever.

Smart policy. All my bicycle accidents over the years happened in wet conditions.

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Mark it down as “things I wouldn’t want to survive.”

So we live a mile or so south of downtown, about 1.5 miles to the far end of downtown. Today I discovered if I crank it up to max power, it’s faster to bike downtown since bike parking is awesome and parking a car sucks.

I went for happy hour on the far end today, my wife drove up and met me. We raced home, and I’m sad to say she beat me. By all of two car lengths. I don’t feel confident enough to drive in the fast lane on a bike or I’d have won.

Good times.

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We got a Citibike pass in NYC and just about all the bikes are electric now. It was my first time on one. It was a blast hurtling down the Hudson River Greenway at night and then Central Park the next day.

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