Ebikes, bicycles, scooters, skateboards, longboards, eboards, motorcycles, skates, unicycles, heelies, or an office chair: Whatever floats your goat, this is all things micromobility!
"Transportation using lightweight vehicles such as bicycles or scooters, especially electric ones that may be borrowed as part of a self-service rental program in which people rent vehicles for short-term use within a town or city.
micromobility is seen as a potential solution to moving people more efficiently around cities"
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It's a little sad that we need to actually say this, but:
Don't be an asshole or you will be permanently banned.
Respectful debate is totally OK, criticizing a product is fine, but being verbally abusive will not be tolerated.
Focus on discussing the idea, not attacking the person.
click bait title.
"Police shared an image of the bike’s LCD panel showing a max speed of 83.2 mph (134 km/h), though this is almost certainly the “no-load” speed reached from lifting the rear wheel and allowing it to spin up freely without resistance. " the rider was going 35.
As the article says, the speed indicated in the photo is almost certainly from spinning the wheels off the ground, and the confiscation apparently stemmed from a traffic stop when doing 35 MPH (56 kph).
But I want to acknowledge the well-warranted snark that the reporter added:
Due to the nature of roads in the UK, e-bikes that ride on them are generally in front of or behind cars, and occasionally next to them.
I can personally vouch for the veracity of this statement in the USA too: bikes can indeed be found in front of, behind, beside, on bridges that fly over cars, on tunnels underneath cars, and sometimes inside of motor vehicles as well.
This is the correct amount of satire when the Northumbria Police makes an absurd statement about chasing an ebike "following reports it was travelling in front of a car". Of course it would! Bikes and cars operate on roads. There is no place on earth that has 100% planar separation for different road users.
But the snark also points out the police being so very car-brained: why does traffic enforcement constantly concern itself with "car welfare" while writing citations and impounding all other road users except automobiles? The UK's Highway Code is quite clear on what is and isn't permissible on the public roads, but "ebike in front of car" is not one such proviso.
The real problem is that this article and the argument that it supports is framed from the perspective of a car-centric mindset; which is hilarious since the website is for alternative methods of transportation.
Saying that using fast ebikes forced to share the same space as other larger, faster vehicles (that still can barely keep up with the larger vehicles) will ruin it for ebikes in general is such a mind-boggling statement.
I honestly could give less than a shit if people were going over 35 MPH on a bicycle on a road. As long as that's under the posted limit who cares?
I don't think that's a fair assessment of the article.
There's one sentence about travelling in traffic. It's related to how the police noticed that the bike was likely illegal.
Far more of the article discusses the potential dangers of travelling at 80MPH.
I honestly could give less than a shit if people were going over 35 MPH on a bicycle on a road. As long as that's under the posted limit who cares?
I'm starting to care about these bikes. It's a genuine problem. The paths in my area are mostly mixed use. Walkers, riders, kids, dogs, wheelchairs, everything. A 14yo kid weaving through pedestrian traffic at 60km/h is a disaster waiting to happen.
As the article correctly opines, it's the rest of us with compliant bikes who lose.
Maybe I was considering modifying my mountain bike to do this, but mainly to get it up a long steep hill.
Top speed doesn't really change climbing ability, that's more about torque.
True, but TFA does say the bike was not under load when they measured the tire speed. I have a lot of me to move, so I was concerned about what my unencumbered bike would register.
Until this, I was perfectly happy with the idea of a mountain bike that could go 35, maybe with registered plates.