Thorn Cycles Forum
Community => Non-Thorn Related => Topic started by: Templogin on June 29, 2018, 09:47:46 pm
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It is 18 miles from my house to work, and roughly the same distance to my partner's house. Shetland is a windy place, I am old, overweight, unfit and asthmatic, the eXp is heavy and I am usually carrying at least 12kg of stuff. This leads to a journey time of about 2 hours and 15 minutes, plus or minus 15 minutes depending on wind speed and direction. One night the wind was so bad that it was difficult to go fast enough to be able to maintain my balance. When I finally arrive I usually feel like a wrung out rag. The solution had to be an eBike for trips into work (only on the finest days) and the eXp would be used for local rides to the shop (6 miles away) or the local ferry terminal (4 miles away) where there is wifi available.
I was amazed with the AARC Moulton TSR8 as it would cut my 18 mile trip down to as low as 1 hour 10 minutes, and I didn't feel like I needed a few hours to recover. Gradually though I found that I was barely using the eXp and the Moulton was becoming the bike for all journeys. I recently rode the eXp to the ferry terminal and found it quite hard going without the assistance. I had the wind behind me as well. Riding it back into what was a light wind for Shetland, somewhere between 12-18mph, I found it even harder, having to stop for a couple of minutes to get my breath back.
eBikes are wonderful things, really slashing journey times, but there will be hell to pay if you don't mix this with normal unassisted cycling. Eventually you realise that although you have been giving your eBike assistance (it's a pedelec) to move along, I suspect the effort is probably around 25-30% of what you would be using on an unassisted bike.
So my advice to you is put off eBikes until you are really struggling to ride a normal bike. Fitness is hard to build, but oh so easy to lose.
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That's a terrific post i never looked at it that way ,one of the main reasons i was thinking of Ebike was getting up hills easier,i haven't been on the bike for months kinda lost interest long story. ::)
a very experience cyclist told me one time if you want to go faster for longer get the lightest bike you can afford CARBON works well on that score really good set hoops and rubber and your away in a hack ;D.He was 100% correct mind you i still like to give an ebike a blast see how we get on.
anto.
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Fitness is hard to build, but oh so easy to lose.
There is wisdom to this.
Some other thoughts on the topic:
https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/07/06/the-surprising-health-benefits-of-an-electric-bike-2/
https://theecologist.org/2013/jul/31/how-electric-bike-improved-my-fitness
Recently, I've been back riding Fixed again on an old 1970 road racing frame I converted. It is a great way to build fitness quickly. Hasn't improved my form as I usually ride my Nomad and other freewheel bikes without coasting at a high, light "hummingbird" cadence, but oh! for downhill resistance training, it is hard to beat a true Fixie for quickly ramping up to full-on tour condition. Now it has done its work for me, I'll bench the Fixie while I take the heavily loaded Nomad out for some remote self-supported tours.
Best,
Dan.
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Thanks for the comments folks. Using eBikes to get the unexercised moving is a great idea.
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Using eBikes to get the unexercised moving is a great idea.
After considerable experience on an electric-assisted bike, and watching the people who stop me to talk about cycling or even getting an e-bike, I don't know that I agree.
In my small town the only successful electric bike is mine. And I was already an experienced and committed cyclist (gave up the car altogether in 1992) when I electrified for health and geographic reasons (two heart surgeries, then moved up the steepest hill in town). The rest fall into two categories of failure:
The unfit, who don't hear when I tell them the pedelec they can buy ready-built only assists their pedaling. They hear "electric motor bike". Their e-bikes have the same fate as standard pedal bikes bought by such people: after a few rides they end up in the garage, unused and unloved. Some of my pedalpals never service their bikes: they just buy a hardly-used expensive bike out of such a person's garage for a maximum of fifty euro -- many will pay you to take the thing away -- and ride it into the ground.
The hopelessly untechnical, who don't hear when I tell them to buy the biggest battery they can afford (and this is an affluent area, Range Rover heartland, so they can all afford a humongous battery) and that they should treat the battery like a venerable object in their religion, recharging it after even the shortest ride. They complain that the dealer promised them x miles, when I know bloody well that the mickey mouse battery they bought because the dealer said it would be lighter is only good for one-third x, and then they rode it flat, repeatedly, and grudgingly recharged it, and in short order ruined it.
To operate an e-bike successfully (success being defined as adding to your fitness and longevity), you need to be informed about what it can do for you, and how it does it. It does the e-biker no harm to know what a coulomb is and how it affects what is possible on his e-bike and what he can and should demand of it if he is not to wreck the battery and burn out the motor. Secondly, discipline is required, as in any sport; it's a hard thing to be forced to learn late in life, and most falter at this high bar; it helps to have been an athlete of some kind earlier in life, again in order to have reasonable expectations. Third, there's a lot to learn: not only about electronics but about physiology (how will you measure the effects and results?); some people just can't help getting a migraine when one brings up gear ratios. Fourth, but not finally, it actually helps to have considerable experience of unassisted cycling, because that inculcates the right attitude; without it, in my experience, failure through overblown expectations is just about guaranteed. There are other contributory factors to failure, but these mainly intangibles are, I think, the main causes of e-bikes -- in fact, bikes in general -- ending up unused and unloved in garages, and their owners dying before their time.
I think the OP is fortunate in that he at least has from general cycling experience a yardstick against which to measure e-bike outcomes so definitively.
Interesting thread: it forces one to clarify vague suspicions.
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There is an e-bike store in my community. They are located next to a bicycle and pedestrian path (motor driven vehicles not allowed, but that is a different story). There is a shallow hill on that path, not steep enough for me to need my granny gear on my triple crank, but steep enough that I am down to maybe half the speed that I ride on the flat.
I am always amazed at how many obese people I see trying out e-bikes. They seem to really enjoy getting fit while they do not even have to pedal. In fact they coast up the the hill twice as fast or maybe even three times as fast as I can pedal up the hill.
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Fixed gear bikes - I never understood the interest in that. The main thing that concerns me on fixed gear bikes is that my knees have been much happier since I stopped standing on the pedals to accelerate from a stop light or power up a hill. Now I gear down and stay in the saddle, knees are much happier. I suspect with a fixed gear bike that I would be on crutches within a week. With gears, I can change gears for different grades.
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Locally there are two types of E-Bike. The ones you can just sit on and the E just drives you along if you are too lazy to pedal and the other type, like mine, where you have to pedal or go nowhere. My E-Bike a lot heavier than my other bikes what with a 3.5 kg battery and a frame that feels like it's carved out of solid rock. It is a sit up Dutch style riding position.
There was a study by a Dutch University that came to the conclusion that the energy expended on a pedal assist type was just the same as an ordinary bike but you just went a bit faster. (I read that in one of the "London" papers so it must be true !)
I wonder if AARC would convert my Moulton ?
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This bloke makes some good points.
https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/tourdefrance/e-bikes/
Mike
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This bloke makes some good points.
https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/tourdefrance/e-bikes/
Thanks for posting that, Mike. That fellow has his head screwed on right. His conclusion is spot on: a very apt and concise statement of what the tourer who is no longer young or fit should and can expect an e-bike to do for him:
"What this has all meant for us in practical terms, is that our daily distances and total trip length has returned to where it was eight years ago."
Notice that underlying his entire screed, and axiomatic in his conclusions, is the fact that they are experienced cyclists who know what they want and how much they want to and can contribute to forward motion, a factor that in its absence looms large in the e-bike failures I described above. Also worth saying is that it applies not only to big time tourers like this couple but also to credit card tourers who hardly ever go more than a day's journey from home*.
*I should explain that a day's journey from home in the Irish countryside can actually be a hundred or two miles further than I would normally cycle. See, at the bus driver's discretion, you can load your bike in the luggage compartment of the bus; he may also charge you, but most don't and the inspectors don't care about it** -- this practice is so firmly established that I cannot actually tell you what the charge for a bicycle is. Nor has my bike ever been refused, though I'm careful not to demand service on a Friday evening when the bus is full of students going home, with their laundry being taken home to mom crowding out the luggage department. But at all other times, by the time the bus gets to my village, everyone has a good idea of how full the luggage compartment is likely to be.
** A footnote to a footnote! The bus drivers and inspectors are generally very agreeable. Once when my train from Dublin was an hour late, I found the scheduled bus still waiting at the station, and he made a detour at my destination to drop me in front of my door. On another occasion, I asked the bus driver to slow down as he crossed the only side street in another village so I could take a photo of a piece of topiary. "Nay, lad," said the inspector who joined us at the previous village, aware that the bus was full of American tourists returning from the same musical festival I'd attended, "we'll stop for you, and everyone can have a looksee and take a photo." A few weeks after that the editor of a magazine distributed to Americans of Irish origin sent me a piece for an opinion before she published it, and I was happy to reassure her that I was the "charming Irishman" for whom the bus was stopped, and to confirm that the story was true in every particular.
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I was riding along a bike path in the city last week, when I was passed by a bike that was powered by an internal combustion motor.
He was towing a trailer filled with landscaping implements. Obviously a small landscaping/gardening contractor.
It got me thinking. Has anybody seen an e-trailer that could be used with a bicycle? It seems to me it would be useful. You wouldn't need a new bicycle, but if you had to move a heavy load it would make it possible to do it by bicycle. You could take your kids for a ride, or pick up a Costco sized load of groceries.
If you've ever carried or towed a heavy load, you will know that hills are killers. A boost on the hills would make an other wise tough ride easy and fun.
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Has anybody seen an e-trailer that could be used with a bicycle?
There's a surprising number of them on the market:
https://electricbikereport.com/electric-cargo-trailers-guide-video/
I see them here occasionally and have occasionally asked how their owners liked them. The only downsides mentioned so far is they are a trailer rather than a bike alone (so extra considerations wrt to width and overall length) and there can be a tendency under some conditions for a "push effect" on bike handling, a bit like the tail wagging the dog, and limited cargo capacity (depends on design, as some integrate the battery and motor nicely while leaving room for cargo. Others, not so much).
Best,
Dan.
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Dan, I guess I could have googled it myself, but thanks for that. I've never seen one around here.
I am peripherally involved with a group that builds and maintains multi purpose trails in the foot hills of the Canadian Rockies.
The parks department trail crew has a couple of electric bikes, which is a good way to get out to the more remote locations. If anything of any size or weight has to be moved, a quad or motor bike is required. Or a power wheel barrow.
A couple of electric trailers would be perfect for travelling out to the work sites with tools and stuff. Most of the trail crew volunteers are cyclists and the usual way of getting there is by bicycle.
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I wondered where this was going when I read the title of the topic. I'm a passionate believer in e-bikes (having a converted Sherpa). Without it I would simply not be riding a bike now. But it's not a necessarily an easy option. It's heavy. So manoeuvring it (when not riding) is a bit of a pain.
But there is one thing I think that's been missed in this thread. I was in Oslo in May. My hotel was on a main road into the city centre - about a 20-30 minute walk. From about 6 in the morning I would see people walking to work - as well as jogging, running, scooting, skating, cycling (many on e-bikes) and taking the bus. A few were driving in by car. The car was in the minority. Unlike the UK.
Directly outside the hotel was an e-bike docking station - it held about 40 bikes. People would walk from their homes nearby, pick-up a bike and take it into work. In the evening the process would be reversed. Sometimes in the evening, the docking station would be full. So a returning user would simply look at an app on their phone to find the next local docking station and return the bike there instead.
As I wandered around the city I discovered lots of these docking stations - outside the bus and train stations as well as major centres of employment and recreation. This tells me that in Oslo e-bikes are part of an integrated transport system. Which is surely what all cities need.
The vast majority of people I saw riding them were not fat or unfit - they were simply hopping on and off and using the bikes as another form of convenient public transport. And this is the bit which often gets overlooked in the debate about e-bikes.
So maybe you shouldn't buy an e-bike - if you can rent one.
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https://www.hammacher.com/product/only-seven-person-tricycle-1
I suppose it could be fitted with an electric assist !!
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I remember seeing something similar, but it may have hand a German oompah band playing on it as it went along. Either that or it was a particularly heavy night.
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Like gears and disc brakes, bikes evolve. E bikes are the future we better accept it .
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good man Bob totally agree ;)
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My ebike is a Kawa sak eee. Goes fast and does not use a lot of gas. The Ebikes that use a battery are a perpetual motion machine theory nightmare and I'd sooner see myself on a carbon frame racebike, than on an one of. these ee gads bikes. At some point (before buying an expensive bike) one should admit defeat and realize that a motor may be in order, if wheezing up a hill is too much. Quite simply, ebikes are not bikes, in my not at all humble opinion. They are (poorly done) motorized transportation, with a bag of illusion hung on. :(
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Ebikes can be good, I know a lady who gave up commuting to work by car a few years ago and now uses an ebike instead. Her daily commute is 30 kms, which was a bit too far for her on an ordinary bike. She gets about 1h20 of moderate exercise daily.
If/when I get to the stage where I haven't enough strength to use an ordinary bike I will certainly consider an ebike.
My father had to give up riding a bicycle because he could no longer balance, so I am also looking at recumbent trikes. These also have the advantage of a seat rather than a saddle, so are a possible solution if I get serious prostate problems as I get older. And they can have electrical assistance if necessary. A local bike shop has a recumbent available for hire, so I may try it.
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It is 18 miles from my house to work, and roughly the same distance to my partner's house. Shetland is a windy place, I am old, overweight, unfit and asthmatic, the eXp is heavy and I am usually carrying at least 12kg of stuff. This leads to a journey time of about 2 hours and 15 minutes, plus or minus 15 minutes depending on wind speed and direction. One night the wind was so bad that it was difficult to go fast enough to be able to maintain my balance. When I finally arrive I usually feel like a wrung out rag. The solution had to be an eBike for trips into work (only on the finest days) and the eXp would be used for local rides to the shop (6 miles away) or the local ferry terminal (4 miles away) where there is wifi available.
I was amazed with the AARC Moulton TSR8 as it would cut my 18 mile trip down to as low as 1 hour 10 minutes, and I didn't feel like I needed a few hours to recover. Gradually though I found that I was barely using the eXp and the Moulton was becoming the bike for all journeys. I recently rode the eXp to the ferry terminal and found it quite hard going without the assistance. I had the wind behind me as well. Riding it back into what was a light wind for Shetland, somewhere between 12-18mph, I found it even harder, having to stop for a couple of minutes to get my breath back.
eBikes are wonderful things, really slashing journey times, but there will be hell to pay if you don't mix this with normal unassisted cycling. Eventually you realise that although you have been giving your eBike assistance (it's a pedelec) to move along, I suspect the effort is probably around 25-30% of what you would be using on an unassisted bike.
So my advice to you is put off eBikes until you are really struggling to ride a normal bike. Fitness is hard to build, but oh so easy to lose.
Old post resurrected!
I am in full agreement that E bikes should be used ONLY for those who CANNOT ride a normal cycle.
Personally as a long time health sufferer I will never use an E bike. I would rather do without or use a proper combustion engine moped!
Regards to those who do use E bikes.
John
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My father had to give up riding a bicycle because he could no longer balance, so I am also looking at recumbent trikes. These also have the advantage of a seat rather than a saddle, so are a possible solution if I get serious prostate problems as I get older. And they can have electrical assistance if necessary. A local bike shop has a recumbent available for hire, so I may try it.
I find it easier to balance on the bike than on foot. I had a semi-recumbent for a short period and didn't feel too confident on it because it was too low in relation to the preponderance of SUVs and upright people-carriers on the roads here; my normal everyday bike puts my head above the roof of a Range Rover, which makes me not only visible but threatening to motorists, not a bad thing at all. I later looked seriously into buying another semi-recumbent but Utopia stopped making it before I made up my mind; this would been restricted to the smallest lanes hereabouts where I know all the motorists and they expect to see me. I had a Revelo/Cheeko90 seat bought in Holland rather than a saddle on my fully automatic Trek Smover, basically a mountain bike with luxury fittings, and it was superb for comfort, though its lifespan was not much chop in the perspective of how long a Brooks leather saddle lasts.
If/when I get to the stage where I haven't enough strength to use an ordinary bike I will certainly consider an ebike.
An ebike with a worthwhile battery is heavy. You can use the motor to get you going, especially in traffic where slow-speed wobbles may be dangerous, but there is still the moment when you have to tilt the bike to get your leg over, and then raise it again to an upright position. That is actually the worst thing about an ebike, because once you're moving the motor can be cut in and out at will (given that you buy a bike or kit with decent controls) to overcome virtually any disability short of passing out and falling off your bike.
In general, I would say that the practicalities of what you can and cannot do with an e-bike are nothing like you imagined they would be, even if you're a long time pedal cyclist. I was fortunate that when i first bought an electric kit, it was to overcome a specific hill after impending heart surgery, so I grew into its other abilities (supports?) gradually as they were required, and thus came to be at one with the thing by almost imperceptible steps. Also, I was long, long used to regulating my output on pedal-only bikes by my heart rate (rather than by cadence), so the electric motor fitted seamlessly into established exercise routines. As a result of my own experience, I'd advise you, before it becomes absolutely necessary, to electrify one of your bikes (or buy an e-bike used) and ride it occasionally simply to understand how you will use it as a utility vehicle, for exercise, for recreation, or whatever you do, so that when you do need it, your life can carry on smoothly, the change to ebike as your main bike hardly noticed. One important thing, if you often ride with companions, as I do, is to learn to keep pace with unelectrified cyclists without stressing you or them out; I fortunately learned that gradually before it became a pressure point where you suddenly have to learn something when your attention is already divided by new circumstances.
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I find that it easier to balance on the bike than on foot. I had a semi-recumbent for a short period and didn't feel too confident on it because it was too low in relation to the preponderance of SUVs and upright people-carriers on the roads here; my normal everyday bike puts my head above the roof of a Range Rover, which makes me not only visible but threatening to motorists, not a bad thing at all.
The lower position is what puts me off most about recumbents. It's also one of the reasons I prefer a van to a car when I have to drive.
But talking to recumbent riders visibility in traffic seems not to be a real issue, at least here in Brittany. Recumbents are still rare here, and drivers tend to give them a wide berth, something I have also noticed when towing my rather large two wheel trailer.
As a result of my own experience, I'd advise you, before it becomes absolutely necessary, to electrify one of your bikes (or buy an e-bike used) and ride it occasionally simply to understand how you will use it as a utility vehicle, for exercise, for recreation, or whatever you do, so that when you do need it, your life can carry on smoothly, the change to ebike as your main bike hardly noticed.
I don't intend to pre-empt, but I already know which bike I intend to electrify and how if I can still ride an upright when the time comes. It will be a front wheel motor kit with throttle control on my 8-speed Nexus Premium equipped Thorn Raven Tour utility bike, which also has the tow hook for the trailer.
This would probably just be a first step before getting a dedicated ebike. I know a couple of people that use dedicated ebikes fairly intensively as car replacements, so can get advice and probably borrow one for a day.
At present, my wife would benefit much more than myself from an ebike, but she refuses to consider one as she thinks it is cheating. A few years back she had the opportunity to try one during a house exchange in the Netherlands, but turned down the offer. I would have had a go, but the bike was much too small for me.
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This is just my opinion, im not looking for a war!
I'm a big fan of proper purpose built Pedelec e-bikes. Here's why:
- My brother who is not a cyclist in any way and fairly unfit bought a Cube/Bosch Acid 1 under some work Cyclescheme. He lives 4 miles from home near Liverpool, work is up a steep hill. He would NEVER have considered riding to work on a unassisted bicycle. He stated riding to work setting the bike so it felt like pedaling on the flat up the hill and coasting home in Eco mode. He now rides everywhere, and now with his 3yr old on the back. So he and his 3yr old are now enjoying cycling, he uses canal paths at the weekend etc. Something he couldn't do on a Moped John ;)
- I've seen customers bringing back a Thorn Raven to sell, quite upset that this is the end of their cycling, only to be sent out on one of our R&M Bosch test bikes and come back beaming from ear to ear, these customers return for servicing several months later with many miles under their belt with nothing but praise and thanks.
- We have sold a R&M e-bike to a avid and fit pedal cyclists less fit/able partner so she could keep up on the hills, meaning they can now cycle together wherever they go, again on first service nothing but praise and now planning trips abroad.
So in short they are getting more bums on seats and extending peoples cycling years, not a bad thing in my eyes...
I'm not a fan of bolt on kits, very few are legal... but that will start a battle i'm not prepared to start so please don't go there :-X
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Good on yer Dave !
My thoughts entirely.
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So in short they are getting more bums on seats and extending peoples cycling years, not a bad thing in my eyes...
Yep, agreed, Dave and others. A couple of friends here, longtime cyclists now into their '80's, have changed to German e-bikes. Our terrain is pretty flat, but their bikes keep them going on two wheels. The Ottawa Valley can be very windy, and a year or so ago, I spoke with a woman in her 20's who was using a battery to assist her in her 50-km-round trip daily commute. That let her make her ride in just under and hour each way.
A final example: Two friends in their late 60's who live in the extremely hilly town of Nelson, BC, bought Pedegos so that they don't need their truck for anything in town. They live a kilometre-plus from the centre of town, straight up a hill which is a series of 15% steps. A serious obstacle to using a regular bike when you've been at an evening community meeting, maybe had a beer afterwards, etc. They recharge the bikes from the mains; the mains in turn are fed by Nelson's municipally owned hydro-electric power system; and their house is 90% passively heated, so they reckon that they're pretty close to carbon-neutral when they're in town.
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nothing wrong with Ebikes 8) 8) certainly sort me out i can tell you that.
Dave what would you recommend if i wanted to convert my Audax i can't afford to buy a new Ebike besides i love my Thorn Audax fits me like a glove. ;)
Anto.
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Well said Dave , anyone who has been to Germany and Austria will have seen the benefits of E bikes. This is the future and we better get used to it.
Most kits will not match a purpose built E bike. My dream bike would be a Rohloff equipped R&M. At about 5k it is very expensive but cheaper than some high end road and mountain bikes.
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I'm a big fan of proper purpose built Pedelec e-bikes.
Agree that a dedicated Pedelec e-bike is best in the long run.
But good ones are rather expensive and can't be converted to an ordinary bike.
For me, it is a bit like the logic for a touring bike - a Thorn Nomad or Raven is the best option, but before I got my Raven Tour my old mountain bike converted with racks and suitable tyres did the job for a much lower initial investment, albeit not as well and with higher running costs.
As I don't really want an e-bike, but recognize that I may need one some day, I currently plan to change as little as possible and not spend much initially, hence the contingency plan to electrify an existing bike. And a conversion can be converted back to an ordinary bike if health improved. Not a very likely scenario, but I think it would be nice to imagine this before finally admitting that my unassisted cycling days were over.
I also hope that I would initially only need electric assistance for hauling heavy loads (trailer and shopping) and would still be able to ride an unloaded unassisted bike at first, which explains my idea of converting the utility bike.
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Thanks all for this interesting thread. I expect that sooner or later I will need an e-bike as I am not giving up cycling for anything. It is a fast moving technology and I would expect batteries to become much smaller and lighter (I hope) and maybe I would be able to get my RST converted (until my balance goes completely!). I can see what Dave is saying but I love my Thorns too much to get rid of them to fund another bike and I would have to.
Cheers,
Janet
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sooner or later sjs will have a simple conversion for all of us thorn users who wan to go electric ;)
and at a price we can afford.
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Oooh, I hope so😃
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sooner or later sjs will have a simple conversion for all of us thorn users who wan to go electric ;)
and at a price we can afford.
Never say never but I cant see it, to conform to the regulations it has to be pedal assist, have a max speed of 25mph and every component of said electric vehicle MUST meet EN 15194 (vs ISO 4210-2) for EPAC (25km/h e-bike), whilst most bike components probably do, its a matter of checking with the manufacturer for every component on the bike that it does, some modern components will have test reports, other stuff wont.
But why does any of that matter I hear you ask? Well from our point of view insurance, if we make something that doesn't conform we've effectively created an electric moped out of type approval, further to that by handing it to a customer we could fall foul of cause and permit regulations (causing another person to ride an unregistered, uninsured vehicle - an absolute legal offence).
I've seen bikes converted (sadly some of ours) where the customer has signed a deceleration that the bike is now only for use on PRIVATE land... i'm not sure the customer understands the implications of this certainly the ones I've talked to didn't... I very much doubt any of these disclaimers have been written with enough legal understanding that they would stand up in court.
Think that you wont get caught? Your more than likely not to, the Police don't have the time or resources to check, well except if your involved in an incident such as this:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/14/e-bike-crash-death-prompts-debate-over-safety-on-uk-roads (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/14/e-bike-crash-death-prompts-debate-over-safety-on-uk-roads)
Even a proper Pedelec bike could be take out of type approval just by radically changing the tyre size.
25kph Pedlec's enjoy a very privileged place in law they are treated exactly like a normal bike.
Just to be clear though, i'm not saying anything as rash as all ebike retrofit kits are illegal, just you have to be very careful when fitting them.
As a side note all the kits we've tried don't react quick enough to unloading the pedals for a Rohloff hub to shift smoothly. Of the dedicated pedlec's we have tried only Bosch Yamaha and Brose do.
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Another thing to consider is that a nice low step through makes life much easier as one grows older.
A bloke that I used to ride with now deceased bought a "sporty" DF ebike and found as he became more infirm that he could not get his leg over the topbar.
There are a number of people posting ebike tours on Cycleblaze and even the CrazyGuy has created an ebike ghetto on part of his site.
Mike
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Another thing to consider is that a nice low step through makes life much easier as one grows older.
Yes.
Two of the family bikes have step through frames, my wife's Thorn Raven Step Through and her previous bike, now used as the "small" visitor bike at our island flat. The latter has a very low stepover height and can be used by people that couldn't manage the previous small visitor bike with its twin-lateral frame.
As its resale value is negligible I kept the twin-lateral frame bike and took it back to our home on the continent. It now gets occasional use by my wife when she doesn't want to leave the more valuable Thorn locked up in town. Twin-lateral is not really step-through but still easier than a diamond frame.
All these bikes have rather small frames, but with suitable stems I can set them up to be comfortable for me, they already have long enough seat posts.
We also have our Brompton folding bikes, so I won't be stuck if one day I can no longer get my leg over the top tube on my other bikes.
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Rode up a big hill today with a guy on an Orbea. The motor seemed to be in the rear hub. Otherwise it looked like a standard drop bar bike. He was older and had a stroke earlier in the year so this set up allowed him to get back into cycling. He only used the boost on the steepest sections of the hills. Looked good to me.
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Have been forced to stay in due to tradesmen doing there thing back here. I just wanna get out: 'wasting ' days refurbishing the house seems not so important as the days shorten. (I mean,I'm getting older)
'Killing time' I dropped in here and fell across this thread. Excellent. Can and do agree with all on here. At the mo I still cycle,but for winter and the same geography curtailing some of my enthusiasm. (I now knock up most miles credit card cycling abroad)
Am I wrong here: read most recently that Holland's bike accident deaths have gone up considerably...because of the increased use of e bikes! It appears some (non-cyclists?)are getting on them,letting loose on cycle paths,and ending up crashed into street furniture or trees or cars when cycling -at a more reasonabale speed as age and experience would dictate - would have reduced the threat.
I was quite un/ surprised when I thought it and when you havent been a regular cyclist
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Apologies for some of the above garbled English. Brains working faster than the fingers,and both are ageing!
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I don't know of anyone in the Netherlands who doesn't cycle or own a bike :D. Perhaps it's the tourists causing the problem if there is any. My son lives in Rotterdam and they now have electric scooters that you can hire using an app on your smart phone just like you can in big cities here.
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i seen on facebook today SPA cycles just done there first EBIKE
it was a customer bike converted they done a fantastic job on it.
if they get enough interest they said they will start making them.
love to get my Thorn Audax converted tis a great bike.
anto.
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Go for it Anto! You'll get a charge out of it, I'm sure of it.
(Ah, jeez...can't believe I just said that! Sorry-o, must be the weather, it's crazymaking: -18 windchill as I write, forecast low tonight -20, so nobody riding just now, electric or otherwise.)
Cheers, John
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hah very good John ;D
ah man i could not afford it ,i had a guy look at my dolan yesterday offer me 600 i was nearly letting it go but thought better of it.
the top end ebike are crazy money, reise and muller are class seem to be really well made and look good but big money .
dream on anto.
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H
Am I wrong here: read most recently that Holland's bike accident deaths have gone up considerably...because of the increased use of e bikes! It appears some (non-cyclists?)are getting on them,letting loose on cycle paths,and ending up crashed into street furniture or trees or cars when cycling -at a more reasonabale speed as age and experience would dictate - would have reduced the threat.
I was quite un/ surprised when I thought it and when you havent been a regular cyclist
I was talking to a bloke of Dutch descent while setting up for the parish fete last Friday and he confirmed this.
His take was that some of the elderly riders were not used to the the surge of power provided by e bikes in certain circumstances.
Not so sure about the deaths but definitely a lot of crashes.
Mike
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I was talking to a bloke of Dutch descent while setting up for the parish fete last Friday and he confirmed this.
His take was that some of the elderly riders were not used to the the surge of power provided by e bikes in certain circumstances.
Not so sure about the deaths but definitely a lot of crashes.
Good points, Mike.
It seems the real picture is somewhat mixed. A good deal of "press" has been given to the issue...
https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2018/07/electric-bike-injuries-mount-102-e-cyclists-have-died-since-2014/
https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2017/09/more-fatal-accidents-as-e-bikes-grow-in-popularity-in-the-netherlands/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/25/older-men-using-e-bikes-behind-rising-death-toll-among-dutch-cyclists
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/22/older-dutch-cyclists-warned-surge-electric-bike-deaths-police-netherlands
...and one particularly tragic case here of a not-ebike:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45586492
While e-bike users have incurred injuries (particularly the subpopulation of older users due to increased exposure), the overall rate of injury across all populations may not differ much overall compared to conventional (unassisted) bikes according to a recent study ( https://www.itf-oecd.org/safety-e-bikes-netherlands ) which concludes...
...Crash risk and injury consequences were compared between users of EBs and CBs. From the results we conclude that use of electric bicycles is not associated with an increased risk of being treated at an emergency department (ED) due to a crash. Among victims treated at an ED, EB users are about equally likely to be admitted to hospital as CB users.
The present study only looked at the risks for individual users. The overall impact of EBs on road safety are complex and requires more research. There is some evidence that EBs may lead to a modal shift from driving but also new (recreational) kilometres by older cyclists .... Even though cyclists are not more at risk on EBs than on CBs, the EB enables relatively vulnerable elderly to cycle more often and longer. Due to the elevated risk of older cyclists this increases the number of serious road injuries (an exposure effect). These injuries need to be weighed against the
health benefits of more cycling within this group.
When I toured the Netherlands extensively in 2008, some motorized traffic used the bike paths -- mostly large numbers of petrol-powered scooters in and around large cities like Amsterdam and Rotterdam. The scooters I saw were often modified and driven flat-out without regard to the general flow of traffic and I witnessed some nasty scooter-bike injury accidents as a result.
Best,
Dan.
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I'm not surprised to hear about increasing accidents with increasing e-bike usage. Even for sensible people like us (OK, y'all anyway) there's enough torque in a perfectly legal bicycle mid-motor like the Bafang 8FUN BBS01 to do a wheelie from a standing start if you're careless with the throttle or the starting gear on a Rohloff-equipped bike. Slowing down and stopping is also fraught until the cyclist learns to let go of the throttle and to stop pedalling when he brakes for a standstill. In addition some motors have overruns, i.e they keep turning for several seconds after you let go of the throttle and stop pedalling, and the cyclist has to learn to allow for this, especially in traffic or when stopping. Front wheel motors, rear wheel motors and mid motors also behave differently and have to be adapted to by the cyclist. In addition, the size of and remaining charge in the battery is a factor because because the urge in the motor, whether controlled by throttle, electronic selectable program (stronger or weaker response), or pedelec built-in response (i.e. your cadence and the gear you're in), varies with the state of the battery, so that for the same power delivery with a half-full battery as with a full battery you must, for instance, mash the throttle a little harder, and when you slow down, the battery suddenly can deliver more coulombs because less is demanded of it, requiring a different braking pattern and distance. If the last sentence sounds baffling to you, take heart, it is damned counterintuitive; see
http://thorncyclesforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=12916.0
or search passim for "coulomb" without the curlicues. Note that even a throttleless, single-program, German-nanny-state-type pedelec with a relatively limp battery has its torque very substantially multiplied by gears 1 through 7 on the Rolloff.
The Bosch/Panasonic mid-motors used by many e-bike makers have torque-responsive software built in; Bafang claims the same, but what they have is a software simulation, not a direct measurement like the Bosch/Panasonic motors. But many of the reported rash of crashes must be on bikes with Bosch motors with the torque-management software, which to me points to a complex of further reasons for the crashes, including misdirected expectations of e-bikes.
One likely reason is speed that people are not used to. I read here and there about senior tourers who maintain 25kph or even 25mph, but my average speed with the motor is about 15kph/10mph, same as it was before I fitted the motor, because we talk as we ride; each ride is a social occasion. Dutch bicycle commuter traffic moves at about 15kph, and that is what most of the e-bike converts would be used to; they would have no or little experience of 25kph which almost every pedelec is limited to. 10kph faster may not sound like much on a Thorn tourer-board but it is 67% faster than they went before under leg-power -- for a lifetime. For the elderly, and especially the non-athletic elderly who are lifelong bicycle commuters in The Netherlands, 25kph is probably an adrenaline surge too far, very likely well outside their reflexes. Medical staff are often amazed at the speed of my reflexes, but reflexes that you learn as a young sportsman, especially if learned under stress, are never forgotten: they're like the ability to ride a bicycle; on the other hand, if not learned young, forget about learning good reflexes when you're already old.
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I have a Giant E bike fitted with a Yamaha mid motor similar to the Bosch. It has no throttle and any increase in speed is directly dependant to the power input to the pedals. The are no sudden surprises , the assist drops off at 25 kph and if you want to go faster than that it solely depends on you pedalling unassisted.
As an OAP who is still able to cycle my Thorn Nomad unassisted I am finding I'm enjoying going out on my Ebike as much as I can. I might not be using as much energy on my Ebike but if I'm going out twice as much I'm getting twice the fun.
Today's ride , very cold and wet. Distance 25km duration 01.18m energy 1031 Kcal.
Average speed 19.7 km/h Elevation gain 407.8m
No way I would gone out today on the Thorn given the weather.
Bob
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i reckon i would be using it every day instead of the car theres a lot of hills in my town an ebike conversion would make things great for me ;)
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Today's ride , very cold and wet. Distance 25km duration 01.18m energy 1031 Kcal.
Average speed 19.7 km/h Elevation gain 407.8m
No way I would gone out today on the Thorn given the weather.
For sure, an e-bike keeps you cycling longer.
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that's a fact. ;D
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It is 18 miles from my house to work, and roughly the same distance to my partner's house. Shetland is a windy place, I am old, overweight, unfit and asthmatic, the eXp is heavy and I am usually carrying at least 12kg of stuff. This leads to a journey time of about 2 hours and 15 minutes, plus or minus 15 minutes depending on wind speed and direction. One night the wind was so bad that it was difficult to go fast enough to be able to maintain my balance. When I finally arrive I usually feel like a wrung out rag. The solution had to be an eBike for trips into work (only on the finest days) and the eXp would be used for local rides to the shop (6 miles away) or the local ferry terminal (4 miles away) where there is wifi available.
I was amazed with the AARC Moulton TSR8 as it would cut my 18 mile trip down to as low as 1 hour 10 minutes, and I didn't feel like I needed a few hours to recover. Gradually though I found that I was barely using the eXp and the Moulton was becoming the bike for all journeys. I recently rode the eXp to the ferry terminal and found it quite hard going without the assistance. I had the wind behind me as well. Riding it back into what was a light wind for Shetland, somewhere between 12-18mph, I found it even harder, having to stop for a couple of minutes to get my breath back.
eBikes are wonderful things, really slashing journey times, but there will be hell to pay if you don't mix this with normal unassisted cycling. Eventually you realise that although you have been giving your eBike assistance (it's a pedelec) to move along, I suspect the effort is probably around 25-30% of what you would be using on an unassisted bike.
So my advice to you is put off eBikes until you are really struggling to ride a normal bike. Fitness is hard to build, but oh so easy to lose.
Old post resurrected!
I am in full agreement that E bikes should be used ONLY for those who CANNOT ride a normal cycle.
Personally as a long time health sufferer I will never use an E bike. I would rather do without or use a proper combustion engine moped!
Regards to those who do use E bikes.
John
As an update to my all time abhorrence of so called 'E bikes' and my preference for a real moped.
To update. The time has arrived when cycling ,although to be kept up because I do actually love riding and of course have N+ bicycles, when I really could benefit from help. Help either from a medical/physical point of view or something else.
The medical assistance has been taken to what is now the limit. Physically I am pretty fit but very much hampered by bodily disabilities.
So, this is my time to prove that I was not just waffling, indeed it is now done!
This coming Saturday a delivery will arrive from Colchester . It is already insured and also paid for. No going back now.
A real moped.
BMW R850R motorcycle.
I will resist posting a photograph unless I get enough response to this posting asking for one. I know it is not Thorn and indeed not a bicycle (along with 'E bikes') but I just had to make known my reduction in cycling. No doubt this bike will get used regularly and probably for Camping trips. So much easier but just as enjoyable and easier to carry a load. I am very glad that I was living through the internal combustion era but do agree that this type of engine should be phased out.
Cycling is still and will always be my passion. But cycling myself will reduce or at least stay as it is now which is regular but limited. Tour de France starts Saturday.....
Best to all and sorry for popping this thread back up again!
John
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Lovely bike John, Rode an R1000RS across Europe in the 80's absolutely loved it ... Would probably go for a Pan European or a Triumph Triple nowadays
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There are many views on e bikes. Here's mine: some peddlin is better than no peddlin. Its getting the blood circulating and getting the heart pumping. It makes you feel better. Motorcycling just isnt the same. I havent the licence to motorcycle,and can see its pleasures...but it isnt bicycling,if cycling is assisted...Still,both have pleasures and give opportunities to travel roads undiscovered...and feel better than travel by car.
It's good to hear Leftpoole still camps. I'm not sure if I have it in me theseadays. To have strong legs and a distant horizon was heaven.
I feel it more of an adventure to ride a Honda cub or somesuch,Leftpoole. I looked up what you mention is yours and feel you would have to do 60 miles before you break into the thrill that comes with bicycling. Still,getting out at all is a freedom.
Best wishes to you. I guess you still cycle some miles. Anything is better than nothing. Its what I say to myself.
Take care
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The joy of a ride on my RST is matched by the joy of a ride on my ebike (when hills are involved !) so it's six of one and half a dozen of the other.
I bet there were similar opinions when horseless carrigages first came onto the roads.
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The joy of a ride on my RST is matched by the joy of a ride on my ebike (when hills are involved !) so it's six of one and half a dozen of the other.
I bet there were similar opinions when horseless carrigages first came onto the roads.
That takes me back. I always tipped the guy walking in front of me with the red flag.😉