Long Range E-Bike (2021)

Sort of a hijack, but it rides on the awesomeness that e-bikes can bring about. They truly are incredible if you have never gotten to ride one.

E-bikes with throttles should not be refereed to as e-bikes

E-peds, e-motos, electric motorycle, whatever. Just don't call them ebikes.

The problem is people (especially kids) getting what are essentially electric motorcycles, thinking they are ebikes, and then causing all sorts of chaos on roads and bike paths. This inevitably leads to the public hating "e-bikes" and the government passing totally confused laws about "e-bikes". This also leads to kids getting killed because mom and dad bought them an "e-bike" and let them loose on the roads with it.

Pedal assist ebikes are incredible, and really just turn weak cyclists into strong cyclists, while still providing exercise. It's a revolution for society, but we have to be careful to not totally fumble it with electric motorcycle death machines.

I know a guy who tried doing something like this and burnt his house down. One of the batteries exploded and took the others with it.

eBikes are such a game changer. I do most of our family of four's grocery shopping with ours.

Because of the assist, I find myself more comfortable in a wider range of weather conditions:

* If it's hot, I use more assist and there's an instant cooling effect. Much better than climbing into a hot car.

* If it's cold, I dress up to be warm outside and if I start to warm up on the ride, I use more assist. I don't have to try and balance staying warm and not getting sweaty.

* Same thing if it's wet out: I can wear heavier waterproof gear and not get sweaty.

In my city, travel habits and condition, I find I wish for more torque and lower speed. Every place I want to go has significant hills that the motor can't handle, and easing climbing hills is the main reason I want an ebike. My ebike's minimum speed for the motor is 15kph, which is ok by myself, but my family likes to go slower, so I have to go fully manual with them. When I look at ebike ads it feels like nobody else cares about these two areas of performance. When I talk to local ebike shops they are unprepared to talk about torque and minimum speed.

It's weird that these restrictions apply: 25km/h, 55km range? The Evolve Carbon skateboard tops out at 50km/h, and 80km range. Granted, you have to be a little bit crazy to ride that fast on a skateboard, and having owned an earlier version, I guarantee it's not pleasant riding that far on one. But people do it. Someone must be putting out faster/longer distance bikes that don't look like/ride like mopeds.

Okay, a quick google and this seems somewhat moped-ish but 200 mile range, 28mph top speed: https://aniioki.com/products/aniioki-aq177-pro-max-electric-...

Crazy price, but a real bike with 300 mile range and 36mph top speed: https://shop.optibike.com/shop/r22-everest/

Original post and discussion in 2021: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29198205

Man: “How much power that thing got?”

You: “Yes.”

Right after the pandemic of 2020, I joined an “outside squad” of OneWheel enthusiasts, PEV daredevils, and E-bike low riders. We would ride around the city in 70 man packs. It was the most fun I’ve had as a grown up. :) Even broke my olecranon in a nose dive but rode my wheel out of the hospital. Best money spent.

Respect: that's a beautiful pack.

I'm a total sucker for ebikes and built my first ebike around 2006, powered by 40lbs of lead acid motorcycle batteries.

I recently outfitted a trailer with a large battery made for an efoil (my other obsession) where the non-battery components went bad, the company went out of business, and "Hey, this would make a bitchin' ebike battery.

Here's me cruising around the Oregon back country with said setup last summer: https://imgur.com/a/lmvJSBW

I think that size of battery would move it into requiring a motorcycle license here in Switzerland, just based on the size alone. And if it goes faster than 45km/h then definitely.

I have my motorcycle license and have been considering getting something that I can ride all day. Only problem is that if it's classified as a motorcycle license I don't think I can take it in the train like a bike if I run out of juice far away.

I bought an entry level ebike and the range is about 100km on lowest power on flat land, and of course it increases if you drive above 25 km/h.

I don't know what the difference is with what op has, but for me it's no extra issue to drive above the top speed. It's a gradient transition.

I use mine daily and charge it every two or three weeks.

The article mentions using Trespa, which I had to look up. It's a type of cladding that is fire resistant but is also not metal. It's a laminate type. The author is in the Netherlands, the infrastructure there must be really good to be able to ride 160km on an e bike between cities.

If I'd want more range, I'd go with an extra battery in a backpack.

It does feel like this is such an untapped market. Think commuters, credit cart tourers, tourism around a spread out city. Something that is safer than a motorcycle and faster than a bike.

I would be a bit worried that the extra weight compromises the structural integrity of the frame. 2kWh are heavy

... put your (e)bike on a train, that's where the range come from.

Very cool experimentation but in term of making the practice sustainable best to rely on the infrastructure. It's a bit like in sports having to use the big muscles, e.g. you climb with your legs, not with your fingers no matter what super strength grip you have.

The aerodynamic situation of a bicycle is so disadvantageous that the easiest way to get a long range e-bike is to simply ride more slowly. People internalize beliefs about energy-range ratios from electric cars, but they don't translate well to bicycles.

The title should say (2021). Great article.

Very cool. Thanks for sharing. I have an ebike myself and have considered just strapping extra battery packs to the frame so that I can just swap when required. In the end, I mostly take shorter trips (I’ve had it since Dec and my odo only reads three figures).

Speaking of R&M, I have wanted to get one of their bikes that has the child container area in the front. I saw one guy with one and it looked pretty awesome. A large bike like that would benefit from some larger battery pack. And those have a flat area in front on the frame where you can host a few parallel to the floor (hard in a normal bike frame).

One annoying constraint is that it’s hard to find a place here in America where people won’t tacitly kill children. As more people here become online only child-free characters driving large EVs they don’t think too much about killing children and will only delay someone’s license for a couple of years for doing so.

The hard problem seems to be other people.