This morning I was waiting for a break in traffic to make a right turn at a red light. Fortunately I had to wait a few extra seconds, because some idiot doing 30+ mph downhill on an ebike whizzed past the front of my car. He was on the sidewalk and going against traffic. Whenever I'm walking/running/riding I look for eye contact with a driver before passing in front of their car, but I guess this guy was in too much of a hurry.

I just did some reading on bike laws in Utah and while it is legal to ride on the sidewalk, this guy's speed was way beyond reasonable. I also learned that kids under 14 aren't supposed to be using the motor on an ebike without direct parental supervision. You can guess how often that's enforced...

I can see where ebikes are going to cause issues in traffic and even in casual use by people who are unaccustomed to high rates of speed on bicycles.

I used to ride my mountain bike frequently and was a BMXer growing up. I am VERY comfortable on a bike in all sorts of conditions and at different speeds...BUT eBikes easily achieve speeds I would have to pedal my ass off to attain or I'd be going down a pretty intense slope/track. Needless to say I would have had to gain some experience to even get to those speeds.

I can imagine it would be like someone who was learning to ride a motorcycle on a 1000cc race bike. (I don't know, I don't ride motorcycles.)

Ebikes are motorcycles. They are fast enough now to be far more than a bicycle with a bit of assist up hills.

Tourists in large numbers rent them here and blast around town with no regard for traffic laws. The local ER sees at least one casualty per day from ebike crashes. I guess it helps keep the medics employed between ski seasons.

They are driving these electric scooters all over campus and some of them do 30+.

I watched one guy run a crosswalk and drove into the side of a moving bus, he was riding the scooter and ON HIS PHone. OMG. What an idiot.

You t-bone a bus at 20mph and it smarts.

quote:

Originally posted by Jim Shugart:
[Pic of Charles Darwin]

...but I would probably feel bad if they hit my car. And it would mess up my car.

I agree E-Bikes and their riders are a problem. Where I work in SLC leaving the main road and turning on to a private drive into our company parking lot is risky. The 6' wide sidewalk has lots of bike activity and you have to look much further up the sidewalk to see if bikes are coming since their speeds are so much higher. To make things worse the sidewalk is obscured by parking strip bushes. I am sure that down the road E-bikes will be banned from the sidewalks but its going to take some fatalities to make that happen.

quote:

Originally posted by gw3971:
I agree E-Bikes and their riders are a problem. Where I work in SLC leaving the main road and turning on to a private drive into our company parking lot is risky. The 6' wide sidewalk has lots of bike activity and you have to look much further up the sidewalk to see if bikes are coming since their speeds are so much higher. To make things worse the sidewalk is obscured by parking strip bushes. I am sure that down the road E-bikes will be banned from the sidewalks but its going to take some fatalities to make that happen.

It isn't the e-bike, it is the rider only.

Same argument as with guns. It's the USER, not the tool. Stupid people always find a way to ruin the fun.

quote:

Originally posted by Fly-Sig:
Ebikes are motorcycles.

Yeah, let's let the government regulate the shit out of yet another awesome and fun thing just because of a few idiots.
Don't be a crusty old curmudgeon.

I have yet to see a non-idiot ebiker around here. On the sidewalks, off the sidewalks, running against traffic, wrong way in the bike lane, blasting through crosswalks, etc. In Florida, the ebike are only supposed to work if the person is pedaling. Haven't seen one of those yet.

US41 is fun by me. Three lanes in each direction, plus a bike lane to the right of the car lanes on each side. When getting into the right turn lane, you cross the bike lane. Of course the bicyclists and ebikers ignore the fact that they are suppose to be going the same direction as the car traffic. It gets exiting when you are behind a box truck, start to move into the turn lane, and here comes Mr./Mrs. ebiker head on at you. I'm fairly sure the ebikers down here are people that lost their licenses for DWI.

I agree it is the riders. I observe the ebike riders weekly and they do seem to be a large percentage of idiots in the group.

There are 3 classes of ebikes:

-Class 1 - pedal assist motor up to 20 mph.
-Class 2- have a throttle and can go up to 20 mph. (motorcycle in opinion).
-Class 3 have a throttle and can go up to 28 mph. (again, motorcycle, some of these are being hacked to get more speed out of them).

My issue is not so much on the roads. I ride my bicycle several times on paved recreational hike and bike trails precisely to get away from cars. I normally average 13mph on these rides and have the skill to avoid dogs, kids that suddenly change direction, parents with strollers going 3mph, etc. We tend to all get along. Now come ebike riders at 20mph that have ridden a bike in 40 years thinking oh fun I am riding my bike. I have seen a few crashes, and way too many narrow misses from ebike riders going faster due to the technology but they don't have the skill set to control the bike at that speed and aren't paying attention. The potential for a 20mph bike and a 3mph pedestrian can be awful.

I don't care so much about the ebikes and cars on the road mix, ebikes will lose every time.

There are big debates going on in the mountain bike world. Bikers have had to fight to get access to trails and often co-exist with hikers and equestrians. Here come the ebikers going fast without skills and pissing everyone off.

That being said an ebike will be in my future one day when I am older. I have a local hero Pat that I had to really work to keep up with on the mountain bike trails when he was 75. Last year at age 78 he got 2 ebikes. I am happy to still ride with him. He has the skills to keep it under control.

Probably a good time to get a dash camera for my protection. Can you get a dash camera that films sides?
.

I bought an e-bike about a month ago. The main reason being I have an arthritic left knee. It can be painful to peddle at times. With an e-bike I can select power levels on the bike which makes the ride more comfortable. The bike has helped my knee.

I haven't seen many e-bikes in our area, there are a lot of hard core cyclists however. They'll generally meet on weekend mornings at the playground underneath the I-310 Mississippi river bridge on the east bank side and ride on the levee. The levee is paved from the spillway all the way to New Orleans, about 25 miles I'd guess.

When they ride in groups they sometimes will ride side by side. Generally they're ok, but several times when I've walked on the levee I've had to step to the side so as not to get run over.

In our area it's the motorists who are the biggest problem. They'll constantly speed doing well over 20 in our neighborhood. There's a 4 way stop sign at my corner that about one quarter of the drivers basically ignore.

When I ride my e-bike, class 3, Everyone has the right of way as far as I'm concerned, animals, pedestrians, cyclists and drivers. I want no incidents whatsoever. I don't speed and keep clear of everyone! I don't want to be that e-bike idiot.

Two problems with e-bikes; the riders treat them as normal bicycles and bad habits enter in, usually disregarding traffic laws, riding on sidewalks, etc. They forget that their bike is now a motorized vehicle with more speed and acceleration than a pedal bike. The other problem is that it seems most jurisdictions regard e-bikes as normal pedal bikes instead of motorcycles or scooters. IMO, these e-bikes are now mopeds, and should be treated as such.

quote:

Originally posted by OKCGene:
Probably a good time to get a dash camera for my protection. Can you get a dash camera that films sides?
.

Not sure about sides however a few months ago I installed cameras in my cars that have front and rear recording.

In Florida as far as I know bikes are suppose to obey the same laws a cars.
Bikes travel on same side of the road as cars and when crossing in a cross walk they are supposed to walk the bike across the intersection.

I see all kinds of bikes, e bikes or regular bikes constantly breaking the motor vehicle laws. This is another reason I installed front and rear looking cameras in both of my cars.
I am not going to get into a he says she says argument with some one on a bike who can make up anything they want to try not to be responsible for causing a accident. I will just go right to the video tape.

quote:

Originally posted by OKCGene:
Probably a good time to get a dash camera for my protection. Can you get a dash camera that films sides?
.

Just like a Thermos doesn’t know if it’s keeping hot stuff hot or cold stuff cold, a dashcam doesn’t know if it’s recording out the front, rear, or sides. There’s no reason you can’t mount a couple dashcams on fixed side windows if you have them.

quote:

Originally posted by gw3971:
I am sure that down the road E-bikes will be banned from the sidewalks but its going to take some fatalities to make that happen.

I'm pretty sure even regular bikes are banned from the sidewalk, at least the ones ridden by non-children, 12 and up, or something like that.

quote:

Originally posted by ibanda:
There are 3 classes of ebikes:

-Class 1 - pedal assist motor up to 20 mph.
-Class 2- have a throttle and can go up to 20 mph. (motorcycle in opinion).
-Class 3 have a throttle and can go up to 28 mph. (again, motorcycle, some of these are being hacked to get more speed out of them).

Some quibbles.

First, class 3 is pedal-assist-only to 28 mph and does not have a throttle.

Second, these classes are not universal. Most states use them but some don't.

Finally, there are ebikes that fall outside those three classes. In states that use those three classes, ebikes that fall outside the classes are, theoretically, classified as motorcycles and need to be registered and ridden with a driver's license with a motorcycle endorsement. Enforcement of this seems to be pretty much non-existent.

quote:

Originally posted by ibanda:
My issue is not so much on the roads. I ride my bicycle several times on paved recreational hike and bike trails precisely to get away from cars. I normally average 13mph on these rides and have the skill to avoid dogs, kids that suddenly change direction, parents with strollers going 3mph, etc. We tend to all get along. Now come ebike riders at 20mph that have ridden a bike in 40 years thinking oh fun I am riding my bike. I have seen a few crashes, and way too many narrow misses from ebike riders going faster due to the technology but they don't have the skill set to control the bike at that speed and aren't paying attention. The potential for a 20mph bike and a 3mph pedestrian can be awful.

People riding too fast for where they are or the current conditions is one thing, and it can be a problem. It can be (and frequently is) a problem in cars, too.

With that said, ebikes don't force you to go 20 mph, and 20 mph isn't an insane speed for a bicycle.

Before people jump me: yes, 20 mph on a bike on a crowded mixed-use pedestrian and bike path IS an insane speed. I already acknowledged that "riding too fast for where they are or the current conditions" is a problem.

If you just take leisurely rides on a city bike or mountain bike, sure, you'll probably never hit 20 mph. You may not even hit 15 mph.

If you're in decent shape and riding a road bike, 20 mph is easy, at least for a while.

If you're in great shape and riding a road bike, you can do 20 mph for hours.

There are a LOT of cyclists who look at this and say "well, you should have to work hard to get into good enough shape to be able to go that fast, ban ebikes," just like there are a lot of mountain bikers who say "well, you should have to work hard to get into good enough shape to ride to the top of this trail so you can ride down it, ban ebikes." Those guys mostly sound like assholes to me and I am REAL leery of that type of argument, even if we completely ignore all the people with disabilities, injuries, or other physical handicaps that mean they CAN'T get in good enough shape.

Hell, just the other day I read an article from some douchebag surfer who is pushing a petition to ban all ebikes from all California state parks because ebikes make it easier for people to get to his precious little favorite beach that he doesn't want to have to share with anyone else. Fuck that asshole. It's a state park. It's there for everyone. If he gets ebikes banned, I hope they pave a fucking highway to "his" beach.