
First 100 miles on my E-Bike - yilunzh
https://yilunzh.com/2017/12/30/first-100-miles-on-my-e-bike-what-i-learned/
======
WA
I have put about 3,000km on my E-bike in the last 1.5 years. It's limited to
25km/h, because then I don't need a license, it's fast enough for city traffic
(mostly in bike lanes anyways) and I get to tow a trailer for my kid.

Biggest advantage: Hills don't exist for me. We live in a city with quite a
few hills and day care is about 70-100m below our appartment. Doing this trip
twice a day with its 15% slope would take way longer and exhaust me, before
the day even started. The way downhill to day care is now something like 10
minutes and back up 11 minutes.

Biggest disadvantage: If you drive on mostly flat terrain, there's no real
benefit – it might even slow you down. I get my regular bike to 25km/h easily.
An E-Bike accelerates until it hits 25km/h and then it's just a damn heavy
bike (17-20kg) that is slower than a regular bike (if you're a somewhat fit
person).

Anyways, I love the E-Bike for the simple fact that I go almost anywhere by
bike, can take my kid with me and don't have to think about any hills at all.

~~~
Brakenshire
I've read about motorized doping in bike races, with motors hidden inside the
gearing, I wonder whether anyone's thought about this sort of thing for
consumer bikes, and what sort of benefit you could get for, say, 1kg or half a
kg of extra weight. E-bikes at the moment seem to have reconciled themselves
to being twice the weight of ordinary bikes.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
Something like this: [https://www.vivax-assist.com/en/product/vivax-
assist/vivax-a...](https://www.vivax-assist.com/en/product/vivax-assist/vivax-
assist_4-0.php)

I think the problem is range, you won't be able to hide much battery, the one
on my bike weighs 6LBs and is quite bulky.

In reality it doesn't really matter because the motor will more than offset
the extra drag and weight of a heavy bike.

~~~
ufo
Can you pedal and use the motor at the same time in a regular ebike? I think
what the parent posters want to be able to turn off the motor completely.

~~~
Wingman4l7
You can; it's called "pedal assist", and usually, the motor controllers can be
set to do it at different levels of pedaling intensity. It's usually
implemented by spacing magnets around the crankset and then calculating how
fast they're passing by a sensor.

------
analog31
>>> If the ride is so great and economics so favorable, why haven’t I seen
more adoption here in US and Canada?

The author's answers to this question focus solely on the bike technology
itself. This is a common thread in a lot of discussions about cycling: If we
only built the right bike, more people would ride. This is usually followed by
a CAD rendering of the perfect bike, that looks like nobody would want to ride
it.

I don't think it's the bike. I think that there are a lot of cyclists who are
simply not candidates for e-bikes because riding under their own power is part
of the attraction. I'm one of those people. A friend of mine who loves his
e-bike finally gave up trying to understand why I don't want one.

So you have to reach the same people who were deterred from cycling in the
past for reasons good and bad. The motor addresses the issue of effort, but
not safety, weather, or a variety of other factors, including the fact that
driving a car is fun for a lot of people. The e-bike could produce a marginal
uptick in cycling, in the short term, but not a revolution.

~~~
JKCalhoun
> including the fact that driving a car is fun for a lot of people

Hmmm... Communting to work is fun for people? I want to live where they live.

Keep the car for weekend cruising, the bike probably makes the boring commutes
more fun than a car would.

I built an bike 6 or 7 years ago but only took it once to work (a 20 mile
commute). It was underpowered and under-batteried but it was an interesting
starting point. I mean to try it again.

~~~
analog31
I think a lot has happened in the past few years, so that it's worth trying an
improved motor and battery system.

Winter is a great time to get geared up for the next season, and there might
be some seasonal discounts to take advantage of right now!

------
grwthckrmstr
Here in India I see a few people cycling to work. A "few" (we have a LOT of
people).

I can't see adoption increase. I myself won't ride a cycle, because

1\. There's way too much pollution on the roads. I'll die breathing that air

2\. If I don't die breathing that air, some car or bus driver who doesn't give
a shit about other people's lives and is on their phone while driving will hit
me and perhaps kill me (or worse, leave me disabled for life)

I want to cycle to work everyday. I want the exercise. I want to live, and to
be healthy, and to protect the environment.

But the flip side is, I might die.

~~~
deskglass
Is 1 really all that different from driving in a car with the AC on? If I
understand correctly, car filters typically only filter very large particles
that would damage the engine.

~~~
Zhenya
Engine air and cabin air are two separate intake paths.

The cabin air in modern cars is _highly_ filtered.

" Most dust filters will stop 100 percent of all particles that are 3 microns
or larger in size, and 95 to 99 percent of particles 1 to 3 microns in size.
The combination dust and odor filters have a layer of activated charcoal or
baking soda to absorb odors and air pollutants. Some of these filters may even
be lightly scented to enhance the driving experience."

[https://www.knowyourparts.com/technical-
resources/filtration...](https://www.knowyourparts.com/technical-
resources/filtration/cabin-air-filter-replacement/)

So yes. Being in a car with AC on is much better.

~~~
deskglass
Makes sense, thanks!

------
CydeWeys
I'm surprised the author spent so much money building on top of a base bike of
such low quality. That department store bike is what bike snobs would call a
"bicycle-shaped object". You certainly shouldn't not be cheaping out on the
actual bicycle for an e-bike, as you're putting the bike (and particularly the
brakes) through forces they were not properly designed for. The author even
admits such:

> The brakes are often too soft to handle continuous elevated speed. What ends
> up happening is that I spend more money overtime to upgrade the bike to my
> desired state. So far I spent about $1500, including parts and tools, this
> is accounting for a fairly cheap used bike on craigslist ($200). Had I
> bought a new bike, I would have had to spend probably close to $1900. To
> make it exactly the way I want it, I estimate that I have to spend an
> additional $800 to get install IGH, bigger brakes, and more efficient tires
> with less rolling resistance.

Frankly, the author's setup just sounds dangerous. The several-$K all-in-one
bicycles that they refused to get on grounds of cost are expensive because
they are actually built to handle the rigors of e-bike usage, and have
incredibly useful features like hydraulic disc brakes. The brakes on that
department store bike are "disc" brakes, but they're certainly not hydraulic,
or even good, at that price point.

~~~
yilunzh
Yup, the brakes is definitely the limiting factor currently, but other parts
of the bike have held up surprisingly well. I didn't really know anything
about bikes before starting this, so it was a cheap way to learn. I figured I
can always upgrade the parts over time if needed. I had set a max budget of
$1500 for the initial purchase and had to make tradeoff somewhere.

~~~
quickben
I've been getting interested in e-bikes recently. Work is 15km away, but I do
weight near 0.1 [t] :)

Hows the battery holding if you carry extra weight? How much does the total
setup, you included, weights?

~~~
yilunzh
My bike is around 50 lbs. I weight about 150 lbs. I often carry a bag about 20
lbs. So all in, it's about 200 lbs or ~90KG. I think my battery pack can go
about 50 miles per charge, but I never went that far on a single charge. I
usually charge after 30 miles to ease strain on battery, but that should still
be plenty for you to get to work and back.

------
eesmith
"Most of the commercial E-Bike uses 250W or 350W motors, because that’s what
the European specs are. While that amount of power is able to achieve 20MPH
range, it does take its time to get there. In the US, with the open roads,
that’s simply not enough power to keep up with traffic. Quite frankly, they
still feel like a plain bicycle and it’s a bit boring to ride. Higher adoption
require more power."

As I understand it, the EU standard says there's supposed to be no power
assist past 25km, which is about 16mh. That is, for e-bikes which don't
require a license.

I agree. If you want a more powerful e-bike, you should have a license.

~~~
yilunzh
Yeah, in the US, my understanding is that the regulation is much looser
relative to the rest of the world. You can have a maximum of 750W with a top
speed of 28 MPH without pedal assist, which in my view is plenty fast for a
bike. The problem is that because US is such a small market for EBike that
most are imported with European specs. In the US with straight and open roads,
they just aren't fast enough

~~~
cjensen
No. In the US the top speed is 20mph [1].

The author's bike is not street legal. It's classified as a motorcycle under
US and Arizona law.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_bicycle_laws#United_S...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_bicycle_laws#United_States)

------
jmull
The laws around e-bikes in the US can be a deterrent. E.g.: [The Murky
Legality of E-Bikes]([https://www.citylab.com/equity/2016/02/the-murky-
legality-of...](https://www.citylab.com/equity/2016/02/the-murky-legality-of-
e-bikes/426969/))

The second paragraph gives you the flavor of it:

> Under federal law, an electric bike with a maximum assisted speed under 20
> miles per hour can be sold as a bicycle, not a motor vehicle. Under New York
> state law, riders would need to register these as they would a motorcycle,
> moped, or car. But there’s no clear way to register them. Because of this
> regulatory patchwork, e-bikes are legal to sell as bikes anywhere in the
> U.S. but effectively illegal to ride in New York, since they can’t be
> registered as motor vehicles.

~~~
noonespecial
I actually worry about the "something must be done" crowd cajoling lawmakers
into lazily shoehorning electric bikes into the "motorcycle" category and
erasing much of their advantages to own as a bicycle.

This happened with boats here as my little plastic kayak with a tiny electric
assist has to be registered and taxed as if it was a full sized bass fishing
boat with a v8.

~~~
VLM
I would worry about the kit aspect of the bikes.

You're lucky to merely have to pay some money for your "power kayak".

In my state, to actively discourage the construction of home built boats, if I
want to build a 15 foot sailboat, I need to work with the coast guard and
state DMV (spoiler, they don't actually work together, the finger pointing is
hilarious) to get a hull number assigned, then fight the DOT to get it titled
(boats are titled where I live, and its agonizing although it only costs $5)
and its quite a fight involving official inspection because most "homemade"
boats are people trying to register are Crestliners with the serial numbers
filed off, then I can fight the DNR to register myself obtaining a DNR
customer number, and then fight the DNR to register the boat, essentially
linking my CG hull ID number to my DNR customer ID number for a mere $17/yr,
ironically the total cost of all of this for the first year would only be
roughly $30 but it takes like 100+ hours of phone calling and meeting people
and filling out forms. I pay $35 for a quart of good topside marine paint so
the point is not the expense but the bureaucracy agony. All that for basically
an inland lake dingy with a sail on it.

~~~
abraae
That sounds like insanity. My country by comparison is too far at the other
end of the scale. Anyone can buy (or make) a boat, with a 200 horse motor,
grab a six pack and a tank full of fuel and hit the water and go anywhere,
into any harbour, with no training whatsoever.

------
seniorsassycat
I also completed my first 100 miles on an ebike this past week, on a bike I
bought two weeks ago. I splurged and bought a top of the line pre-built[0].
Call it a mid life crisis.

It is a class three bike. The electric motor will only activate under 28mph.
There is no throttle, the motor multiplies your pedal force by 55-200%
depending on the setting (eco-turbo).

I can beat the bus on a few bus routes. I use to take the bus if the route had
too many hills but now I maintain 17mph without getting winded on steep hills.
An electric shortens and flattens any bike trip, I'm never sloughing up a
hill, and I'm never asking myself if it's worth riding the bike. Even if bus
or uber is faster it wont be twice as fast. Biking is still fun and still a
workout, I'm a out of breath with sore legs after a ride.

I'm sometimes self-conscious about 'cheating'. I'm not sure how fast I should
be going on a mixed use bike path. I'm afraid this bike will get stolen one
day, even with a ulock and cable. If not stolen, vandalized.

I think that electric bikes could be the future of city transit if the price
comes down. Secondary problems include theft and weather.

[0] [https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/bikes/hybrid-
bikes/electr...](https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/bikes/hybrid-
bikes/electric-hybrid-bikes/crossrip/crossrip/p/1373000-2018/)

~~~
rckclmbr
I also bought a top of the line pre-built
([https://www.stromerbike.com/en_US/e-bikes/st2.html](https://www.stromerbike.com/en_US/e-bikes/st2.html))
almost 2 years and 7500 miles later, I have zero regrets. My goal is to break
even for car cost for the price ($0.55 cents per mile). It hasn't happened
yet, but I would already call it worth it due to the peace of mind of not
having to sit in traffic every day.

------
johnbender
> My third favorite thing is that I can get to work in basically the same
> amount of time as driving. On my E-Bike, it takes 22 minutes to get to work
> (7.5 miles). It takes me 15 minutes to drive there.

I live about 6 miles from where I work in Los Angeles. I ride my bike (not an
E-bike) in three or four times a week. It takes me 25 minutes on average. By
contrast, it takes me at least 35 minutes to drive, not including time to park
and walk to the office.

I ride on neighborhood roads most of the way for safety, I have to do some
personal cleanup when I get there and Los Angeles is particularly bad where
traffic is concerned. With all that in mind, it's still worth considering for
others in a similar situation.

------
ozten
Daily, year-round bike commuter in Seattle - I think electronic bikes are
awesome for the hills in Seattle for folks new to biking. I'm concerned with
the possibility of this increasing accidents, however.

My commute is mostly on roads with cars. I don't ride as fast as I can.
Driving defensively, you want to be able to break and avoid a collision.

I witnessed a really bad accident, where a car t-boned a cyclist. This has
cured me of riding as fast as I can into work.

I see a lot of normal bikers as well as e-bikers going faster than is safe and
I think e-bikes contribute to riders putting themselves into jeopardy.

~~~
alfla
Also year-round commuter in Norway w/ an e-bike. I agree that the increased
speed increases the probability of an accident. I've personally had several
close calls vs cars in roundabouts and on bike lanes (!).

I also have a motorcycle license and I've been riding motorcycles for about 5
years in traffic. A lot of the risks are very similar to the ones you
experience on an e-bike in my opinion.

Edit: The best tip I can give to two-wheel riders is to increase visibility as
much as possible, and be observant of cars. Lights and bright colored clothing
helps a lot.

------
LogicX
I bought a Pedego electric bike this summer to replace a car.

I work from home, and there are many stores, restaurants, my Dr, etc. within a
30min e-bike ride, so we tried this experiment.

It's working out rather well in Myrtle Beach, SC.

My bike did cost me over $3k, however I too went through the process of
evaluating what it would cost to build my own. aconsidering my weight (300lbs)
The Pedego Stretch was one of the few bikes designed to handle that weight,
and has the largest battery in the Pedego lineup. I've been happy with my
purchase (including 0% APR financing for 1 year - making it a cheaper monthly
payment than the lease I traded in - and that cost goes to $0 this coming
summer).

It definitely opened up possibilities beyond a standard bike, and removed the
feeling of being 'trapped' while working from home with no car while my wife
has it at work.

------
ShakataGaNai
For the author, I'm really curious about the section "Economics of owning an
E-Bike relative to car". Would you mind sharing your rough math on how you
came to those numbers? The IRS rate for expensing milage is $0.54/mile which
(in theory) is supposed to cover standard maintenance and fuel.

However mostly it just seems really high for the bike to be $0.14/mile. My
back of the envelope calculation for electricity cost is: ~$0.10 per KWHR. The
battery pack is sub 1 KW so even with charging inefficiency should cost no
more than $0.10 to charge. Divided by roughly 50 mile range means an
electricity cost of $0.002 per mile. I could be way off, hence why I'm
curious.

~~~
Johnny555
I think he gets to that $0.14/mile by including the cost of the complete bike
(assuming 500 charge cycles of the battery, which at 30 miles/charge should
last him about 4 years with a 15 mile commute).

Over those 4 years, he'll ride 15 miles/day * 253 working days/year, or 4000
miles/year, or 16000 miles.

So.... $1400 / 16000 = $.09/mile

He also included maintenance, so if he spends $200/year in maintenance (not
unreasonable if he takes it to a bike shop for maintenance), that gets him up
to $0.14/mile.

------
mindB
Author seems to think an internal drivetrain for a bike would be more
reliable. Maybe somebody more mechanical can chime in, but my understanding
was that the opposite was true: only reason cars have to use an internal
drivetrain is for cooling and external ones are generally more reliable?

~~~
jdietrich
Internal gearhubs are drastically more reliable than derailleur gears and
require almost no maintenance. They use an epicyclic gear train in a sealed
oil bath, so most of the mechanical parts are protected from moisture and
foreign objects. The use of a gearhub also facilitates the use of an enclosed
chaincase, or a belt or shaft drive.

The Sturmey Archer 3-speed gearhub has existed largely unchanged since 1938
and is faultlessly reliable, even when horribly neglected. As long as they're
rebuilt every 10,000 miles or so, they'll last a lifetime. They're the
standard gearing option on Dutch utility bikes and were once the most popular
of all bicycle gearing systems. The only real downside of the Sturmey Archer
gearhub is that it offers a narrower range of ratios than a derailleur system,
although it's more than adequate for utility cycling in moderately hilly
areas.

Newer gearhubs offer eight, eleven or fourteen ratios, matching the gear range
of a mountain bike derailleur system. They're less popular than derailleur
gears because of the higher cost and marginally higher weight, but I think
that they're a vastly superior choice for utility cycling. One great advantage
for casual cyclists is that gearhubs change smoothly and instantly, even under
heavy pedal load or at a complete stop. Changing gears on a derailleur system
requires a degree of finesse to avoid jerky changes and dropped chains.

Rohloff manufacture the most sophisticated of all gearhubs, which have been
successfully used on several round-the-world tours.

~~~
mindB
Can you buy bikes that come with internal gearhubs on the consumer market, or
is this always an aftermarket thing nowadays?

~~~
jdietrich
Yes, although they can be somewhat hard to find in some markets. Any Dutch or
German bike shop will have a wide selection of bikes with gearhubs, but in the
US you might need to speak to a dealer that specialises in urban utility
bikes. Some department store cruiser and hybrid bikes have Sturmey Archer
3-speed gearhubs, although the rest of the bike may be mediocre.

Dahon and Tern are both manufacturers of folding bicycles and both offer a
good range of bikes with gearhubs. Folding bikes can be a very practical
choice even if you don't use the folding feature very often - they're compact,
agile and easy to ride.

------
cmurf
This is a better article than I thought it would be; it's a bit scattered in
that it discusses buying an ebike vs retrofitting one, and then also the user
experience of being on an ebike: propensity to pedal rather than throttle, 1
gear being sufficient for flats, and 3 gears for hilly terrain, the comfort
factor of biking faster when merged with traffic, and not being sweaty upon
arrival when commuting.

I wish there were the political capital to put in more physically separated
bike infra in American cities. Sharing infrastructure flat out does not work
here, we are not mature or disciplined or standardized enough in our driving
competency. A huge part of this is generational, my mom is all "This traffic
sucks! Rip out the trees, rip out the sidewalks, put in more road lanes!" even
though she bikes once a week to go play bridge with friends, and my dad won't
even get on a bike. Millennials probably would like to rip out roads and put
in more public transit and bike infra, and get rid of cars. I for sure would
like to get rid of death by cycling, and single occupancy vehcicles. But there
really isn't the political capital right now to do anything but piecemeal
approaches.

------
waytogo
I don't grok e-bikes. I like them and I'd like to get one but I just don't
know how I will manage the charging. I am livinig in a big city and have no
garage and no wall socket in front of my street door. And 100% of all
destinations I ride to don't have wall sockets for charging neither.

So, I would need to carry every time the heavy battery upstairs (3 floors)? I
am anyway always full-loaded with bags or whatever and don't want to carry
every-time this stupid battery as well.

Then, the really beautiful e-bikes have an integrated battery in the frame, a
bit like the iPhones. How should this now work?? I carry the 17-20kg bike
upstairs every time?

Ok, only if you have a house with a garage in some suburb you can ride those
bikes but then you are usually so far way from the city center that you need a
car again.

As a final note: These bikes are so much heavier (17kg and up) and I am
wondering if it's that much more effort to ride a light 10kg bike without any
electrical motor.

So, I am really curious about the real use case of e-bikes.

Edit: Why the downvote?

~~~
chrisseaton
> Edit: Why the downvote?

Maybe it's because you've said you don't understand e-bikes for the ridiculous
reason that they don't fit your very specific living situation like what kind
of housing you have, which floor you live on and how many bags you're prepared
to carry.

Other people have different living situations, and e-bikes suit them. It's not
a mystery.

~~~
waytogo
Then again what is the living situation ('use case') where an e-bike works? I
also made the example with a house and garage. I don't see any killer use case
but are happy to learn relevant use cases.

~~~
chrisseaton
I mean just to look at one part of the world, but which many of us will
understand, look at somewhere like San Mateo, the sub-urban area halfway
between San Francisco and San Jose in Silicon Valley. Imagine living in a
house with a garage somewhere like Foster City.

[https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@37.5466469,-122.2920167,13z?h...](https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@37.5466469,-122.2920167,13z?hl=en)

A family could get all around this area very nicely on an electric bike. Maybe
you bike to an office in Redwood Shores, your wife teaches the College of San
Mateo campus up the hill and she can get there on an electric bike there as
well. She basically recharges it on the way back on the down hill. Your
daughter goes to Hillsdale High School where she can electric bike to and
works a part time job at the Whole Foods Market there which can bike to as
well.

Your suburb example was flawed because not everyone is trying to get into a
big city centre.

~~~
waytogo
(1) Having a town house with some wall socket at the entry or a garage and (2)
not trying to get into a big city centre might be a use case, yes. Thanks for
elaborating your example but I don't think that this use case is strong or
ubiquitous enough (maybe in SF) to lead e-bikes to mass adoption. I still
think the concept of an e-bike, in particular the charging, is super flawed.
If the battery is removable you can charge this thing but you have to carry a
fat battery pack back and forth and your bike looks super clumsy (and yes, all
bikes with removable batteries look clumsy) or if it's integrated it looks
nice but it's hard to charge that thing.

I mean, I see that all bike manufacturer start to produce e-bikes and they
form a large part of their revenues because they are much more expensive than
normal bikes but if I'd make a mini poll here, how many of you guys have an
e-bike, how many a normal bike? I bet the rate is 1:10 (e-bike:bike) or even
lower.

~~~
user5994461
If the battery is removable, it will be stolen.

~~~
Johnny555
As will everything else on the bike that's not bolted on (and sometimes even
that is stolen). So take it with you when you park in an unsecured area.

------
chx
I swear the best commuter ebike is the Revelo Flex
([https://www.revelo.ca/pages/flex-electric-folding-
bike](https://www.revelo.ca/pages/flex-electric-folding-bike)). It's like
someone shrank a penny farthing and put a motor in the back wheel: the front
wheel is 20" and has pedals attached to it (so you can help the motor when
uphill), the back is 16" and has the motor inside (torque!). You can order it
with bike ABS as well ([https://www.bikerumor.com/2012/11/27/hands-on-sabs-
antilock-...](https://www.bikerumor.com/2012/11/27/hands-on-sabs-antilock-
bicycle-brake-pads/)). Since it's folding and rolling folded you can easily
carry it on public transit. It's only 15kg which is just about the lightest
possible (those batteries are heavy). There's no chain to maintain, no grease,
nothing. Just hop on, zip along and _stop_ when the situation warrants -- the
stopping distance of the SABS pads is nothing short of incredible (I have been
rearended by another cyclist once when I fully engaged them to avoid a
collision with a car -- normally when riding in a bike lane I don't grip them
like my life depends on them because I know how they behave).

~~~
Too
With such a small front wheel and your feet on the front wheel, how do you
climb a curb? That just looks like designed for a OTB. That funny one foot
down maneuver kickbike-riders do to jump might work but doesn't look easy.

~~~
chx
Vancouver, BC is a very accessible city so the curbs have ramps at crossroads.
And we have a really nice bike lane network. I never had this problem.

------
amiga-workbench
I built mine last year to get to and from work, 1000W motor and a 10AH
battery, cost me just under a grand and its paid for itself many times over.

I don't need that power all the time, but there is a rather steep hill on my
way home which would be a challenge to get up on a less powerful motor.

------
m1keil
Question to e-bike owners - did you have to handle any sort of negativity from
non e-bike riders? Stuff like "oh you are lazy", "this is unhealthy" etc?

~~~
analog31
Every group has its snobs. There are also people who think that car drivers
are lazy and unhealthy.

I'm a conventional cyclist, but some of my friends have e-bikes.

For the most part, people get along. While cyclists don't know what to expect
as e-bikes get more popular, we also recognize that e-bikes provide access to
cycling for a larger population. The hope is that the overall popularity of
cycling will be better for everybody. There's a general observation that car
drivers behave better towards cyclists as cycling gets more popular in any
given locale.

At least in my locale, e-bikes are arriving on the scene gradually enough,
that people can have a wait-and-see attitude about how they will mix with
conventional bikes as they get more popular. For now I have a laissez-faire
attitude unless or until problems emerge.

------
JKCalhoun
> Having now gone through the experience, I would definitely recommend the
> build route. You just get much more value for your money.

And then there's the "IKEA effect". ;)

------
bostonbot
I had my own ebike startup 2 years ago (Lectro). What killed it was the fact
that large lithium battery packs were classified with hazmat status. This
classification might have been spurred by the exploding hoverboards. Product
shipping and liability became too high for profits. I would assume big box
retailers have similar concerns. If the BMS in the battery had an issue, It
was very difficult for the customer to ship back.

------
jbgreer
I left a comment on the author's page (awaiting moderation), but I'll copy it
here: if you're going to try this at home familiarize yourself with local
laws. I'm all for getting more people on bikes, but some of the suggestions he
makes are illegal in my state. Be aware of power limitations, braking
requirements, and how the resulting vehicle would be classified (and should be
labeled).

------
bbarn
Logging all your e-bike miles on strava is kind of lame. Even in your screen
shots you can see you're taking KOM segments that others enjoy competing for
from people, and I doubt those are other e-bike users. The whole point of the
site is to act as a athletics tracker, and using a motor driven cycle here
undermines that.

------
jordache
I still think the opportunity cost of not having a car is greater than
whatever you pay to make it instantly available, should you want to take that
trip during poor weather, or sufficient distance to make the ebike non
applicable.

Unless you are content with the daily patterns that are constraint by the
range of your e-bike.

~~~
lmm
A parking space where I live (London) would cost 1100/month. I find it very
hard to imagine getting that much value out of a car - what would I ever use
it for? I mean sure it would make it easier to make a spontaneous trip
hundreds of miles while carrying lots of luggage for some reason, but how
often do I want to do that?

~~~
jordache
well when you live in a dense urban environment, you are already prioritizing
certain things above having a car.

------
philfrasty
I'd like to understand e-bike usage from a user perspective. Why does it
appeal to a traditional biker to use an e-bike in the city (not talking cross
country)? Why not „just bike“ or the opposite as in scooter/e-scooter? How
come there is such a big market in between?

~~~
georgeoliver
I recently built an ebike like the OP to commute. Up to now I would bike
commute sometimes and ride my non-ebike or take transit for most non-work
trips, but for work commuting there was too much extra friction -- too far,
too much to carry (I work in construction) -- to bike consistently. However I
enjoy biking and it's a great way to commute in my car-congested city (if I
solved the friction problem).

The extra watts of the ebike removes the friction.

------
dm319
> In order for E-Bike to really take off, I think there is a need to design it
> from the ground up. Instead of building the motor and battery pack around
> the frame, the right way to design an E-Bike is to build the frame around
> the motor and the battery pack.

That's a motorbike. So is an e-bike really, but regulations allow it to be
classified as something different so that you don't need a license.

EDIT: should clarify I enjoyed reading the article, and I think electric
motorcycles and e-bikes have a bright future. I use a motorbike for my daily
commute; non-riders should realise that they are far more vulnerable on two
wheels. If you realise this and ride appropriately I think it is a reasonably
ok thing to do. Having a bit of power actually makes things safer in an urban
environment as it means cars aren't pushed into attempting dangerous
overtaking maneuvers.

~~~
samstave
That’s a good point..

But I don’t care about that point, what I care about is efficiency in the
design.

Just make the best damn, longest reaching, cheapest version that you can while
sustaining your business with something people actually want.

------
benbojangles
Very similar to this guy's article from 2016:
[http://dalybulge.blogspot.co.uk/?view=magazine](http://dalybulge.blogspot.co.uk/?view=magazine)

------
NelsonMinar
I worry about the safety of 20-30MPH and trying to stay with car traffic.
e-bikes make more sense to me as an assist for riding at normal bike-like
speeds than as a way to ride at moped speeds.

~~~
yilunzh
I should clarify that on the bike path, I generally do stay in the 15-20 MPH
range, as there are many pedestrians traveling at low speed. On the road
however, staying at typical bike like speed actually feel more dangerous to
me. It kind of feels like driving on the highway at 45MPH when everyone is
going 75MPH and a bit nerve wracking.

------
mojoe
The author mentions that ebikes in China run around $500. Has anyone here
tried importing one of those models?

~~~
rurban
I've imported my european bike for $800. It lasted quite a while, until I
tried to fix a flat tire in the Lance Anderson bike shop in Austin, TX.
They've got coffee, but have no idea about e-bikes. They broke it (short
circuit), but thanksfully there was an e-bike repair in Austin. They could
repair it to 95%. There' was still some leakage. I think there's one repair
shop every 1000 miles. There's none in Houston. It was stolen after 2 years,
which was expected.

My imported bike was far better than any $1000-2000 bikes in the states. They
are all a scam.

------
ricardobeat
That attached battery would get stolen in a pinch. Not practical unless you
have closed/safe parking at every destination, i.e. won't work in Europe where
we mostly park on the street.

I'm curious about the second picture: it looks like the motor is in the way of
the pedal crank arm?

------
sitkack
For those looking for a totally integrated electric bike company in North
America, checkout out
[https://www.radpowerbikes.com/](https://www.radpowerbikes.com/) and they are
less expensive than cobbling a retrofit together.

------
chakalakasp
This feels like one of those things Tesla could tackle in a heartbeat.

------
samstave
Should have just bought a faraday bike

------
realworldview
No insurance and a powered vehicle?

------
excalibur
> If the ride is so great and economics so favorable, why haven’t I seen more
> adoption here in US and Canada?

1\. What's an E-Bike?

~~~
excalibur
I can't believe the number of downvotes this has gotten. It's a very large
contributing factor that was overlooked by the author. Get over yourselves.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
You could have been less snarky about it.

------
simonebrunozzi
e-Bike prices are a scam. An e-bike can't possibly cost thousands of dollars,
when components only add about $100-$120 to the total cost.

Until prices go down significantly, I am refusing to buy one.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Not sure why this is getting downvoted when TFA says that e-bikes here
typically cost 6-10 times what they do in China.

