What bothers me even more is the 25 kph speed limit, after which all the electronics are legally required to be dead weight. Come on, I can cycle faster than that on muscle power (and I normally do). I've averaged 27 kph doing 90 kilometers on a friggin touring bike, carrying a sleeping bag, change of clothes, shoes.
I take a bike to get from place A to B faster. I'd take an electric bike to get even faster while spending less of my own energy. Actually, I'd be quite happy even with just 250W as long as I can use all of it on top of my muscle power, no matter how fast or slow I'm going.
Speed is ultimately what makes me pick the car over bike for longer rides.
I get that, but as someone who rides a bike in the city, very few cyclists consistently go faster than that. I don't want to have to share a bike lane with people who are riding what is more a small electric motorcycle than a bicycle.
That said, I'm all for people buying electric motorcycles if that's what they want. It seems like an area ripe for innovation, and getting somebody to step down from a car to something smaller is great by me.
Riding consistently enough to gain speed is strongly correlated with being a better rider. I don't want to share the bike path with a bunch of 14-year-old kids traveling 40kph on electric bikes that they got for Christmas.
I definitely don't hit speeds like that in a city, and in San Francisco I have plenty of hills to give me opportunities. I don't believe it's safe given urban traffic.
"The average speed can vary according to weather conditions and ability, but expect an overall average of around 17mph -19mph for a ride of 60 miles"
Furthermore, an average speed will have significantly faster and slower portions along the ride. The OCC will drop to far slower speeds uphill and will ride far faster on the downhill.
Yes, of course downhill is faster. On a mountain bike I've only knowingly once managed to break 30mph, but that was going for it and definitely not erring on being safe. My average road speed at the time was about 15mph.
The top speed for powered cycles should be around the normal average as then there's not a large differential between powered and unpowered bikes making it safer when they share road space.
That appears to be a ride where they've deliberately set a slower pace for a ride based around socializing. 12-13 mph is about right if you're going to be leisurely carrying on conversations with fellow riders. Any faster and wind noise becomes an issue. I can't talk to my fellow riders at 20+mph.
"lycra clad racing-bike riders" ride far faster.
Capping a vehicle at 15mph means you'll be constantly getting passed on trails. I have ridden a 15mph capped scooter, I was one of the slowest vehicles in my local area that day. I returned it.
My concern is about relative speed. When going down a hill, everyone is going faster. I'm more worried about unskilled and inexperienced riders blowing past slower riders on the way up the hill.
People have granny gears. I see kids and the elderly and everything in between regularly coming down hills that get you to 25kph and more if you pedal a little.
I also see unfit people hike up their bike and then ride down. I'm ok with it. If it gets them moving, my hat's off to them.
Both of which are quite a bit incovinient than flipping a switch. Hats off to them indeed but an argument for unlimited electric power based on them is a bit rubbish.
I think the argument was for limited power that you can apply on top of your unlimited muscle power, regardless of speed. I don't see why it has to be so controversial. 250W is a big boost for those who can't go fast on their own; for those who can, it's a convenient and enjoyable but relatively small boost because they can already put down hundreds of watts and increased drag (which is where most of your energy goes on flat terrain at speeds over 20kph) means massively dimnishing returns.
I really don't understand why it is so controversial.
So enforce speed limits for everything in the bike lanes. Some jackass training for time trials on aero bars is just as obnoxious as “14 year old kids.” Let’s also put a length restriction on dog leashes, especially banning retractable ones. On Stevens Creek Trail in Mountain View, more dangerous than the Lance Armstrong wannabes are the women walking small dogs on retractable leashes on the bike trail. My point is that arbitrary restrictions on a specific mode of transport is ridiculous if similar rules don’t appply to everyone. The “e” in ebike/scooter is irrelevant. The jackassery is mode agnostic.
I think you're an outlier. I accommodate with my bike every day and I never bike faster than 25. Not because I can't, but because I'm just trying to go work safely, why go that fast? I have flexible hours anyway, if I'm late 5 mins no one's gonna notice. If scooters started riding on bike lines I'd sell my bike and start using the train. I don't wanna bike next to an object that is significantly faster than me. If I would be ok with that I'd just use a car.
25kph is a meandering speed for an adult on a road bike. 30kph is quite common and 35kph isn't unusual. I regularly ride paved commuter trails with bikes doing all of those speeds and it really isn't a problem.
The idea that a 10kph speed differential between vehicles is a problem doesn't make any sense considering you have a 25kph speed differential with stationary objects on your commute. Or 50kph if you consider two 25kph bikers passing each other.
It's really a non issue. 25kph is an unreasonably slow limit. The energy levels involved in a bike crash simply don't compare to the potential for damage in a car crash, in part due to the lack of mass.
> It's really a non issue. 25kph is an unreasonably slow limit. The energy levels involved in a bike crash simply don't compare to the potential for damage in a car crash, in part due to the lack of mass.
If I crash my car at 50 km/h collision speed chances are quite good that I'll be sleeping in my own bed that day.
If I crash my bike at 50 km/h collision speed, I'm lucky if I survive.
Energy levels are irrelevant. When I'm riding a bike, my body is the crumple zone.
We're talking about two vehicles colliding with each other. The mass of the vehicle is absolutely relevant.
Crashing a bike at 30mph/50kph is not as dangerous as you suggest, you can find plenty of higher speed bike crashes on youtube with no fatalities. Road rash and broken bones are the most likely outcome. I've crashed at this speed and I walked away with road rash only.
There is an enormous difference between a bike crash which results in sliding along the pavement and a car crash.
Your argument doesn't make sense to me. When do two bikes pass each other? That literally never happened to me, if it did I would yell the other biker saying they're going the wrong direction. When are there stationary objects on the bike lane? When a car is stopping, and that annoys the hell outta me and by no means ok or the norm. If there is a >10kph differential between me and a bike I immediately try to let them pass me. Why are they going so fast, threatening all bikers' lives?
> It's really a nonissue
Well, it may be for you. I've been biking for 15 years and it really is an issue for me. I don't want pedestrians, cars or fast objects on bike lane. If there are a lot of bikes on the bike lane and convoy goes at 30 kph that's perfectly fine, I go 30 too. But if people go 25 and some asshole is trying to go at 35, then we have a problem.
> Well, it may be for you. I've been biking for 15 years and it really is an issue for me. I don't want pedestrians, cars or fast objects on bike lane. If there are a lot of bikes on the bike lane and convoy goes at 30 kph that's perfectly fine, I go 30 too. But if people go 25 and some asshole is trying to go at 35, then we have a problem.
Speed differentials like that are the norm where I bike. Bikes mainly share a section of the road with pedestrians. So you get people standing around, going 0kph; you have people walking 5kph; people jogging 10kph; kids, the elderly, and people loaded with groceries biking 15kph; normal cyclists who aren't in a hurry doing 20-25kph; fit cyclists and people in a hurry up to 35-40kph. I don't think anyone's got a problem with it really. We kinda know how to share the road, even with people going different speeds.
Drivers, mainly, are afraid of fast cyclists jumping red lights.
I, as a cyclist, am more concerned about dogs, but that phenomenon hasn't bothered me much in the recent years. I once got bitten by a dog that gets excited by cyclists..
Seriously people doing 40kph in a city street? The average for a Tour de France pack was somewhere between 26-29mph ~= 41-47kph. That's assuming no stop signs , obstacles and plenty of the pack grabbing a wheel.
I think you're over-estimating average possible speed on a city route.
The speeds I listed were not averages, but instantaneous; the purpose were to outline the speed difference between different moving things that share the path.
Yes, more or less any grownup in fair shape can pedal 40 kph on a flat, as long as they don't run out of gears. Maintaining over 40 kph average (which means going much faster at times) for the duration of a long race is a completely different thing.
And yes, some people actually like to sprint like hell for fun. Sometimes I do too.
Think about it for a moment. Club cyclists often aim to average around 27 kph for something like a 80 kilometer trip. Hitting 40 on a nice flat or downhill section on your commute of 3 km is nothing.
I think we'll have to disagree about what the 25kph limit means. It allows untrained, unprepared, possibly drunk folks to man a vehicle which does all the work for them at that speed.
You prefer freedom for the avid electric cyclist, I want safety for pedestrians and slower cyclists.
Why are cycles held to a higher standard than cars in that regard? People drive without licenses, and they DUI, and they drive without appropriate training, and they text and drive, and they kill people. We still don't limit the whole class of vehicles to a maximum speed that won't kill.
This whole thing is so backwards. These limitations just reward people who take the big metal box, and punish those who would prefer a combination of muscle power and some electric aid.
Also, I think you're seriously overestimating the amount of danger 250W can do. I still hold that it's very unlikely for a drunk cyclist to do any significant damage to anyone except themselves with that much power, speed limits or not.
Aren't you focusing the potential negatives a little too much here? Allow a few bad apples to ruin the whole thing? If cars were invented today, you wouldn't let them on the road.
Vehicular traffic is all about taking a controlled risk for convenience. I think we could take the risk of removing the speed cap on low power bicycle motors and we wouldn't see a massive surge in pedestrian/cyclist injuries or deaths or accidents in general. Even in the hands of a drunk idiot, the bike is still far less dangerous than a car, and easier to evade should it come to that.
My daily commute (when I rode a bike) was much shorter than a Tour de France stage. You have to consider that that's the average over more than 20 consecutive day-long legs.
I think you are underestimating the difference between maintaining an average speed during a whole day and maintaining that same speed for 20 minutes.
Are you thinking only of riding on roads? I often ride on paved bike trails. They're usually maybe two meters wide with mixed pedestrian and bike traffic.
Even in a bike lane you're still passing stationary objects. You asked "when would there be any" and then immediately gave one of the most common examples. An even more commmon example, of course, is the ground you're riding over. You have a 25kph speed differential to the earth.
There is no serious threat to your life from a bike going 35kph. I've crashed at that speed or faster numerous times on downhill courses. No need to be so melodramatic.
No, you haven't. You maybe have fallen at 35 kph. That's different.
If a car hits you standing still at 35 kph, that's about the same energy as you crashing into a wall riding a bike at 35. I would not recommend it.
I think you might be confused. We are talking about the danger involved with two bikes going the same direction with a 10kph speed differential (25kph / 35kph). When crashes like this happen, people fall off their bikes.
I mentioned that I have fallen off at this speed with relatively minor injury. People generally do not die from falling off a bike at 35kph.
Nowhere did I say anything about being hit by a car at 35kph not being dangerous. No one is saying that.
Actually, I think you are confused.
You spoke about passing stationary objects, and you wrote you crashed at 35. I wrote that you didn't, you fell down with 35 (which you seem to concede). If you would have crashed with 35, in something hard, parked car, tree, wall of a house, or another stationary object, it's as bad as if a car hits you with 35, which indeed is very dangerous. (It's actually slightly worse, because a) the car is designed to minimize damage, and the wall is not, and b) a house is often heavier than a car, car and house building practices in the US non-withstanding)
I spoke of the ground being a stationary object (the most common one anyone will encounter, as I put it). I did in fact fall onto the ground.
Crashing into stationary objects is indeed a much greater danger than a fellow cyclist riding with a 10kph speed differential. That was my point, which you are now re-stating.
I witnessed a bike crash just last week (in Boston) where the convoy was biking (around ~30 kph I think) and some asshole opened his car's door without looking his surroundings, and the biker in the front bumped into the door and flew over her car. Luckily, the road was clear (so she wasn't crushed by a car) and she had a helmet. She was fine but she had a concussion. Clearly, if we were going at 25, the likelihood of she dying would be even lower, and if we were going 50, it would be significantly higher (her bike could break door's glass and she could have permanently injured herself).
I don't understand this whole thread. If you're biking in a city like Boston or SF early in the morning or around 5pm, you're trying to go office/home. What's the point of biking at 50 kph? This is not recreation. This is something I do every day and my highest priority is doing this as safe as possible. Similarly, would you drive significantly faster than speed limit with your car, because you arbitrarily think "it's not dangerous"? It's nice that you think bumping into things at 30/50 is not dangerous, I respectfully disagree and consider it absolutely dangerous and kindly invite you to stick to whatever speed limit you have in your city. People are just trying to get to their work or kids and be done with their days, please don't try to be Superman.
Where are you getting 50kph from? Nowhere did I suggest that was a safe speed for daily riding.
We've been talking about 35kph, or 20 miles an hour, which is a perfectly reasonable speed for a bicycle. You're unlikely to be seriously injured if you crash at 35kph. People regularly ride 35kph throughout parts of their ride. It's normal, common, and entirely legal.
Your comments about "sticking to the speed limit" make no sense whatsoever. We're talking about speeds far, far below the speed limit even on residential roads.
I'm flabbergasted that you're having such a freakout over a bicycle going 20mph. I'd hate to see your reaction to an actual gas powered motorcycle or scooter.
> Your argument doesn't make sense to me. When do two bikes pass each other? That literally never happened to me, if it did I would yell the other biker saying they're going the wrong direction.
On a bike path?
> When are there stationary objects on the bike lane? When a car is stopping, and that annoys the hell outta me and by no means ok or the norm.
(Practically) at pedestrian crossings too, but I assume that GP is referring to objects along bike paths/lanes like trees, sign posts etc.
> If there are a lot of bikes on the bike lane and convoy goes at 30 kph that's perfectly fine, I go 30 too. But if people go 25 and some asshole is trying to go at 35, then we have a problem.
What if there's that one guy going at 15 km/h when everyone else is at 25 km/h? This also assumes that there is a convoy to speak of. I'd regularly ride mostly alone, only occasionally passing other people.
So to summarize, the argument probably doesn't make sense to you due to differences in culture, city planning population density... You name it.
In a dense city with a lot of bicycle riders I personally think that a 25 km/h limit is reasonable, but on a rural bike path without crossings or stops I'll easily exceed that comfortably and safely.
They're legally required to be dead weight, but practically, you can bypass all those cutoffs. Yes, it's breaking the law, but we live at a time where every human action is regulated, so I don't particularly care about breaking this law, the consequences are low and odds of being discovered are also low.
20mph and 28mph work out pretty good. I have a 45kph bike- faster than that would be rather dangerous, but it's fast enough. I sometimes think a cheaper 20mph (32kph) bike with less power and weight would be pleasant; on the 45kph bike, you can't enjoy the scenery or hear the birds, it's too fast. 20mph would be as fast as I ever ride unassisted.
I don't even want to think of in terms of "[insert speed limit] bike", to me it makes more sense that your bike is however fast you ride it, and if it's an electric assist bike, you ride however fast your muscle plus the limited power of the engine ride it. Then it's only a matter of finding the right balance of power that makes the thing useful without turning it into an insane crotch rocket.
Yeah but if they'd allow you to ride 35km/h you could use residential roads without impeding traffic. That's dangerous because such bikes might actually eat into car industry profits; think of the jobs! For similar reasons it's a lot easier and cheaper to get a moped that does 45km/h instead of one that does 55km/h.
This was in the USA, in a smaller town without much biking. But I had a friend that built a couple ebikes. We were at a stop light and the people in the car behind us were visibly annoyed by the two bikers I'm front of them. We cleared the intersection before the even entered it. His was capable of going 88 km/h. The one I was using went to the range of 60. Eventually the torque bent the frame of the bike.
You'll be hard pressed to average higher than that in a car. That doesn't mean that it wouldn't be safer for the cyclist if they could be closer to the maximum speed of the traffic around them when they cycle on the road.
>I've averaged 27 kph doing 90 kilometers on a friggin touring bike, carrying a sleeping bag, change of clothes, shoes.
You have to realize you’re not the average person right? E-bikes are great for people with mobility issues, people who aren’t interested in riding under only their own power, etc.
He's also not out of the norm in any way. Maybe most riders won't average that speed (although I'd suspect on flat ground they easily would), but any rider going down a decent hill will easily hit 40+ kph.
The average running speed of humans is around the same limit - 11 to 15 mph (17 to 25 kph). Almost everyone bikes faster than that.
Yes, he is out of the norm. Very few people ever ride 90km on a touring bike. Many bicycle enthusiasts do but they are in the minority of people at large.
I’m not sure what point you’re making about the downhill speed? If you dropped a cyclist out of a plane, they’d do like 320kph. Nobody needs on an electric assist when they’re going downhill at 40kph.
Also I’m not sure who you think is averaging a running speed of 15mph for more than a few hundred feet. If you can hold that speed for 4 minutes you’d be one of about 1000 people in the history of the world. Even holding 11 mph for more than 10 minutes is out of the realm of possibility for the vast majority of people.
Electric bikes at reasonable speeds help people of average to below average fitness (whether by age, disability, or other reason) get out and be active on a bicycle. I don’t believe they should be souped up to help some MAMIL (middle age man in lycra) set a new Strava segment record.
I cycle as my primary means of transportation, on a flat-bar touring bike in normal clothes. I average about 12mph. I'm faster than most other cyclists I meet on the road. The only cyclists faster than me are on road bikes and wearing specialist cycling clothing (I estimate about 20% of cyclists where I live).
I could go faster, but then I'd have to change clothes and shower, which would make me slower overall.
> The average running speed of humans is around the same limit - 11 to 15 mph (17 to 25 kph). Almost everyone bikes faster than that.
Almost no-one cycles faster than that. If you cycle at 25km/h in Copenhagen, you will be in at least the top 5% for speed. I used an electric bike for a while, and could overtake almost everyone — I assume it followed the same EU regulation limiting it to 25km/h.
I think I'm a fair bit faster than average, and I tend to cycle at about 15-18km/h, at least according to two GPS tracks I have. (I don't log how fast I'm cycling; I forgot to turn it off on those two days.)
Copenhagen has a different cycling culture to other places. Where I live more people commute on road (racing) bikes and will shower when they arrive at work. This is because it is very hot in summer and you can't avoid getting sweaty, while in winter it is often raining and you get covered in sand that is caught in the road spray.
Many of the cycle commuters in my city also join group rides (peletons) on the weekends. So it is very common to have cycle commuters riding above 30km/hr on both shared paths (pedestrians, cyclists, scooters, dogs etc) and on the roads.
Electric assist bikes are becoming more common here, as they allow people to commute without needing to shower in summer. Legally they are restricted to a 250W motor and are also supposed to lose electric assist above 25km/hr. I routinely pass people riding these bikes when doing a training ride.
There are also quite a few people importing e-bikes and motor kits that have much more powerful motors and no speed restrictions enabled. When I am riding hard (40+ km/hr, >300W depending on wind direction) on an aero-road bike and get passed by a guy sitting upright on a mountain bike who is barely pedaling - his bike has to have a 500W or higher motor.
I would like to see the current regulations we have retained riding on shared paths, but I would also like to see the unrestricted electric bikes added as a new class for road use. A e-bike with a 500-1000W motor is easily faster than most cyclists. With modern disk brakes, stopping at speed and in the wet is less of a problem (c.f. rim brakes). The battery required also makes it easy to mandate powerful LED headlights and tail lights. Adding indicators wouldn't be hard either.
> The average running speed of humans is around the same limit - 11 to 15 mph (17 to 25 kph).
If you said, "the average running speed for trained male high school seniors is 10 mph", I might find that plausible. Probably high, but plausible.
1. Men are substantially faster than women. The number you gave is high for men, but ludicrous for women.
2. There is nothing average about a 15 mph (4 min mile) running speed. It is quite rare for men to achieve this speed and has literally never been accomplished by a women.
3. Those numbers reflect an unloaded run of exactly 1 mile. Commuting in the city by running would substantially slow people down.
> The average running speed of humans is around the same limit - 11 to 15 mph (17 to 25 kph).
The physical fitness requirements for the US Army assigns maximum score to a 6.5 minute mile (over two miles) and that's for 17 year old males. For late 20s women, the minimum qualifying time is about a 10 minute mile.
The world record for the fastest mile run is 3:43.13 for men and 4:12.56 for women. Literally no woman in history has managed to maintain a 15mph speed for an entire mile. Even men only hit that point in the 1950s. Going for a 10k run, the world record is a touch over 14mph for men and somewhat less than 13mph for women. 15mph isn't "average running speed"; it is "world-record speeds."
11-15mph might be reasonable (but definitely on the higher end) for average sprinting speed (we're talking <100m). For running speed, 8-9mph is more reasonable for expectations of fit young males (you need about 8.5mph to qualify for the Boston Marathon if you're a young man, just 7.3mph if you're female).
I take a bike to get from place A to B faster. I'd take an electric bike to get even faster while spending less of my own energy. Actually, I'd be quite happy even with just 250W as long as I can use all of it on top of my muscle power, no matter how fast or slow I'm going.
Speed is ultimately what makes me pick the car over bike for longer rides.