The Year of the E-Bicycle 494
theodp writes "Electric bicycles have been around for more than a century, but they have never quite captured the imagination of auto-obsessed Americans. That may be about to change. At CES this month, Sanyo showed off its sleek, lightweight Eneloop Hybrid Bicycle. Priced at $2,300, the e-bike sports a black lithium-ion battery strapped to the frame beneath the seat. Press a button on the left handlebar, and a 250-watt motor kicks in, providing about twice as much power as your own pedaling. Some basic e-bike models, like the Ezip Trailz can be had for as low as $500. Both Trek and Schwinn began selling e-bikes last year, and Best Buy is offering e-bikes in three test markets: Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Portland, OR."
Old (Score:5, Insightful)
We had those here (Japan) for 5 years now, they're quite popular in rural areas or for shopping but otherwise everyone takes the train.
Re:Laziness! Now in disguise! (Score:1, Insightful)
Nice stereotyping. What's wrong with laziness, anyway? One of the virtues of a good programmer.
the alternatives are 10x cheaper (Score:3, Insightful)
An brand-name electric scooter is ~$300, and much more portable.
A Honda motor scooter is under $2000, can seat two people, and go 30mph.
$2300 for an electric bike is just silly.
Re:Sounds like a nice place to live (Score:5, Insightful)
Because of the anger among the cyclists, Critical Mass was started which generally only pisses off the drivers but also is a lot of fun.
And you wonder why so many drivers get pissed off to the point of violence? Golly gee, I can't imagine how that could happen.
Re:Great, still doesn't fix the Houston problem. (Score:2, Insightful)
Thanks -- you've reminded me of why I don't leave Austin unless the destination is out-of-state.
Re:These are useless as transport (Score:3, Insightful)
> I know I'm able to produce around a kilowatt for 5 minutes or so at a time, and can sustain 500W practically indefinitely.
Maybe you can beat Lance Armstrong and the others:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/24/weekinreview/24kola.html [nytimes.com]
Re:These are useless as transport (Score:3, Insightful)
I call BS.
Perhaps you're an elite cyclist, or someone is editing Wikipedia to make you look silly, but averaging anything like 500W for an hour (much less indefinitely) would make you the worlds best distance cyclist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_performance [wikipedia.org]
Lance Armstrong near his peak was reputed to be capable of ~520W for 20min.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/24/weekinreview/24kola.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print [nytimes.com]
Ok... so your gym exercise bike is a flattering, but I agree that 250W is within the range of most regular cyclists, although most won't push that hard.
Re:Sounds like a nice place to live (Score:4, Insightful)
The Critical Mass events are held once a month, in a Saturday. A once-a-month event will piss you to the point of violence?
Re:Great, still doesn't fix the Houston problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's a suggestion - be a redneck. Carry a gun and use it often. If people are trying to get you killed, you can do the same to them.
Re:Great, still doesn't fix the Houston problem. (Score:3, Insightful)
An increasingly risky sport, as helmet-mounted cameras become more popular.
Re:Laziness! Now in disguise! (Score:2, Insightful)
Nice stereotyping. What's wrong with laziness, anyway? One of the virtues of a good programmer.
That is actually one statement I disagree with completely. Laziness is not a virtue. Code reuse is a virtue. If you're really lazy you do an ugly copy-paste, and leave it like that. Then you hardcode some stuff in there because it's easier. If you put some effort in it, you integrate it properly, which is more work, but it'll make it easier to maintain in the future. Laziness in all IT in general is bad, horrible in most cases. Put some effort in it and you reduce your workload.
Re:Why not just buy a motorcycle? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Great, still doesn't fix the Houston problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
Woe betide a pedestrian who gets in the way of a cyclist though! For some reason respect stops at two wheels.
Re:Sounds like a nice place to live (Score:4, Insightful)
(Not to violence, of course; just to outrage and contempt.)
Re:Why not just buy a motorcycle? (Score:3, Insightful)
Compared to sitting on a scooter/motorcycle, you'll get exercise on an electrical bicycle. Especially as they mostly come with electrical assist and don't just run on their own.
That was my point. Even if it only means you'll get 25% of the workout you'll get on a regular bike, that's still a lot more calories burned than you'll get by just sitting on the scooter.
And I don't know it's "meant for the elderly". Would I want the bike from Sanyo? No, I wouldn't - it doesn't fit my needs. Would I like electrical assist on my mountain bike? Yes, I would. Quite a lot of the hills around here are steep enough that I can't climb them on my own. Quite a lot of them are step enough that I can climb them for about ... 200 meters at a time before dying.
The electrical assist would allow me much greater freedom in my exercise and excursions. Instead of being limited to taking a short 10 km run, I could do 20 or 30 km and get pretty much the same calorie burn.
Re:Great, still doesn't fix the Houston problem. (Score:3, Insightful)
The cyclists in Leidem are maniacs. They don't pay attention to other traffic, violate all traffic rules and sometimes seem suicidal in the way they behave in traffic. That's why truckdrivers sometimes stop for bycicles. They want to keep their truck clean.
I know this to be true because I'm one of the cyclists there.
So you can replace the vehicle, but not the drivers? ;)
Re:Sounds like a nice place to live (Score:3, Insightful)
For the record - I do not ride in a manner that obstructs motor traffic in any way. When beer bottles have been thrown at me in the past I was either on the shoulder of a large road that had one or riding through the grass off the side of the road. I do not ride my bike smack in the center of a lane when it's a major through fare. As a courtesy to motorist and the protection of my own hide I try to keep my much slower than them ass out of the way. I've never been hit by a beer bottle or soda cup, or any other thing thrown at me except for liquid coming out of said cup, but each time it was the motorist being the jackass, not because I was an in-the-way jackass.
Re:These are useless as transport (Score:2, Insightful)
You are mistaken. I suspect you mixed up "watts" with "kilocalories per hour". Sustaining 500 watts indefinitely would make you superhuman. Sustaining 500 kcal/h makes you about ... average. Coincidentally, that is just about the 125 watts that the OP referenced.
Re:best quote (Score:3, Insightful)
Is it just me, but the only bikes I could see on that site all appeared to be "Girl/Female" bikes with a step through design. Personally the whole concept of the "Male" and "Female" designs boggle my mind, why is it that one with the balls gets the one with the bar? (I understand the whole dress thing on the female bike design, which is where I'm lead to believe it came from..)
I'm pretty sure it's from the days when women wore long skirts. It would be impossible to mount a "male" bicycle without showing some inappropriate leg and getting the petticoat all tangled in the back wheel. The "male" design makes a lot more sense from a structural perspective, so would have been the norm for trouser wearing men.
Re:$99,800 Yen in Japan. Why so expensive here? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is it double the price in the US?
It has to be packaged and shipped to the states - along with stocks of spare parts, etc.
It has to have an American distributor.
It has to be successfully advertised and promoted here.
It has to be sold with a warranty and service plan that will attract the American buyer.
Re:Great, still doesn't fix the Houston problem. (Score:2, Insightful)
Assuming that a large portion of your bikers are people biking to work, I'd guess they're taxpayers and thus are paying into the highway system.
Re:These are useless as transport (Score:3, Insightful)
Energy cost, perhaps, but I don't know about kinetic energy output. If you're saying you can use 500W for long periods (let's say a couple of hours), then match that to calorie intake. That's 860 kcal to replace the energy cost for that additional work. That's believeable right?
Muscle efficiency http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle#Efficiency [wikipedia.org]
"The efficiency of human muscle has been measured (in the context of rowing and cycling) at 18% to 26%"
So if you were right, you'd actually need 3400 kcal to replace losses from that 2 hour exercise. That's waaay too much.
With my logic, that means you actual power output is actually more like 125W, almost perfectly inline with the motor being twice as powerful.
Two problems with e-bikes (Score:2, Insightful)
E-bikes are bringing a couple of new problems to bicycling.
I live in Portland Oregon, and I put about 3,000 miles on my bike last year. I'll probably double that this year, since I'm riding through the winter for the first time since I was a kid.
We've started to see e-bikes last summer, and two problems are emerging:
So e-bikes are not without problems. There is a place for them in the grand scheme of things, but their introduction is going to be disruptive and a lot of persons are going to get hurt.
Re:Great, still doesn't fix the Houston problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because you've seen some people on bikes violating traffic rules, it's ok to attempt to murder any cyclist you see? Because that's what you're doing when you throw something at an unprotected cyclist in traffic, in case you're unaware.
Two arguments were raised:
That cyclists should pay to accont for increased road maintenance is an interesting argument. Let's see some hard numbers. What is the marginal increase in road maintenance costs due to cyclists. What are the budget allocations that pay for that maintenance, and how do they align with various taxes - many of which cyclists do in fact pay. Show me the numbers, and if they show that cyclists are underpaying I'll buy that something needs to be done to tax cyclists. Oh, but if they show that cyclists are overpaying (which I bet they will), I don't suppose you'll support giving them a credit, will you?
The second argument had to do with some recent state law that protects pedestrians, cyclists, etc. His argument is that this unbalances the risks and burdens and cycilsts should pay more for the greater protection. First of all, this clearly comes from someone who has never been vulnerable on the road. A car that decides to ram a bicycle stands to lose nothing unless caught by law enforcement; the cyclist stands to lose his life. The law works toward establishing balance; it is not something from which balance needs to be restored. Second: why single out cyclists? Register every pair of walking shoes.
Make all the excuses you want; laws like this are aimed at nothing other than trying to keep people from exercising rights you find inconvenient.
Re:Great, still doesn't fix the Houston problem. (Score:3, Insightful)
When there is one, yes you HAVE to use it, but when there isn't you shouldn't be using the pedestrians' side-walks but simply drive on the right side of the road
It's attitudes like that that prevent people from commuting via bicycle. Let me translate that for you into what people who live in an auto-dominant urban area hear:
When there is one, yes you HAVE to use it, but when there isn't you should trade a small chance of not-likely-to-be fatal physical harm to yourself and other pedestrians to a much, much greater chance of quite-likely-to-be-fatal harm to yourself only.
Or to sum up: biking is a recreational activity, not a transportation option, and it will continue to be for as long as people half-ass the bike lanes and think that the roads are a good fall-back option.
Re:Great, still doesn't fix the Houston problem. (Score:1, Insightful)
Cyclists pay taxes. I assume that a good portion of my income tax goes towards the local Department of Transportation. Not to mention the fact that many people who own a bike also own a car and pay all of the taxes associated with that.
Congestion has a cost as well (in terms of wasted time and pollution). So by your logic, if non-motorised transportation saved money, you would be ok with taxing motor vehicles more (a congestion/pollution charge perhaps?).
Re:Great, still doesn't fix the Houston problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
Your second hand story about proud, self-important cyclists flouting the law and believing they "own the road" is the same experience cyclists, including myself, see regularly from motorists! Perhaps there are just idiots out there, some ride bikes some drive cars. The ones who drive cars, however, kill people (including other motorists).
If you want to talk about misapplied justice, there are countless cases of motorists killing cyclists, pedestrians, and other motorists by gross negligence and careless driving. Many of these people never see the inside of a jail cell and most will drive again.
Re:Sounds like a nice place to live (Score:1, Insightful)
No single snowflake ever thinks that it is the cause of the avalanche.
Again, not excusing the violence.