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dante.cool/

i'm generally in favor of a Big Tent approach to biking but the fact that the r/ebikes subreddit refuses to define if it's for "mostly standard bikes, with pedal assist" or "motorbikes that run on electric power" leading to about 75% of posts being massive slapfights between the two factions is going to drive me insane


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in reply to @dante's post:

I live next to an ebike shop and they legit are just mopeds, like 100% form and function, they just use batteries instead of gas. I also own a bike with a pedal assist that I sometimes use for hills when I remember to charge it

Absolutely wild that both are considered the same thing lol, like, it doesn't feel like a spectrum anymore. Really should just have two separate names for these things

yeah like SETTING ASIDE MY PERSONAL ANNOYANCES WITH "electric moped" style devices, the fact that they don't have a different name is bonkers. they're completely different types of machines, built for similar, but not the same purposes.

It's entirely so that when they try to regulate those vehicles, people will think of the bicycle they have in the garage instead of thinking about people having to jump out or rhe way of a moped going 25mph on a sidewalk.

Sorry to let my salt show haha, it's such an issue in my city

yeah i feel identically, don't worry. the inclusion of pedals on those things that are there ONLY so that they are classified as bicycles makes me so mad. if you can't pedal the dang thing when the battery is dead, it's not a BIKE it's an electric vehicle!!

and don't get me wrong, i like electric vehicles! anything to get more cars off the road! but let's be honest with ourselves, lmao

i think over here they make a legal distinction between electric assist and more moped like ones... the former are called e-bikes and the latter are called pedelecs

there's also speed/power limits (25km/h and 250W, if memory serves me right. i think the power limit is slightly bullshit, i would like more than 250W for hauling stuff if i had electric assist)

100% what I'd like to see yeah

it was extremely funny when I was trying to make my bike into a pedelec (thanks for the new word that rules) how many products were titled like "thumb throttle for off-road use in UK only"

oh oops i looked up the official guidelines and i misspoke. an e-bike is an electric assist bicycle that can provide up to 250W up to a speed of 25km/h (you can go faster but it all has to be under human power). a 'speed pedelec' is an electric assist bicycle that can provide up to 4000W up to a speed of 45km/h, and it requires a license and registration the way a light motorbike or w/e would here.

anything else is just a motorcycle of some variety