| Re: electric bikes on centuries
Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:
> As I'm reading an article in this-morning's San Jose Mercury News about
> newfound popularity of electric bikes, and their limitations (max speeds
> 25mph or less; need to be recharged after 8-20 miles), I'm thinking yeah,
> same old stuff that's been out there, heavy, expensive to repair, cause
> parts & frame failures on modified bikes etc.
>
> Then the article mentioned that an engineer has a recumbent design he's
> trying to bring to market that will go over 100 miles on a charge, at speeds
> greater than 30mph. And at that point I'm wondering-
>
That's about a 5X improvement over what anyone else can manage, with
relatively-small batteries.... -unless he's using five times the normal
amount of batteries, that is (~100-150 lbs of batteries). Or unless he
found a really-long hill to test it out on.
Advancements DO occur, but honestly--the market for e-bikes is really
rather tiny. There's lots of other uses that such an improvement would
be far more profitable in (just for one example, I'm typing on one now:
laptop-computer batteries and laptop-computer cooling fans).
Also, a lot of e-bikes are limited to 20 mph because that's the US
federal specification for an e-bike.
> What's gonna happen when people try to show up on a century (or, for that
> matter, any other organized bike ride) on one of them? So far, it's been a
> non-issue due to limited range. But if that's no longer an issue...
>
Well, the event can just say "no motorized bikes allowed". The insurance
may not even cover them.
~
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