Australian governments are considering mandatory product standards under the Australian Consumer Law for e-bikes, which would ban the sale of non-compliant devices.
I’m old enough to be past my physical prime, and I don’t own a car. I use my ebike for everything. 250W is fine when your goal is exercise, or commuting, or the odd load here and there, but it just doesn’t cut it for every day use.
Before I owned my ebike, I had a regular road bike that I did 15,000km on. But the only time it got used is when I was commuting or “going for a ride”. It was completely useless as a tool in my daily life. My ebike though sees regular use for things that most people would use a car for, and things that a road bike just couldn’t do.
I have absolutely no problem with bikes being capped at 25km. And I have zero problem with taking away throttles above 6km/h too. I don’t want speed. I want something I can use to remain car free
Can you explain why? Sure, it’s less than 500 W and there will necessarily be situations where it’s not enough. But how would you know it’s insufficient for every day use without trying? If it were, say, 99% as effective it would (probably) be fine, no?
Unless of course you have experience with a 250 W ebike but (from your comments) it looks like you only ever had a single 500 W ebike. Is it possible to limit it to 250 W and seeing how much it changes?
Look at the comparison I did elsewhere in the thread. One hill I know of and have climbed many times, going up at just 12 km/h, I’m putting out over 500 W at some points. And that’s on a carbon analogue bike, as a lighter-than-average dude, carrying nothing more than a bottle of water. I’m out of the saddle, working my arse off to get up that hill.
As a cycling advocate, that’s unacceptably difficult. Great for when cycling for fun or fitness, but as an advocate, I do not want people to have to exert themselves that much just to get around. I try to set a baseline effort of 100 W, but up to 200 W for brief periods is not unreasonable. 250 W (plus a 250 W motor) when climbing up a hill even with the lightest possible load, which would easily become 500+ W (plus the 250 W motor) on the way home from shopping or transporting kids to their cricket training, is not reasonable. I want cycling to be accessible to as many people as possible. It has the potential to be a far more accessible form of transport than driving is, if our network design and laws allow it to be. A Dutch-style network is by far the most important thing and would work for 80%+ of potential cyclists, 60%ish of the time.
But to get that last 20% of cyclists 100% of the time, laws designed for the famously flat Netherlands are not necessarily appropriate. And that could include allowing up to 500 W motors. Especially with the NSW law, which states the power must be
progressively reduced as the bicycle’s speed increases beyond 6km/h.
So (assuming it’s linear), at 16 km/h you’d be getting about 250 W of assistance, maximum. At 20 km/h you’re down to 132 W, and at 23 km/h it’s just 52 W. To do that 12 km/h up the hill I was talking about, you’d get about 340 W of assistance, or go down to 10 km/h and get 390 W, plus 1–200 W from your legs, which should be enough to get an older or less physically capable cyclist up the hill with their shopping or (grand)kids.
@Zagorath
If the bike is speed limited and the power tapers off with speed, why have a power cap at all? More power just means that they get up to speed quicker, which is a good thing in traffic, particularly when loaded up.
I go quite a bit faster (on the flat) on my acoustic bike, are they proposing a ban on me pedaling too hard? @yetAnotherUser
Yeah, my current bike has a power scale setting. Adjusting the pedal assist directly adjusts the max power output. And at the 250W level, I work up a sweat whenever I push it.
Which, again, is fine, if the bike is just for exercise or commuting. But it stops it from being a viable car replacement.
I used mine in part to move house, as well as regularly dragging reno supplies, groceries and my own fat arse. I am regularly using it to haul. Extremely regularly. And in no way a fit person or spring chicken myself
I run. I cycle. My road bike has 15,000km on it. But I can’t do the things I need to do on a 250W ebike easily enough for it to replace a car in my daily life.
I could do all of the things you’re talking about if my goal was to give myself a workout, but when the goal is to use it instead of a car, 250W doesn’t cut it, because I’d be dripping in sweat and worn out half the time.
You don’t need to be condescending to get your point across. We’re having a discussion and disagreeing. The first sentence would have got your point across just fine.
In any case, I know it’s not a car. But at the moment, my ebike means I don’t need a car. I want a bike that lets me get through life without having to own a car. A 250W would mean that I’d have to call taxis and ubers more often. I couldn’t just carry shopping, or garden supplies etc home, without it becoming a sweat inducing workout.
I mean, I could do those things, but at 250W, I’m putting in a lot of the power myself. And I’ve already got my exercise covered. I don’t need to be changing clothes and taking a shower every time I ride up a hill on my bike.
They really didn’t come across as condescending at all IMO. You’re complaiing about legal e-bikes not doing specific tasks you want them to, it’s entirely reasonable to suggest that your expectations may be misaimed.
They’re not expectations. They’re how I would like to see things work, because of how I use a bike. There’s literally no reason for this to be anything other than a conversation.
I don’t know in what world any comment ending with “I don’t know why you think it is” could be read as anything but condescending.
You’re complaiing [sic] about legal e-bikes not doing specific tasks you want them to
Yes, she is. So am I. Because I want cycling to be accessible to everybody. Because of the massively lower cost of a bike compared to a car, and the massively lower risk of them, they have the inherent power to be much more accessible to a lot more people. Building better infrastructure is the most important part of that and we mustn’t lose sight of that fact, but the laws governing how you ride are also relevant. In this case, ebike laws. EN15194 comes out of famously flat parts of the European peninsula. Hills are not as much of a factor there as they are here. For most people, most of the time, that’s still sufficient.
But something as basic as being allowed to use your bike to go grocery shopping, or if somebody wanted to do something like Martin Broer in the UK and run a small tradie business out of an electric bakfiets, should be a legal option. In Dutton Park and Highgate Hill in Brisbane’s inner south, or around Everton Park/Arana Hills in the northwest, that’s just not going to work very well if you’re not allowed any more than 250 W on your motor. Heck, even the lesser but still noticeable hills of St Lucia/Toowong/Indooroopilly might be a struggle if you’re carrying a bunch of stuff.
If there’s any task that forms part of people’s daily lives that a bike can’t do, I’m going to ask “why not?” and wonder if it would be appropriate to change things so that they can. In this case, the solution is obvious and simple.
I’m old enough to be past my physical prime, and I don’t own a car. I use my ebike for everything. 250W is fine when your goal is exercise, or commuting, or the odd load here and there, but it just doesn’t cut it for every day use.
Before I owned my ebike, I had a regular road bike that I did 15,000km on. But the only time it got used is when I was commuting or “going for a ride”. It was completely useless as a tool in my daily life. My ebike though sees regular use for things that most people would use a car for, and things that a road bike just couldn’t do.
I have absolutely no problem with bikes being capped at 25km. And I have zero problem with taking away throttles above 6km/h too. I don’t want speed. I want something I can use to remain car free
Can you explain why? Sure, it’s less than 500 W and there will necessarily be situations where it’s not enough. But how would you know it’s insufficient for every day use without trying? If it were, say, 99% as effective it would (probably) be fine, no?
Unless of course you have experience with a 250 W ebike but (from your comments) it looks like you only ever had a single 500 W ebike. Is it possible to limit it to 250 W and seeing how much it changes?
Look at the comparison I did elsewhere in the thread. One hill I know of and have climbed many times, going up at just 12 km/h, I’m putting out over 500 W at some points. And that’s on a carbon analogue bike, as a lighter-than-average dude, carrying nothing more than a bottle of water. I’m out of the saddle, working my arse off to get up that hill.
As a cycling advocate, that’s unacceptably difficult. Great for when cycling for fun or fitness, but as an advocate, I do not want people to have to exert themselves that much just to get around. I try to set a baseline effort of 100 W, but up to 200 W for brief periods is not unreasonable. 250 W (plus a 250 W motor) when climbing up a hill even with the lightest possible load, which would easily become 500+ W (plus the 250 W motor) on the way home from shopping or transporting kids to their cricket training, is not reasonable. I want cycling to be accessible to as many people as possible. It has the potential to be a far more accessible form of transport than driving is, if our network design and laws allow it to be. A Dutch-style network is by far the most important thing and would work for 80%+ of potential cyclists, 60%ish of the time.
But to get that last 20% of cyclists 100% of the time, laws designed for the famously flat Netherlands are not necessarily appropriate. And that could include allowing up to 500 W motors. Especially with the NSW law, which states the power must be
So (assuming it’s linear), at 16 km/h you’d be getting about 250 W of assistance, maximum. At 20 km/h you’re down to 132 W, and at 23 km/h it’s just 52 W. To do that 12 km/h up the hill I was talking about, you’d get about 340 W of assistance, or go down to 10 km/h and get 390 W, plus 1–200 W from your legs, which should be enough to get an older or less physically capable cyclist up the hill with their shopping or (grand)kids.
@Zagorath
If the bike is speed limited and the power tapers off with speed, why have a power cap at all? More power just means that they get up to speed quicker, which is a good thing in traffic, particularly when loaded up.
I go quite a bit faster (on the flat) on my acoustic bike, are they proposing a ban on me pedaling too hard?
@yetAnotherUser
Power cap is still useful to limit acceleration to safe levels and to minimise the level of danger if the motor gets de-regulated.
Yeah, my current bike has a power scale setting. Adjusting the pedal assist directly adjusts the max power output. And at the 250W level, I work up a sweat whenever I push it.
Which, again, is fine, if the bike is just for exercise or commuting. But it stops it from being a viable car replacement.
I used mine in part to move house, as well as regularly dragging reno supplies, groceries and my own fat arse. I am regularly using it to haul. Extremely regularly. And in no way a fit person or spring chicken myself
I run. I cycle. My road bike has 15,000km on it. But I can’t do the things I need to do on a 250W ebike easily enough for it to replace a car in my daily life.
I could do all of the things you’re talking about if my goal was to give myself a workout, but when the goal is to use it instead of a car, 250W doesn’t cut it, because I’d be dripping in sweat and worn out half the time.
it’s not supposed to be a car. I don’t know why you think it is.
You don’t need to be condescending to get your point across. We’re having a discussion and disagreeing. The first sentence would have got your point across just fine.
In any case, I know it’s not a car. But at the moment, my ebike means I don’t need a car. I want a bike that lets me get through life without having to own a car. A 250W would mean that I’d have to call taxis and ubers more often. I couldn’t just carry shopping, or garden supplies etc home, without it becoming a sweat inducing workout.
I mean, I could do those things, but at 250W, I’m putting in a lot of the power myself. And I’ve already got my exercise covered. I don’t need to be changing clothes and taking a shower every time I ride up a hill on my bike.
They really didn’t come across as condescending at all IMO. You’re complaiing about legal e-bikes not doing specific tasks you want them to, it’s entirely reasonable to suggest that your expectations may be misaimed.
They’re not expectations. They’re how I would like to see things work, because of how I use a bike. There’s literally no reason for this to be anything other than a conversation.
There’s nothing to “misaim”
I don’t know in what world any comment ending with “I don’t know why you think it is” could be read as anything but condescending.
Yes, she is. So am I. Because I want cycling to be accessible to everybody. Because of the massively lower cost of a bike compared to a car, and the massively lower risk of them, they have the inherent power to be much more accessible to a lot more people. Building better infrastructure is the most important part of that and we mustn’t lose sight of that fact, but the laws governing how you ride are also relevant. In this case, ebike laws. EN15194 comes out of famously flat parts of the European peninsula. Hills are not as much of a factor there as they are here. For most people, most of the time, that’s still sufficient.
But something as basic as being allowed to use your bike to go grocery shopping, or if somebody wanted to do something like Martin Broer in the UK and run a small tradie business out of an electric bakfiets, should be a legal option. In Dutton Park and Highgate Hill in Brisbane’s inner south, or around Everton Park/Arana Hills in the northwest, that’s just not going to work very well if you’re not allowed any more than 250 W on your motor. Heck, even the lesser but still noticeable hills of St Lucia/Toowong/Indooroopilly might be a struggle if you’re carrying a bunch of stuff.
If there’s any task that forms part of people’s daily lives that a bike can’t do, I’m going to ask “why not?” and wonder if it would be appropriate to change things so that they can. In this case, the solution is obvious and simple.
It really reads like you’re going to the hardware store for orange juice.
If a bike isn’t doing what you need / want it to, then the answer is not a bike.
Please explain what you think the appropriate solution is, then, and why it’s better than mine.