ebikes: lots of bad ideas

"johns" wrote in message
...
I rode motorcycles for 20+ years as my only
transportation ... and lived through it :-)
I could ride for days and just camp on the road,
and I never got tired of it. Only reason I stopped
was BMW started producing crap bikes,

Huh?

I commute 30 miles round trip every day on a 1980
Honda 750 K, up and down a 5% grade hill that's
about 4 miles long. That's a 28 year old bike, sir.

I also have a 1982 750C in the garage as a spare
bike with 78K miles on it.

Still plenty of people running airheads. airheads.org
is what you want.

I missed the law that said you had to buy a new sickle
every year.

Ted

clare at snyder dot ontario dot canada wrote:

Some of us "old guys" don't have the legs or the lungs to do the
distance we need to go without assistance - and particularly not
without getting all sweated up on the way to the office.

So what? It's a given that I sweat, and if I don't, that means I've been
sitting on my arse in front of the television. Heck, I routinely sweat
walking. THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH SWEATING.
Sheeze, we're not women. And that statement doesn't ever work. All the
women I know who cycle are more capable and prepared than many guys I know,
and are quite happy to do respectable distances without crying over it either.

As a kid of about 15, I lost a pedal on a SINGLE SPEED bike 30 miles
from home, and rode it back, up hill and down. I'm not that young any
more!!!!

Again, so what? I'm a kid of 38, and I've learned since I was 15 that you
prepare. I can afford pedals that DON'T fall off in the first place. I also
carry tyre patches and tools to fix things on the road should that ever eventuate.
Never had a case that stopped me altogether since I started preparing for
things like that. In the very unlikely event a catastrophic failure occurs
that does stop me, being 38 means now that I can afford a GPS receiver that
can tell me where the nearest railway station is. Or without a GPS receiver,
I can use my cellphone that buys me the lend of a cab to get home.

We all took stupid unprepared risks when we were 15 - but since we're not 15
anymore "we" don't have an excuse for not riding in the first place because
you don't like the worst case scenario of a cab ride home.
--
Linux Registered User # 302622
http://counter.li.org

On Fri, 30 May 2008 20:07:11 +1000, John Tserkezis
wrote:

clare at snyder dot ontario dot canada wrote:

Some of us "old guys" don't have the legs or the lungs to do the
distance we need to go without assistance - and particularly not
without getting all sweated up on the way to the office.

So what? It's a given that I sweat, and if I don't, that means I've been
sitting on my arse in front of the television. Heck, I routinely sweat
walking. THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH SWEATING.
Sheeze, we're not women. And that statement doesn't ever work. All the
women I know who cycle are more capable and prepared than many guys I know,
and are quite happy to do respectable distances without crying over it either.

As a kid of about 15, I lost a pedal on a SINGLE SPEED bike 30 miles
from home, and rode it back, up hill and down. I'm not that young any
more!!!!

Again, so what? I'm a kid of 38, and I've learned since I was 15 that you
prepare. I can afford pedals that DON'T fall off in the first place. I also
carry tyre patches and tools to fix things on the road should that ever eventuate.
Never had a case that stopped me altogether since I started preparing for
things like that. In the very unlikely event a catastrophic failure occurs
that does stop me, being 38 means now that I can afford a GPS receiver that
can tell me where the nearest railway station is. Or without a GPS receiver,
I can use my cellphone that buys me the lend of a cab to get home.

We all took stupid unprepared risks when we were 15 - but since we're not 15
anymore "we" don't have an excuse for not riding in the first place because
you don't like the worst case scenario of a cab ride home.


Wait till your a kid if 58. With bad knees. ANd even good, new,
expensive parts break sometimes.
And goody for you for being a rich yuppy who can afford the best of
everything.
There are many of us in the "real world" riding sub/thousand dollar
bikes, and in areas without mass transit, where cell phone reception
is spotty at best and the nearest cab is 25 miles away.

Sheesh!
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

clare at snyder dot ontario dot canada wrote:

Wait till your a kid if 58. With bad knees. ANd even good, new,
expensive parts break sometimes.
And goody for you for being a rich yuppy who can afford the best of
everything.
There are many of us in the "real world" riding sub/thousand dollar
bikes, and in areas without mass transit, where cell phone reception
is spotty at best and the nearest cab is 25 miles away.

Health issues aside, a million dollar bike only buys low weight. You can
still make a cheapy bike reliable. In fact, I've ridden on cheapy bikes for a
large chunk of my life so far, and the reliability issues (or chances of)
haven't changed once I started with the upper market bikes, and maintaining
and preparing both.

Yes, certain designs can be more lenient on normally catastrophic failures,
such as disk brakes. I've lost at least half a dozen spokes (chain slipped
past the large chainring at the rear), just wrapped them around the others to
stop them from clanging, and continued on till I fixed it later.
I keep a spoke tightening tool just in case I have to improvise even more.

At one time, I've (sort of) repaired a taco'ed wheel for a friend, and he
still managed to limp home. It was buckled very badly, and throw-away
afterwards because the metal was badly fatigued, but it certainly beat walking
home.

So if you're going to do some distance where walking is your ONLY other
option, cellphone coverage is iffy (such as mountain biking), you carry spares
and tools to take care of your tyres (and yes, I've had normally catastrophic
failures on tyres that have split open) you can at the very least limp home,
if not ride normally.

These are bicycles, they're not highly technical precision pieces of
equipment. You can insure, prevent, or at least improvise on just about
everything except a cracked frame.

And that's not likely to happen.
But it's no reason not to leave home just in case either.


This is my point. You can maintain your bike, and carry a very reasonable
amount of spares and tools to take care of almost everything, so it'll get you
to where you're going one way or another without walking or other options.

Yes, years of failures have taught me on what to carry (some of my "spares"
are somewhat questionable), but being 38, or 58, gives you that experience.
Good knees or bad (and mine aren't exactly first class either), providing your
health will let you do it, then don't use excuses of failure to not to.
--
Linux Registered User # 302622
http://counter.li.org

On Fri, 30 May 2008 23:26:27 +1000, John Tserkezis
wrote:

clare at snyder dot ontario dot canada wrote:

Wait till your a kid if 58. With bad knees. ANd even good, new,
expensive parts break sometimes.
And goody for you for being a rich yuppy who can afford the best of
everything.
There are many of us in the "real world" riding sub/thousand dollar
bikes, and in areas without mass transit, where cell phone reception
is spotty at best and the nearest cab is 25 miles away.

Health issues aside, a million dollar bike only buys low weight. You can
still make a cheapy bike reliable. In fact, I've ridden on cheapy bikes for a
large chunk of my life so far, and the reliability issues (or chances of)
haven't changed once I started with the upper market bikes, and maintaining
and preparing both.

Yes, certain designs can be more lenient on normally catastrophic failures,
such as disk brakes. I've lost at least half a dozen spokes (chain slipped
past the large chainring at the rear), just wrapped them around the others to
stop them from clanging, and continued on till I fixed it later.
I keep a spoke tightening tool just in case I have to improvise even more.

At one time, I've (sort of) repaired a taco'ed wheel for a friend, and he
still managed to limp home. It was buckled very badly, and throw-away
afterwards because the metal was badly fatigued, but it certainly beat walking
home.

So if you're going to do some distance where walking is your ONLY other
option, cellphone coverage is iffy (such as mountain biking), you carry spares
and tools to take care of your tyres (and yes, I've had normally catastrophic
failures on tyres that have split open) you can at the very least limp home,
if not ride normally.

These are bicycles, they're not highly technical precision pieces of
equipment. You can insure, prevent, or at least improvise on just about
everything except a cracked frame.

And that's not likely to happen.
But it's no reason not to leave home just in case either.


This is my point. You can maintain your bike, and carry a very reasonable
amount of spares and tools to take care of almost everything, so it'll get you
to where you're going one way or another without walking or other options.

Yes, years of failures have taught me on what to carry (some of my "spares"
are somewhat questionable), but being 38, or 58, gives you that experience.
Good knees or bad (and mine aren't exactly first class either), providing your
health will let you do it, then don't use excuses of failure to not to.


The original question was e-bikes and their use.
I just stated that I can ride my E-Bike and get exercise that I would
not otherwise get because my legs and lungs not being what they once
were, the electric assist gets me up hills a little easier, with less
stress on the old legs. Riding to work in now feasible where it was
NOT with my standard bike.
It is NOT an electric moped, or an electric motorbike.(and should not
be condemned for low range or limitted hillclimbing capability because
it is what it is, and isn't what it isn't).
There are areas within town, where cellphone coverage is spotty. Don't
need to be mountain biking. Areas only a few miles from home, on open
roads, where you could not call for help on a cell phone.
Also many small towns with no taxi, where getting a cab would cost
more than a reasonable bicycle.

In all my years of riding (cheap) bikes I've only had that ONE
breakdown that limitted my ability to get home. Back then one pedal
was just a challenge. Today it would be a bit more (and it was the
pedal CRANK that broke, not the pedal itself)
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

John Tserkezis wrote:
clare at snyder dot ontario dot canada wrote:

So what? It's a given that I sweat, and if I don't, that means I've
been sitting on my arse in front of the television. Heck, I routinely
sweat walking. THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH SWEATING.
Sheeze, we're not women. And that statement doesn't ever work. All
the women I know who cycle are more capable and prepared than many guys
I know, and are quite happy to do respectable distances without crying
over it either.


The problem here is a lack of perspective--that the idea of riding a
motorized bicycle may be less of the purpose of getting exercise, and
more of the purpose of getting somewhere cheaper or easier (or even
-/funner/-) than by using other larger forms of transportation.

Where I live, the terrain is mostly flat and the power limitations of
registered mopeds and motorized bicycles are the same, but the bicycles
have no registration or licensing requirements. ....The reliability of
bicycle engines is probably still not quite up to what a cheap moped can
manage, but then, most bicycle engine setups allow you to pedal the
bicycle normally should you ever need to. If the engine on a moped
fails, you're walking home--just like with a motorcycle.
~