Originally Posted by
caloso
Making a bike go fast under your own power is hard work. Most people don't like hard work. I doubt many people who start with mechanical assistance would wean themselves off.
Yes. We live in a society with marketing based entirely on making life easier. Hence the fat, virtually incapacitated people that make up so much of western society's population.
The reason why these things are developing is to circumvent the registration laws for powered vehicles (ie, motorcycles). The Australian distributors have already been caught out cheating on the output specs for their electric bikes and subsequently, they pressured for a change in the laws so they didn't have to be technically registered.
It's also well and good to have a brand new electric bike. But as experience has shown with rechargeable electric lawn mowers, the batteries are the weak link and they are (a) quite expensive to replace and (b) tend to run down faster the older they get. I really hope the purchasers of these bikes understand that. Plus, I doubt that the owners of these bikes have a single clue about how their machines have to be maintained to continue safe long-term operation.
The other real annoyance here is the add-on gas-powered motors that spew out two-stroke fumes in the faces of legitimate cyclists as they pass by. They are noisy and the people riding have little to no regard for other path and road users. Yesterday, as we were stopped to do a mechanical adjustment, one went past under (disc) brakes but the rider still had his foot on the ground to assist slow-down. I came across similar mopeds back in the early 2000s in Europe and thought what a blight on the bike lanes and paths they were.
I've sometimes thought about moving out in front of them and touching their front wheel so they go down. After all, the niceties of calling that they are passing don't exist in their minds, and they certainly wouldn't be aware of the dangers of front-wheel encounter with the back wheel of another bike. But I am not quite churlish enough actually do something like that.
I am, however, waiting or the day when one of the riders of these power assisted bikes has a major crash, perhaps involving a pedestrian. The headlines are going to be about a cyclist, but in fact they are motorbike riders no matter which way you look at it; the public isn't going to care about that, and yet more legal pressure will be brought to bear on cyclists as a result.