noglider 

I don't feel like moaning about the e-bike surcharge. I think it's reasonable. And I'll pay it. Riding that thing is fun.

I agree e-bikes are doing a lot of good things for lots of folks. I don't wish to own one, but if someone wants one, I'm all for it.

rhm

If they get people riding bikes who otherwise wouldn't, I'm all for pedal assist bikes, but I don't want anyone thinking this is what cycling is all about. So a few is fine, but let's not have too many. They're going to cost more to maintain, so they should cost extra. I will continue to take one when I can, and as long as they are free, which is almost never. I only see them when I finish a ride, never when starting one.

noglider 

I don't see smiles on the faces of the people on Cit-E-bikes, but I assume they're having fun. They sure do go fast.

Today I got a bike whose NuVinci adjuster was super stiff. It was almost impossible to move. I forgot to report it when I docked.

arbee

electric-assist Citibike shifter
Not much news here — just some name confusion. I'd noticed some electric-assist Citibikes had shifters that looked ... different. It seems "enviolo" and "NuVinci" are names used by Fallbrook Technologies for the continuously-variable shifter.

But wait! There's more!

Sniffing around the interwebs, it seems Fallbrook is (and has been -- since March 2018) under the oversight of a US Bankruptcy Court

https://www.bloomberg.com/research/s...capId=21921349

It's totally unclear to me how — if at all — this affects us as users of its products. Wheels within wheels, I suppose.

jade408

Interesting. We have ebikes here in the Bay Area, and they are the same price as the "regular" bikes. The app has an icon to let you know if a station has ebikes and how charged they are when you drill in.

zacster

I've always thought it was good that the citibikes were slow, since many of the riders are inexperienced. Now they won't be slow but still inexperienced. Let's all guess how that works out.

I was in Dallas a few weeks ago and tried one of the electric scooters. The don't go very fast, but still fast enough that if you hit a bump that catches the small wheel you can go flying. It was fun to ride though. Mostly people were on the otherwise empty sidewalks with them, not in the traffic, and I did the same. My kids all went out for a night ride bar hopping. (kids are old enough) They also had a blast in an otherwise boring place. None of us had ever used one before, we never even had a Razor at home.

jade408

noglider 

@zacster, I'm starting to believe that inexperience with e-bikes will prove to be a problem, but it may be hard to recognize and remedy. There were a couple of moments when I was going too fast on a Cit-E-bike, and I'm an experienced cyclist.

noglider 

Last night, I got a bike with the NuVinci hub, and it worked properly. It has become the exception rather than the rule.

tubesocksFred

I avoid the NuVinci bikes at all cost. I did ride one today(1st time in months) and I thought it had the proper gearing, but it was hard to tell because the wind was so strong, and the weather still being so cold, so the legs and lungs don't instinctively go full throttle.


These Cit-E-bikes aren't really pedal assist bikes, but e-bikes with a cadence based throttle. You can pedal faster to go faster, but you are not working one bit harder.


I did try the scooters in Austin, plenty fun, but I can see how they can be dangerous. The rake on the front wheel is basically non-existent. Tried to take a selfie and pix of the speedo while going at max speed (18mph).. basically it was impossible because it won't go on a straight line without both hands on the handlebar. And you better be focused on steering with both hands all the time because any road irregularities will throw the steering off. It was still plenty fun though, pretty much can go full throttle the whole time in the streets, except going around turns, you can't bank into it, so my turns frequently goes into opposing traffic lanes.

noglider 

I'd rather have a badly working NuVinci bike than a Shimano-equipped bike.

rhm

Yes, good point.

I actually like the NuVinci hub bikes a lot. I like the way the hub feels when accelerating from a stop; really cool to keep a constant cadence while gradually upshifting to cruising speed.

In the last week I've had three bikes on which the disk brake wasn't releasing properly. One of them was fine until I got to a traffic light and hit the brake... and after that the brake wouldnt release. I had to stand up and pedal hard to get it to a station, where I traded it in for another one. And of course I forgot to push the "broken bike" button .

tubesocksFred

I use to love the NuVinci when it first came out, fine tune the gear so you ride at the exact cadence you want, but so many of them have a misaligned gearing where it doesn't have any over-drive, I just don't want to keep going back to the original docking station (so I don't have to wait 2 min) to swap for another NuVinci, hoping it's a good one. I pretty much only get bikes with the S/A shifter, whose only issue is once in a while, a misaligned one has its gears skip if I don't apply pressure throughout the whole pedal stroke..and the most dangerous part is when I get off the saddle on a hill and the gear skips and my foot drops as if a chain just snapped.

I've had the drum brake not release after pulling the brake lever. Most times, I would push back the brake arm by the drum and it the wheel will spin easier.

UniChris

Heading south on the lower stretch of the east river greenway under the overpass, I saw a guy transporting a rolling office chair on the handlebars of a citibike.

In a way, it makes sense... if the project proves impractical and you have to try something else like a cab, easy enough to just dock it.

rhm

I've been seeing a lot more pedal assist citibikes lately. Yesterday the station where I docked my bike in the morning had eight pedal assist bikes all lined up ready to go, none of them with the red light on... I was almost tempted to ride back to Penn Station just for laughs.

wilfried

They're definitely popping up all over the map.

In other e-Citi Bike news:

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york...yom-story.html

Yikes.

rhm

I only just now noticed that the Citibike app on my phonep offers ride statistics. It says I have ridden Citibikes 1250 miles, almost all of them 1.0 miles. My usual ride is about 0.8 miles, so I guess they round up.

With the exception of the pedal assist ones, which are obvious with their big black battery packs, I have never once chosen a bike based on what shifter/hub was on it. It doesn't matter enough to be picky.

noglider 

Today, I had about 6/10 mile to go, and I saw there was an e-bike at the nearby station, so I thought why not have some fun. They'll start charging annual members $2/ride on April 27, so now is the time for some fun. A Citi Bike employee was doing something to the e-bike when I got there. I saw him put a key in the slot. When I walked up to the dock, both the red and yellow lights were on, whatever that means. Oh well. I just walked to my destination.

zacster

I biked in to work for the first time this season and was noticing how many e-bikes there already are. It seemed to be more than half the citibikes out there in the morning. They must not provide much of an assist though because I could still beat them on any stretch long enough to notice. I'll give one a try someday

wilfried

When the battery goes dead, the bike locks automatically when you dock, and the red and yellow lights go on. But then it shouldn't show up on the map.

noglider 

The app showed me the bike was available. It shouldn't be too hard for them to make it so it doesn't do that when the bike is present but unavailable.

wilfried

Maybe the worker made it unavailable because of some problem.

noglider 

Yes, I had that same thought.

tubesocksFred

They do provide 100% assist to 18mph, meaning you are just basically cranking the pedal at minimal effort to keep the bike going. Above that speed, the motor basically just shut off and you have provide 100% of the effort. You might think you would burn out if you want to go faster than 18mph, but as soon as you tire every so slightly and your speed drops to 18mph, it is back to 100% assist. So the feel is effortless spinning of the crank up to 18mph, then you feel like you have to put more effort, but you don't feel going faster, then you have to put more and more effort until you feel a noticeable difference in speed or cadence.

Maybe those e-bike riders are not going at full speed, its not a lever or handgrip based throttle, but pedal speed, in conjunction with the gear they are on.

The best part of them is even going at full headwind (pretty much everyday on the hudson river path) where on a regular citibike, you feel bogged down and am just looking for someone to draft off, you can still go at full speed on tthe cit-e-bikes.

zacster

18mph is not exactly a breakneck speed and I can easily do that on my commuter. Do they tend to bog down on hills too? I passed a few going up the Manhattan Bridge.