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 throttle ebikes are motorcycles thats why pedal assist was created

 have an upvote. all in favor of different types of transportation in the city. Now, people got to get over the generalized idea that a different opinion is hate.

 @flogme: I would call them more of a scooter than a motorcycle. Still don’t get the hate if it’s not on mtb trails. Just throttle limit them, and I’m ok with them on bike paths if it’s one less car. Hell, I’d rather the out of shape crowd be on those traveling 15-20mph on the bike path than getting in the way at 5-10mph.

 I have no problem with the form of transportation you describe above; however, I view them as e-motorcycles. Like a Prius on two wheels. I’d love to have an electric beach cruiser so I could pull my kids in a chariot across town.

 @flogme: pedal assist is a electric moped. What do you think that thing attached to the crank or built in the rear hub is? Magic right! Keep drinking that Kool-Aid.

 I can speak from experience of Sweden, the Jesus country of environmentalism and I can tell you right away that the main issue is about the ownership, not that much about a particular mean of transport. Many cities in US are fkd, the urban sprawl is completely out of control. The distances between homes and work places are too big for Ebikes. Too many people live in privately owned houses, whereas in Europe blocks of flats are extremely common. This makes it impossible to create any good form of public transport. Weather and climate are a huge factor. No regular person (read no cycling enthusiast) in their right mind will spend 45-60 min a day, riding a bike in the rain and wind or in horrific heat. Then Ebikes require advanced cycling path infrastructure. Especially when various weird companies offer abominations closing you from rain and wind, and suddenly you have Renault Twizy kind of things riding on an ordinary path that has lane width of 3f-4ft. Cargo bikes and Foodora folks start to be really irritating and cyclists behave as saint cows. Then come insurance companies getting pissed off at the whole situation because whener a bike, or bike like thing smashes into a car, it’s car owners fault. And many cyclists are incredibly dumb, aside of being aholes.

So the problem is very complex, and pseudo environmentalists, or stupid part of environmentalists see everything with electric motor (including rental motor powered push bikes) as a mean of saving the planet completely ignoring the fact that from eco perspective, an Ebike is a terrible alternative to the regular bike, while it is extremely rare that ebike becomes an alternative to a car

 I have a Kona Minute cargo bike with a Lunacycle kit on it. It’s got a throttle and cadence sensing pedal assist and it’ll do a tire smoking burnout on pavement with that throttle and a little front brake application. It also hauls myself and a child size passenger on the back quite easily around town. It’s a fantastic tool for urban and suburban transport. Everyone that rides it comes back laughing and smiling. Call it whatever you want, motorbike, ebike, bike, it’s a really fun machine and a great way to get around.

 @WAKIdesigns: I'm sure it's complicated but this is a fair take. Thanks man.

 @Svinyard: we just got 3 different companies offering e-pushbike rental. You can pick them up and park anywhere you want. Just use a phone to read ID, press start and off you go. Press stop in the app to leave it. Advertised as "eco" mean of transport, said to decrease car traffic. Pure BS. Nothing more but an alternative to walking for lazy folks but most of all a form of entertainment. Some cargo bicycles get so big, that one may wonder whether in 5 years, you'll see minivan sized things allowed on cycling paths because they have bike pedals and cranks instead of accelerometer pedal...

 @oldtech: If the bike industry can't agree on a classification for these bikes with electric motors then the government will end up stepping. They will regulate the hell out of them and users will end up having to get a drivers license just to ride one and pay a yearly usage tax.

 @rivercitycycles: e-bikes drunks and homeless in the United States go together like peanut butter and chocolate. Let's not even talk about the 49cc BS excuse of a bicycle rolling down the tarmac in the bike lane. Stuff that in your pipe and smoke it.

 @WAKIdesigns: I can tell you right away from the Jesus Earth that we are all f*****

 i am the very happy owner of a meepo v2 electric skateboard. fun as f@ck, pretty cheap, cheap to operate. great way to stay out of the car for short hops around town. uber/lyft drivers are ok with them in their cars (DUI avoidance). solid f@cking win for me...

 @WAKIdesigns: coming recently from my last US city living experience in Denver, I’d say you are a bit off on a couple factors. Rush hour traffic has gotten bad enough that it takes 10min per mile in a car at rush hour in the city core. Factor in about 800,000-1million people living within 10-15 miles of the core, you have a lot of people that are close enough for a quick ride in the many paths and bike lanes. My house was 2 miles from the core, took less than half the time to get in and out on my bike versus a car during rush hour and I didn’t have to then spend 10 minutes looking for parking downtown or pay $300plus/ a month for a parking spot. Fortunately, I didn’t have to that as a commute as most of my neighbors did. What people are gravitating to over cars now is the electric scooters. They are currently annoying as people learn to deal with how they fit into the streets and sidewalks, but people are craving this type of transportation. It may not make the streets any less crowded as the city keeps growing, but it does allow for people to escape the traffic. The rental bikes have been hugely popular in Denver as they eliminated the risk of getting your own bike stolen. I’d bet rental e-bikes would do well in that city from pretty far out into the burbs.

 @whambat: it depends on a city and on house-work locations. You still won’t get folks in Boston or Seattle climate to ride bikes from suburbs to downtown in shitty autumn weather, even if they go 30Mph. Changing a pattern of behavior is extremely difficult and you need plenty of options, not just the bike, no matter how great it is. Also, it would be jolly good if there was one car per family. I used car rental for 2 years. Great cars and it was 30% cheaper than owning a car. It’s been great. If longer period/distance rental was cheaper I’d still use it. Rental is the sht, be it a car, bike or power tool. Also electric bike rental can work in many ways, like the more you pedal the less you pay. They had a pilot project like that in Paris some time ago, possibly now out into motion. If you pedalled charging the battery, you were riding for free. The trouble is, as I stated above, batteries don’t plant trees in Amazon, don’t give birth to Pandas or create ice bridges for Polar Bears, but that’s how it is all marketed.

 @WAKIdesigns: I don’t think you know Seattle. Hardest group of bike commuters around. From what I’ve seen, they don’t give two s***s about if it’s raining or not because it’s just a way of life with the rain there. You can spot the tourists there because they are the ones with the umbrellas when it rains.

You can put away the environmental arguments and still make a case for the bikes just on economics, it’s much easier and cheaper to build infrastructure for bikes, both paths and parking than for cars. Just the wear and tear on the roads from cars is far more expensive than any damage from bikes. Bike paths face damage from weather over time, but cars crush the hell out of roads especially during thaw freeze cycles. The reality is nothing is going to solve traffic jams (people are always going to drive till the road capacity is at the limit, and thats why wider and more plentiful roads only help for a short time before they become full again), but a city becomes a lot more liveable when there are ways around said traffic.

 You will regret saying that the day you have to register and insure your mountain bike.

 @whambat: there’s plenty of tough people cycling in Gothenburg too and so what. They are still very few in the big picture. Most commute by busses, trains and trams. Then quite a lot of folks commute by cars, mainly due to sprawl. I did my major in urban planning and design, I know the theories and practices on congestion in traffic

 @whambat: I saw Waki's comment hoping someone was gonna chime in about seattle. The commute is strong here. It's the PNW. If you don't ride in the rain, you don't ride. Weather isn't an issue out here.

The issue is all the ride share bikes, etc, end up in the lakes or ocean

 @krashDH85: " Weather isn't an issue out here" no it's an issue...you just deal with it best you can...Seattle can be pretty rough weather. Tough ones ride the rain most will not.

 If you leave the potential wether hazards, you’re comment makes a lot of sense, but I live in Florida man, over here you’re gonna sweat regardless

 @enger: when you grow up in a place that rains 105+ inches a year, it's normal. Don't try to make a point. It's a lifestyle that if you don't take by the reigns, you'll never be outside. Im not just talking about seattle.

 E bikes are not even good for city. They are illegal in nyc. Can not use the same bike lanes as bicycles becuase they go so much faster and are a danger for others. They did run over several pedestrians because people do not expect in the bike lane something so fast and so silent. Can not co-exhist with bicycles. E-bikes are motorized veichles and should follow the same rules and roads as cars and motorcycles

 @scary1: you are one of the scary people that think he deserves everything. Getting a credit (that you will never be able to pay) to buy the big house you deserve, getting a credit to buy the big truck you want, credit to buy a big TV, another bike, and then you say "the police takes 1h to come for a 911 call" and you take a credit to buy a gun.
Well we euro-peons are so stupid we mostly live in appartements with a rent we can afford. Cities are less spread, easier to police, easier to commute in, it's easier to go buy groceries without a car etc. We are so weak right ?
And yeah we are all jealous of your country, and we all wish to be tolerant people like you, and we all wish to have our kids shot at school. We all regret that our medical bills are 10 to 100x cheaper than in the freedom country. I think you got that right

 @krashDH85: “you ride in the rain or you don’t ride at all”, mnaaaeh, yeah, exactly most people don’t ride at all and a motor on a bike won’t make them do it. What I meant was that ebike is not an alternative to a car, it will never be on any significant scale. It’s just a marketing slogan propagated by their makers, politicians looking for an easy vote and eco wannabies with no grasp on reality. Instead ebikes are used by people who would normally use public transport or regular bikes. To use the weather argument again: if you can live with riding in shitty weather, pedalling a bit harder and riding a bit slower is a piece of a cake. We are now dealing with a problem where world is flooded with shitty, toxic batteries and what goes really well, where applicable, with electric cars and busses, is going to sht for stupid toys. I saw a granny doing “hill sprints” on an ebike. She was seating, pedalling slowly and riding up and down. Fkng insane. And I bet she thinks this makes world a favor.

 @WAKIdesigns: my 2 cents based on France.
Outside of cities car are still more relevant for most people. But in bigger cities (let's say up from Nantes to Paris) I see loooots of people using a car when a bike would be easier if... Better roads.
I don't care because I can ride with the cars etc, I have good brakes to avoid most accidents, and also have hit a few cars. But for most people it needs to be safer and easier, and that alone would be enough (cf @Whambat original post).

A few figures about Paris for example : 50% of transportation surface is for cars, which represents only 10% of people, of which only about 20% declare that they "need a car" and no other mean of transportation would do. So half of the m2 used for transport is there for 2% who actually "need it".
Considering the huge problems of having a town like Paris full of traffic, it's pretty obvious that big encouraging steps from the deciding leaders should be taken, to help people get on bikes.

 @Uuno: I took that into consideration when writing my post. Off course that too many people drive cars, despite the fact how hard it is to find a parking spot, congestion on the way to that spot and how much a private spot costs in the center. But people still do it. They go to huge extents to sit comfortably inside a car and they are many. One has to take it into consideration. Those folks will never ride a bike to work so I'd like environmentalists to shut up about ebikes replacing cars, politicians handing out subsidies for purchase of ebikes (meanwhile not subsidizing regular bikes!!!) from my fkng tax money. Because it is not happening. Like ever. They are only pumping out lots of toxic waste in form of batteries. And if they are all so smart, then Ebike makers should take full responsibility for disposal of used and faulty batteries. I am fine with them charging more for it. Why should someone clean their sht?!

 The free market provides

 @scary1: I live in a rental apartment 65sqm +20sqm storage/workshop, 800$ a month, work in a 250people strong consulting firm, used V70 2016, paid for, me 4 bikes, wifey 1, kids 4 bikes and I honestly feel great and thankful for everything, could not care less about folks telling me how to think, no matter the subject. Yeah, I may wish I did all that in Vancouver or Squamish but life does not work that way. If everyone went through life singing “I did it my way”, and could give an interview on Jimmy Kimmel speaking like Tony Robbins, no sht would get done. I often wonder, what is the percentage of people who attend motivational seminars, who fall into deep depression 2 months after VS people who actually make it and go on to become millionaires or hippies.

 @flogme: You can have both at the same time. I was riding a pedal assist e-bike with a throttle, but have since switched over to just throttle control. It is not a motorcycle in the eyes of the law or in execution.

 @WAKIdesigns: E-bikes are not meant to replace cars, but instead of a second car, we use an e-bike. No, I cannot get 500km's out to the bush with an e-bike, but I can do a lot more than with just a pedal bike. It is a very complicated problem, agreed.

 @WAKIdesigns: you went off in left field somewhere. My point is have amazing freedoms in this country. 95% Dont appreciate it and take it for granted. I dont. I also dont have enough ambition to become a millionaire or conquer the world, but I also dont chastise and denigrate those who can and do. The virtue signaling on this site is absolutley ridiculous considering every person on here is participating in a gratuitous, excessive, luxury activity. But everybody's so f*cking high on slamming my country all the goddamn time, it gets irritating, especially from the spoiled ass brats that live here and exist in the greatest time in human history. It's so cool the shit all over everything that people have fought and died for, I can't help but think that if those people who have known what ungrateful a*sholes now occupy it, they would have deserted.
Just because it's easy to make a charactatuer out of the whole country ,dosent mean its true,either.

 inexpensive

 @WAKIdesigns: Waki is spot on. E bikes will never fix the US commute issue because the us commute layout is not made to be made by people power.

 I built myself a custom Ebike with ali express parts. I have a 35km commute each way and i do it in 45mins on my throttle 1500 watt turbo bike. I tried to do my commute on a regular E bike and it was slower than my road bike. To me the idea that it has to stay under 32kmh and 500 watts completely destroys the potential for the tech. If you actually watch a pedal assist E biker ride you'll see they just drop into the lowest gear because those motors count RPM and not torque. Essentially its just moving the throttle to your feet. Seems useless and i remind all of the other E Bikers this when i crush them on turbo bike.

 I just want to know what crazy contraption he’ll turn up on each day, I would also like a Pinkbike poll on the matter. e-farthing for the win.

 Every time he says "so" or "now," take a drink. Try it.

 @DavidSA of sugar free rockstar.

 Id like to see him wearing a helmet!

.......or am I just being an old fart!?

 Like that new Norco coming in at 29 pounds!

 @Deoratwo: good point- Norco XC bike 29 pounds. And that Pole had Minions on it...

 whoa what really??? Thats freaky light?

 There is the Megatower, but that's at the bigger/squishier end of things.

 @DrPete: Ik i was thinking they’d update the lower travel stuff as well as they did with the Bronson/ 5010 last year.

 @bridgermurray: yeah, they've definitely gotten leapfrogged in the shorter travel stuff.

 S C were gonna release a Highboy for Rat boy but he left.

 @watchtower: damn, this comment.

 @watchtower: He's still riding 27.5 even when he's paid to ride a brand new 29er so why would that have been the reason he left...?

 @stiingya: just a reference to pot smoking, i've no idea why he left.

 @watchtower: LOL, sorry... when you have to explain the joke either it's not funny. OR the person listening to your joke is an idiot!

We know which one it was in this case!

(in my defense I listened to the whole "just say NO" thing cause my parents let me drink if I didn't do drugs)

 Me too.