Legal & effortless eBike?

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winstonw
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Re: Legal & effortless eBike?

Postby winstonw » Mon Nov 14, 2011 3:14 pm

I get pl$$3d off with the idiots who ride motor bikes along Soorley Trail and Wetlands. I bailed two teens up once and it got quite heated. When I phoned the BCC they gave me the impression police don't get involved, and it is council rangers responsibility, but by their apathetic response, I doubt they'll ever catch anyone.

Nevertheless, late Sat arvo heading south through the wetlands I came around a corner to confront two trail bike riding Qld Police approaching at speed. Don't know who they were after but they were in a hurry. First time I've seen police on trail bikes.

Getting OT even futher...... :D
Last week on the Soorley trail, a motor cyclist wearing helmet with no face shield had what appeared to be a scarred face from old burn injuries, and was riding away from a small fire on the side of the Brook. :!: :!: ....... but I felt by the time I'd called the police or council or fire brigade, he'd be gone.

You get some shady characters on bike trails, which I could relate more of, but maybe on the KBB thread.

eldavo
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Re: Legal & effortless eBike?

Postby eldavo » Wed Dec 07, 2011 5:48 pm

The PSP is already an overcrowded under-resourced infrastructure, and most of the people's attitudes here are demonstrating automobile-centric lifestyle.

The same people standing and spewing out the same posts is ironic when Joeblake quotes post statistics, with his showing up as:
186 in Electric Bicycles, of 10344user’s posts (1.46% of all site posts / 9.03 user posts per day)

I'm cycling faster at a higher top speed on my commuter road bike, 35-40kph solo. In drafting pairs or more road bike commuters are even faster.
Some of the lines of argument here are so hypocritical and illogical, it took about 8 posters before anyone showed some decorum.
Shame on you all... except Cachexian right off and toofat who also stepped up with some.

All of the dangerous riding I've encountered in the past year of commuting on a legal single speed electric bike (which died a month ago), were by examples of my current "road bike comrades".
One terrible e-bike example was had - I was passed riding my old commuter MTB on one of the many rides while the e-bike was out of action.
Passer was a fashionable teenage girl with lovely brunette hair (no helmet) on a folding bike... that became electric as I struggled up the last steep hill to home, and she pedalled past casually like earlier on the flat section at intersection where she stopped and gave way to traffic and crossed safely. Illegality at it's worst.

For some hypocritical perspective in the real world, bear in mind PSP's have:
- 0-6-10kph dogs, kids, infants in prams, walkers of all ages and walking aids, disabled mobility aids, etc.
- 10-20-25kph joggers, runners, e-bikes, cyclists
- 25-30-35-40kph+ e-bikes, cyclists, motorised vehicles (petrol, electric)
- all modes of transport have a fundamentally flawed human in charge, and likely to be incompetent at some point in time.

The showing in this thread by regulars here is disgraceful, pull some socks up.

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Re: Legal & effortless eBike?

Postby Joeblake » Wed Dec 07, 2011 6:03 pm

eldavo wrote: The same people standing and spewing out the same posts is ironic when Joeblake quotes post statistics, with his showing up as:
186 in Electric Bicycles, of 10344user’s posts (1.46% of all site posts / 9.03 user posts per day)

I don't disagree with your statistics. But I also don't see what conclusion you're trying to draw. :lol:

Where's the "irony"? :wink:

Joe
To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy
Bertrand Russell

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Re: Legal & effortless eBike?

Postby eldavo » Wed Dec 07, 2011 6:16 pm

It was illogical and meaningless, the point like a lot of the posts in this thread.

The irony was in you posting about lots of posts on a thread of this topic, and thereby increasing the total by more than one :)

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Re: Legal & effortless eBike?

Postby Joeblake » Wed Dec 07, 2011 6:25 pm

eldavo wrote:It was illogical and meaningless, the point like a lot of the posts in this thread.

The irony was in you posting about lots of posts on a thread of this topic, and thereby increasing the total by more than one :)
Actually, if you read my post
this particular topic has been thrashed and thrashed and thrashed.

So what end does yet another thread on the same topic serve? None that I can see.
I was commenting on the number of threads, not the number of posts. :wink:

Just noting that some people don't bother reading what's already been said in a previous thread, but just open up another one and rehash.

Joe
To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy
Bertrand Russell

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trailgumby
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Re: Legal & effortless eBike?

Postby trailgumby » Wed Dec 07, 2011 6:36 pm

I wish people would stop posting in this thread.

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Re: Legal & effortless eBike?

Postby eldavo » Wed Dec 07, 2011 6:45 pm

Joeblake wrote:
eldavo wrote:It was illogical and meaningless, the point like a lot of the posts in this thread.

The irony was in you posting about lots of posts on a thread of this topic, and thereby increasing the total by more than one :)
Actually, if you read my post
this particular topic has been thrashed and thrashed and thrashed.

So what end does yet another thread on the same topic serve? None that I can see.
I was commenting on the number of threads, not the number of posts. :wink:

Just noting that some people don't bother reading what's already been said in a previous thread, but just open up another one and rehash.

Joe
Debating semantics is petty, but here's a quote of what you did 'post', no single letter bolding used to distract from the context.
Joeblake wrote:However, these three threads between them contain 398 of the total of 968 postings in this forum (again, at the time of posting this). So that's roughly 40% of the sub-forum posts are about the law and e-bikes.
"Just noting" ...really, no need to. The poster has 5 posts to his name at the moment. I'm sure you're familiar with the PM feature to alert them to the search feature if that was your possible constructive intention.

My keywords to tag the point of my post if it were a blog would be "hypocrisy, poor-form, forum-regulars"... in case you got distracted solely by the mention of your name (as the world revolves around each of us, it's easy to fall victim to our innate vanity. If anything good comes out of my particular post, it would be to listen to this song for it's musical merits that the word vanity reminded me of:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQZmCJUSC6g
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You%27re_So_Vain

Personally I think we're all better than crappy threads like this, hopefully some music changes moods or whatever is required to pull heads from asses.

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Re: Legal & effortless eBike?

Postby eldavo » Wed Dec 07, 2011 6:46 pm

trailgumby wrote:I wish people would stop posting in this thread.
Obviously not everyone can be saved :)

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trailgumby
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Re: Legal & effortless eBike?

Postby trailgumby » Wed Dec 07, 2011 6:49 pm

DO'h! :lol:

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Re: Legal & effortless eBike?

Postby Joeblake » Wed Dec 07, 2011 6:55 pm

eldavo wrote: Debating semantics is petty ...
But it's all we have. I wrote what I wrote and you wrote what you wrote.

Joe
To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy
Bertrand Russell

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ColinOldnCranky
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Re: Legal & effortless eBike?

Postby ColinOldnCranky » Mon Apr 09, 2012 1:28 pm

SteveAndBelle wrote:Thanks for your positive input... but time for some of you to chill out a bit methinks, sheesh :)

I think I'll stick to my original plan and just figure it out myself.
The logic is laughable and you appeared strongly to be judging others so what has been said is fair comment. You bought it on yourself. Just wear it.

Re figuring it out, someone suggested a slight increase in voltage to get extra power. Just be aware that this will introduce a fair bit of extra heat which the motor will not be designed for. Increases in voltage will give a commensurate squared increase in power. Pump volts by 10% will give you a 21% power increase for example (though how much of this power will get to the drive and how much will be extra heat is anyone's guess).

If you did decide to progress I don't know whether I'd wish you luck or not. A lot hinges on how you used that extra power. You have stated in your original post is aimed at tackling hills rather than speed and it should stay that way. Google Taypet21.

I can understand the frustration of those without end-of-trip facilities.
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Hangdog98
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Re: Legal & effortless eBike?

Postby Hangdog98 » Wed Apr 18, 2012 9:11 pm

Volts have very little to do with power of the heat generating kind. Perhaps you were thinking of AMPS.

Increasing power to electric bicycle motors is a more complex task these days than increasing volts unless you've managed to unearth a last century brushed DC motor, though it still requires AMPS for power. Volts will increase the RPM of a given winding but not the power. The winding of the electric motor determines the volt/rpm ratio and the torque ( the real measure of power). Some motors are wound slow and torquey and others are wound to be fast. Motors are often measured as RPM's per volt. To achieve more actual power, particularly for "tackling hills" one will typically need more amps and this is a product of the battery pack configuration/chemistry and the controller. The amount of amps available from different battery chemistries varies wildly and the amount of amps that can reach the motor is controlled by the controller.

So, to increase power get a controller that can supply more amps to the motor. Too many amps and you may overheat the motor. Use the wrong battery and you will sag the battery, dramatically shorten its life and your battery's range. The moral of the story is to buy a complete system from a reputable supplier. eBikes in Canada http://www.ebikes.ca/store/store_ezee.php has a great package as does Golden Motor from China. http://www.goldenmotor.com/

An excellent plug and play system for a newcomer would be the Golden Motor Magic pie 3 and their 48V 10ah LiFep04 battery pack which will cost you about $1100 to your door. This will get you up to 35kph on the flat for a range of up to 35k's with a bit of leg work. I can pedal faster than that without a motor so I'm perfectly happy to share the paths with you.

Enjoy riding your eBike along the paths your taxes paid for on your sweat-free, toll-free, car-free, safe & speedy 35kph journey to work.

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Re: Legal & effortless eBike?

Postby OldNick » Sun Nov 04, 2012 6:59 pm

Queestce wrote:Electric bikes are silly
Well I feel says it all for a few of the posts I read here. Whether legal or not, the OP was asking for advice about electric bikes. If you do not like electric bikes, then why not stay of the ebike forum and not just come in here sniping? I just can't see the point.

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Re: Legal & effortless eBike?

Postby OldNick » Sun Nov 04, 2012 7:23 pm

SteveAndBelle wrote:Problem is that which ever way I decide to go I have some large hills to climb and after recently building up a cheap & dodgy yet very capable prototype I quickly realised that even the most efficient & effective 200W motor setup will still result in me turning up to work drenched in sweat. Most people sweat standing still here in Summer so this may be an impossibility... but I'm willing to try.

Realising that the law is downright ridiculous for this scenario I'm willing to try to softly break it and just pay the concequences if caught.

My current cheap & dodgy prototype is based in a 350W Chinese mid-mount kit purchased off eBay. It's a heavy bike (pushing 30kgs) and I'm a heavy guy (93kgs) but I've managed to get it up to 47.5kph on the flat without pedalling at all.
I am a complete noob to ebikes, but not motors, gears and bikes. I may have missed something, but I am unaware of the setup of your bike.

I think mentioning the 47KPH was maybe a tactical error. I hate speeding bikes on shared paths, WHETHER ELECTRIC ASSIST OR NOT :wink:, so I too condemn a unit that can do this at will. It also attracts negative attention to ebikes that we don't need.

Firstly is the system you have driving the rear wheel or the crank? If it's the crank (and I think mid-mount says "yes") and you have gears, then use your bike gears to get up hills. This is a HUGE advantage for crank-drive setups over wheel drive. You can do that with 200W easily: that is what the average weekend rider can do, and they get up hills, albeit slowly. It may just mean your going slowly. If you don't have gears than I would suggest getting a bike that has, or organising something. For ebike, you would only need a couple of front chain rings: one as you have now and one a fair bit smaller.

If not and it's a wheel driver then you need to alter the gearing on the motor to drastically raise the ratio: since you can get 47KPH (and BTW AFAIK there is no speed limit for a bike under 200W) then alter your gearing by about 1.8 (smaller driving gear, larger driven gear) and you will have nearly twice the torque and half the top speed, or maybe more depending on the.

What voltage are you running the bike on? Is the motor brushed or brushless? It should not be hard to alter the gearing in some way, lower the volts to the motor to get it to 200W and have the same torque you have now, lower speed, and legal power.

If you geared it so that gave that extra torque, but a lot less speed, THEN you could "softly break the law" and as long as you behaved yourself and did not speed ridiculously, nobody will give a double damn.

While I was not impressed by the apparent ebike haters coming into an ebike section and providing nothing but vitriol, I do agree that there is not much point having a pedal fitted bike if you do not want to anything at all. I would accept that couple of hills, with assistance, then use the breeze as you float along the flat to dry off. I do not live in Brisbane, but I personally sweat like a pig and always have, so I know what it's like to get all lathered.

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Re: Legal & effortless eBike?

Postby ColinOldnCranky » Sun Nov 04, 2012 9:55 pm

(Assuming that this is not a subtle and exceptionally clever bit of trolling)

I have had a bit more a think. I support the use of e-bikes (you can look up my posts if you care). I don't even disagree with an increase in allowable power.

Yes, I see that there have been a few somewhat harsh critics of the OP. And some compensating critics of that harsh edge. But in a case like this I concur with much of the negative sentiment. SteveAndBelle introduced the certainty of such response with his highly opinionated statement about a "downright ridiculous" law and then went on to his tale of 47.5kph. And while decrying his own need or intent, why bother even introducing that element of speed in his post at all?

Sorry SteveAndBelle but while I support e-bikes, I do not support them being a cheap substitute for the existing highly appropriate and already legal and safety compliant mopeds. Or to gain entitlement to ride on shared and cyclists paths on an effortless form of transport to avoid traffic hassles. My hope is that you get booked soon and booked often and that you then either get a scooter, use public transport or live with some of the dis-benefits of biking that the rest of us have to.

Every mode of transport has a few downs. There is nothing special about your needs that entitles you to special privileges. Man up, pay up or take a bus. Your choice.
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ColinOldnCranky
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Re: Legal & effortless eBike?

Postby ColinOldnCranky » Sun Nov 04, 2012 11:11 pm

Apology to SteveAndBelle. Following from my previous post, I see that you have already decided to not go ahead anyway.

Now I'll be hoping instead that you, one way or another, discover the satisfaction that many others have with a bike. Most people discover it later in life than they needed to, the lucky ones arrive at that point early.

Happy trails.
Unchain yourself-Ride a unicycle

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Re: Legal & effortless eBike?

Postby OldNick » Sun Nov 04, 2012 11:37 pm

Are you questioning me as a troll? Even though I would like to be thought of as that "clever" I just cannot bother being that devious. I am just trying to help.

"online" you disgrace cyclists. You continue to ...no...I want to help another cyclist, not get involved in this childish war. Just go AWAY from the ebike section, if you don't like them. Why are you here except to .....troll...I assume. Damn I hate this. The OP has done and said wrong stuff. BUT THEY ARE TRYING TO GET A CYCLING RESULT...whether assisted or not.

Cyclists are already fighting with pedestrians and motorists (both of whom are in the vast majority in any shared situation) Say What are we starting fights amongst ourselves.

Seriously. INDIVIDUALS FROM BOTH PEDAL AND EBIKE RIDERS HAVE BEHAVED ATROCIOUSLY I am both a biker and a ped and I know about the daft peds with their silly children (I have none) and the way rude and aggressive riders. Please let us not bring that warfare into our own ranks, powered or not.

The OP was NOT trying to be a w***k**. They seem to be genwine., Get over it and either help or BACK OFF. please

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Re: Legal & effortless eBike?

Postby OldNick » Sun Nov 04, 2012 11:48 pm

OK. I would seriously like to end all" discussion" here. The OP really has moved on and is extremely grateful for our negative response. Because of it, they are now into hybrid cars and such and waiting for the production run or something. :roll:
So THEY WERE TROLLS . Apparently PMs made others assume they were not. So they were either very good (and sick ) trolls or just mad.

I seriously tried to help, both here and in PM. But I still cannot be happy with the sniping and bickering that arose in this thread. It was totally non=productive for the cause of CYCLING.

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Re: Legal & effortless eBike?

Postby ColinOldnCranky » Mon Nov 05, 2012 10:19 am

OldNick wrote:Are you questioning me as a troll? Even though I would like to be thought of as that "clever" I just cannot bother being that devious. I am just trying to help.
I was referring to the OP. And from what you say, it seems he was. Pity. Life goes on.

I can't think how being positive would have led to a useful outcome unless reinforcing a bad mindset is good. Positive to me could have easily just been a form of patronizing anyway.
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OldNick
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Re: Legal & effortless eBike?

Postby OldNick » Wed Nov 07, 2012 12:24 am

jessu you guys. Bugger me. If bikers are going to snipe at each other, then wither the ability to meld with peds and drivers? fooh! pointtomakepointtomakepointtomakepointtomakepointtomakepointtomake

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Re: Legal & effortless eBike?

Postby ChrisRider » Wed Jan 16, 2013 4:46 pm

Even a 200W motor will make a huge difference to a regular bicycle, as in a lot less effort, to go much greater distances, faster and easier. Sometimes the quality of bicycle can make a difference, for example a 200W chinese style e bike will be a little sluggish. But then if you still buy a 200W e bike from a high quality brand, i have found them to run much faster, smoother, due to all the high quality components, gearsets, groupset, bottom brackets and motor quality.
Resident Electric Bikes Engineer at Reef Bikes

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Re: Legal & effortless eBike?

Postby geebee » Tue Jan 22, 2013 12:12 pm

If the Op is still reading, an Aseako central drive bike should fit the bill, the motor runs through the gears allowing good hill climbing and an lightly assisted speed around 30~36 kph on the flat, You should have no trouble arriving sweat free, the Aussie ones have a throttle that is good for 25 kph without assisting at all.

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