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Ugghhh. I fuggin HATE ads! But, a friendly visitor recommended an OyToob channel, and an old infomercial came up and it’s on e-bikes… so I watched it.
The seniors round here just love them. Those grey hairs drive slow as snails in their cars, but you put ‘em on an e-bike… and they go fast enough to get speeding tickets. I don’t get it?
I’m not going to get an e-bike. I’ve got a motorcycle that doesn’t get enough miles, and an old recumbent Cat Trike hanging up downstairs if I wanna do pedalling. It seems to me that these are pretty much a geriatric thing, maybe? The seniors go out for a few easy rides in the summer, and $250.00 for a battery every other year’s okay. The hardcore kids have energy to spare and are better served by higher end road and mountain bikes. Batteries go flat fast on terrain and on steep hills. I think the range estimates and battery life given are rather optimistic.
I dunno about these things, though. Gotta admit… they are intriguing. Maybe the wife needs one?
They become really fun when the battery erupts into thermal overload and blows between your legs or in your garage or in the house. How much fun is that?
ReplyDeleteWould be good for geezers hunting from logging roads and fire breaks. Quiet. In Tennessee, off road golf carts are used to sneak into good areas.
ReplyDeleteThe kids all ride them around here. Cracks me up when you see three or even four kids riding one bike. The only negative is that these bikes are heavy & and a geriatric got clobbered & killed by one in a hit & run on a cycleway near here. They are heavy enough to do real damage and because kids are kids, can be a by massive nuisance. They can disable the governor & become seriously FAST ! The darker side is the drug dealers here all use them too as they’re all the same to look at, don’t need to be registered and are totally silent. They used to all ride unregistered trail bikes because the cops wouldn’t chase them through suburbia. But the trail bikes are noisy. E-bikes with disabled governors are almost as quick.
ReplyDeleteThe cheap ass Chinese batteries and history of battery fires make that a hard NO for me. I got enough toys with spark plugs to not need that. Pretty popular at big RV campgrounds though. I heard somewhere that New York City passed an ordnance banning those from apartment buildings cause of the fire hazard.
ReplyDeleteCederQ makes an excellent point.
ReplyDeleteI live in the orient where it is mostly a 30 & under thing.
Inexpensive, “cool”, helps save mommy Earth…
But mostly, traffic is insane! lane splitting, up and down from sidewalks, going against the flow are as common as breathing.
That is the main factor here.
The kids and license-denied drunks here in California ride 'em like regular bikes; no helmets, and nothing to protect even if they were required. The damned bikes go over 35MPH and weigh as much as a motor scooter! Stop signs? Pa-SHAW! Red lights? Merely a suggestion. Speed limits? Y'make me laugh! And all this on a vehicle as quiet as a ghost's fart. It's stuff like this that gets things BANNED. 'Remember "mopeds?" Yeah... Like that...
ReplyDelete