I live in the USA and if I want to get rid of my car I would need to be able to cover 70 miles round trip with moderate exercise in a reasonable amount of time. I think if I could cruise at 35MPH (56 KMH) that would be enough to make the switch.
It may be stupid, but I’d like to try to avoid an electric motorcycle - those need insurance, registration fees, real parking spaces, and a special license. Also, I enjoy getting some activity while riding. FWIW I’m not worried about legality, but I do plan to stay off bike paths/sidewalks to avoid endangering pedestrians and other cyclists.
My idea so far is to start with a gravel bike frame for aerodynamics, efficiency, and sturdiness in case of a pothole or rogue curb. From there I’m thinking about a 1500w hub motor, dual batteries, higher gears, bigger brakes, and permanent lights for visibility. Also a good helmet of course, crashing at that speed can be pretty bad.
Has anyone done something like this and had it go well/poorly? Anything I’m clearly missing in my plan? Also feel free to tell me if I’m an idiot, but I already know that bit.
You want a vespa.
Vespas here need registration, insurance, etc. etc. That would solve the range issue though.
At 35mph, registration and insurance aren’t bad ideas.
Safety gear isn’t a bad idea, but registration and insurance don’t make sense to me - if I’m on a 100lb vehicle on a road where everyone else is in a 4000lb vehicle it doesn’t make sense why I would need liability coverage. And I’m not damaging the roads the way cars/trucks do so it doesn’t make any sense to me to pay anything to the state/country for registration.
I think the problem is that you’re looking for an e-bike with the specs of a motorcycle/vespa/moped, and those require a licence, registration, and insurance.
I remember seeing similar questions on e-scooter subreddits, where people would be asking about e-scooters to go 65mph with over 5000W of power, not realizing that most places restrict them to 500w or less, and a max speed of 15mph. LOL
I get that laws haven’t really caught up to all micromobility options, but this is something to keep in mind.
Depends on jurisdiction, yeah. Some places you don’t even need a license.
Yeah we need e-mopeds. In my state under 50cc doesn’t need a reg or license to ride on roads. Some of the spicier 49ccs can do 45-50mph. Electric equivalents would be nice, but I’m worried they will be difficult to fit weight and space wise on a bike frame. A used Puch or Moped frame would be better maybe.
I also live in a rural sidewalk-less town and am thinking of building something similar, but I haven’t done any work on power requirements or range yet. Let us know how it works out.
You want long range, fast, and electric. pick two.
If you can stand to go slower, plenty of bikes can get you to 25. 35 is kinda outside of bicycle speed territory.
That’s fair, but what is the limiting factor? Frame geometry? Power? I downhill mountain bike and regularly hit 45 on open sections. I think if the motor could keep up the bike would be fine.
I think if the motor could keep up the bike would be fine.
You are not quite correct. The more powerful a bike’s motor is, the beefier the frame and wheels have to be, or it will literally bend or break when you apply too much torque. You also need a strong suspension, thicker tires, and (most important) solid disc brakes. So most bikes that are very fast and powerful end up looking more like small motorcycles.
There are some relatively “stealthy” ebikes that go as fast as you want, however:
But they ain’t cheap. The beefy parts and frame add more money to the final cost than the motor, I would guess.
You could also carry a second battery if you want to double your range (assuming you get one with an easily removable battery).
The biggest is probably just efficiency, both with aerodynamics and how motors work (from a quick search, rolling resistance seems to go up with speed, too). Faster is more work thus less range. That and battery (or just total) weight.
Personally I went with the cheapest, smallest, and lightest ebike I could find that still has gears. Aside from trails, it’s easier to lift/store and transport for 1-way trips. I definitely couldn’t go 70 miles, 35 miles is a maybe (I have gone ~22 miles before as someone relatively not in shape, also battery indicator on my bike seems to be unhelpfully cautious/lacking resolution).
I feel like paying 2x+ what I paid isn’t worth it either (especially when they have worse aspects) but cheap is probably not for everybody, at very least because it’s a 250w motor so it doesn’t go very fast (particularly on its own, but gears help). Haven’t ridden it in months because my local trail won’t be finished with maintenance until next year (I have no navigation and I don’t want to deal with pulling into ditches).
Whatever bike it is, you ride 35mph on a,bike path, expect a stick in your spokes.
Yeah definitely no bike paths unless you keep it under like 18mph imo. This would be for rural roads.
Take a look at Pedago’ s Ridge Rider
I own this bike, and i have not regretted the purchase at all. Its range is pretty decent, 55mi I think. The bike has a software speed limiter which prevents the motor assist above 20 or 25mph depending on the model you get; but there is a community of folks that have some hacks around it (though I haven’t done this myself).
One of they key defining features of this bike is the throttle control; you can have pedal assist turned on and then also use the throttle on the handlebar to have the motor do all the work.
Awesome bike! I have an E-mountain bike and really enjoy it. For this application, I’m not sure if the mountain bike design will give me enough efficiency to hit the range I need. Maybe with narrower street tires and mostly locking out the suspension, but that removes most of the mountain bike advantages IMO.
i have an ariel rider kepler, it seems like it checks your boxes with the speed and power requirements, and it does have amazing range but i’m not sure how the range would hold up if you’re constantly keeping the motor at 100% going super fast all the time. if you could manage to charge it when you get your destination, it might be good for 35 miles. or you could add another battery, i think ive seen youtube videos with the kepler getting a battery mod.
Ariel riders look pretty great! How is it to pedal? Geometry wise it looks like it would be hard to get much power out of pedaling it. I would seriously think about buying a used rider to steal the drive train out of though, seems like they have a nice powerful platform and lots of customization options on the aftermarket.
it is pretty difficult to pedal on its own, the kepler is a 70lb bike with its battery. but i can still feel my legs doing work when i set the assist low and i can get it going on flat ground when i turn off the motor.
You don’t need a bike, you need a great public transport system. Great means service every 5 minutes all day, every day. System means the entire city is covered with great transfers to express routes that move fast to close to where you want to be. It can be done, and would be cheaper than a car for everyone in your city in the long run, but it will also be expensive to get there. Good luck.
You’re not wrong but public transit here sucks. Every weekend I go to a friend’s house - by car it is 1 hour every time. By train it is somewhere between 2.5 and 3 hours depending on delays. Public transport (even when poorly implemented) offers a great way to get in/out of medium to large cities, but isn’t really ideal for trips from one rural area outside the city to another. What would be much more convenient would be if I could bring an ebike on the train with me. Most of the distance on this trip is covered by a 1h train ride, and it’s just the busses on either end which are slow and unreliable. Unfortunately they don’t allow electric bikes at all, and normal bikes are only allowed during certain hours.
My bother in law has a Juiced Rip Current S, with the performance upgrade it does 30mph on throttle, it’ll probably go faster with pedal assist. I can test it later if you want.
I’ll need to check what model it is, but it’s probably the highest power one.
Technically not street legal, but nobody is going enforce that. Probably.
To guarantee the range you’d probably need a spare battery.
You can also put a rack on it to carry stuff and the spare battery.
You could check out electric unicycles. The specs on high end ones are getting pretty crazy these days. 50mph easily with ranges around 100 miles. The Veteran Sherman S is a good choice for long range street cruising. The Begode EX30 is another big, heavy, extremely fast long range wheel.
Anything that goes over 28mph is no longer an ebike in the US and would need to be registered as some sort of vehicle. Sorry.
You could get an e-moped or scooter maybe, especially if you don’t care about legality but keep in mind at higher speeds you’d want to wear better protective gear rated for those speeds (DOT rated in the US).
Also, keep in mind, motorcyclists are often referred to as organ donors because they die a lot, so if you ride be careful as fuck.
Legally speaking sure. I’ve never seen that enforced though so I wouldn’t be particularly concerned about the legality of it.
Yeah, probably some sort of moped or scooter or something
