One underrated lesson Luigi taught us is that transit privacy is necessary for a free society and ebikes are the transit modality of a free people.
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I truly do not want to hear from European conservatives about the need for speed governors, location tracking, and neutralizing the revolutionary capacity of ebikes because it's scary when they go fast. Please hesitate to say that ebikes are a mixed blessing because they simply aren't. Of course the materials have a colonial origin, but the lithium needed to produce an ebike is an unimaginably small fraction compared to an electric car. Of course electricity is still in many places nonrenewable, but the electricity needed to power an ebike is many orders of magnitude less than an electric car. The alternatives are bad while ebikes are good, and any attempt to neutralize that goodness in service of protecting a car-centric society is regressive, conservative politics.
Get the fuck out of your car and onto an ebike. Get one that's powrful enough to carry you at road speeds. Get one where you can override the software speed limit. Get one where you can pack as many batteries as you need. Part of what makes ebikes rad is that they return the capacity for hacking your vehicle back to you, while hacking an ICE or EV is a death sentence for most people. Wear all the moto protective gear every time. You will not regret it. I do not miss paying for gas and being trapped in a car.
The alternative of either cooking the planet by failing to electrify or having electrification mean everyone drives 4 ton colonial rare earth metal luxury clusterfucks is grim while a future of cities based around public transit supplemented by low-weight, low-complexity, high-freedom ebikes is beautiful.
@jonny
People have children and disabilities, Jonny.
People have children and disabilities, Jonny.
@jonny
I wish that it were safe to ride one on the streets where I live and they don't disappear like hot cakes. Until then I'll keep walking and riding buses whenever I can.
@breadandcircuses
I wish that it were safe to ride one on the streets where I live and they don't disappear like hot cakes. Until then I'll keep walking and riding buses whenever I can.
@breadandcircuses
@jonny "Packing as many batteries as you need" and "override the speed limits" on ebikes is a great way to set yourself and your house on fire instantaneously
Take safety seriously. They are not toys. Just like EVs, there is no time to escape when a battery goes 💥🔥
@jonny
Depends on local context I guess, but overriding the software speed limit is seriously uncool towards other cyclists(*), not to mention the danger for yourself.
Depends on local context I guess, but overriding the software speed limit is seriously uncool towards other cyclists(*), not to mention the danger for yourself.
*This is an actual issue in The Netherlands
@jonny Winter has me sad because I don't feel quite sturdy enough to ride my ebike. I had been getting out and exploring new areas of my new state before the temperature dropped, and feeling invigorated after every ride. Price of a spare battery has dropped, so I'm feeling ambitious to do an overnight jaunt motel to motel when weather warms up. I pull the battery when I park to avoid theft. It's a shame the bike doesnt have a more robust antitheft system than a mere chain lock.
@jonny it's very cold here and I have to ferry children around all the time :smol-doge:
(I used to own all the gear to bike myself around in winter but having fallen out of the habit the bike itself isn't even the problem, it's getting all the *stuff* together to do it!)
This is very much a :smol-doge: response, but I love the idea and someday!
@jonny it's a bit funny when there are local speed limits for cars of 30 kph, and ebikes are largely limited at 25, but the "fat bikes" that are very powerful and very hackable can accelerate fast and easily hit 35 or 40 without a problem.
It feels like the faster ones should be on the roads, not on the bike paths, but I don't think that's possible here in the Netherlands. So we end up with a handful of fat bikes running at twice the speed of the rest of traffic, weaving side to side.
Needless to say it is ONLY a mass adoption of ebikes in the period while they are still a free technology that will prevent them from being regulated out of existence. It is black bloc as transit infrastructure: we need median income median privacy-needs people on ebikes to keep them viable for everyone. More mundanely, roving packs of ebikers shift transit infra priorities. So there's a collective benefit beyond all the obvious personal benefits too.
They are a societal cheat code and we know how governments feel about those: too good to be so free.
Its also dope as hell to be on the road on a vehicle where other people on it are also people instead of everyone in a city being anonymous steel bricks of road rage. I talk to bikers and people in cars talk to me while we're just rolling around the city because that's what not being in anonymizing steel brick does.
I dont really feel in any more signficant danger than when I'm in a car because I literally get the best of all worlds in transit: when I need to, I can go as fast as a car, so I can just occupy a lane and be fine. When traffic is tight, I can split lanes and maneuver like a motorcycle, leaving all the traffic behind. When things are hectic I can behave like a bike and pop up onto the sidewalk temporarily and actually safely go 2mph among pedestrian traffic. It's a vehicle that makes sense everywhere except the highway.
@jonny honestly, if I didn't spent 4 years on ebikes, I'd struggle to walk my kids to and from school. They're literally the best stepping stone to physical health we have. I'll try not to go too nuts, but this is just insane, as I've not seen these arguments before!!!
Yeh, ditch your EV cars, but EV bikes are so important on so many levels!
@jonny Agreeing with you on most points. But if flowing with the rest of the traffic is the problem, you can also cut the rest of the traffic down to (e)bike-speed. Then the EU cap on ebike speed isn't such a big deal anymore.
Some forward-thinking cities in the Netherlands are right now doing exactly that, introducing a speed limit of 30km/h (roughly 20 mph). That makes cities more human-friendly in general, accidents get way less serious at this speed. https://www.gld.nl/nieuws/8205268/helft-nijmeegse-50-wegen-gaat-naar-30-kilometer-per-uur
@moritz_negwer
I would take that too, but there's just no way the US would ever do anything like that
I would take that too, but there's just no way the US would ever do anything like that
@jonny "ok, let's do the same for cars: a bike weights 35kg tops, a car up to 100x that, so for the same momentum they should go 100x slower, 0.25km/h."
@jonny Motorized vehicles (excepting wheelchairs) on bike paths are too much.
@jonny@neuromatch.social The reason it is Europeans you’re hearing this from is because they (the ebikes) can be frightening to pedestrians.
Still far less deadly than cars, though.
@jonny of they can go highway speeds, they are going to get license plates. I agree with most of your thread but anything that can go highway speeds is going to get a license plate. It's not about you, it's about the fact that they are useful getaway vehicles. That's where car license plates come from and the demand is growing fast in places with fast ebikes
@stevenbodzin yeah i don't think they should go highway speeds. they don't weigh enough for that to be safe
@jonny in New York the law limits unlicensed ones to 25mph, which strikes me as fine. As they are made heavier they get plates. There are electric motorcycles from all the big companies now, and some weird Frankenstein things that I wouldn't trust that also go 45mph+
@jonny definitely not a European Conservative, but it is my sad duty to inform you that in Germany, eBikes and Scooters are indeed already regulated. So annoying.
@jonny I seem to recall in one of my women's studies classes, the bicycle led to a great deal of women's empowerment (for that time period).
@jonny
don't eat a macca's is another?
don't eat a macca's is another?
Read your bike history. Bikes have been a radical technology everywhere they exist. From a materialist perspective, you dont just invent the most energy efficient means of conveyance by an order of magnitude and have it not be revolutionary. You dont invent a technology that dramatically reshapes people's relationship with space and have that not be revolutionary.
Ebikes are an evolutionary step in that history. To be able to gain access to the City with a stolen BMX bike and the cost of a single Uber ride in parts is revolutionary. To not need government identification and an elaborate system of regulation to interact with space is, for now, revolutionary. To be able to avoid automated plate readers and move freely in a surveillance state is not a luxury, it is necessary.