An e-bike that can do 30 mph will not cost $800, or even $1000. That really limits how many will get built or sold. I will probably never see one on the road in my lifetime. I doubt most of us will. What is the problem? A fair number of the e-bike owners I have chatted with are women. Older women. Even if their bikes could go 30mph their owners would never take them up to those speeds. How many of us ever take our cars to the top speed of which it is capable? This really is much ado about nothing. E-bike hate threads are starting to clog up several sub-forums on BF. A growing number of cyclists think its cheating to own one. Cheating? WTF? Yes if you are in sanctioned competition with a clandestine e-assist in the downtube of your time trial bike you are cheating, but on your commute to the office? Let's get a grip.
Bike messengers of the late 1980's through mid 1990's did not need motors to earn the hatred of most road users. Delivery riders on e-bikes are not dangerous because their bikes have motors! Amazon delivery vans are taking out way more pedestrians (and cyclists) and causing destruction to public and private property than all the e-bike delivery riders in NYC combined! Let's get a grip. Amazon forces their delivery drivers to unreasonable schedules and penalizes and/or fires drivers that cannot keep to them. Restaurants that abuse delivery riders with low pay or per trip rates encourage reckless behavior by their delivery staff. They would still be a menace on pedal bicycles.
Know what? I have more regard for the mouth-breather on the 28mph e-motorcycle who upsets the writers of e-bike hate threads so much because they are at least riding something electric! You holier than thou haters still make most of your trips using a CAR and I have a problem with that. Why? Because you are destroying my planet. You don't get to take the moral high ground over the behavior of scant thousands of people when you are part of a cohort of millions ... tens of millions of people contributing to the demise of humankind with every trip in your SUV. I don't own an e-bike but I recognize that they are the way forward. Responsible people will ride them responsibly. This should be encouraged. The threads I see don't just call out the bad behaved e-cyclists, most of them attempt to shame anyone who would buy an assisted bike for any reason. That's just stupid. Stop it. Save the scorn for the people who use F-150 pickup trucks as daily driver (single passenger at that) commute vehicles.
Last edited by Leisesturm; 01-02-20 at 01:23 PM.