Originally Posted by
Happy Feet
I guess the real question is who said bicycles aren't supposed to have motors? Is it a law or something or just what a private citizen believes is true for them. If so, another citizen is free to feel differently. Who's right?
That's what we are trying to hash out here. The e-bike is obviously a disruptive technology, one that blurs the lines and creates gray areas where none existed before. I think it's dangerous for that reason, because of the slippery slope argument (see below).
I thought the slippery slope argument was refuted when it was shown that you have an e bike article on your own site, that discusses how to convert a conventional bike and your site has not faltered as a result. Seems compelling.
No. Back in 2007, e-bikes were in their infancy, and not really practical for touring, due to weight, lack of range, etc. It was more of a curiosity than anything else. Over the last ten years they have progressed to the point where we are seeing more mass adoption, more capability, more range, more power, so they are being talked about more. But we are not at that critical point yet which I am talking about in the "slippery slope" argument, whereby the technology is so capable that it can provide all or most of the work, over large distances. The end of the slippery slope is in the future still, but we're already seeing the effects of the acceleration of technology, by the people here who seem to think it's just fine to say you are doing a "bicycle tour" on a machine that has a motor on it. The fact that the end of the process (fully capable e-bikes that can do all the work, with the pedaling being optional) hasn't happened YET is not a refutation of my argument, any more than the fact that the world as we know it hasn't ended YET is a refutation of anthropogenic climate change.
And, should an international touring forum's (not really a sacrosanct space) content be determined by the biases of people who want to make statements against motorized travel, explicitly reject it (seems political) and, if so, how do you square the circle of discussing taking a train or ferry as part of it?
I'm not making an argument AGAINST motorized travel, I'm just saying that for many, bicycling is an explicit expression of trying to get away from that. The fact that we all have to live in the modern world and take various forms of transportation to get to our tours is a red herring. I rode my bicycle from coast to coast back in 1998, and then I took a train back to NYC from Oregon. I don't regard that as cheating in any way, since I completed the tour I wanted to do (riding from coast to coast), and then I wanted to go home. Trying to portray this as somehow opening the door to motors on bicycles as being "all the same" is the sort of contortion that I expect to see from desperate lawyers in courtrooms, not regular people on a bicycle touring forum.
See, the problem with drawing arbitrary lines in the sand is that it is immediately pointed out how people cross them all the time because those lines don't really exist or people think what they are doing is the exception to the rule.
The thing is, motors is NOT an "arbitrary line in the sand". Saying "no motors" will AVOID arbitrary lines in the sand, e.g. "no more than 300 watts" or whatever metric you want to say is the line between "ok" and "not ok" for this forum. Because that line does exist; I doubt very much that anybody would want to pretend that tours on ATV, motorbike or car would be ok to discuss here. So there is a line somewhere. Saying that "some motors are ok but not above x power" or whatever is the very definition of "arbitrary line in the sand". Saying "no motors" is a very clear, definite, easy to understand line in the sand that will not shift, due to developing technology or changing laws.
Neil