Most Annoying ...

[DrkAngel]

My pet peeves!

The last car, in a long line, who gradually slows ... stops, then waves for me to cross the road.

The person who asks: "Can you charge it back up, by pedaling?"
My reply:
"Wouldn't that defeat the whole purpose?
The purpose of an eBike is to make pedaling easier!
You would have to pedal, twice as hard as a normal bike, for 2 hours, to make 2 cents worth of electricity!"

Possibly annoying, if I hadn't laughed, (silently), was the adult, who's eye's went wide, with inspiration, then he informed me that I could ride forever if I put a friction drive generator against the wheel. ... I just said ... "Wow."

Oh! I mustn't forget, the policeman, stopped at on intersection, who waved back ... when I signaled for a right turn!

[Rassy]

The last car, in a long line, who gradually slows ... stops, then waves for me to cross the road.

I love this one. my little town of just 1200 has over a mile of 4 lanes of highway 101 and no traffic lights. Of course every trip involves crossing the highway a couple of times. Worse than the last car in a line stopping is when the first car stops while the other three lanes are still rolling along.

Every so often the city cops run a cross walk sting to make sure everyone is aware they have to stop for pedestrians. Of course the sting is featured in the weekly paper before and after. So for the next month or so as I approach a stop sign before crossing 101 there is always someone hitting the brakes and giving up their right of way and generally fouling up the whole system.

[dogman dan]

I always amaze them when they stop, and then I ride around behind them. Do I really look that stupid, that I'd want to be in front of a car that will run me down if your foot slips off the brake?

Rule 1 trust nobody
Rule 2 assume they really intend to kill you.

[friedwires]

and why the hell wont oncoming cars turn their high beams off for a bicycle.

[neptronix]

and why the hell wont oncoming cars turn their high beams off for a bicycle.

Get dual magicshines or some other high powered light setup. Nobody will miss you oncoming. And if you need to dish out the punishment, you can ;]

[REdiculous]

What annoys me is having to come to a full stop at every stop sign. If you end up going down the wrong street you run into a sign at every intersection until maybe you get to ride for two blocks before you hit the next one.

I wish I was 14 again so I could just ride like a jackass and not give a f*ck.

As a driver I absolutely hate those red flashers on the back of bikes. They're too bright and distracting - it makes it hard to see where you are because it strobes and you move. I can see you're there anyway because you have a headlight..at least turn the flashing off.

[CrazyJerry]

My pet peeves!

The person who asks: "Can you charge it back up, by pedaling?"

Hahaha - been there! I find it easier to just say yes and avoid the details if I want to get going!
- CrazyJerry

[MikeFairbanks]

My pet peeves!

The last car, in a long line, who gradually slows ... stops, then waves for me to cross the road.

The person who asks: "Can you charge it back up, by pedaling?"
My reply:
"Wouldn't that defeat the whole purpose?
The purpose of an eBike is to make pedaling easier!
You would have to pedal, twice as hard as a normal bike, for 2 hours, to make 2 cents worth of electricity!"

Possibly annoying, if I hadn't laughed, (silently), was the adult, who's eye's went wide, with inspiration, then he informed me that I could ride forever if I put a friction drive generator against the wheel.

Oh! I mustn't forget, the policeman, stopped at on intersection, who waved back ... when I signaled for a right turn!

So true.

[DrkAngel]

My pet peeves!

The person who asks: "Can you charge it back up, by pedaling?"

Hahaha - been there! I find it easier to just say yes and avoid the details if I want to get going!
- CrazyJerry

Yes! I put it on a stand ... and pedal 5 hours every night, to charge it back up,
so that I can electric, 10 miles to work, in the morning. ... ???

[Jason27]

What I find annoying are the people buy cheap $400 walmart electric bikes then complain when it breaks down. They think they are getting a good deal when really they bought crap on wheels.

Or the people who spend $2k+ on an ebike with a weak 350 watt motor. They just got ripped off in my opinion.

I try and tell people, build it yourself! That way you can fix it when something happens.

I personally have learned so much from you guys who build your own ebikes. I would never just outright buy one from somewhere.

[DrkAngel]

Dangerous too ...

Drivers who never learned that bicycles have the same rights, and responsibilities, as other vehicles.

Made a right-on-red, pulled in behind a car, with a pickup following about 100 feet behind.
City traffic, about 25mph, I never fell more than 2 car lengths behind the car.

Well the pick-up catches up and blows his horn at me to let him by.
I maintain center of the lane, so he crosses the Main street, Dbl center line, trying to pass me.
Gets beside me, then finally realizes that I'm within 1 car length of the car in front of me, and he has no place to pull in.
He seemed stupefied about what to do next ... and kept driving toward the oncoming traffic.
Finally he slammed on his brakes, and screeched into a left turn.

Lessons: ... ?

Some New York State drivers don't know that bicycles have the same road rights as cars.
Some drivers appear to be extremely near sighted.
Drivers do crazy things!
Just because you have the "right of way" doesn't mean you won't still, get run down-over!?

[LHelge]

My pet peeves!

The person who asks: "Can you charge it back up, by pedaling?"

Hahaha - been there! I find it easier to just say yes and avoid the details if I want to get going!
- CrazyJerry

Yes! I put it on a stand ... and pedal 5 hours every night, to charge it back up,
so that I can electric, 10 miles to work, in the morning. ... ???

A Swedish politician from the left wing party actually proposed that we should put windmills on top of electric cars to recharge them. For those of you who understand Swedish, this clip could be funny
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xa2Cag9OrHc
otherwise you maybe hear the laughter in the end of this clip. He is saying something like:

"When i was a kid we had generators on our bikes to power the lights, i don't se the technical difficulties in putting something similar on electric cars to recharge while driving. When driving in 90 km/h you get a lot of wind resistance that could be turned into something useful"

This is from some kind of gettogether wher politicians and scientists discuss the future of transportation. As a Swede you get a little bit scared knowing this guy is sitting in the parliament and in the government traffic committee.

[John in CR]

I call them "mobile traffic control centers". The term applies to all the retards who do things while driving cars that attempt to control traffic flow, but create a negative effect. They are unable to use their mirrors and brains to realize if they just continue on with their right of way that everyone will move faster. While their heart is in the right place, they simply can't grasp that you could pull out sooner if they just continue on, since there's no traffic behind them.

I definitely prefer the group above over their retard cousins, the horn honking a-holes who are unable to grasp the concept of traffic being limited to the speed of traffic ahead.

That's what I love most about riding my ebikes. Traffic generally changes from a major waste of my time with idiots affecting me directly, to becoming slow moving obstacles to avoid while allowing plenty of space for me to zip on my way pretty much unaffected by their nonsense.

[torqueon]

Flattery that displays total ignorance !

1 Can you make it solar powered ! I am trying to figure out how to Carrie the 4 x 8 sheet of plywood from home depot !

2 Recharge batteries with generator ! What happened to basic physics in school ?

3 You should patent that thing . I mean please ! bicycles, motors, batteries, etc have been around, well over a century

Traffic instances too many to list, my bike does get me out of intersection fairly quick, can't imagine doing this with just pedals anymore. Yeah for motor and batteries

Now that the bike has been reliable I have turned my focus to safety, better brakes and mirrors and a large horn !

[DrkAngel]

The most worrisome, is the large percentage of drivers, who fail to use their turn signals!
The majority of my "in traffic" travel depends heavily, on being able to ascertain the actions of the surrounding vehicles.

Turn signal on constantly? ... no problem!
I classify them as totally unpredictable ... even they don't know what they are doing!

It is the uncertainty that is worrisome ...

[jonathanm]

When I lived in Chicago proper, drivers were pretty crazy, in an aggressive sort of way. Now I live out in the burbs I have the opposite problem....

As a Brit in the US, I've never been fond of the 4 way stop...but out here in the burbs, it becomes a real PITA....people who I'm sure are very nice pleasant people who mean no harm and are only being polite, REFUSE to be the first to go at a 4 way stop. Even if they were there first.

Example.... I am approaching a 4 way stop and on the other side some nice lady is also approaching in her SUV. She is going faster than me, and could in fact reach the stop, STOP!, and drive on before I even get to the intersection. Instead she decides to stop, and wait for me to stop as well. She is not happy until there is a vehicle on all 4 sides of the intersection. Ok, now it's time to get moving and she was there first.....but she refuses to move until everyone else has moved....that shows what a lovely considerate person she is........

[Pure]

See my problem with 4 way stops is the exact opposite. Drivers who don't realize a bike is a "vehicle" and is allowed the same rights at a 4 way as any car. These are the people who will mow you down if you don't watch them closely. Many times I've ended up beside a drivers window cause he went wile I was going (MY turn a hole!)

[manitu]

Most annoying bike-thing whatsoever is that some dufus decided we should have the front brake left and rear brake right , opposite of motor-bikes , and the rest of the world. I want to change the handles to what we call "moto-style" , but I'll use a year or two of crashes to learn to brake again.

.manitu

[nuevomexicano]

Most annoying bike-thing whatsoever is that some dufus decided we should have the front brake left and rear brake right , opposite of motor-bikes , and the rest of the world. I want to change the handles to what we call "moto-style" , but I'll use a year or two of crashes to learn to brake again.

.manitu

What you're suggesting isn't "moto-style", which is really a right side hand/foot combination, but rather auto shifting scooter-style with 2 brakes left/right:back/front.

But more intriguing is what do you mean by "rest of the world"? Which country has bicycle brakes opposite of the North American front/back:left/right? My experience with bikes in Europe, Mexico and a small slice of Central Asia showed them to be the same as the US.

I, like most North Americans if not most people worldwide, had many years riding a bicycle before ever riding a motorbike or getting a moto endorsement. The motobike right hand/right foot combination is because of the clutch and the limitations of a motorized vehicle requiring a right side foot brake instead of left side hand brake. Its the motorbikes that are the odd men out because bicycles came first and bicycles don't need to add the feet into the mixture.

Are you left handed? Maybe that explains some of your ergonomic complaint. Bicycles and motorbikes are both default designed for right handed people and right hand brakes are the go-to brake. Relatively heavy and fast motorbikes are like cars and depend primarily on the stopping power of front brakes (something like 70-80% if my memories of the MSF training course are correct). Light weight bicycles tend to endo you over the handle bars if that much force was laid into the front brakes.

[jonathanm]

but I'll use a year or two of crashes to learn to brake again.

.manitu

I have both styles here, never had a problem adjusting back and forth...

[bobc]

UK & all the parts of europe I've cycled have front brake on right lever. I think it's only america with the front/left thing going on - I'll check sheldonbrown....
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/brakturn.html
a little way down :^) - seems like it's not just the yanks....

[DrkAngel]

Darn Cats!

Click on Cat!

catty.gif (16.38 KiB) Viewed 4651 times

[REdiculous]

It doesn't take long to swap the brakes cables if you want them backwards.

[DrkAngel]

It started out as a little bit laughable, but is so persistent that it has become annoying ...
Forum members that rate their motors by how many watts they can pump into them!

They don't seem to recognize that pumping in double the watts, might produce 50% more torque, but also produces 350% the damaging heat.

1000w = 750w torque + 250w heat = 75% efficient
2000w = 1125w torque + 875w heat = 56% efficient

The "watt" rating, on an electric motor, is a measure of a motors power output!
Not the input watts!!!

A "750w motor" is equal to 1 horse power. (750w = 1hp)
The motor might require 1000w input to produce 750w peak output, this would mean that the motor is 75% efficient!
Various motors attain between 75-90% "peak"* efficiency!

Controllers vary widely in efficiency, also!
"Peak"* efficiency is between 80-95%.

Batteries vary widely in efficiency, also!
eg. SLA batteries expended at 1C are 60% of rated, Li-ion at .5C are about 100%+.

* - "Peak" efficiency is attained somewhere near 75% of top (no load) speed.
At a dead stop, efficiency is 0%, but improves as "peak" is neared.
At 5mph 1000w input, might produce, 20% efficiency, or 200w motor output.
.......... 1500w input, might produce, 15% efficiency, or 250w motor output.

750w output might require

750w/75% motor efficiency = 1000w/80% controller efficiency = 1250/60% SLA efficiency = 2083 watts used!

Yes, I do realize that dynamometer testing is the only accurate way to measure motor output, and beyond the reach of most everyone, but please ... realize that input watts is not directly relateable to output watts!

[bionx 1954]

Hear in Ottawa we have a lot of paved NCC green space shared paths that are well marked and have a YELLOOW line down the center.

But that does not stop walkers from stopping in the middle of the path and TALKING to each other which bring bike traffic to a STOP, or worse WALKING 4 or 5 a breast to STOP All TRAFFIC BOTH WAYS. What do you call 5 blonds walking a breast ( a wind tunnell)