Ebike sightings

[Mathurin]

So last year I saw something like 5 ebikes other then mine...

This year, so far so good.
Yesterday I saw a BionX equiped bike in the rack in front of Ashton's.

 

[D-Man]

Haven't seen one yet. Actually I saw 2 at Kmart for sale. (Mongoose) Only seen a couple of e-scooters on the road. Had one big fat guy jump out of his van though. He said he wanted to get an e-bike to get his grocery's. Said he was hungry. :lol:

 

[patrick_mahoney]

I've seen 5 e-bikes in my town: three of the five were Wilderness Energy kits, the other two, I wasn't sure what they were - but they were both chain driven you could hear it. I've also seen one gas-powered bike (he and I chatted for a while, nice guy... smelly loud bike though ).

 

[CGameProgrammer]

I've never seen another e-bike on the road, ever. And I've seen only one electric scooter-thing, an eGO Cycle 2 SE. I'm in San Diego.

I'm not surprised Patrick has seen some; I was in Boulder, CO recently for my sister's college graduation, and was amazed at how many bicycles and motorscooters there were (not electric though). In almost all of the U.S., such things are very rare, particularly as normal transportation. Even motorcycles are rare in wintery areas.

 

[knightmb]

I've seen two people in my town riding the cheap wal-mart e-bike. Just happens I ride mine too a lot, go figure, LOL. It was funny when I met up with one of them, since mine was turbo charged. The look on their face was as priceless as the drivers.

 

[mvadventure]

While parked at the golf course the other day one of the maintenance people came up to me and commented on the hub motor and commented he had one on his bike. Despite the fact I haven't seen it, it's the first I've even heard of in my community in the twelve years I've lived here. His comments were very similar to mine, that it eats the bridges up. We got some BIG and TALL bridges.
Mike, 5304, 26" wheel, 48 volts SLA, 40 amp Clyte controller. 32 MPH with the new tires

 

[Eric G]

This year I've seen a few rolling about in this area.A few years ago I'd see 1 or 2 electric scooters rarely an ebike.Seems since Canadian Tire started selling um I've started seeing um.

Now when somebody asks me about my ebike they usually ask if I got it at C/T....

 

[29a]

I saw three last weekend all where crappy tire jobs
I've allso seen over the last six months a couple of curries and two crystalites all here in Toronto .ca all on the lakeshore bike path.
City centre I often see trikes that tow the advertising billboard trailers with some sort of hub motor.

 

[Toorbough ULL-Zeveigh]

Hey, no calling someone's girlfriend ugly, please?
Remember every seat has a ass.

 

[patrick_mahoney]

I'm not surprised Patrick has seen some; I was in Boulder, CO recently for my sister's college graduation, and was amazed at how many bicycles and motorscooters there were (not electric though).

Yes, there certainly are a lot of bicycle riders around here. The bicycle trail systems in both Boulder and Fort Collins are extensive. I love the way they built tunnels under the major roads.

The company that I work for just built a new building and we moved in a few weeks ago. There's about 300 people working here. They put out 3 bicycle racks (about 6 bicycles each). Last week, all three racks were full, and pretty much every tree in front of the building had one or more bicycles on it. It looked like a college campus. Probably close to 25 bicycles... not bad for 300 people working at a high-tech company on the outskirts of town. There's a feeling of irony when there's parking for 500 and there's plenty of empty car spaces, but the bicycle racks are so full that people are chaining up to trees well away from the building.

After seeing this, the building team had a meeting with the riders, and decided to add 5 more bicycle racks, and are putting in showers. I saw the new racks arrive yesterday...

I should take a video of my 5 mile commute into work - an editted video showing just the highlights. The bicycle lanes here, the bicycle trails... cycling here is really, really nice.

 

[tailwind]

I noticed at lunch time yesterday that of the two bikes parked in front of where I work, both were electric. Both owners were unrelated and there on seperate business.
One of the owners came out and someone waiting for a lift started asking him about his bike. The conversation goes like this.

"Is that an electric bike?"
"...yes"
"But isnt that cheating!"
(body lauguage shows mild annoyance), goes on to explain about dodgy knees and how it aids his mobility. Owner is about 55-60 years old.
Another question and answer about range and he is off.

In the past six months I have seen about ten seperate electric bikes out and about.

This doesnt include the swag that I saw on the nightly TV news riding around Federation Square promoting the suitable transport ride to Sydney.

Greg

 

[mvadventure]

Cheating! As they climb out of their BMW. But, speaking of cheating, returning from the golf course this afternoon, the wind from the east howling at 15 knots, there were three young lovelies in front of me in the biking lane. All three in the appropriate bicycle attire and all three working hard making headway. I stayed behind them for a hundred yards or so and then, sitting up and doing my make believe pedaling, passed them with a big smile. They were of course old enough to be my granddaughters and that's part of what made it fun.
Mike

 

[Mathurin]

Saw two more ebikes yesterday, all of them so far were rear hubmotors btw.

One of the ones I saw yesterday was a tandem.

 

[newbie electric rider]

I saw one of those canadian tire ones, down in the beach in toronto last weekend, as for the comments about cheating etc. i usually reply i get a lot more exercise on my ebike, then you do in your car, plus the view is better on the bike paths..

 

[Mathurin]

Saw another one yesterday, BionX

 

[fechter]

I saw one chained to a rack on the sidewalk across the street from my work. It was a E Trek or something like that. Rear mounted Xlyte 5 series, but the batteries obviously were removed.

 

[tailwind]

Spotted another ebike on the trip home in the train tonight.
It was 20" wheel folding bike. The owner uses it to ride from his home to the train station and then from the train to work.

With a 20" wheel, 36V and 200W hub motor this beast has a top speed of 25km/h.

Greg

 

[scottclarke]

Have seen perhaps 6 different bikes in this town. Yesterday was the highlight - was at the hospital and saw an EVT 168(?) parked up outside. Shame they spoiled it by making the FET heatsink so oversize so as to look like an exhaust - oh well

Scott

 

[Mathurin]

So yesterday I went and came back from my bro's place twice, it's 7-10 kms each way depending on what route you take, and the second time it was night. So as I turned from Ranvoize onto chemin Saint-Louis, I saw a BionX bike... It nearly crashed into me! The guy was riding at night with no lights(!), and didn't even warn of his presence... I mean, what a frocking brain surgeon... And not wearing a helmet, either. It's my first close call involving another vehicle in quite a long time. But anyways, after about 50m of recovering from the hill I had caught up with the guy. While I was tempted to just keep going, but I wanted to observe the bike. At first I thought the batteries must be dead, but he was pedaling much too slowly to put out any kind of power, that and he obviously wasn't putting out much anything at all since up & down false flats he was keeping a steady speed. So I followed him for about 2.5kms, and then he turned left on Côte de l'Église.

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1010997


BTW, how is an EVT168 an electric bicycle?

 

[scottclarke]

Haha, no of course not*** - I just forgot the purpose of the thread whilst composing the reply - in fact had I not seen the 168 I probably wouldn't have posted at all!

*** not sure on this - 168 is barely faster than my mtb's with only marginally longer range - diff is it weighs 5X as much.......mmmm

Scott