Insurance limits motor output / theft prevention

[kiltedcelt]

So, I'm going to come right out and say first of all, that I'm completely happy riding my e-bike at around 18-20mph most of the time. It's kinda fun once in a while when I can get it to go above 22 or 23 mph. It's gone as fast as I think 27 or 28 once or twice. However, if I was hard pressed I'd have to say that I think I could live with 20 mph as an upper limit. All of this started when I investigated insurance for my bike. I've taken to riding my e-bike as my sole commuter, and I'm concerned about issues like the entire bike, or maybe just the battery being stolen. I was looking into insurance coverage for these reasons when I found out on the bike-specific policies like from Velosurance, that you're limited to the federal regulation that says the motor must not exceed 750w and top speed must not exceed 20mph. Of course we've all been there with the flawed logic that you can insure a regular bicycle through one of these companies with no issues, even though you can ride that regular bicycle (if you're a fit rider), to top speeds well above 20mph! So, we're not going to change federal regulations - we'll just have to live with that.

I never intend to leave this bike locked somewhere unattended for any length of time but as it is intended to be a car replacement (I *am* entirely car-free), there might be occasions where I might need to leave it locked to a bike rack for a few hours, say taking a trip to the museum, or perhaps visiting a friend and needing to lock it to a rack, etc. When possible I'd lock the bike with two U-locks - one through the front hub motor/frame, and the other through frame to bike rack, capturing rear wheel (which has Alfine 8 hub), if at all possible. The battery is currently a 36v dolphin case that locks to it's cradle, but I have an upgraded 28.3Ah 50.2v triangle pack that I'm going to switch over to using as soon as I can build a hard case for it. The triangle pack I intend to install in a case built into the main triangle with aluminum sides with the one side access panel having two keyed-alike cam locks to hold the access door closed. The sides of the case will be held on with pin-in Torx screws to prevent further tampering. Of course, if anyone really wants to steal it, they'll figure out a way to get the whole bike or just the battery if they really are determined.

So, I figured as a last line of defense against the fairly serious amount of money (based on *my* budget), that I've put into this bike I'd look at insurance options. I have a renter's policy but it's not going to give the coverage I want. While it *might* cover my regular bike, it probably *won't* cover my e-bike. Only problem, is currently the bike with it's 25amp controller and 36v battery means the motor is effectively 900w, and I have used those 900 watts on occasion to try to maintain a speed of 16-18mph when I was battling major headwinds going to work, and that was *with* pedaling pretty furiously as well! I'm going to guess right off that if I play with the settings in my Cycle Analyst, I can easily limit my max wattage to 750w, but is that going to mean I can no longer achieve 18-20 mph? With the new battery installed we're actually talking about 1255w possible coming from the motor! I'm not even sure I *want* that kind of power coming out of a front geared hub motor to begin with. This is a seriously torquey 16T Mac motor, and it is installed in a cro-moly steel fork with a Grin Tech torque arm on each side. Still, I'd thought about dialing back max output some anyway.

When I had a car, I never worried about someone stealing my crappy Subaru or Volvo wagon, but I know that my nice e-bike could potentially be a very attractive target for theft. So, that's my dilemma. Do I just do my best to make my battery as theft-proof as possible and lock the hell outta my bike when I have leave it somewhere for any length of time, and just hope for the best? That seems like the only way to maintain some sort of decent performance level in terms of motor output and what I expect, and have become used to in terms of how this bike behaves. The alternative is to de-tune it which I suspect is going to turn it into a real dog in terms of performance. Mind you, it's a Yuba Mundo and as it's outfitted right now with the 36v battery it weighs 82 lbs! With the 50v battery it's probably going to end up weighing more like 86 lbs! All that weight I suspect kinda means I *need* more "oomph" in the motor department in order to get the thing to go up to 20mph. With that being said though, when I'm riding at the 50% motor power PAS setting I currently have as my lowest setting, it only uses about 250w of power from the motor and can usually maintain about 18-20mph just fine. I'm just wondering if this is really going to suck if I de-tune the bike. Seems like de-tuning is the only way to be assured of being able to get insurance coverage.

Of course I could also be just incredibly paranoid about theft. After all, another Yuba owner traveled all around the perimeter of the U.S. on his electrified bike and often left it locked up outside of a Wal-Mart overnight to recharge while he was off stealth camping in the woods nearby. Maybe I'm just being a worry-wart...

 

[amberwolf]

Of course I could also be just incredibly paranoid about theft.

Depends on the area you live in and ride/park in. Sometimes even depends on the time of day/night.

There are places in the valley where latelate at night (like after 1-2am) I'd feel ok leaving stuff out unattended, even unlocked, because they're completely deserted. But I wouldn't in the daytime, when people are around.

Most of the time I can trust parking it in the breakroom at work, but there have been some coworkers that I just didn't trust, and at least two that have sabotaged my bikes (once in a way that I didn't notice until drivetrain parts came off as I was trying to turn across traffic, and could've been hit/killed because of their vandalism).


So, most places and times, I don't really trust to leave stuff; the only thing that makes any of my bikes "safe" at all is their size and weight and ugliness/uniqueness. So I do what I can to make sure they're not out of sight, and have enough security on them to delay theives enough to either deter them or get caught trying, so I don't lose anything in the first place.

 

[dogman dan]

Well, for one thing, once it's gone, how will anybody ever prove what its top speed, or max watts, was?

Buy a 20 buck 15 amps controller, so you can document a receipt for that. Your current controller only peaks 900w very briefly, on start up. If you put a CA on your bike, you will quickly see that 99% of the time you cannot pull more than 750w anyway. You said yourself, only under certain conditions does your bike go faster than 20 mph, and even then, only in the first few blocks of a ride. The law is 20 mph, no pedaling, on flat ground. Bet you are legal for that.

So your bike IS LEGAL, in my opinion. I'm not a lawyer, but I think you are good. Only on paper is it over the power limit. So I think you are not lying to the company if you call your bike 750w. I just said get receipt for 15 amps controller in case some weenie wants to fight you at the insurance. Then you can pull that out, and say this is the amps of the controller.

I'm a pretty big advocate of not lying about everything, but the fact is, your bike is a 750w, 20 mph bike. Your motor, I betcha, is a 500w motor. I don't call this tiny fib about your peak power you only get for one second a criminal act.

 

[tanstaafl]

My insurance situation is also rather irritating. I live in one of the better areas for e-bike laws. I have a perfectly legal ebike here that's treated as a bicycle even though it can go close to 30mph on a flat road.

But I can't get insurance. It's not registered as a motor vehicle (doesn't have to be) so I can't get regular motorcycle insurance, but It's too fast for the specialized e-bike insurance policies.

I would consider going through the painful process of registering it, but then I couldn't ride it on many trails (which I can currently do legally as long as I ride under 20 mph).

 

[MadRhino]

Here any vehicle on the road is insured for damage to persons. Damage to the vehicle itself has to be insured privately, and they won't accept my illegal bikes. For theft, my home insurance does cover them even when not at home, but warned me that they might request a list of parts used to build them and won't cover labour.

 

[Newagebike]

I have decided that my build is going to be titled, licensed and insured like a eCycle and the frame I am using will have the controller/battery in closed compartment using star bit screws. Plus I am going to have a GPS location device on it. And I will have a heavy duty lock.

I have seen controllers that have a motor lock which will prevent the motor from spinning.

Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk

 

[MadRhino]

I don't even lock them most of the time, and the battery is 5sec clip off. Controller in full air flow, that is important. I had a gps tracker, but it worked only one year.

 

[kiltedcelt]

Thanks for the input folks. I'm inclined to just "stuff it" with the insurance. It'll be as expensive as $30 a month for the e-bike and my rather custom expensively specced Kona Wo 29+ fat bike. Not so sure I want to screw around with trying to game the insurance to get my e-bike insured, and frankly, I think if I build my new battery box securely enough and add a heavy duty Kryptonite chain to my current Kryptonite U-lock then I've probably made my bike enough of a pain in the rear to steal that anyone would pass it up. Besides, the way I am using it currently, and intend to use it in the future, it's not likely to ever be locked up somewhere that I'd really worry about theft being an issue, mainly because it'll always be locked in a very public location, to a secure locking location/item like a bike rack, heavy metal post, etc. Also, I'm willing to bet that installing a battery cut-off switch (on of those with the big plastic key), and taking the key with me, will create yet another roadblock to someone trying to steal/ride away on the bike. Trying to pick it up and throw it into a truck is also likely to be difficult since it'll weigh nearly 90 lbs with the new battery. Also, I'm betting I can buy a GPS tracker and yearly subscription for cheaper than insurance, probably for both bikes.

 

[dogman dan]

Again,, I don't feel that you are gaming the insurance company, if you bike for less than 5 seconds, can potentially have an extra 100w. At cruise speed of 20 mph, it will be pulling 400-500w. You are not an illegal hooligan bike because you have 25 amps.

If you really want the insurance, with strict legality, just get a 20 amps controller, or limit speed by putting a small resistor on the throttle, so it can't quite give you 100% power. 90% throttle should do er, for both speed and wattage.

 

[kiltedcelt]

I can program my Infineon controller to only output 20 amps if I wanted, and I just might even do that if I find that using the 50v battery makes the bike "over-perform" beyond what I'm comfortable with. However, more than anything I kind of object to just how much money I'd have to spend on the insurance for my two bikes. It sounds from the original quote like I'd be paying as much to insure my two bikes as what I was paying back when I carried actual car insurance and still owned a car. I'm going to have to further investigate what is actually covered on my current renter's insurance policy.

 

[bchaney]

You can ask the insurance company about the legal power limits and how it would affect your policy, but I agree with dogman, I don't think you'd have trouble getting them to pay out if it was stolen. You would want to make sure they have a fair value for it before signing the policy though, since it is a custom built vehicle. I put a cold air intake on my car and it sucked up water from a puddle and hydrolocked the engine, the insurance company looked at my car and still cut me a check even though my car wasn't technically stock or even legal. I would assume your ebike would be the same.

If it were me I'd probably do the math on this though, $30 a month is pretty steep. How much did you pay for your bike, including the value of your time? Is there a deductible? Divide the (value - deductible) by 30 to determine your break-even point. For example if your break-even point is 48 months or 4 years, do you think your bike will get stolen more or less than once every 4 years? If less, buy insurance, if more, save your money and buy a new bike if yours gets stolen 6 years from now, you'll still come out ahead financially.