I hope you are feeling better ewinters.
I thought I'd share with you the demise of my beloved Kona hybrid in a multi-vehicle collision this morning. I was lucky to come out of it more or less intact.
I was riding on the road headed west (left to right) on my way to work in Vancouver. The eastbound red Nissan was T-boned in an intersection (right of image) and forced into the oncoming westbound black SUV (seen smoking in the background) and my bike. I was thrown over a low fence into someone's front yard along with my panniers, so I was able to remove my phone from the bags and snap the pic moments after the collision.
July 2016 update (and since this is an ebike forum):
I became very sore and suffered complete neck + upper back immobility, and the interesting thing is that the symptoms didn't fully manifest until 4 days post-collision. After 9 months of weekly physiotherapy and daily exercises, I'm to the point where I'm no longer aggravating my neck and upper back doing mundane daily activities.
I tool 4 months off bike riding entirely, as the jarring from rough roads was intolerable. I repaired my Kona mid-February and started to ride part way to work by using a hitch mounted bike carrier. Even the following April, I was aggravating my neck by about Day 3 of a 7km daily commute, and I figured it was the hills, which necessitated pulling on the handlebars with the downstroke for added power.
I had been riding a non-electric bike to work up to the time of the accident because the legal top speed of 32kph was woefully inadequate and I could easily acheive 38-40kph on level pavement unassisted. Being legal was important to me for the exact reason I post here - in this accident, where I was not at fault, I would have been left uninsured should my ride not have conformed to regulations.
Being unable to complete my daily 2-way 14km ride to work and having trouble with the hills, I re-visited the idea of an ebike build that conforms to local regulation, as it was now feasible; hence my build:
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=76519&p=1155327&hilit=kona+q128#p1155327
Well, I was pleasantly surprised when I tested my build after completing it in May 2016 and I was able to achieve (not without some pain) 35-38kph un-powered on level grade, owing to the small 500W geared Q128c mounted to a light Kona hybrid. I was right about the hills, and being able to have assistance made the difference between 3 days painful half way trips vs completing 5 days full commute. After logging 1600Km between May and late July, I'm riding to work the vast majority of days and I can put the effort into the commute based on how I'm feeling. I need only 200-300W on hills and have programmed the controller accordingly. If I want to go faster than 32 kph on level grades/downhills, I turn off the motor. With the whole kit weighing in around 10 lb, the mod has much less effect on my potential top speed than my injuries. Week by week, I'm slowly getting stronger...
Aug 2017 update: Now mostly healed but still enjoying the Q128c build, which now has 6000 km on it, mainly from my work commute. Since things are settled, I will post a picture of the accident.