Comments from strangers about your bike

[cal3thousand]

I only wear the helmet when I go on the highway, ride on roads with which I'm not intimately familiar, or the roads are wet. That means 90% of the time my helmet is a baseball cap turned backward. The 166kph was a one time shot for you guys. The advanced timing wiring was creating too much controller heat, so I fixed the wiring and now it only goes 150kph+. Imagine if I didn't weigh 120kg and addressed aero, so the voltage didn't sag over 15 volts down to 101V.

Keep in mind that run was after 5 miles of riding including a 142kph run, so the motor was heated up pretty good, and the voltage was already down to 119V from 124V. On top of that the darn EB2xx Infineon controllers running the motor weren't playing well together and I couldn't get to WOT throttle.

All that said, my next speed run will surpass the Brammo Empulse's top speed of 169kph. I found a new rim I'll be able to mod to run a 16" moto wheel instead of the 13" scooter tire I've been running. That will take me to about a 21.5" diameter wheel instead of the 19.2" I've been running, so a run on a fresh charge should do it. For insurance I'll boost voltage a bit, and use a lower more aerodynamic cargo bike that will double as a highway rocket.

Just to bring things back to topic, when I take my bike out on the highway I've yet to get a single comment from a stranger, even those who chase me down after I slow down. I guess it leaves them speechless and reaching for their cell phone cameras. 8)

John

PS- Why is everyone so worried about my footwear? It's not a Flintstones bike, and I'm careful enough that my feet only touch the ground when I stop. Sure if I was riding on a racetrack or offroad where going down is just part of the sport, then I'd have to get riding boots and fully armor up, but in regular street riding the more exposed you are, the more careful you ride. At least that's the way it is for normal people. I love the free feeling of riding feeling the wind, and I don't see a whole lot of difference between riding around in a cage or wearing one.

I'm pretty sure you don't hear about 90% of the comments about your bike since you are about a mile away before they figured out what happened.

 

[knighty]

you know I just realised....

I need to go to an ebike meet-up just so I can walk up to every single person there and say...

you should put a dynamo on that so it charges up while you ride!!!!!!!?

 

[Goathead]

I think the "does it recharge when you pedal it?" question just shows how insulated most people -- and I'll include myself -- actually are from how much power we have at the flip of a switch or the turn of an ignition key.

My head-scratcher was from a guy in full on pseudo-sponsor spandex (pseudo-sponsor: he pays THEM to be able to wear their logo). I was next to him at a light and we exchanged pleasantries and I cautioned him that I'd be taking off pretty fast, so "Grab a wheel, it you want."

I think he was in disbelief -- a very stealth bike and very puny looking rider. Puzzled look.

So I told him, "It's electric."

He replies, "That's cheating!"

So, just make sure that in reading anything I post here, you take into consideration that I'm pretty much an unethical and immoral cheater. You've been warned.

 

[cal3thousand]

I think the "does it recharge when you pedal it?" question just shows how insulated most people -- and I'll include myself -- actually are from how much power we have at the flip of a switch or the turn of an ignition key.

My head-scratcher was from a guy in full on pseudo-sponsor spandex (pseudo-sponsor: he pays THEM to be able to wear their logo). I was next to him at a light and we exchanged pleasantries and I cautioned him that I'd be taking off pretty fast, so "Grab a wheel, it you want."

I think he was in disbelief -- a very stealth bike and very puny looking rider. Puzzled look.

So I told him, "It's electric."

He replies, "That's cheating!"

So, just make sure that in reading anything I post here, you take into consideration that I'm pretty much an unethical and immoral cheater. You've been warned.

I get that comment too about cheating.

Oatnet (I think) has a great signature along the lines of "not cheating... just commuting"

Hey... if you aren't cheating... you aren't trying :wink:

 

[Goathead]

I get the "you aren't trying."

When younger, I had the chance to ride with some REAL riders. It was a barf-fest. The REAL cyclists (Rory O'reilley et al) are so far out beyond the rest of us that it isn't funny.

Here's the deal: I was on my vegetable grocery run. He was competing with . . . who?

 

[pendragon8000]

is that a stealth bike?

Ummm... well...

 

[MattyCiii]

I have this conversation all the time with people during my commute:

Cyclist: "Wow, is that an electric motor."

Me: "Yup."

Cyclist: "Cool."

That last part is often hard to hear because I'm now half a block ahead of the cyclist...

 

[bionicdan]

Sick bike mate

Nice bike mate

Now I feel fat (as I pass a sweaty man up a hill)
reply if theres time,
"Dont panic its half electric"
Thank god he says

Iv never seen so much stuff on one bike! ie mirrors, phone holder, batteries, floodlight.

I get asked the usual questions every day but I took part in a naked london bike ride to promote cycle safety awareness with a young lady and didnt get asked one question by 1000+ bikers. I think they may have been looking at more important things like her peachy ass on a pink cruiser lol

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151713403904524&set=pb.653769523.-2207520000.1374029991.&type=3&theater

 

[Supertux1]

Last Wednesday night while waiting for a traffic light, young college age guy and his girlfriend roll up behind on their road bikes.
(My bike has the CREE retina-burning head light and a red tail light that is almost as bright.)

Guy: Nice bike!
Me: Thanks!
Guy to Girlfriend: Look, it's an electrically assisted bike! (Girlfriend looks, doesn't much care.)
Me to Guy: It doesn't really assist that much actually.

I flip my power limit switch to 1200W.

The light turns, I wink at the girlfriend, she's cute, I proceed WOT through the intersection, passing cars, I can feel the front wheel lift a bit. No pedaling.

 

[alsmith]

I've only once got a 'that's cheating' comment- from a rather sweaty looking guy at the top of a pretty steep hill. I didn't mind, I wasn't hot and sweaty. But very few negative comments normally. Probably the most negative response is the lycra boys when they're in a group, yet many seem happy enough to nod in acknowledgement when alone.
Strangely I've never been asked if pedalling charges the battery, but I have been asked if the motor is the battery a few times.

 

[Kingfish]

Yesterday, just on the start of the journey home from work, I pull up to a super-busy crosswalk at a freeway overpass. As I’m waiting for the light to change, I notice this guy on a roady giving me the once over, maybe twice... and you could just about read his mind.

I hold up two fingers and say “2WD”. He doesn’t comprehend at all. Just kept looking at it, so I said again, “It’s an electric bike, two wheel drive”.

Then he gives me this kinda discussed look and says “Oh. I thought it was a wanna-be motorcycle”.

It is chucking down rain, BIG-drop rain. I’m in my wet weather gear dressed for bear. He’s dressed like he’s going to the beach – and getting soaked to the bone. I decided his comment wasn’t worth the retort. The light turned green for me so I flipped the visor down and motored on away knowing I’ll be home a lot sooner than he will.

The heavy rain made the trails nearly devoid of all bikes, enabling me to bypass all the backed up traffic. :wink:

It was a good ride home. KF

 

[lbz5mc12]

I never get negative comments from other bike riders. I'm kind of scary looking so that might be part of the reason lol.

 

[lbz5mc12]

As per request from "pendragon8000" a giant me picture.

 

[The fingers]

Don mezz wiz uz e-bikuzz. :lol:

 

[hjns]

Never had one single bad comment for now. I am very careful when passing pedestrians or other cyclists. I must have answered hundreds of questions, 99% as mentioned above. However, among the nicest encounters was what happened just last week:

I park my bike near my office, take off the battery to charge, and then work my way through the day. One evening, I find this printout of an advertisement taped to my bike. Turns out that one of the 8000 colleagues on the campus made some pics of my bike and then posted the ad on the intranet, asking to whom this bike belongs! Of course, he left his email. When making a pic of my front gear, he mentioned a "prototype with a 64T gear", and had the teeth count almost correct (should be 63t instead of 64t).

The next day, I sent him an email. We met two days later "where you usually park your bike". The usual 20 questions followed, and I answered them, knowing almost what the next question will be.

Then the fun part comes. He tells me that he has been commuting from a village near me on one of these Strömers since 2009. At that time, his bike probably cost around 4k CHF. He tells me he keeps up with local (Swiss) literature on ebikes, and that his bike is still the fastest ebike you can buy here in Switzerland. That means that with the official maximum speed of 45kmh, on the flat he can actually achieve 55kmh with maximum pedal-assist + own efforts. Obviously, in the last 4 years, he had never been passed by another ebike.

Up until recently ....

Therefore, when he then saw The Suspect standing at work, he really needed to know all the details! We spend almost 3/4 hours talking, and had a great time!

 

[pendragon8000]

he's a big man that's fur sure

 

[Eskimo]

Bicycle forums. You mention "electric bicycle" and you are socially dead. This forum is basically only forum in Finland where E-biker can somewhat communicate.
I have tried two local forums, and it"s hopeless, you just wake up all trolls because you are the black sheep. Face to face it"s easier. It was the same story with electric motors and foam structure on RC-planes though. With E-bike you are not part of the classical bicyclist socially on the net. With electric motor you were not part of the RC-flyers socially. It"s funny. Usually these conservative attitudes are played by the people who are otherwise extremely tolerant, but E-bike and RC-plane with electric motor! LOL. E-biker does not have a subculture, like fixies or lycras have, he is on his own totally. I guess this is the price you have to pay of zero public awareness level towards E-bikes here. Freedom, too. I guess if there would be allready a E-bike subculture here, it would be lot harder to ride "overpowered" bike, coz folks here just love the law.
Last week i went to one bicycle store, and salesguy said "we have been talking about you here lately". Not in negative manner, but more like amused.
"Joe, i trust Joe, he"s ex-professional rider, said you went at least 40 km/h on long uphill!" We both laughed. Then he wanted to try my bike, i offered him a ride.
Classic E-grin was the result. Finally boss of that store came to interrupt, "Harry, you have to come back behind the counter NOW!" That 40 km/h was bit over the top, i think it was closer to 35 km/h.

 

[RoadWrinkle]

Here in Hawaii you sometimes get "Eh Bra..I can ride your bike?...I like borrow em for a minute" Or when you pass the lycra's some can be heard doing the old coughing-while-swearing-at-you routine...

 

[MattyCiii]

I was hanging at a friend's place tonight. New friend, actually met when he saw me on my A-Line and flagged me down. Got to talking, realized we were both engineers at heart, etc. So I'm over his place chatting about collaborating on some work. He took his first ride tonight (on my folding bike), was pretty impressed. So we're chatting in the driveway and more friends of his pop over. Now there's a small crowd of people really interested in the bike. So I figure - WTF - let's see who here is serious about it and who's pretending. I turn to this one twentysomething girl and say "go ahead - take it for a spin".

With my helmet and sweat soaked gloves on, she rolls down the hill and out of sight. Then a minute later blasts up the hill doing the 29mph or so the bike does on a near flat battery. Ear to ear grin. When she finished, she lights up a cig and says to her boyfriend "That was so fun... now I feel like I've really lived."

I would say the comment was over the top, but she was sort of pacing/bouncing around and had a big smile, so it really looked genuine. Pressing my luck I turn to the other, much hotter twentysomething girl and say "your turn", knowing that with the heels and flimsy dress she was wearing it was a no-go. But it was worth the try to see her face light up for a second before the "Sorry, not dressed for it".

 

[boo]

"Man your bike has a toolbox?"
I reply the usual thing... Its electric and there housed my battery

 

[amberwolf]

Since my work commute is a lot longer now, I get a lot more comments from people. Almost all of them are along the lines of "cool bike!" and such. Sometimes they are questions, such as "is that electric?" or "does it have a motor?", and the ever-popular "how fast does it go?" which I simply answer with a non-answer of "well, they only allow assisted bikes to go less than 20MPH".

For those that are actually interested in the answer of speed, but don't seem to be someone that just wants a joyrideable danger machine (or seems like an idiot that just wants something fast to be dangerous to others with on the sidewalks and roads), I'll also add in that it's been raced with a different setup down on the kart track in Tucson at more than 30MPH, and could probably go a lot faster if I setup the battery/etc right for it.


some people are actually interested in an ebike of their own, making or buying, and those I will talk to for a while if I am on my way home, but if I'm on my way to work I have to just refer them to Spinningmagnets' stickers with the ES website, whcih are on each cargo pod facing to the sides. And I tell them to look up CrazyBike on that site.

I doubt any of the few people a week I talk to about actually building one have bothered to come here, though, as I have never seen them post at all.


Still, it's interesting to talk to them.

 

[amberwolf]

Tonight was comment-heavy. I had two people actually follow me for over a mile, until I pulled into the parking lot here at Christown, just so they could take some pictures of it and ask me some questions. Then another person followed me in the parking lot part way around it, so they could ask about it and see it closer.

He is considering converting his bike to assist, and is debating between something he saw demonstrated by a dealer/installer somewhere in Phoenix, possibly on Indian School Road, that is a $400 "honda" gas engine that can make bicycles go 40-50MPH, supposedly (though this is not legal, and the dealer apparently is very sure to tell everyone that, too), or an electric.

I advised him that he could probably get better range for the money out of the Honda, but much quieter and probably more fun out of the electric. We chatted a bit, and I mentioned the cargoes this pulls with and without a trailer, as well as the Death Races down in Tucson from previous years, etc. I advised him to come here to ES and read around a bit to get an idea of the many different possibilities before he decides.

While I've been sitting here eating, with the bike parked out under the lamppost in a car-type spot in the parking lot across from the window seat I'm at (cuz you can't see the bike lockup at all from inside, which is pretty typical of places here in Phoenix area, when they have one at all), at least half a dozen cars have slowed or stopped near the bike so someone (usually the driver) could take pictures of it. Sometimes they get out, sometimes not. At least a dozen pedestrians walking past it have detoured to go look at it, some taking pics, and one looked at the building and saw my helmet (with matching "caution" yellow/black stripes to the bike) and came in the door just enough to give me a grin and a thumbs up, then went on his way.

Nobody has messed with it, and typically no one does, whenever I can see it no matter how long it sits unattended. But I still don't actually trust that it won't go unmolested forever, as I've had stuff stolen off previous bikes, but almost entirely ones taht looked "pretty", not ugly monstrosities like CrazyBike2. :lol:

 

[amberwolf]

Today just as I was riding away from work south across the Peoria / 28th Ave intersection, one person riding a pedal bike northbound thru the crosswalk to my right yelled out "Now THAT's a bike!", and someone else yelled out "ASSHOLE!" but I don't know if the latter comment was directed at me, the person on the bike, or one of the various insane drivers, as I didn't see the person that said it (I was too busy trying not to get run over by the SUV that changed lanes from the one next to me to directly in front of me *IN* the intersection, without a signal--it's possible THAT was who the comment was directed to...I'd like to think so).


The security guard at work stopped to talk to me a little about it a couple nights ago, I think it was, as I was leaving work just after it was dark enough that all it's lighting really stood out. He was pretty impressed with it.


Either yesterday or today, I cna't remember which, there was another pedal-bike rider that was impressed with it, that I directed here to ES, as I didn't have time ot stop and talk (on the way to work).

 

[mateusleo]

It's usual to have someone in a car chasing me to ask me stuff about my bike.
First time was a guy who asked me very consistent questions, such as range, voltage, speed, obvious not a dummy. Later I found out he is technician in electronic.

Second time was about a week ago, some cops chased me slowly and asked me about price, range and speed, it was fast since they didn't even stop the car.

And today a guy chased me and asked me about the price and were I bought it.


Funny thing is that when someone start chasing me to steal me I will think that all they want us info and I'll end up making their job easier hahaha

 

[lbz5mc12]

I didn't realize this before but that picture of me a few posts up makes me look like Baby Huey with facial hair.