E Bike - speeding?

[Oldjohnw]

You have your views, I have mine. Never the twain shall meet.

As long as I'm alright, stuff the environment, stuff the planet. Depressing.

As ever, people make judgements without any knowledge of circumstances.

[Oldjohnw]

You have your views, I have mine. Never the twain shall meet.

As long as I'm alright, stuff the environment, stuff the planet. Depressing.

Yes, it would be ever so much better for the environment if he used the car for journeys that he cannot manage with a normal pedal cycle.

No. He and others just want people like me to stay permanently indoors and whenever we become ill just accept our lot and succumb. Can't cycle, can't use a car. No public transport. Just fall off our perch. Problem solved. That is the logical course.

[Cugel]

As long as I'm alright, stuff the environment, stuff the planet. Depressing.

Yes, it would be ever so much better for the environment if he used the car for journeys that he cannot manage with a normal pedal cycle.

No. He and others just want people like me to stay permanently indoors and whenever we become ill just accept our lot and succumb. Can't cycle, can't use a car. No public transport. Just fall off our perch. Problem solved. That is the logical course.

Why bother even responding to such?

Well, I suppose a forum is a response to more than a single interlocutor and perhaps it's a duty not to give a tacit acceptance (via a non-response). On the other hand, other forum members will make their own judgements, which will probably remain as they are whether one rebuffs or doesn't.



Cugel, expecting to get moderated.

moderator: expecting Cugel is correct...

[Oldjohnw]

I've written about half or less than what I might have written. I like to think that I reply on behalf of a whole silent cohort. Perhaps I somewhat indulge my vanity. Sometimes people can only be left to wallow....

Over and out.

[JohnW]

Yesterday evening, I was on my local Greenway. I was riding a level stretch, about half a mile long. I was riding this at 15mph - easy with the wind behind me. An e-bike overtook me with ease - at a guess doing easily 20mph. The rider was a young person - at a guess 20ish. Not slowing down for the pedestrians that he was encountering as he went out of my site.

The electronic restrictions can (I'm told by those who've done it) be easily by-passed.

This wasn't someone who needed the assistance of an e-bike. He was going fast, presumably for the sake of it. There is danger in this. Mopeds and scooters on Greenways are bad enough, but at least you can hear them coming.

The e-bike is a wonderful creation - I know elderly cyclists who can carry on riding as they age - I know two married couples, the hubby a cyclist, the wife definitely not, but who can get out together for rides in the country away from traffic - I have a friend with a minor health problem, who can still get out on his e-bike.

I know a youngish lad who hasn't the metabolism of most of us, but who can cycle to his work (about 90% of it on Greenway) on his e-bike. The job earnings don't pay for him to run a car, there's no public transport and he'd not be able to cycle as we do, but he can work and that's important to him.

Even for hail and hearty folk, the e-bike does the short journey and gets them more active than they'd otherwise be....................and doesn't poison those around them with petrol fumes.

Like all good things though, selfish, inconsiderate, mindless, dangerous, careless scroat types have the potential to use them to the danger and discomfort to others. And I've seen them do it. How sad.

[Mick F]

John, you and I are singing off the same hymn sheet again.
Nicely put.

[JohnW]

.................No. He and others just want people like me to stay permanently indoors and whenever we become ill just accept our lot and succumb. Can't cycle, can't use a car. No public transport. Just fall off our perch. Problem solved. That is the logical course.

That may be closer than we think John, with increasingly right-wing politics on the rise..............................

Too old to work - no use - persuade them that it's their duty not to be a burden - a bit frightening.

[JohnW]

................Cycling furiously is a different thing to breaking speed limits.

.................and it makes my knees hurt now...............

[Paulatic]

simply because you are too lazy or lame to pedal all for yourself?

I am actually lame and have sometimes had to use an E-bike. I don't think much of you misusing the word as abuse.

I am not lame, but I agree about using the word as a negative epithet.

There is more than one use of the word lame. Am I to stop using 'lame excuse'?

This question btw is no way in support of Ivor's view of e bikes which is IMO very jaundiced.

[Vorpal]

There is more than one use of the word lame. Am I to stop using 'lame excuse'?

That is up to you. A friend of mine pointed out to me last year that it is an ableist expression which some folks who are actually lame, find offensive. The implication is that lame is bad, inadequate, or wrong. I have made an effort to stop using it that way. I haven't, I must admit, been completely successful, but I have asked my children to point it out to me when I do it, which has helped quite a bit.

I guess some folks will say it's PC gone OTT, but I prefer not to use expressions which others may find offensive if I can help it.

[mjr]

That is up to you. A friend of mine pointed out to me last year that it is an ableist expression which some folks who are actually lame, find offensive. The implication is that lame is bad, inadequate, or wrong. I have made an effort to stop using it that way.

Thank you for trying.

I had a blast from the past on facebook yesterday with a speeding motoring apologist asking me if I was on drugs. Why yes, for about 40 years now, prescribed and I still drive better than you...

[mjr]

I reckon it's time official bodies in cycling stood up to the menace of Ebikes and totally disassociated them from traditional cycling and in the process getting them reclassified as MOTOR bikes requiring compliance with motorcycle regulations and legislation with what all that brings.

I think that would seriously risk all bikes being brought under the same laws as motorbikes because after all, any fool can fit a motorised wheel or a chain motor to a bicycle.

Those "cyclists" who have sold out and ride Ebikes should be ashamed of themselves for selling out from cycling so easily. It's taken many decades to get cycling even partially accepted by most people in this country.

Wow, I've missed this sudden majority acceptance. Or should I suspect "this country" is not England?

And I'm sure people who feel enabled by ebikes to do and sustain rides they could not otherwise love you calling them sell-outs.

Not to mention the massive environmental footprint they have in comparison to pedal all your own effort traditional bicycles without motors. People just don't give a crap about the affect they are having on our environment the damage they are doing directly or indirectly whether it is destroying woodlands riding these Ebikes through at great speed or the damage to planet through mining and pollution caused from the manufacture of electric motors or the powerful batteries to power them. I am all for Ebikes being banned. They have come into existence simply because people are too lazy and selfish or simply wish to corrupt cycling by riding high power machines with no regulation. It stinks.

So would you prefer these people to drive cars then?

[Cyril Haearn]

Young JohnW is right again about young fit people using e-bikes to commit speeding crime, I bet most of us agree with him, right?

[Postboxer]

Is it still an e-bike once it's tampered with?

[Oldjohnw]

When a few young thugs ride bikes around a supermarket not all cyclists should be classed as thugs. Similarly, when some people have tampered electric assistance not all users of ebikes should be considered worse than drug abusers, lazy and having sold out. Illegal and anti-social behaviour should be dealt with for what it is.