Comment on E-bike rules in Australia will soon change with possible ban on sale of bikes faster than 25km/h

• ada@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  you don’t need to be condescending to get your point across. We’re having a discussion and disagreeing, . The first sentence would have got your point across just fine.

  In any case, I know it’s not a car. But at the moment, my ebike means I don’t need a car. I want a bike that lets me get through life without having to own a car. A 250W would mean that I’d have to call taxis and ubers more often to carry shopping, it would mean that I couldn’t just carry the mulch home on my bike.

  I mean, I could do those things, but at 250W, I’m putting in a lot of the power myself. And I’ve already got my exercise covered. I don’t need to be changing clothes and taking a shower every time I ride up a hill on my bike.

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  • Nbard@aussie.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    They really didn’t come across as condescending at all IMO. You’re complaiing about legal e-bikes not doing specific tasks you want them to, it’s entirely reasonable to suggest that your expectations may be misaimed.

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    • Zagorath@aussie.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      I don’t know in what world any comment ending with “I don’t know why you think it is” could be read as anything but condescending.

      You’re complaiing [sic] about legal e-bikes not doing specific tasks you want them to

      Yes, she is. So am I. Because I want cycling to be accessible to everybody. Because of the massively lower cost of a bike compared to a car, and the massively lower risk of them, they have the inherent power to be much more accessible to a lot more people. Building better infrastructure is the most important part of that and we mustn’t lose sight of that fact, but the laws governing how you ride are also relevant. In this case, ebike laws. EN15194 comes out of famously flat parts of the European peninsula. Hills are not as much of a factor there as they are here. For most people, most of the time, that’s still sufficient.

      But something as basic as being allowed to use your bike to go grocery shopping, or if somebody wanted to do something like Martin Broer in the UK and run a small tradie business out of an electric bakfiets, should be a legal option. In Dutton Park and Highgate Hill in Brisbane’s inner south, or around Everton Park/Arana Hills in the northwest, that’s just not going to work very well if you’re not allowed any more than 250 W on your motor. Heck, even the lesser but still noticeable hills of St Lucia/Toowong/Indooroopilly might be a struggle if you’re carrying a bunch of stuff.

      If there’s any task that forms part of people’s daily lives that a bike can’t do, I’m going to ask “why not?” and wonder if it would be appropriate to change things so that they can. In this case, the solution is obvious and simple.

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      • Nbard@aussie.zone ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        It really reads like you’re going to the hardware store for orange juice.

        If a bike isn’t doing what you need / want it to, then the answer is not a bike.

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    • ada@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      They’re not expectations. They’re how I would like to see things work, because of how I use a bike. There’s literally no reason for this to be anything other than a conversation.

      There’s nothing to “misaim”

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