Where I live in USA, 25min/h is equivalent to 18mph, and almost fast enough to match typical car speeds on neighborhood roads. But I wouldn’t want to go much faster because unlike bikes, scooters are inherently unstable.
I don’t ride a bike much any more bc of back pain, bit I do use a scooter with no pedal assist, and even at 500W it slows to about 10 mph going up 15° hills right outside my front door.
I’m no engineer, but in the cold weather, the scooter is even less powerful.
I like being able to avoid using a car for most trips, but I could not do that with a bike bc of the pain, and 250 W cannot get me up hills w/o pedal assist.
In hindsight I should have testridden more scooters and foynd one with ergonomics that allowed riding it more like a kick scooter. My current one has the battery under the deck which is great for center of gravity, but makes it dangerous to kick-push.
ada@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
250 watts just isn’t enough. It can help you carry a load or it can help you up a hill, but not both. I wouldn’t even bother with an ebike at that wattage. 500 (like in NSW) is a much more sensible maximum.
It’s especially true given that wattage isn’t the real issue. Top speed is the issue and that can be capped independent of wattage.
Greddan@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
Sweden here. Never had a problem with 250W with cargo on my RadRunner. Not even in heavy snow. You know you’re supposed to pedal them too right?
ada@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
You can drop the sarcasm. My roadbike has 15,000km on it. My ebike doesn’t even have a throttle. The only way to move it is to peddle.
But I live in a sub tropical region. It doesn’t snow here, and temperatures have been hitting 35C this week, before we have even hit summer!
When I used to commute to work on my roadbike, it was a workout. I’d get there covered in sweat, and feeling good.
But I don’t use my ebike for workouts. I use it for daily life because I don’t own a car. And if every time I need to carry a load, it turns in to a workout and requires a change of clothes, then it’s no longer suitable for day to day life, and instead, becomes a workout tool. But I’ve already got one of those, and it’s not why I bought an ebike.
Taleya@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
Bullshit. I’ve got a 250w pedelec and I’ve pulled large loads - 20/30kg - uphill in a headwind. I literally got my bike converted to a pedelec due to knee injuries and I’m managing that shit regularly.
is it effortless? No. But that’s not the point of a friggin’ ebike. It’s not a car or a moped. It’s a pushy with assistance.
ada@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
I’m old enough to be past my physical prime, and I don’t own a car. I use my ebike for everything. 250W is fine when your goal is exercise, or commuting, or the odd load here and there, but it just doesn’t cut it for every day use.
Before I owned my ebike, I had a regular road bike that I did 15,000km on. But the only time it got used is when I was commuting or “going for a ride”. It was completely useless as a tool in my daily life. My ebike though sees regular use for things that most people would use a car for, and things that a road bike just couldn’t do.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
Yeah I think NSW’s approach is pretty good. As you say, 250 W is a bit limited with heavy loads up hills. To put this into perspective, on my analogue bike, up one of the steepest hills I’ve ever climbed in Brisbane, I do about 400–500 W for about 20 seconds. Ebikes are all required to be pedal-assist, so let’s assume a baseline of 100 W from the cyclist’s legs (about what a casual cyclist who just wants to cruise along would do), plus the 250 W maximum output. That’s 20 seconds where they’re having to pedal extra hard, even if their total load (including bike, rider, and water) is comfortably under 90 kg. Make that a serious cargo bike (++kg) loaded with shopping, sports equipment, or kids (+++kg) and you’re likely going to end up putting out more power with your legs than I do on my analogue bike even after you account for your motor assistance.
NSW also has a rule requiring the motors to smoothly taper their power. So at the 12 km/h I climb this particular hill at, you might get 400 W of assistance, but if you’re getting up to 22 km/h it might be just 100 W[^1]. Basically, it naturally self-corrects for any risk that might be associated with higher power at higher speeds. EN15194, otoh, is 250 W flat. It allows peaking above that amount for a short time, but from what I can tell it’s not clear how long that time is, or how it works in practice on compliant bikes.
A counterpoint to this take would be: the hill I’m describing is extremely steep, and chosen in part because it’s steep. I’d go a different, easier route, if I wasn’t on a training ride. And 90% of the time, most utility cyclists will have options that avoid climbs that steep. And also that perhaps it’s not unreasonable to expect ebike users to put out more effort on hills than they do on the flat. Personally I find both of these arguments convincing enough if used against even higher power limits, but not convincing enough for me to oppose 500 W. Especially since I’m also in favour of increasing the speed cap from 25 km/h to 30 or 32 km/h (20 mph), since that’s the speed I feel I can comfortably reach without too much effort on the flat, on an analogue bike.
[^1]: I made no attempt to actually do the maths on this. And I’m not sure if it’s meant to be a linear drop-off or if some curve is applied anyway.
ada@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
See, that sounds absolutely perfect. Like you, I’d prefer 30 to 25, but whatever, that’s not a hill I need to die on. 25 does the job just fine too.
And I love the fact that the wattage reduces as your speed amps up, because that means you get the most power when you need it, when carrying loads, hitting hills etc.
I’d be quite ok with Australia adopting NSWs standards, because at that point, my ebike is still a viable alternative to car.
But at 250W it’s not.
Grail@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
They’re banning it based on wattage? That’s ridiculous. That means a 50kg person can go three times as fast as a 150kg person.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
Well, no. For starters, you’re forgetting that gravity it’s probably the only force acting on a bike that’s linear with speed. And even it technically isn’t linear—just close enough to be a good approximation over human scales. But air resistance goes with the square of speed. i.e., to double your speed requires quadrupling the power.
More importantly though, there’s also a speed cap. EN15194 has a hard cap of 25 km/h. It can provide up to 250 W of assistance if you’re doing 24.9 km/h, but the motor must cut out entirely and be no help at 25.1 km/h. It also must be pedal assist, meaning it can only provide power while you are also providing power through your legs. The exception is up to 6 km/h it is allowed to assist with a button or throttle, sometimes called “walk mode”.
The NSW law is a 500 W cap at present, but the law specifically calls out that it must “progressively reduce as the bicycle’s speed increases beyond 6km/h”, in addition to cutting off at 25 km/h, and the pedal-assist requirement.
DavidDoesLemmy@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
It’s not max output of 250w. It’s a motor rated for 250w, which often means peaks of 400w or more.