OT: buying an electric bike for the missus

[Geoff Pearson]

Which country? I was talking about Scotland - it doesn't have a "rest".

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

Because the inhabitants of urc wouldn't be all that receptive to 'leccy bikes, as the original post was about.

[RobertL]

Sorry to be off topic, but I'm curious to know why people ride electric bikes. I see quite a number of them in Cambridge being ridden by people who look young fit and healthy.

Is it that they are faster than ordinary bikes?

Robert

[polygonum]

I see quite a number of them in Cambridge being ridden by people who look young fit and healthy.

Sort of related to my earlier post somewhere in this thread, you might well be right that everyone you see is fit and healthy. There are some disorders which limit ability to cycle (and all sorts of other things) but would almost certainly be unnoticeable to any but the most careful and experienced observer. Age I will let pass - that is usually all too obvious. :-(

[Geoff Pearson]

But they enjoy engineering discussions.

[Alan Braggins]

I see quite a number of them in Cambridge being ridden by people who look young fit and healthy.

No. Limited by law to about 15mph, which isn't that fast for someone young, fit and healthy. On the other hand if you want to do 15mph for some distance and not need to change and shower when you get there, the motor might be more comfortable than putting the work in yourself.

And not everyone who looks young fit and healthy actually is.

[WeeBob]

I see quite a number of them in Cambridge being ridden by people who look young fit and healthy.

No hills, no headwinds.

At least, that's what it feels like when riding one. They're not faster, just easier.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

Maybe so, but some cyclists have an odd attitude to electric bikes. You'd think they'd be glad that someone has found a way to keep cycling, instead of labelling them 'cheats'. What a load of conkers.

[news]

I see quite a number of them in Cambridge being ridden by people who look young fit and healthy.

I bought one for my wife so we could ride together. She wasn't confident and gave up but I occasionally rode it for longer journeys. What I found was one could stay in top gear and no need to work hard up hill, on the flat even with its lower gearing I tended to pedal too fast for the electric to cut in.

This is a lead acid battery powered one which can be used without pedaling. I only experimented in this mode as it attracted a lot of abuse from motorists and not pedaling didn't feel right.

AJH

[Theo Markettos]

:-) It hadn't started snowing when I went out to the pub...

Theo

[Tim+]

Have you tried one? A lot less fun than you think and scary in traffic.

Tim

[fred]

Holland is flat. Scotland is not. Big difference to cyclists.

[Geoff Pearson]

Where most people live in Scotland it is flat - we can cycle from Edinburgh to Glasgow - about 50 miles - along canal banks. I used to cycle to work along the sea front - dead level. And even around Edinburgh relatively few routes require real hill work - Dundas Street (where I used to live) excepted.

[Clive George]

I think they're a lot of fun, but they're harder to ride than a normal bike - it takes a bit of riding to get used to them.

I don't think they're scarier in traffic than a normal bike - possibly the opposite. They're more stable and less likely to have problems with a sudden stop.

(we do most of our leisure cycling on a tandem - both on and off road).

[Gazz]

don't think a tandem is for us, the missus is awkward enough when it comes to following me on her own bike (that hills too steep, it's too muddy, i don't want to go that way) and when she's leading she keeps stopping to ask me which way to go,

So i can imagine her trying to steer us from the rear, or applying the brakes all the time.... not to mention pretending to pedal but letting me do all the work :)

[Gazz]

"Geoff Pearson" wrote

Well, i have a normal upright bike, and i've modified it as much as i an to try and make it comfortable for me... lean back seat post, big padded seat, tall steering stem, pair of 14 inch ape hanger style bars from a motorbike, whilst it is a lot comfier to ride than the standard MTB position of handlebars lower than your arse, i still can not ride it for too long before my back and knee joints are killing me,

I've hired a few different styles of upright bikes over the years, and never found one that i could use for very long due to the pain, And when my joints and back are playing up the most, the most comfortable position is reclined with my feet level with my hips, Hence my thinking a recumbent is most like that position,

But the bit i don't like about most recumbents is as you say, laying on your back, head slightly higher than a trucks front bumper,

Thing is, most recumbents are like that to reduce wind drag and stuff like that, and TBH i couldn't care less about wind drag, my lardy arse hanging over the sides of the seat will bugger the aerodynamics up anyway :)

But i wanted to build a recumbent style bike based on this:

You take your Y frame mountain bike, remove the upright seat, bold the recumbent seat to the cross bar, back of the recumbent seat is supported by the upright seat stem, so your t*ts/shoulders are now about level with where your arse used to be.

Steering is basically like on the upright bike, just a taller stem used to get the handlebars in a comfortable position and allow your knees to pass under,

Thing i am not keen on with the cruzbike conversion kit is the front drive part, as you turn the wheel your legs have to try and turn too... not a movement they are really supposed to do, basically it's easy to ride one after a bit of practice, and apparently it gives your upper body a work out too due to having to counteract the forces of your legs pedaling with your hands on the bars,

But i want to make a rear drive recumbent style bike, so the pedals are fixed out front of the tube stem, My plan is to leave the existing chain and gear set up as on the upright bike, i.e. keep the front sprocket changer jobbie where it is, the new pedals out front will have a single sprocket on the left hand side, and a chain will run from that to another same size sprocket mounted on the left hand side of the existing pedal mount,

the cranks will be removed, and a sprocket fixed, so it's working as a jack shaft i guess, 2 chains involved, but no fannying about worrying about a very long chain, and no worry of the wrong chain angle pulling the suspension up on each pedal stroke (something i've read most recumbent builders experience.. result is a very bouncy ride unless you practically lock the rear suspension out.

Anyway, back to the original subject, decided to buy the missus a decent light dutch style bike, and will add lecky assistance to it at a later date, She rekons most of her problem is also due to the riding position of her current bike, and it was her watching people in germany riding effortlessly along on the sit up and beg style bikes that made her want one, she'd never noticed them in england before, and then a few electric ones whizzed by, and that was it, she wanted one.

[Windmill]

No, I wouldn't cycle at all in the UK, for exactly that reason. But I see the occasional tandem, and if they're scary it isn't obvious.

[Geoff Pearson]

Try asking on uk.rec.cycling - they build bikes all the time. But your core problem is you are too heavy - that can be fixed more cheaply by other means than building fanciful bikes. Once you are down to a BMI of under 30 then all sorts of opportunities open up.

[Tim+]

By golly, I think you might have hit on something here. I bet he's never thought of that! if only there was something that would encourage him to get back on a bike and ease the transition for him and his wife. How about if you could get a bike with some sort of assist device?

Seriously, banging on about how people should lose weight first, not use motor assists etc hasn't worked for a large number of people for most of their lives and if the technology exists that allows people to enjoy a bit of healthy exercise (as opposed to no exercise at all), then I'm all for it.

Tim

[Geoff Pearson]

Exactly - it's called diversionary activity, like people who say they will give up smoking from the first of the month, instead of right now, this minute. If you realise you should lose weight but don't want to, the acquisition of an impossibly complicated electric recumbent bike can only be described as a diversionary activity to explain why you are not losing weight. He doesn't intend to lose weight so on a newsgroup he counts as a troll. There is no point in exercise unless you reduce food intake - exercise doesn't reduce weight.