Agreed. That’s one of the big benefits of cheap bikes currently - cheap, available parts that work in a wide range of bikes. There’s always been proprietary shit though, this particular tech isn’t new in that regard.

You’re right, but I think there are some other benefits to doing away with the chain. I have an E-mountain bike and between chain stretch, chain damage, and mud I go through 2 chains per season plus a couple trail-side repairs. Also, no chain means you can optimize pedal speed/torque for each individual rider, and keep it in the ideal range all the time regardless of bike speed. Essentially it offers a much wider power band than gears and a chain. You could also optimize crank length for clearance instead of torque. The front chainring is also a big point of contact on mountain bikes, removing that could improve clearance with the right design. I’d also be interested in the regenerative braking - if I go on an Enduro ride I’m cooking my brakes on much of the downhill, regen could save those and recharge the battery at the same time. Maybe regen could even lead to a smaller battery and save some weight.

Sure there are disadvantages - weight, complexity, efficiency, probably others too. I think with time those will improve though and this just might be a viable setup for certain use cases.

Good resource thanks for posting! It seems like they really went out of their way to avoid mentioning EBikes. My experience has been that for folks with disabilities EBikes are a game changer as they allow people to put in as much effort as comfortable but not go past that. I also think the section about it getting sweaty could have mentioned EBikes as a potential solution. I understand they don’t want to piss off cycling purists, but I think it’s important to recognize the positive impacts these new technologies have.

Finally, I get their stance on helmets and agree that helmet mandates aren’t ideal. That said, I think it’s disengenuous to say that helmets are useless. It’s true that those studies looking at city helmet use found no difference in safety overall, but I’m not convinced that wearing a helmet wouldn’t improve my personal safety. I’ve absolutely wrecked a helmet riding on the street, and I’m very glad it wasn’t my head instead.

Legally speaking sure. I’ve never seen that enforced though so I wouldn’t be particularly concerned about the legality of it.

The plugin is just called “git” it comes with ohmyzsh out of the box. You just have to enable it in your zshrc.

Are you able to fall back to normal git commands if you don’t know the shortcuts? This sounds awesome until I can’t remember the syntax to do something I don’t do everyday.

Ohmyzsh with the git plugin is my fave - gaa & gcmsg "a commit" feels like the right level of verbosity for me.

Safety gear isn’t a bad idea, but registration and insurance don’t make sense to me - if I’m on a 100lb vehicle on a road where everyone else is in a 4000lb vehicle it doesn’t make sense why I would need liability coverage. And I’m not damaging the roads the way cars/trucks do so it doesn’t make any sense to me to pay anything to the state/country for registration.

You’re not wrong but public transit here sucks. Every weekend I go to a friend’s house - by car it is 1 hour every time. By train it is somewhere between 2.5 and 3 hours depending on delays. Public transport (even when poorly implemented) offers a great way to get in/out of medium to large cities, but isn’t really ideal for trips from one rural area outside the city to another. What would be much more convenient would be if I could bring an ebike on the train with me. Most of the distance on this trip is covered by a 1h train ride, and it’s just the busses on either end which are slow and unreliable. Unfortunately they don’t allow electric bikes at all, and normal bikes are only allowed during certain hours.

My guy you shouldn’t have visited New Jersey… In all seriousness though, this is at least partly satirical right? There are definitely some tough spots in America like most places, but when I went to Europe and Scandinavia it was about the same.

Ariel riders look pretty great! How is it to pedal? Geometry wise it looks like it would be hard to get much power out of pedaling it. I would seriously think about buying a used rider to steal the drive train out of though, seems like they have a nice powerful platform and lots of customization options on the aftermarket.

I mean, many folks would say that’s what leclerc did successfully in 2021. That’s a bit of a conspiracy, and doesn’t make a ton of sense (gearbox penalty etc.) but it’s not impossible.

Awesome bike! I have an E-mountain bike and really enjoy it. For this application, I’m not sure if the mountain bike design will give me enough efficiency to hit the range I need. Maybe with narrower street tires and mostly locking out the suspension, but that removes most of the mountain bike advantages IMO.

Really appreciate your thorough answer! I’ll definitely think about an electric motorcycle. IMO if I’m going to go through licensing, I might as well get something that goes full car speed.

I think you’re right that battery capacity would be the biggest issue building out an ebike. That said, a big frame triangle can fit a lot of cells. Something like 3000Wh could probably get the job done. If I could get the bike aerodynamic enough to cruise on a 750w motor, then max range would be 3000/750=4 hours or 140 miles. Obviously won’t hit that in real world conditions, but 70 would be possible.

I terms of legality and ethics, I totally agree about treating cyclists and pedestrians with respect - on my current ebike I keep it under 18MPH on bike paths and slow to pass others at a safe speed. My vision for this bike is more rural back roads near my house which are mostly empty but have an occasional car passing by. I’m not a big fan of laws generally. On that front I’ll probably run a cracked controller with a toggle so if I get pulled over I can put it back in legal mode with a keypad sequence. Slap some aliexpress “250 watt” and “class 2” stickers on it and trust that the local cops are few and otherwise occupied. Where I live folks rip illegal dirt bikes and ATVs on public roads with impunity so I can’t imagine this being a big problem.

Yeah definitely no bike paths unless you keep it under like 18mph imo. This would be for rural roads.

That’s fair, but what is the limiting factor? Frame geometry? Power? I downhill mountain bike and regularly hit 45 on open sections. I think if the motor could keep up the bike would be fine.

Vespas here need registration, insurance, etc. etc. That would solve the range issue though.

Separate constructors from teams - I’d love to see the whole field in near-identical cars only differentiated by setup and driver. Alternatively balance of power rules like Imsa could make racing a lot more competitive while keeping constructors around.

If balance isn’t a problem I’d recommend a small electric cargo bike. I have a relative who uses a mobility scooter, but it has all kinds of issues and is very slow. I built her an ebike and she really enjoys using it instead. It sucks but wheelchairs have a stigma that a bike doesn’t. Also med device regulations kinda suck (at least in the USA) and EBikes get around those.

I’d argue it shouldn’t matter what the cause is. It’s a little far fetched, but I could imagine teams organizing mechanical failures to gain an unfair advantage. All it would take is to tell the driver the wrong gearbox mode to cause a spin, Monaco style. As written it would suck to have an honest car failure and then lose extra grid places, but I think those kind of incidents will be pretty equally spread among the field.