I worry a bit about the focus on speed in most forums. The legal limit -- the limit at which an electric-assisted bike still is legally a bike -- is 20 mph. Most forum people are obsessed with hot rodding, basically, and far, far exceeding that. (Those hooligans! Get out of my yard!) The reason I worry is that people are going to hurt themselves, and others. And kids are going to get hurt on overpowered bikes. And plow into pedestrians.
The point is that such experimentation with power and speed, while an important part of the development of e-bike technology, may eventually cause a public/media backlash and, eventually, increased regulation. And I worry that could affect those of us who enjoy reasonably powered helper motors and such. So guys, be careful and responsible -- and discreet --- out there.
Another thing is that there are people who sneer or gripe about the power of kits like the Hill Topper. But a little further reading reveals that most of those are people who like to jump on a bike, punch the throttle on full, run it wide open and never let it up and never pedal a single time until the battery is exhausted and the controller undervolt protection finally kicks in and shuts things down. If that's what you're looking for in a ride, what are you doing on a bicycle? I say just go buy yourself a scooter or motorcycle and be done with it.
Finally, I've discovered that, because it's pretty new and, so far, fairly limited in interest to the general public, e-biking is an esoteric and arcane field. There is no one source for "the knowledge." There are no industry standards for color-code wiring of controllers or motors. You have to really poke around to get a handle on things.
Which is good and bad. It keeps all sorts of people from popping way-too-powerful motors and batteries on their children's bikes and turning them loose to possibly get hurt. But I'm sure it also frustrates a lot of people who might have some valuable contributions to make (and that is not a veiled reference to myself
).I believe events will transpire in the near future that will put all sorts of urgency on development and sales of electric vehicles -- especially cost efficient ones like e-bikes. It would be prudent, I would think, to get things (information resources) better organized and promoted in the field in anticipation of that time, instead of playing catch up after the you-know-what hits the fan. There's a good start on it in a couple of forums. Maybe they can organize and really focus on getting it all pulled together.
/End of grumpy not-too-old man rant.
