Re:We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes
by fennecfoxen on Wednesday October 23, 2019 @05:38PM
(#21339286)
If you Google image search for "early motorcycle" most things will look a lot like an ordinary bicycles. Some versions of the 1903 Peugeot, for instance, had pedals on a crank, and even those that didn't were pretty slender:
https://cybermotorcycle.com/gallery/peugeot-1903/Peugeot-190...
The fact that your bicycle has an electric motor and remains somewhat slim doesn't change this fact.
Re:We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes
by magduf on Monday October 28, 2019 @07:36PM
(#21382940)
This is a silly argument. Do a Google image search for "cars in the 1800s" or something like that, and you're going to see "cars" that have tillers instead of steering wheels, and resemble horse carriages much more than modern cars. This doesn't mean horse carriages or motorized carts or golf carts qualify as "cars" in 2019.
Re:We Need to Dream Bigger Than Bike Lanes
by carapace on Friday October 25, 2019 @01:17PM
(#21357116)
I upvoted you for technical correctness, but I'm still convinced that, as rhetoric, your point fails.
Calling an eBike a motorcycle in 2019 is over-exaggeration, IMO, FWIW.
But, again, I do agree with you that powered bikes are not the same as human-power-only bikes.
I got a eBike (Bionix brand, it's been great!) when I was commuting across town and got sick of riding the bus (these days there's always somebody watching TV on their phone without headphones. It was just a matter of time until I lost it and slapped one out of someone's hand, and I really don't want to be that guy on the bus, y'know? So I bought an eBike.)
I'm a very defensive cyclist and one of the first rules I made up for myself is, "Do NOT use the acceleration boost to catch changing traffic signals." I saw that people (drivers, pedestrians, and other cyclists) around me mis-estimated my trajectory due to the artificial acceleration.