I'm cycle pilled and fully electric. I've got wind in my hair and bugs in my teeth. I've got places to be and sweat stains in my pits. I'm moisturized, unbothered, in my (protected!) bike lane, and flourishing. I can't fully ditch my car yet for intermittent long distance commute reasons, BUT, I think I will be able to when I switch projects next year. Capitalism is a fuck, death to AmeriKKKa, may crude oil go to $1000 a gallon!

Love my icetrike, I have balance issues due to illness and still get to go over to the next town without a driver's license and get to feel "normal" when I ride around at high speeds :)

That's awesome I'm so happy for you.

I live in a treacherous place, so the ebike has been absolutely amazing for mobility. Slightly faster than driving.

That's wonderful. I expect to be slightly slower than driving in the city I'm living in now, but only because it's boring enough not to have real traffic. Just a cursed place built for more cars than people. I don't care so much about that, though. It's more about getting away from the car tax. The maintenance, the registration, the gas, the insurance: it's all so fucking expensive for a 14 year old piece of shit I resent having to own at all. Can't wait to sell it and be FREE from it as I build up the know how and physical fitness necessary to feel more confident just making the bike my only transport.

Hell yea

I fucking hate micro mobility (short term rented ebikes/bikes and electric scooters.)
I love bikes, i love ebikes, i hate micro mobility. Wrote my thesis about why it sucks ass. Bullshit capitalist bullshit that leeches off infrastructure, provides nothing and might even just be the new car in microcosm. Micromobility i hate i hate hate hate.

Anyone arguing against this needs to read this three times, because Im not going to take you seriously if you think i hate bikes.

What's bad about it?

The companies that run rentals are quite scummy. They come in to a city, dump a bunch of scooters/bikes everywhere, and do not take any responsibility for them or their users. I do however think it’s generally an improvement over car traffic and wish it would be something municipalities or transit would run instead.

I mean the main problem with that business model is that people would park them on the sidewalk instead of the (car) parking spots where they belong. Because car parking is holy.

Ill write later, probably Monday, if you are interested still

Sure

Hell yeah ding ding

I'm doing a reversible conversion on my old steel touring bike, and I've been encountering a lot of friction in getting everything ready.

First, I got a Gouach battery, which is cool in theory because the 18650 cells are socketed and can be swapped out, but in practice the firmware can't be configured if you don't have a very mainstream device with bluetooth (my old phone and linux laptop wouldn't cut it [I had to visit a more square friend, and their windows-chrome setup worked instantly]), and the company seems to consist of a small team of engineers with no dedicated support. The BMS chip does have a data cable socket (though it resembles a display bus more than USB), so maybe the thing can be made to behave more sensibly, like being able to plug it into a computer and have local software for it, in future. I'd advise most readers to skip Gouach until the company gets its shit together.

So I got the battery looking the way it's supposed to more or less, identified as XT90 the cable needed to connect it to the mid-drive motor system I got, then found that my handlebars are too fat to mount the system's throttle and display. All sorts of legacy options for bottom bracket widths, but no allowance made for thick handlebars? It took me some time to learn that handlebar risers, which mount to the handlebars and float a thinner bar above them expressly for accessory mounting, exist. I guess it makes sense, since there is so much more to mount than just a bell and a headlight nowadays.

I anticipate further trouble when I install the motor and it's time to calibrate it. The motor also expects me to get the app and to manage it with bluetooth. Fucking hate how smartphones have become a pretext to ship incomplete products. I hope in the end I can configure everything to my liking and then disable the antennae on both the motor and battery.

I want an ebike but $$ and also I'm big and tall which limits me to more expensive ones with better frames and larger batteries to make up for the range loss of my size, at least as far as those calculators indicate :///

Do you have a link for those calculators?

https://reallygoodebikes.com/pages/electric-bike-ebike-range-calculator

VERY relatable. It's part of what took me so long to take the plunge myself. I got one that is about $1700 after tax. That IS a lot of money! But I had saved up for about two years now and I got lucky enough not to have any emergency come and wipe out my savings this time around. I hope you're able to get one that fits you soon!

I feel you. I’m tall and need an XL frame and it seriously limits options for bikes, especially used. Hope you can find something that works

E-bikes are great.

I think the way the average non-cyclist engages with them is problematic, though. First question I always get asked by "normies" (non-cyclists) is "how fast does it go?". The second question is always "how far can it go on a single charge?" These two questions indicate how utterly missing the point of ebikes most people are. Which, I think, is why you see so many of those e-motos around with 1000W motors and huge double batteries. I think those things are annoying and unsafe.

But I have to bite my tongue about it, because:

  1. They're still better than cars for everyone involved, and the people riding them would almost certainly otherwise be driving.
  2. Boomer state legislatures are frothing at the mouth to ban e-motos without understanding anything about ebikes and almost always inadvertently nuking regular ebikes (or enacting significant barriers to them) with collateral damage

Why are these bad questions? I just wanna know if I can physically.handle a commute to work on one. I realize that it depends somewhat in how much I pedal, but I'm not an athlete, and I know I won't commit if I'm completely exhausted and sweaty every day at work. Whatever these other higher purposes all the snobs in the replies are about, I'm trying to find something that works for my life. Is it car brained to try and work out the practical considerations of daily travel?

The top speed of an ebike usually has nothing to do with how much effort you yourself put in. This is especially true above 20mph.

"how fast does it go?". The second question is always "how far can it go on a single charge?"

this is car brain in two types in the sense that most drivers have an entirely fucked up view of trip time with a strenous relationship to reality at best and also that one vehicle needs to do everything. Sure I've never needed to do a cannonball run, but what if i did?

These freaks are so alienated from nature they think they get in the car and the world moves the 'destination' to them. They resent non-hermetically sealed and non air conditioned spaces as an affront to man's place at the center of the universe. I beg of them to touch grass.

the weather here sucks shit 10 months of the year. whole town needs to be torn down and rebuilt in a person-friendly layout.

Yeah, I get the how fast does it go or how fast does it accelerate first-thing too. The distance thing is hard to answer because it's more about speed and how much physical effort put into it for me. If I keep it 18-22 Km/h I can e-bike all day.

God that's the pits. I'll add it to my list of grievances against car brained society. I got myself a nice class 2-3 fat tire because I really wanted something that could handle snow and ice. I'm serious about using this in all 4 seasons. But the motor is just 750 watts and maxes out at 28 mph with pedal assist, and honestly? That sounds too fast to me anyway. I'd only really want to do that on a long distance paved trail or something where I have exceptional vision conditions.

Everything in the city I'm in is less than 5 miles away from where I live, and MOST of the streets have decent bike lanes, some are even protected. I just want to get around town and get my body moving more regularly. No need for one of those teenager death machines that are basically just electric motorcycles.

The 28mph is handy when I need to hop on a 25mph street with no bike accommodations to make a connection.

Oh that totally makes sense. Less time spent in a car lane the better. Glad I have the option then!

I have probably the same bike and need it to do 40 miles every day to get to work so I don't think the range question is really all that bad

I haven't been able to ride in a while because of my surgery. Hoping to get back on it soon.

You and me both! I'll see you out there when you're well :)

Escooter purchased 18 months ago. Replaces 50% of car trips

fuck "master race" anything

ring ring passing on your left

my my my

Please. I'm a 6 year member. Do I need to write it in Maoist standard English to get the parody across? I said passing on your 'left' as an intentional pun too. This is a shit post, don't be shitty.

I mean yeah, that might make it a little funny. Ig I should have checked your papers.

Uphold c/main thought. Fuckin revisionists up in here pretending to do praxis by hating jokes. we're all safer now thank you

Ur mad because u made yourself the butt of the joke by pretending to be a nazi with the "master race" thing. You can make the joke if you really have to, but we also have to call you Hitler and stunt on you. A fake nazi is only funny when he is being mocked or beaten, you see? Otherwise we're conjuring the image just to have him around.

can't hear you over the sound of the wind in my hair sorry nerd

master race

You're right, sorry, how bourgeois of me: Proletariat race.

Yep, I've got one and do about 30kms to and from work every time I ride it. Range is 60kms so I can get two days out of it before a charge. Plus there's a PowerPoint in the courtyard at work where I park it so I can fill it up on the boss's dollar too.

Cruising along, bone conduction headphones on, taking in the fresh air and the weather. Whilst everyone else is stuck in their car

I picked up 3 used ebikes in the last 6 months. One cheap hub drive class 3 (28mph with throttle, single speed belt drive) and two Bosch mid drive class 2 (20mph no throttle).

They're all amazing and totally revived my love of cycling. 20mph is a little too slow and torque sensing mid drive is far superior to cadence sensor rear hub drive

Really? Maybe I'll want to use the full speed more often then. I used to have a single speed in a very flat city. It was one of the best times in my life as far as fitness goes. I can't wait to get back out there without fearing the ravages of time so much. I expect to be able to scale with the bike because it is a torque sensor. As I get stronger I can lower the PAS. I live somewhere a little hilly now, and I would really struggle to get back into it. I was the kind of person who needed to 'fool' my body into exercise with fun activities. Can't wait to finally pull off that trick again.

My absolute favorite thing is an ebike's ability to flatten hills. I hope you put many many miles on it

::: spoiler warning: genuinely bad pun "Flattened Hill" :::

I exhaled loudly. Never has 9to5 seen a pun crafted by such masterful wit

Burn down the masters

Everything has to be serious at all times and we cannot find any humor in the absurdity of hell world.

The last time I smiled was on August 19th, 1991.

I wear a dirty ushanka at all times, do not shave, and only take cold sponge baths because hot running water is bourgeoisie decadence.

Every day at exactly noon I have the same meal of an expired Maoist MRE I store in a pit covered in old issues of a revolutionary newspaper.

I sleep in a bed made of flags from every failed revolution so that they are never forgotten.

In the evenings I stare at a picture of vodka by candlelight, but I do not allow myself to drink because there is nothing to celebrate.

Every local org has banned me after I attempted to split it by assassinating the leadership.

There is no plumbing in my house I shit in a brass bucket with a picture of Gonzalo and Deng french kissing in the bottom of it.

My house is actually an overturned T34 in an abandoned junkyard in Wisconsin.

I have a single friend in this world and it is a tapeworm named Bordiga that I met after ingesting spoiled borscht on 9/11 in the ruins of building 7 (I blew it up after finding that a nominally leftist NGO inside of it wasn’t sufficiently anti-imperialist, the attacks on the world trade center were a perfect revolutionary moment for me to enact direct praxis against liberalism).

My source of income is various MLM schemes in the former soviet bloc that have been running for so long no one remembers who I am, they just keep sending money.

I have not paid taxes since McGovern lost the Democratic nomination for president and my faith in electoralism died more brutally than my childhood dog after it got into an entire jar of tylenol.

I own 29 fully automatic rusted kalashnikovs and three crates of ammunition entirely incompatible with them or any other firearms I own.

My double PHD in marxist economics and 18th century Swiss philosophy (required to understand Engels) sits over the fireplace of my home, my fireplace is a salvaged drum from a 1950s washing machine that was recalled for locking children inside of it.

I chose that washing machine model on purpose because I am anti-natalist.

During the latest BLM protests I firebombed a Nikes outlet in the middle of a peaceful candlelit vigil.

William F Buckley and I wrote hatemail to one another for 47 years until my final letter gave him an aneurysm. The only water I drink is from puddles.

George Lucas and I dropped acid together during an MKULTRA southern baptist summer camp and he went on to write the movie Willow about our time together.

The best way to test whether an electrical wire is live is to drool on it and shrimp salad is racist. You can make an IED out of potassium and the instructions are online thanks to Timothy McVey, who was actually a committed antifascist communist slandered by the deep state as part of operation condor.

Every time a liberal files a restraining order against me, I carve a mark into the wall.

I am running out of walls.

When Amerika finally collapses I will be ready to lead the revolution.

I am very smart and people like being around me.

Go outside and ride your bike. What's your problem?

It's not enough to go outside and touch grass. I need OTHER people to touch grass too. Sweaty nerds yearn for the foliage.

Reading this thread over, you're the one who comes across as the person with a problem. You're quite combative for zero reason. Be less like how you're being in this thread.

Sure, the mod report spam from hurt nerds doesn't show up in the thread, you're right. But they are all safer because the joke has been properly neutered now. We can all sit around and sing kumbaya and hug. So much for the dirt bag left.

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