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this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2024
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Futurology
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Yeah but they're useless in the dead of winter in Northern latitudes. Or in the rain.
Useless in the rain?
That's because bicycles dissolve in water. It is a fundamental limitation of bicycle physics that cannot be solved.
That makes sense, i thought my bike were stolen but they're just washed away.
Mine personally combusts into a giant ball of flames if I hit a small puddle. It's really annoying going through so many fire extinguishers.
In actuality I've driven my jank as fuck ebike in torrential rain without a problem. This is with an external battery I slapped on and wired in parallel with the integrated battery. The connectors are sealed by electrical tape alone and it's been perfectly fine for two years. Water is a non-issue of all the important stuff is integrated and sealed correctly.
You should tell that to everyone using electric bikes during the winter due to it easing biking a ton during winter.
Personal experience so this is confirmation bias. I love my eBike. I drive it nearly all year. Winter is the exception. It's not the cold weather either, I ride it sometimes as low as 10°F (≈-12°C).
Where I am, road conditions are the problem. Snow plows push snow into the shitty bike gutter lanes, taking away that option. You could take your chances on the sidewalk, but the city doesn't put ice melt down, so then you'd need to be weary of other pedestrians, slick spots, and other hazards that come with sidewalks. You could take your chances going further into the road, but now You're dealing with potholes, drivers who want to get by you, and still potential for more slick spots. Not safe at all. Lastly, the bit of biking infrastructure which isn't a gutter but a proper bike trail just isn't tended to at all.
Cities say they care, throw down money to at least build something they call infrastructure, but actually maintaining it is something that normally doesn't happen.
Bike lanes are ploughed in Montréal. It's not a fundamental problem if biking
Extremely popular in urban areas in Denmark.
An electric cargo bike has replaced our car in our family of 2 adults and 2 small kids.
But it's a good idea to bring the battery inside with you in the winter.
That's fine if useful elsewhere. Snowplows are also useless in Thailand, so...
As an inhabitant of one of the most bike-friendly countries in the world, Denmark (which happens to very much be in northern latitudes and get a lot of rain) since birth, I can categorically and without a doubt declare your claims to be absolute horseshit.
Honest question: How do you deal with extreme cold and/ or rain when biking to and from work? I'm interested to learn more.
For the cold I often leave with light gloves and a jacket but often take off the jacket halfway when you get warm of the exercise
For the rain you have plastic pants and poncho to put over your clothes.
A lot of companies also have showers so you can just wear sports clothes that dry fast and take a shower and put on decent clothes. Combining fitness and your commute.
For cold I want gloves, long trousers, and closed shoes, the rest of me is hot from pedaling so I wear the same as in summer. On an e-bike I reckon someone would need to be properly dressed for the weather
Poncho.
Basically just dress for the weather. Also helps that it's a small country so our commutes tend to be short 🤷
That said, when I was young and in shape, I used to ride my bicycle 15 kilometers (a little over 9 miles) up and down hills each way 5 days a week no matter the weather and I fucking loved it!
I live in Chicago and the number of people riding bikes, powered or not, including motorcycles for good measure, plummets in the winter. It's not zero, but anyone using them is either desperate or (in the case of not doing or out of sheer necessity) completely nuts. I've lived it, don't tell me I don't know what I'm talking about.
Just because you live in a place where not a lot of people use bikes in the winter and the rain doesn't mean that bikes are useless in those cases, which is what you said.
So yeah, I WILL tell you that you don't know what you're talking about when you make such preposterous statements.
This is patently false. There is an honest shocking amount of people who go out of their way to bike in snow. I do it too but not for enjoyment. And what is rain going to do, infuse the bike and rider with more microplastics?
What makes you say that? People of Oslo seem to differ. People of Tallinn complain about road maintenance and still ride their (e)bikes in the winter.
I live in rainy northern latitudes. You are absurdly mistaken.
"Biking in the rain is for poor people"