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E-Bikes: Education, Training & The Law

January 17, 2018/9 Comments/in The Savvy Cyclist /by Clint Sandusky

Electric pedal-assisted bikes are becoming more prevalent at bicycle industry trade shows and bike shops. They’re being ridden for recreation and transportation, at MTB races, and even now by some public safety agencies across the US and beyond. My purpose in writing this post is to point cyclists and cycling instructors in the direction of educational, training, skills and legal aspects associated with e-bike use. This serves only as a starting point. Never stop learning and improving your skills, whether on a “traditional” bike or e-bike!

Clint Sandusky at Interbike 2017, with an e-bike in the Bosch “Circuit” test track staging area

My experience and knowledge of e-bikes comes from riding eMTBs at Interbike trade shows, at home, and at a recent Southern California bike patrol class. I’ve also read countless articles on e-bike use in public safety and by the community. At Interbike 2017 I attended the presentations on e-biking offered by Bosch, People For Bikes and the International Mountain Bicycling Association. But don’t call me Mr. E-Bike. I’m always learning, too!

Education & Training

In her recent post “Savvy E-Biking To A Car-Free Future,” Karen Karabell writes:

[T]here’s a catch [to e-biking] many people don’t realize. With speed comes a greater need to understand the traffic environment: sight lines, door zones, blind spots, and common motorist mistakes caused by underestimating speed. Without this understanding, an e-bike may be just as likely as any other bike to gather dust in the garage after a few close calls. This is why the engagement of CyclingSavvy and e-bike owners needs to happen, and can’t be a moment too soon.

As a longtime bike patrol instructor and now bicycle safety advocate, I TOTALLY agree!

I’ll take Karen’s thoughts one step farther. Additional training and/or evaluation MUST be done for riders wanting to use an e-bike during any CyclingSavvy, Public Safety Cyclist or other bicycle safety course. This should be done prior to the start of a class (not on Day 1) to ensure the rider understands how to safely operate an e-bike and is skilled enough to use it. This also means that bicycle safety instructors — even if they don’t ride e-bikes — now need familiarity with their operations and challenges in traffic.

Important topics and basic principles that should be discussed prior to or at CyclingSavvy or other courses where cyclists ride or are considering riding e-bikes include:

Hazards and conflicts associated with higher-speed riding. With speed comes responsibility!
Maneuvering and stopping considerations. E-bikes are 15 pounds or so heavier than their equivalent “traditional” counterparts
The dynamics of lane control, and a solid understanding of cyclist behaviors and how to use them. If you’re riding an e-bike at its maximum speeds, you want to do so ONLY when you’re practicing “driver behavior.” DON’T ride an e-bike fast on edge of the road, or on sidewalks
Legal & safety issues (to be discussed below)

When e-bikes are used during any type of cycling class, they must be inspected prior to use to ensure they’re safe and adequate.

By ensuring the rider has adequate knowledge and ability to use an e-bike and that the bike is safe to use, time and attention won’t be diverted from the other students in a class. IPMBA and the agency I teach bike patrol courses for are looking at these very issues.

Safety & Legal Issues

The adage of “speed kills” is a legitimate concern when using an e-bike, both for you and fellow roadway users. As an example, a Class 3 e-bike provides assistance only when the rider is pedaling, and ceases to provide assistance when the e-bike reaches 28 mph. Twenty-eight mph!!! You must have excellent bike handling skills and know how to protect yourself when you’re riding that fast. Simply manipulating the different modes of pedal-assist can be distracting for a novice cyclist.

Cyclists using e-bikes need to know how they and their bikes work together, especially under high-speed, emergency and/or adverse conditions. As Clint Eastwood said in the movie Magnum Force: “A man’s got to know his limitations.” Therefore, the faster you intend to go, the more skill and training you need.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission and Bicycle Products Suppliers Association were the first to define e-bikes. Initially California, then other states defined and regulated e-bikes into three classes as follows:

Class 1: Max pedal assist of 20 mph
Class 2: Max throttle assist of 20 mph
Class 3: Max pedal assist of 28 mph

“Conversion kits” are also available, allowing someone to turn a “traditional” bicycle into an e-bike. Cyclists should be very leery when adding this technology to their existing bicycles, especially due to the likelihood of insufficient braking systems and frames!

An NL Times (Netherlands) article from last September noted that “The number of fatal traffic accidents involving e-bikes is increasing, especially among older people.” Is this because Europe has embraced the use of e-bikes much more than the US, or because elderly people may tend to be less fit and skilled in higher-speed cycling?

Cyclists riding e-bikes both on- and off-road MUST know local, state and federal laws/regulations/definitions pertaining to all types of e-bike use, especially if they’re riding a Class 3 e-bike. This includes riding on sidewalks, bike lanes, shared-use paths and trails. I recommend e-bikers contact their local jurisdictions and/or land management agencies for up-to-date laws and regulations on where they’ll be riding.

Resources

People For Bikes offers a handy guide to your state’s specific e-bike laws.

Lots of useful info at the Electric Bike Association, the industry voice for e-bikes.

While we don’t endorse specific products, Bosch powers many of the e-bikes on the road, and offers excellent information on the mechanics and technology of e-biking.

Bottom Line

Technology can be a wonderful thing in bringing people to cycling, and riding e-bikes is certainly FUN!!!

However, cyclists choosing to ride e-bikes — for their safety and the safety of others — NEED to take important steps to learn how to interact safely, legally and with less stress with all users of the road. A CyclingSavvy course will do that for you!

As always, be safe out there, everyone!

My best buddy, Eric, showing off his personally-owned Trek eMTB at a recent California POST bike patrol course.

Everyone’s A Racer Now

January 10, 2018/6 Comments/in The Savvy Cyclist /by Karen Karabell

How fast is your city? You might have missed this info at the bottom of last week’s post about electric bikes. For most trips, an e-bike could get you to your destination as quickly as your car.

The trick is knowing how to keep yourself safe while you zip around.

Part Two

Four days after returning to St. Louis, I walked into my local e-bike dealer with my credit card ready. My husband and I didn’t own a cargo bike. After riding my sister’s electric cargo bike in Nashville, I wanted to see for myself if an e-cargo bike could truly replace car trips.

One less car.

While we looked around the store, my husband noticed a lovely commuter bike. “That one’s used,” Archie, the dealer, told us.

It looked hardly used, and was deeply discounted. Harold and I would be able to ride together!

We bought it, and that hasn’t happened. Harold prefers his 100 percent human-powered bikes. There’s certainly good reason for that. With e-bikes it’s easier to get in trouble, because of the higher speeds a person can go. Harold calls himself “Old Turtle.” He likes to go slow.

I love using both e-bikes. To my surprise, I’m on the commuter much more than the cargo e-bike. I was on the commuter e-bike when I crashed.

A previous owner named the bike “Black Beauty.” I call it the “Black Stallion,” because it zips along like the most gorgeous beast.

When I had my accident, I was riding on Kingshighway, one of our town’s major arterial roads. The Stallion and I were zipping over to The Hill, an Italian neighborhood about three miles from my home. I was in the outer of three lanes and stopped at a red light with other traffic. I planned to turn right, and had already signaled my intentions to the driver behind me.

While waiting at the light, I glanced to my left at a woman in a white car. She thankfully saw me, too, because of what happened next.

The light turned green. A shiny red pickup truck in front of me started to go. The Stallion took off as I engaged both the throttle and pedal assist, which was in its highest speed.

Then the driver in front of me stopped.

I slammed on my brakes to avoid hitting the back of the truck. Because this e-bike’s back end is heavy — that’s where the battery is — I didn’t fly over the handlebars. But I did lose control. I fell to the left on the road, and was suddenly blocking two of the three lanes of traffic.

At the time I had a milk crate zip-tied to the rear rack. As I fell over, the crate’s contents spilled onto Kingshighway. (Yes, after this escapade I started using a bike cargo net.)

The woman in the middle lane stopped her white car and jumped out. “Are you OK?” she asked. “I’m fine,” I responded as I stood and lifted my bike back up. “I just didn’t want to hit the truck in front of me.”

I don’t know what story she told that night at her dinner table, but that’s my version. Mainly I was embarrassed, holding up TWO of the three lanes of traffic going in my direction. All I wanted was to get out of the way.

The woman found my U-lock in front of her car. She picked it up and gave it to me. I waved apologetically to all the people I was holding up and walked my bike and bruised ego onto the sidewalk.

This is typically how the Kingshighway bridge looks as I cross it. There’s nothing scary about empty pavement!

e-bike on sidewalk overlooking next traffic wave.

While the light is red, though, lots of others pull up and wait at the light with me. When I slammed on my brakes and crashed to avoid hitting a pickup truck in front of me, this bike and I blocked two of the three traffic lanes.

I’ll make a mistake once, but not twice. As soon as I got home, I described what happened to my fellow CyclingSavvy instructors. I needed to talk about this. I never dreamed I could smash a bicycle into the back of someone else’s vehicle! CSI Brian Cox, a fellow e-bike enthusiast and bike shop owner in Southern California, had excellent advice.

“Leave a car length between you and the motorist in front of you,” Brian wrote. “You now have the speed to beat motorists off the line and you are responsible to not hit the motorist in front of you.

“With a people-powered bicycle, you did not have the acceleration capability you now have with a motorized bicycle.”

CSI John Schubert offered framing that I’d never considered.

“With an eBike, we ordinary riders can now ride at racing speeds,” he observed. “We therefore need the vigilance, razor sharp attention, and caution that go with riding that fast.”

Hmm. John’s right, though when I’m practicing “driver behavior,” I’ve felt fine riding the bikes at their max speeds of 20 to 25 MPH.

E-bikes magnify the need to understand both cyclist and motorist behaviors. For example…

My e-bikes have indeed replaced my car trips. But I’m well aware that they are still bikes — and that no motorist wants to be behind me, even if I am going as fast as Lance.

This is part of being savvy, too: How to help others who want to go faster than you do so, easily and without conflict.

Then — especially on an e-bike — you invariably pull right up behind them at the next red light. Just make sure not to hit ’em.

CSI Shannon Martin had comforting words.

“As more riders adopt e-bike technology, experiences like yours will help riders understand the power of the machines they ride and the need for sound bicycle handling skills to keep themselves safe.”

Savvy E-Biking To A Car-Free Future

January 3, 2018/11 Comments/in The Savvy Cyclist /by Karen Karabell

Part One

My sister warned me. “After you ride mine, you’ll want one.”

She was talking about her electric bicycle. Ironically, she’d never heard of e-bikes until I suggested she buy one.

Shannon learned to ride when she was 11, but for the next 30 years or so, showed no interest in bicycling, except to comment on observations she’d made from behind the wheel of her car.

During those years we enjoyed lively conversations about bicycling. If Shannon asked my opinion, I’d give it. Otherwise, I tried not to proselytize.

I’ve been an avid transportation cyclist for years, but I’m well aware that this is a tough sell to most Americans.

“C’mon now. Can it possibly be safe AND courteous to ride a bicycle in traffic?”

Adult bicycling education is an even tougher sell.

Savvy cycling makes transportation cycling a no-brainer. Yet you don’t learn this stuff overnight. Savvy cycling needs to be experienced. Then it takes time to process what you’ve experienced. There’s a lot to absorb, and deep cultural conditioning to overcome. So, I didn’t push my love of cycling on my sister.

But then, out of the blue in the Spring of 2016, Shannon called with shocking news.

“I bought a bicycle,” she said.

“Really?” I responded. Nothing she could tell me would have surprised me more.

Once Shannon decided to get a bike, education was an easy sell! Shannon is the kind of woman who becomes an expert at anything she sets her mind to. She read voraciously about bicycling and signed up for CyclingSavvy Online (there were no CyclingSavvy instructors in Nashville at the time). She loved the online course so much that she decided to travel to St. Louis to take an in-person workshop.

Shannon used her recumbent trike when she participated in a St. Louis CyclingSavvy workshop in August 2016

Shannon discovered for herself 1) the tremendous control she could have over her safety while riding and 2) that it was impossible for her to significantly delay motorists. Trust me, she tried. One of her vehicles is a recumbent tricycle. You have to change lanes to pass those things.

In traffic-choked Nashville, she figured that she could get to her office almost as quickly on her bike as in her car. She was ready to ride everywhere. Then Middle Tennessee’s “hills” put the kibosh on her plans to become a bicycle commuter, at least temporarily.

Nashville features gorgeous mountainous terrain, a challenge for anyone who commutes by bike. Shannon has no shower at her office. She didn’t want to carry multiple sets of clothes, and needed to look professional when she arrived. I suggested she consider an e-bike, even though I knew next to nothing about them.

She researched various brands, and rode e-bikes in New York City and Nashville. She decided to patronize a local dealer, and bought not one but two: a cargo and a commuter. I loved hearing about her adventures with each e-bike, which served very different purposes.

When I went to Nashville last April to celebrate Shannon’s birthday, we rode her e-bikes around town.

She was right.

I wasn’t “sold,” though. I was captivated.

Shannon riding on Hillsboro Road in Nashville, Tennessee

E-bikes aren’t replacements for bikes. They replace cars. They can move you across town, and over steep hills, at higher speeds with less effort while still offering clean, low-cost transportation. What a tremendous opportunity to change the conversation about transportation, and maybe finally make bicycling normal in America.

But there’s a catch many people don’t realize. With speed comes a greater need to understand the traffic environment: sight lines, door zones, blind spots, and common motorist mistakes caused by underestimating speed. Without this understanding, an e-bike may be just as likely as any other bike to gather dust in the garage after a few close calls.

This is why the engagement of CyclingSavvy and e-bike owners needs to happen, and it can’t be a moment too soon.

“I am a textbook example of how an e-bike transformed someone who doesn’t ride into a cyclist,” Shannon said.

That, and a solid knowledge of savvy cycling. Shannon went on to become a CyclingSavvy Instructor. (I wasn’t kidding when I called her an expert.)

Now that I’ve told you some of Shannon’s story, I want to tell you mine. But that’ll have to wait until next week.

Next Week: The Crash

The Reality of Speed

While pondering how to make the shidduch of e-bike owners and CyclingSavvy, I did some Googling. It hopefully won’t be news to you that personal automobiles are a major cause of global warming. But do you truly appreciate how shockingly inefficient cars are at getting us anywhere?

How fast is your city? If you click through, you’ll likely be surprised at how slow motorists are in cities. Your e-bike can get there just as quickly.