Go Bike

spyderski

I saw a guy cycling along the N11 Bike lane this evening on a GoCycle. The guy was travelling at time trial speeds - up the hill from Stillorgan passing cars and all other bikes with little effort. He was a "proper" cyclist as he had full cycling gear on & was contributing to the effort - a bit like Cancellara with the alleged electric motor. Has anyone else seen one of these GoCycles in action? They're around €1600, but are much cooler than any other electric bikes around.

Chips Lovell

I reviewed one a while back. I have to say, I had great fun riding it.

fenris

There is usually two together, the chap and an older lady about 25m behind, it always gives me a little smile as she could be up beside him or in front if she wished as she is on the same type of bike but instead does the staying behind thing, with him occasionally stopping and looking back to see where she is gone, but without the illusion that she cannot keep up.

I would be well proud if they were my old folks!

Raam

Some lad rips it along the coast between Clontarf and Sutton on an MTB with what sounds like a lawnmower engine. I had to put out a million watts* just to stay with him.

*or thereabouts

DirkVoodoo

Seen him too, he was coming out of St.Helens on the N11 (next to the Radisson). Slightly disconcerting to see a guy on a bike, hardly exerting himself and flying along at super speeds. I wasn't cycling at the time so I didn't have a chance to see if I could keep up.

The bike looks really cool as well.

mahoo

They have one of these in the science gallery at the moment. they quote it at doing 15mph for 20 miles after a 3 hour charge. i guess these figures are for if you are using only the motor. . it folds up really small too. pretty cool thing for commuting. and if you end up out on the drink you can throw it in the back of a taxi easliy
they also have a racing bike with a bamboo frame in there too. they make them in zambia. Its kitted out with an SRAM Rival groupset and all. definitely a head turner

ednwireland

ftw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8176C-2JdQ8&feature=related

seamus

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

Slightly disconcerting to see a guy on a bike, hardly exerting himself and flying along at super speeds.

Was there not a thread here a while bike where someone was complaining that they were busting a gut chasing a guy every morning, and the guy looked like he was barely breaking a sweat. It was only after a few days he realised the fecker had an engine?

droidus

seamus wrote: »

Was there not a thread here a while bike where someone was complaining that they were busting a gut chasing a guy every morning, and the guy looked like he was barely breaking a sweat. It was only after a few days he realised the fecker had an engine?

Commuter races I think it was.

I encountered an electric cyclist recently in Ranelagh. Oldish guy on a fully loaded hybrid. I was struggling to stay up with him, going about 30k through traffic. Then it clicked when I noticed that everytime he started up from the lights he was in extremely high gear but still managing to accelerate faster then me...

Keep_Her_Lit

spyderski wrote: »

I saw a guy cycling along the N11 Bike lane this evening on a GoCycle. The guy was travelling at time trial speeds - up the hill from Stillorgan passing cars and all other bikes with little effort. He was a "proper" cyclist as he had full cycling gear on & was contributing to the effort - a bit like Cancellara with the alleged electric motor. Has anyone else seen one of these GoCycles in action? They're around €1600, but are much cooler than any other electric bikes around.

Using an electric motor on anything purporting to be a bicycle is cheating, simple as that. I always make a point of purposefully powering past any such fraudulent veh-hick-els.

Got to admit though, the game could be up in this case. A quick glance at the (trendy and needlessly irritating) GoCycle website reveals some grim and ominous figures. The motor in this yoke is rated for 250W continuous. To make matters worse, the all in weight (incl. mudguards and Empower Pack, whatever that is) is only 35.6lbs / 16.2kg – pretty light for a cheatin’ ‘lectric bike. With a reasonably fit rider on board, very few urban cyclists are going to be able to keep up.

There is a potential weakness, however. The highest gear (of the 3 available) is 71 inches. That yields about 25mph/40kph at a cadence of 120rpm. This guy might be king on the way out of town on the N11 but on the way into town he’s toast! Unless, of course, he can spin like these young bucks:

BTW, what’s the story with the Euro top speed of 24kph? Does this mean that “cheat-power” is available only up to this speed, then you’re on our own with the pedals? Seems unlikely, based on the OP’s description of the dazzling velocity achieved by the heroic pilot.

Lumen

Keep_Her_Lit wrote: »

BTW, what’s the story with the Euro top speed of 24kph? Does this mean that “cheat-power” is available only up to this speed, then you’re on our own with the pedals? Seems unlikely, based on the OP’s description of the dazzling velocity achieved by the heroic pilot.

As I understand the rules, the electric assist must cut out completely above 25kph.

Which means either the machines are illegal, or those overtaken ("losers" for short) are going slower than they like to admit.

From here:

Finance (No. 2) Act 2008 wrote:

‘ pedelec ’ means a bicycle or tricycle which is equipped with an auxiliary electric motor having a maximum continuous rated power of 0.25 kilowatts, of which output is progressively reduced and finally cut off as the vehicle reaches a speed of 25 kilometres per hour, or sooner if the cyclist stops pedalling;

Keep_Her_Lit

Lumen wrote: »

As I understand the rules, the electric assist must cut out completely above 25kph.

Thanks for clearing that up. Sounds pretty frustrating really. Just as your speed is reaching the point where a 250W boost could really come in handy, the power fizzles out and the pedals become a whole lot harder to push.



I guess you just get used to not travelling any faster than 25kph - unless the speed sensing mechanism somehow, mysteriously "stops working properly" ...

Lumen

Keep_Her_Lit wrote: »

Thanks for clearing that up. Sounds pretty frustrating really. Just as your speed is reaching the point where a 250W boost could really come in handy, the power fizzles out and the pedals become a whole lot harder to push.

The "problem" is that because the pedelec categorisation puts them outside of normal vehicle regs (number plates, insurance, tax, NCT) there's no way to enforce this after sale except by random inspection by an engineer, and that's not going to happen unless it's involved in a KSI accident.

Most people can easily sustain 25kph on the flat on a road bike without breaking much of a sweat, so the electric assist is "only" really useful on hills and pulling away from lights.

ucd.1985

I have been riding one of these for the past year.

http://www.ultramotor.com/us/product/a2b_metro

Really nice to ride, bit of a cheat to be honest as you can go c. 30kmph for 30km without pedalling at all.

Really nice piece of kit.

Some of you may have seen me traveling from blackrock to the ifsc on it in the mornings.

ps. this is one of the best "sections" of boards i have ever come across, everyone is so nice.