The safety organisation VeiligheidNL estimates that 5,000 fatbike riders are treated in A&E [ i.e Accident & Emergency] departments each year, on the basis of a recent sample of hospitals. “And we also see that especially these young people aged from 12 to 15 have the most accidents,” said the spokesperson Tom de Beus.
Now Amsterdam’s head of transport, Melanie van der Horst, has said “unorthodox measures” are needed and has announced that she will ban these heavy electric bikes from city parks, starting in the Vondelpark. Like the city of Enschede, which is also drawing up a city centre ban, she is acting on a stream of requests “begging me to ban the fatbikes”.
Who knew that reinventing the motorcycle for like the third time was going to have the exact same result.
That was sadly exactly what I was expecting from the electric motorization of bicycles. It is a history that has repeated itself many times in the last 70 or 80 years since the first combustion engine mopeds.
The fact is that the human-powered bike is at a sweet spot of efficiency and safety. Once you go faster, you need a helmet, a heavier frame, wider tyres, better brakes, wider lanes, protective clothing, protection against cold, a heavier motor for propelling all the extra weight, and so on. The energy input from you the human dwindles.
It is not any more a bicycle.
You need a helmet on purely muscle-powered bicycles, too. A helmet saved both mine and my father’s life in accidents that would not had happened were we not riding bikes that moment.
A majority of bicycle accident fatalities could have been prevented with helmets.
Wear helmets. There are cool models, too, don’t try that excuse.Yes, right.
But: A bike helmet won’t help you much if you have a collision at 50 km/h. If you go at moped / light motorcycle speed, you need a motorcycle helmet, too.
Yeah, obviously you need different helmets for different speeds. But the comment I responded to was worded like you wouldn’t need a helmet on bicycles at all.
most ebikes already go slower, or on par at max speed with an amateur/relatively fit cyclist. roughly 25 to 30kmph.
going after fat tire bikes specifically doesnt really make sense considering they offer more traction for stopping power. if they legally limit the speed it should be on par with elite level cyclists at most. which is about 50 to 60kmph. depending on the area. nobody wants to wipe out and hurt themselves or somebody else.
this is a way for them to add tickets and licensing for people who wish to circumvent owning a vehicle or taking public transit. which the government and corporations directly benefit from financially.
i just dont see the point besides fear mongering in a place where virtuallly everyone has a bike, and cycling accidents are less lethal than vehicular ones. it just seems like an unfair represention of statistics to prop up a bottom line that only serves to extract wealth from the poor, less well off, environementally or financially concious.
if parents dont want their kids to take those risks, then dont buy them an ebike. buy them a regular one, or tell them to take public tranist if they cant offer it themselves.
they always use children as a way to shoe in control with fear tactics.
as an bike/ebike rider. i have a bike that can go about 45kmph and never go over 25 personally, as that feels like a safe speed in my city with the infrastructure and crossings that we have. every incident that has happened to me has come from vehicles doing illegal turns, crossings, or not looking where traffic is coming from before pulling out into the street.
if anything they should focus on getting more people to ride bikes/ebikes, and offering safety courses for those who wish to own ebikes. free of charge.
if they want to regulate them, regulate braking power vs speed potential. and helmets. and create separated concrete barrier bike lanes with covers for weather and wind to avoid ice buildup and snow. fat tire bikes are nearly a necessity for cyclists in colder climate.
They are talking about banning fat “bikes” not fat tire bikes. They are basically electric motorcycles disguised as an e-bike.
Like this one:
There is already regulation and they should be speed limited. But these bikes are designed to unlock the limit very easily.
every ebike can be unlocked with relative ease. theres nothing any law can do to stop that from happening unless they ban imports of everything below 250 watts and even then people will still be able to modify the bikes. they even tried it with CANbus, but at the end of the day its a motor, a controller, a throttle or pedal assist, and a battery. you simply cannot stop anyone from modding even completely subpar or top tier bikes from going over the limit. which is limited by the batteries power, and motor/controllers ability to hold a charge. to even try doing so would require powers that reach way into other markets. caps on capacitors, batteries, PCB board controls, motors, etc.
this isnt about bikes. its about brown people and visible minorities riding them en mass and europeans wanting to bring the hammer down on them so they are forced to buy cars, use public transit,become more susceptible to random checks by police, and/or be kicked out of the country for breaking a new law. as well as finding a new way to limit or regulate other related electronics markets, and milk them for more money.
its amsterdam for pity’s sake. quite literally one of the most racist/xenophobic places in europe, despite the fine architecture, rich history and culture. of course they are going to want a way to stop check people using a slower mode of transport that circumvents traditional charges for transportation. its happening all over europe as well.
its rediculous and everyone who disagrees is either chronically online, completely unaware of anything deeper than a scary headline that dictates their beliefs for them. knows nothing about electronics, bikes, ebikes, general safety, race relations, or DOES know these things, but underneath it all supports it because they are also bigoted and/or drive a car/take public transit and dont like cycling of any kind if others are doing it and it even remotely inconveniences them.
they will start with banning a visibly common iteration of cheap ebikes, but at the end of the day, unless they ban every form of it, and install checkpoints to ensure that nobody has them. theres simply no other way to get rid of them. and to do that would be fuhuckin stupid.
we can all lie to another and say its not due to xenophobia, racism, or general support for luxuries such as cars and public transit, and the taxation and fees that come with them, and i dare say a police state. but at the end of the day this is just another way for governments and corporations to use fear to impliment more control over emerging technologies and markets. especially on human mobility.
its a damn bike, and its a shit tier one that goes slower than most entry level ebikes unless you swap the controller and battery. and you, again, can do that with literally any and every ebike. its actually a stupidly simple process in most cases.
in a world where we can drive a death wagon at 150+ kmph that virtually guarantees death or significant injury for passengers and anyone it comes into contact with. which also drastically pollutes the environement in comparison, we should limiting cars not dinky ebikes from temu that poor people and immigrants prefer to ride. if anything we should be pushing more people into riding bikes of all types.
its a dumb idea. and anyone who disagrees is at the very least grossly misinformed on the wider issues, i dont blame them, just the media thats controlled by people who like to control people.
no offense. im not writing this in anger to you, or anyone in particular, its purely based on my experience as a person who had made a point of riding bikes in spite of owning vehicles, simply because of the glaringly obvious issues that are caused by cars, and that are answered by bikes/ebikes.
downvote away y’all, i know its controvercial, but the ones who get it are the ones im talkin’ to. everyone else can either take the time to understand it, or kick rocks.
fuck cars, fuck the government, fuck the system. and fuck climate change.
Yes, these bikes can be dangerous. I’ve seen, and almost be hit by people riding them top speed on a shared pathway.
I mean there are llke 14 accidents per day. And most people i know are regularly complaining how they almost got run over.
If it weighs the same as a moped / motorcycle, it should be on the road. Simple as that.
Fatbike is notorious for having smaller top speed at like 15kmh. They are good for sand and gravel but may lack maneuverability
This is about electric ones, that are registered as bicycles but can go 45 km/h.
You can buy one of these for around 1k, and it’s a long button press to reconfigure it from the legal 25 km/h, assistance only, no throttle, “EU legal” configuration to the 45 km/h, throttle active “US legal” config.
The fuck is this monstrosity. Ugly AF
Honestly wouldn’t mind getting one if I could have it registered as a motorcycle, its cheaper than any other low power motorcycle I can find and it’s electric!
I hope that Eindhoven follows suit.
Hope all city centres.
Am I understanding this correctly, that they want to ban bicycles based on the width of their tires?
“fatbike” means something different in The Netherlands than it means in North America.
In North America, fat bikes are mountain bikes with 4 inch wide or wider tires, generally designed for use on snow and sand. E.g.: https://surlybikes.com/products/wednesday-og-algae
In The Netherlands, fatbikes are throttle-controlled e-bikes with 4-5" wide tires with a smaller diameter than typical bikes. They come with pedals, but the gearing and seat position makes the pedals essentially useless; many people remove them. They do not handle well. They do not stop well. They are popular because they are cheap. E.g.: https://www.fatbikeskopen.nl/products/qm-wheels-v20-pro-mini-zwart
So they’re banning electric bicycles based on tire width? That doesn’t really make any more sense to me. Also weird that throttle controlled e-bikes are allowed, but fat tires aren’t. (Especially considering that EU regulation 168/2013 implies that pedal assistance is mandatory.)
Fatbikes in the Netherlands are a group of e-bike brands that purposefully make it extremely easy to remove their government required speed regulator, and are particularly popular among certain demographics of young immigrant men to use as basically electric motorcycles (since they can be controlled with a thumb-throttle instead of pedaling).
Because there’s a mixture of these bikes causing real problems on the roads, and them being popular young brown dudes, a lot of different forces in the Netherlands are pretty upset about them and want them banned.
Throttle controlled ebikes should be banned. Pedal assist only. Article doesn’t say which these are.
Don’t ban them, just make them register as electric motorcycles. Which is a market that could do with more choices…
I think a big part of the reason these sell so well is because you don’t need a license (like other bikes) and also don’t need a helmet. I totally agree these are more like mopeds, scooters and motorcycles; but the current regulations makes these bikes accessible to a group that has no access to the other types.
Electric motorcycles are not allowed on bike paths and parks. Which means they have to go faster so they can be on roads. Throttle control ebikes are right in that grey area of motorized in pedestrian areas that we should not have.
Honest question, wouldn’t enforcing a hard speed limit on them be more useful? If a bike is going 25 km/h, does it matter if it got there with the rider turning the pedals or not? And if it is going 45 km/h, same question, why does it matter? IMO it should be a hard speed limit, and a limit on torque, but the “no throttle” thing is kinda missing the point. Maybe require a licence, and make registration mandatory in an easy way.
I’ve had one of those fatbikes, and of course I wouldn’t ride them in the Vondelpark at full speed, what they were good for is a long commute on rural bike paths going a safe 25 km/h. What I liked about the electric motor was that it would get me back at 25 km/h after stopping at a light without effort. The fat tires meant that if some branch or other random shit was on the road, I would be safer, and of course it also made for a smoother ride.
That said, “pedaling” with these only means exerting the slightest effort, it’s not at all different from a throttle, except it’s harder to control the bike. There is hardly any way to apply only some throttle as opposed to all of it for example. And it’s also easy to fuck up by resting your foot on the pedal and applying torque by mistake, while forgetting to hold the brakes that cut the engines, and ending up with the bike lurching forward.
There is a hard speed limit on them. The thing about these Fatbike brands is that they are purposefully made it very very easy to disable the speed limiter, and make it widely known how to do it.
Wouldn’t it be sufficient then to outlaw the purposefully easy ways to disable the hard speed limit?
There’s lots of responses. First is you’re not going to be able to enforce a speed limit. What are you going to have an army in every park and bike path at all hours of the day and night? Second, throttle control (or either really) ebikes opens the door for everyone to get to that speed everywhere. Previously only the stupidly fit could do it and only in certain areas. Third, throttle puts you in a different mindset than pedal assist. This is critical. It’s just a completely different mode of operation and mentality. The only excemption to allow throttle control should be medical, so that they still have access to bike paths. Everything else I think puts you into a powered vehicle and you should be on the road, not on bike paths or in parks.
You can do long commutes bike paths with pedal assist bikes. Depends on the jurisdiction but 20 mph / 30 km/h or 25 in the article is typical for those.
That said, “pedaling” with these only means exerting the slightest effort
Again, different mentality.
There is hardly any way to apply only some throttle as opposed to all of it for example.
What? Yes there is, there are different settings for how much pedal assist you want.
And it’s also easy to fuck up by resting your foot on the pedal and applying torque by mistake, while forgetting to hold the brakes that cut the engines, and ending up with the bike lurching forward.
What? With pedal assist the assist/engine cuts out the nanosecond you stop pedaling. That’s what pedal assist means, you get the assisst ONLY when you are pedaling and it cuts when you aren’t pedaling. You have this mixed up so this is my only message.
This concern you have about fucking up, forgeting this or that, lurching, etc are all the problems throttle assist have.
Throttle controlled ebikes should be banned.
I thought that was already the case in Europe?
Current situation in the Netherlands that these aren’t sold as such, they are modified afterwards. This is illegal, but i guess the risk of being caught is rather small.
