06/11/2026
Sometimes the truth hurts...
I hesitate to post this as I cannot imagine one group agreeing. The thing is, truth is truth whether it is painful or not.
This week I have been commuting on a customer's major name brand, 750 watt, hub drive bike. It has a form of torque sensing, of sorts. It is mostly cadence sensing and you can really tell it when you get up to speed. Heck, down shift and ratchet pedal. You won't need a throttle to do 20! While it is well built, with quality components, it is just too heavy to handle properly or respond to emergency situations above 10-12 mph. Comfort bike geometry was just never meant to go 20mph. Scrambler geometry was designed for on the edge of control fun and similar things are true for all practical geometry (not many of us want to ride a drop bar performance carbon road e-bike and those who do aren't looking at much over 250 watts and 40nm's of torque).
The fact is, we are riding on tires designed for sustained speeds of 15mph or less. These are not high speed road racing tires. Our best brakes were designed for 30 # mtb's never averaging 15mph (partly why they work well on sub-20 # road bikes at speed). Our suspensions were designed for off road control, not high speed, on road comfort! This is before you factor in hubs, wheels, spokes and driveline components, none of which were originally intended to be used for sustained high speeds . It can be done and it could be safe, but many are clamoring for even more power and speed. It is absurd.
There is a reason the rest of the industrialized world limits top speeds to 20mph or less, weight to 80 #'s or less and power to 400 watts or less. Traditional bikes, using the same components, rarely reach these speeds and never for hours at a time (regardless of what you may think, you were never channeling the spirit of a youthful Eddy Merckx).
This is what people are complaining about. The bike I am testing is a legal 750 watts nominal. Dramatically better built than most. Still, it is over powered and massively heavy. If you hit someone on this, it is going to do some real damage. It can barely get out of its own way, much less a kid or dog that might dart out in front of it. It breaks my heart when cyclists of any type pass people on trails and the pedestrians think they have to cower to the side (On any Multi-Use Path, the rule is always, "Heels Over Wheels."). They feel the weight and wind of our passing them at frightening speed.
The complainers may not have liked it, but they got by when only the occasional roadie or paceline passed them (real cyclists train on the road, hence the growing popularity of gravel bikes). There aren't that many, that skilled and with the expensive bikes to make it a regular problem. Now, with the advent of the e-bike, just about anyone, regardless of skill, can ride as fast as a pro cyclist...at least over long distances. There are hundreds of us on rail trails and MUPs every weekend. We can make a real mess of commuter bike lanes too. Of course they are complaining more now.
We have to expect limits to come. Higher power bikes are going to be registered and plated so people can be held responsible for damage they may cause. Many places will look at their numbers and decide that bikes that can easily go 20mph, for instance with throttles, just don't fit the general flow of traffic. Like large trucks that aren't allowed in certain parts of town or to cross certain bridges.
I do not know the answer. It certainly would help if The CPSC would get rid of the particularly dangerous e-bikes. I do hope though, that as we ride and enjoy what we have, we keep this all in mind. If we don't, eventually The U.S. will have to adopt E.U. standards (6mph throttles, 250 watt motors, 15.5mph limits pedaling).
