Amsterdam is often held up as the gold standard for bicycle-friendly cities, but even in one of the most bike-centric…
I read this somewhere else but people are also modifying these ebikes to no longer be bikes at all including removing pedals and adding a throttle. I don’t know if an outright ban os the proper step but stiff fines and maybe even confiscation of modded bikes seem justified.
Yeah, I have an electric fatbike and it’s my go-to ebike for snow because the tires have such a wide contact patch. Then again, I imagine Amsterdam’s bike paths are pretty well maintained even in bad weather, so it’s probably less of an issue. I bet some e-cargo bikes might run afoul of this too though.
Don’t thinner tires do better in snow?
Kind of depends: Thinner tires “cut” through the snow better, but wider tires grip better overall and handle shitty terrain way better (like busted up city streets). They seem to do better on ice patches to some degree (though if you are in truly icy conditions, studded tires are the way to go).
It snows only a few days per year in amsterdam, so that isn’t really a big issue. I survived my whole youth cycling 3-7km to school in the netherlands through all weather with normal bike tires (and non-electric). I fell only once because of ice during an especially bad wintery week.
I’ve heard the bike infrastructure is legendary over there too, that probably helps a good amount even when it does snow.
There was an article on Lemmy a while ago with a photo of some european cops using some kind of portable dyno to see how these bikes were performing.
It seemed like a really good idea but I couldn’t find the article.I heard those dynamos exaggerate the actual speed because there is no load when they test it.
