Buying and riding an S-Pedelec in the UK.

[nemesis]

http://ebiketips.road.cc/content/advice/advice/buying-and-riding-an-s-pedelec-in-the-uk-1637

 

[LeighPing]

It's set up to fail right from the get go..


There's a lot of paper to wade through

1. First, find yourself a bike. You’ll need to make sure it comes with a Certificate of Conformity, and that it conforms to 168/2013/EU regulations; you’ll need the certificate later.
2. Head off to the DVLA(link is external) and get yourself some forms. You’ll need a V267 (New vehicle import pack) and a V55/4 (Application for a licence for a new motor vehicle and declaration for registration). They take about a week to arrive.
3. Complete the V267 & V55/4 with the information from the Certificate of Conformity.
4. Send everything with a cheque for £55 and the original Certificate of Conformity off to the DVLA. You’ll need to include a bank statement and/or utility bill, and a copy of your driving license or passport.
5. Wait for your V5C registration document to come back: this takes about two weeks
6. Check your vehicle tax(link is external) - it’s exempt, so there’s nothing to pay
7. Get a standard vehicle number plate (around £10 online) and fix it to the rear of your bike
8. Arrange some insurance - Bikesure(link is external) quoted £135 third party only & Quoterack(link is external) quoted £200 fully comprehensive for this bike
9. Find yourself a kite-marked motorcycle helmet. An open-face moped helmet will cost from about £30 upwards.

And you’re done! So you’re looking at a process that’s likely to take about a month, and cost you at least £200, on top of what you’ve spent on your bike.

Lucky for me, Dan from R&M went through all this so I didn’t have to. Mostly he found that people didn’t really understand the bike, or what he was doing. “Insurance was probably the worst”, he said. “It’s extremely difficult to obtain, most insurance companies just don't recognise the vehicle so are unable to offer insurance, and despite having cycled for more that 30 years on the road this counts as nothing towards no claims because it is a motorcycle.”

The driving licence is another sticking point. If you passed your test before 2001 then you have “grandfather rights” that allow you to ride a moped without any further training, but if you passed after that you’ll need to complete a motorcycle CBT course, and that’ll cost you another £100.

Then there’s the MOT: by law you’ll have to get your S-pedelec checked every year once it’s three years old. But the MOT regulations are written for petrol mopeds, not e-bikes, so garages may not understand what to do, and bike shops won’t be able to MOT the bike even though they’re the people that will know whether it’s working properly. “I strongly feel that the the best people to assess the road safety of this vehicle is a cycle shop”, says Dan, “so it would be better if it had a service book that needed to be stamped every year rather than an MOT which will be carried out in a location that doesn't understand the bike or its operation."

Remember: it’s not a bike.

Riding this £3,599 Riese und Muller Nevo HS Touring is just like riding any other e-bike, really. It’s a bit quicker, and that makes longer journeys a bit more manageable. I’ve been on 20-mile round trips which are significantly quicker than they would be on a standard 25km/h pedelec. So that’s good. An S-pedelec opens up longer commutes that would normally be done by car, and the fact that it’s quicker means it’s more capable of keeping up with traffic on UK roads that have very little provision for cyclists. For a 12-mile commute from Bristol to Bath, as an example, it's easily quicker at rush hour than getting in the car, especially when you consider parking at each end.

It’s not all positives though. For a start, there are plenty of places you can’t legally ride this bike. Anything that’s shared use is out of bounds, so the traffic-free paths round here such as the Bristol-Bath and the Two Tunnels are off the menu. But more than that there are countless little cut-throughs and paths even on road routes that I’d tend to use to keep out of the traffic, and those are all out as well. Round here motorbikes are allowed in bus lanes, so that’s okay. But if you live somewhere where they’re not, you can’t use the bus lanes either. If you’re on the road when there is a cycle lane provided (that you can’t legally use), you’ll be getting it in the neck from drivers too, no doubt. You're legally bound to the speed limits too, so if I roll down the hill to work faster than the 20mph limit and get picked up for it, that's three points on my licence.

In Northern Ireland, it’s like this for everyone
If this all sounds like a headache, then spare a thought for the good folks of Northern Ireland. Through some historical regulatory divergence, they never adopted the UK’s e-bike legislation, and haven’t been brought into line with EU law, and that means that every single e-bike sold in Northern Ireland is legally a moped, with all the box-ticking and paperwork detailed above officially required. This really only came to light last year, and still doesn't seem to be widely adhered to.

Things should change -

Here at ebiketips we think that things need to change. An S-pedelec doesn’t ride like a moped, it rides like a bike. It’s a bit quicker, but realistically hardly any more so than a fit cyclist would be. If we’re going to reduce car dependency in the UK, and offer people better transport choices, then bikes like the Nevo I’ve been riding would certainly be appealing to people with commutes that are too long or hilly for a regular bike, or even a standard e-bike. But the amount of red tape and cost surrounding them makes them hard to recommend in the UK right now. It’s no surprise that people are chipping their standard e-bikes to be faster – or just buying an S-pedelec and riding it as a bike – when the law stands as it does.

 

[flecc]

Things should change
Here at ebiketips we think that things need to change. An S-pedelec doesn’t ride like a moped, it rides like a bike. It’s a bit quicker, but realistically hardly any more so than a fit cyclist would be. If we’re going to reduce car dependency in the UK, and offer people better transport choices, then bikes like the Nevo I’ve been riding would certainly be appealing to people with commutes that are too long or hilly for a regular bike, or even a standard e-bike. But the amount of red tape and cost surrounding them makes them hard to recommend in the UK right now. It’s no surprise that people are chipping their standard e-bikes to be faster – or just buying an S-pedelec and riding it as a bike – when the law stands as it does.

As ever I stress the need to keep a sense of perspective. In truth very few people want an S pedelec. In Germany where they were invented long ago and where they don't have all these draconian rules, only 1% of e-bike sales are S pedelecs.

It's similar in the Netherlands, the only other EU country to introduce the S class.

There's a lot of downsides to the S class, particularly being confined to the roads and unable to use cyclepaths, shared paths, parks etc. Remember that in all countries there's a number plate on the back giving the game away.
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[anotherkiwi]

As ever I stress the need to keep a sense of perspective. In truth very few people want an S pedelec. In Germany where they were invented long ago and where they don't have all these draconian rules, only 1% of e-bike sales are S pedelecs.

It's similar in the Netherlands, the only other EU country to introduce the S class.

There's a lot of downsides to the S class, particularly being confined to the roads and unable to use cyclepaths, shared paths, parks etc. Remember that in all countries there's a number plate on the back giving the game away.
.

Don't forget Switzerland with 22% of s-pedelecs. Maybe the Alps have something to do with their popularity there? i.e. not for going fast but for more power for climbing - IIRC s-pedelecs in Switzerland have 500 W nominative motors so probably more than 750 W at the back wheel in reality.

 

[nemesis]

Why would so many people go down the derestriction route if there was little demand for s-pedelecs in the UK ?

 

[LeighPing]

Why would so many people go down the derestriction route if there was little demand for s-pedelecs in the UK ?

As a slightly faster ebike, but still not as fast as a regular bicycle with a fit rider, there is a demand for them, or more-so 'that aspect', in the UK. However, they've made it very expensive and ridiculous to achieve that aim and, in doing so, it will stop you from going where a pedal bike can go.

It's like having to do the Indy 500 before you can sign up for a driving lesson. Then, once you've passed your test, you can no longer go on the roads that you used to use!

Not to mention looking like a tw@bike with a huge number plate! You may as well paint a bullseye target on your back.

 

[flecc]

Why would so many people go down the derestriction route if there was little demand for s-pedelecs in the UK ?

Because they are avoiding the restrictions by breaking the law of course.

If they complied witn the law and carried a rear number plate with all the restrictions that implies, they wouldn't be as popular, as in Germany and the Netherlands.
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[flecc]

Don't forget Switzerland with 22% of s-pedelecs. Maybe the Alps have something to do with their popularity there? i.e. not for going fast but for more power for climbing - IIRC s-pedelecs in Switzerland have 500 W nominative motors so probably more than 750 W at the back wheel in reality.

True, outside of the EU they've always been a special case, probably dating back to their BikeTec Flyer F model which was very capable and of course the very fast Swizzbee.

The S class in Germany and The Netherlands also have 500 watts upper limit, though few buy those. Their markets seen to have settled for 350 watts as the best power to range compromise, but still only 1% buying them there.
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