Electric Bicycles - Beijing

[Dynamic Position]

Skip to the last 5 minutes.

BBC iPlayer - The World Tonight: 02/03/2010

When e-biking becomes popular, government will try and regulate!

Can our fledgling European/British e-bike market survive?

I hope the Chinese don't all aspire to drive cars and ditch their bikes

 

[flecc]

These are not bicycles as we understand them though. The typical Chinese "electric bike" looks like a moped/scooter, often with a dualseat and having a motor about three times the wattage rating of ours, giving at least 20 mph performance without any pedalling. They are very little different from our restricted moped class.

The accident rate is very high and it's not surprising their government attempts to regulate them more strictly. They are completely banned in some cities anyway, and in a number of other cities they are banned from major routes since they disrupt car traffic.

The comment at the end was right, they gave up bikes to buy these moped like things as soon as they could afford them, and when they can afford cars they'll abandon two wheels. It's an exact repeat of what happened in Britain from the 1950s when people motorised their bikes, in the '60s when they switched them for scooters and in the '70s when they upgraded to cars finally.
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[Phil the drill]

It's an exact repeat of what happened in Britain from the 1950s when people motorised their bikes, in the '60s when they switched them for scooters and in the '70s when they upgraded to cars finally.
.

How true.

Unfortunately, instead of it making everyones life easier and less stressful, it has ended up increasing the overall 'pace of life' and with it the associated stresses induced by the pressure to squeeze more and more into a finite period of time. I'm quite convinced that this has actually made many people's lives more miserable and stressful than it was for their predecessors.

It's why i won't go back to the Midlands or S.E. The pace of life here in Cornwall suits me just fine at the moment, although I know it won't stay that way forever. I'll just enjoy it while I can.. .

Phil

 

[Barnowl]

Speaking as someone in the middle of the midlands - I agree the pace of life is too fast, noisy and stressful The traffic has slowed, somewhat, down in the last 10 years though.

Pace of life, prime suspects for me is still the PC and mobile phone and their application rather than the car.

Midlands - handy for the shops and parking etc. No much good for cliff top walks and cream teas

PS The Chinese people have had an incredibly stressful history. I hope they're going in the right direction now and wish them all the best.

 

[Phil the drill]

Speaking as someone in the middle of the midlands - I agree the pace of life is too fast, noisy and stressful The traffic has slowed, somewhat, down in the last 10 years though.

Pace of life, prime suspects for me is still the PC and mobile phone and their application rather than the car.

Midlands - handy for the shops and parking etc. No much good for cliff top walks and cream teas.

PS The Chinese people have had an incredibly stressful history. I hope they're going in the right direction now and wish them all the best.

Must say I do agree with you about the PC and mobile 'phone.
Hard to imagine that only a few years back if you wanted to talk to someone whilst out you'd have find a a red box full of broken glass and smelling of p**s (usually with the handset cord dangling uselessly in mid air... ).
It did put you off constantly 'phoning your mates tho' .
Incidentally I was brought up in the Black Country - born in Wolverhampton - so I'm pretty familiar with it. My brother still lives there.
At least the Chinese have never had to deal with shopping in Wolverhampton on a Sat. PM in the early 70's when Wolves were playing at home......kinda makes the 'Cultural revolution' seem tame I reckon .

Phil

 

[themutiny]

Must say I do agree with you about the PC and mobile 'phone.
Hard to imagine that only a few years back if you wanted to talk to someone whilst out you'd have find a a red box full of broken glass and smelling of p**s (usually with the handset cord dangling uselessly in mid air... ).
It did put you off constantly 'phoning your mates tho'Incidentally I was brought up in the Black Country - born in Wolverhampton - so I'm pretty familiar with it. My brother still lives there.
At least the Chinese have never had to deal with shopping in Wolverhampton on a Sat. PM in the early 70's when Wolves were playing at home......kinda makes the 'Cultural revolution' seem tame I reckon
Phil

I look back on the days of red boxes smelling of pee with nostalgia.

My life has been made much worse since the advent of the Hindhead tunnel.

What used to be a 90 min commute is now 135 mins, unless I leave at 5:45 am

The worst bit is that even when finished, the predictions are that the expected increase in traffic following completion will likely just move the bottleneck to the Guildford bypass. Roll on e-bike technology that would allow me to commute 130 miles daily. Yeah, right...

Look on the bright side tho', it's Sunday, the sun is shining, and I'm off for a long ride on my 'new' dual batteried Torq

 

[Phil the drill]

Look on the bright side tho', it's Sunday, the sun is shining, and I'm off for a long ride on my 'new' dual batteried Torq

I'll second that.
I actually got the T&S on her e-bike today (a home conversion I did for her over 15 months ago). It's taken me that long to persuade her to get on it and try it out. In the end she really enjoyed it......so how did it take so long to get to that point ?
No matter - result, at last .

Phil

 

[Barnowl]

I'll second that.
I actually got the T&S on her e-bike today (a home conversion I did for her over 15 months ago). It's taken me that long to persuade her to get on it and try it out. In the end she really enjoyed it......so how did it take so long to get to that point ?
No matter - result, at last .

Phil

Congratulations, I'm still working on it.

It's an uphill struggle.