Fast Legal Bike

[Deleted member 4366]

Been there, done it and got the tee-shirt. If you're commuting or using your bike to get from A to B, speed seems to matter more. Now that I'm retired, it doesn't seem so important. We have a lot of steep hills round here. Before, power was important to get up them, but now I have my Xiongda, which can manage any climb, so I can be completely legal. If I were still doing my 30 mile commute, I'd probably have a 25 mph bike and cruise at about 20 mph.

 

[KTM Bike Industries UK]

Sorry I was rushing and explained myself badly. Fully aware dongle etc are already illegal. No argument from me there !
What I struggle. to see is a pre election crackdown

The gov have to listen to the lobby, the gov have to lean on the police. The police have to put countless hours into stopping ebikers.
How many non ebikers will be stopped?
How many wrong doers will be caught per man hour of police time ?

How much negative publicity will be generated by a crack down on cyclists (that will be perception if not reality)

Government won't want to lean on police ahead of election on something so small in grand scheme. Particularly one that will have no real output to show for the man hours

The gov also won't want bad publicity anyway near cycling.

The police will think it a horrible waste of resource when they are so constrained

I just struggle to see any crackdown in the next 6 months at least. I'm not arguing over the legalities - think we all know the score there

Its already happening. I've witnessed it myself. Police are stopping cyclists on major commuter routes in most major cities now, checking bikes, pulling people for riding though lights, on pavements etc etc. I'll find the examples from the cycling press for you. The only bit that needs to change is that the police need to be a bit more educated about the illegal eBikes - and this is also happening.

 

[KirstinS]

Its already happening. I've witnessed it myself. Police are stopping cyclists on major commuter routes in most major cities now, checking bikes, pulling people for riding though lights, on pavements etc etc. I'll find the examples from the cycling press for you. The only bit that needs to change is that the police need to be a bit more educated about the illegal eBikes - and this is also happening.

Ahh that's not the quite the same thing. A couple of coppers on major commute routes picking up cyclist for jumping lights or wearing black with no lights in the dark is one thing

A crackdown on ebikes is quite another

Even on these major routes the police precence had been token and short-lived. Often in response to an accident involving cyclists (seems this way in London anyway)

I'm sorry but this just doesn't amount to "clampdown on. illegal mopeds on. the road" due to the "two pretty powerful lobby groups who are pressuring the government to act"

Maybe I'm wrong , maybe the cycling stasi are just around the corner

Time will tell

 

[Deleted member 4366]

Its already happening. I've witnessed it myself. Police are stopping cyclists on major commuter routes in most major cities now, checking bikes, pulling people for riding though lights, on pavements etc etc. I'll find the examples from the cycling press for you. The only bit that needs to change is that the police need to be a bit more educated about the illegal eBikes - and this is also happening.

I still can't find any record of anybody ever being prosecuted for having an over-powered or over-speed electric bike!
For whatever reason, the police seem to be keeping clear of that one.

 

[JohnCade]

I still can't find any record of anybody ever being prosecuted for having an over-powered or over-speed electric bike!
For whatever reason, the police seem to be keeping clear of that one.

I might be because of the current ambiguity in the law. When that is finally ratified this year and everyone is clear what a legal e bike is that might well change.

 

[Kudoscycles]

I think it is highly unlikely that the police will crack down on illegal e-bikes,maybe if the government signs up to EN15194 there may be a brief period of police interest just like the mobile phone crack down,which seems to be almost ignored now,
No the problem is if you had an accident and hurt somebody or hurt yourself,any insurance company will try to wriggle out of paying a claim,injury claims tend to be the big one going through the courts,so they tend to face the greatest scrutiny. An illegal powered bike or an illegal speed setting (dongle!) would be just what an insurance expert witness or barrister would need to suggest that the bike was performing improperly and therefore the claim was wholly or partly rejected.
As a complete aside I am someone who travels around the world a lot and in the past have relied on my credit card travel insurance to cover any accident or illness whilst away. Aviva,the insurers behind the HSBC cards have advised me that 'if I meet a member of the public in the course of my business' my travel insurance is void.....try doing business without meeting another person!!!!!
KudosDave

 

[JohnCade]

I expect they mean meeting a member of the public as in selling to them or something similar. I doubt trade people would count as members of the public for that purpose.

 

[KirstinS]

I think this makes intersting reading. A 7 week operation in London by 2,500 police officers ending Jan 3 resulted in 4,269 Fixed Penalty Notices
"
1,277 for contravening traffic signals, 1,608 for cycling without lights at night (though many of these were cancelled when cyclists subsequently produced lights) and 1,057 for cycling on a footway."

Over 10,000 were issued to motorists over same persiod

What did they do this ? it was "in response to a series of cycling deaths across the capital"


We dont know how many were FPN were canncled but it still amounts to each officer issuing less than 2 FPN each over 7 weeks !!

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/over-14000-penalised-by-police-in-london-road-safety-operation-19177

draw your own conclusions but mine is this was a political decision to pour police resource into it due to negative publicity over road deaths in London.

So few FPN over such a long time period with that many officers on the operation. If anything it seems to say that there are a heck of a lot of law abiding cyclists !

 

[flecc]

I still can't find any record of anybody ever being prosecuted for having an over-powered or over-speed electric bike!
For whatever reason, the police seem to be keeping clear of that one.

The whatever reason now is, I'm sure, the fact that all our police forces have been instructed not to prosecute for having a 250 watt rating when the law says 200 watts.

Faced with that obscure instruction, what police officer is going to bother about the complex issue of e-bike power?

None, they've been given the excuse for not getting involved and there are far easier things to deal with.
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[Kudoscycles]

I expect they mean meeting a member of the public as in selling to them or something similar. I doubt trade people would count as members of the public for that purpose.

John,I specifically asked Aviva if I am covered if the primary reason for my trip is attending exhibitions-note attending,not exhibiting-they answered that I would not be covered. So for 10 years plus I have been travelling without travel health or accident insurance,I now use a dedicated business travel insurer.
You only find out the small print on insurance proposals when you want to make a claim,fortunately I never had to.
KudosDave

 

[Deleted member 4366]

I think this makes intersting reading. A 7 week operation in London by 2,500 police officers ending Jan 3 resulted in 4,269 Fixed Penalty Notices
"
1,277 for contravening traffic signals, 1,608 for cycling without lights at night (though many of these were cancelled when cyclists subsequently produced lights) and 1,057 for cycling on a footway."

That's interesting. There's rather a lot of people riding illegal electric bikes in London, but out of all that activity, none got prosecuted!

 

[flecc]

draw your own conclusions but mine is this was a political decision to pour police resource into it due to negative publicity over road deaths in London.

I remember this well and the Metropolitan Police officially stated reason was that it was in response to the sudden spate of deaths. At the time Conservative Mayor Boris Johnson also spoke about the decision and he has a role in the management of the Metropolitan Police. That would have been the political element since promotion of cycling is very much a government and GLC official policy.
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[Deleted member 4366]

You can't blame them. I'd have done the same after all those deaths. Should they just have shrugged their shoulders and hoped that things would be better. As the spate of deaths seems to have stopped, one could argue that they did the right thing and it worked.

The one bit I'm not sure about is the riding on the footpath. Surely, no cyclist will get mown down riding on the footpath. Now they only go on the road so are fair game for any motorist on his/her mobile phone.

For cycling at night without lights and jumping red lights, they got off lightly with a fixed penalty notice IMHO.

 

[flecc]

As the spate of deaths seems to have stopped, one could argue that they did the right thing and it worked.

Unfortunately the deaths haven't stopped but are not getting as widespread publicity, possibly due to this being considered a stale news story. I had to try two different Google entries to find the link for you to the latest rather than last years links repeated, so even Google seems to be losing interest.

The first for London in 2015 was on Tuesday morning the 20th January, as usual in a lorry v cyclist collision. That's easily on target to get to the usual 14 or so annual deaths in London.

Link here
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[EddiePJ]

In respect of the bike that is for sale, It has a few bits added that I assume were the choice of the owner rather than the powers that be.

My previously owned trials bikes, just had a day time MOT, and only required a rear brake light, horn, and road legal tyres. My old KTM enduro bike, had a regular MOT, and was fitted with the most basic of lights, horn, and road legal tyres.

I assume then that the fitting of lights other than a brake light were of choice, indicators were of choice, and mirrors were of choice.

Remove said items, and you aren't really left with much else.

It would be interesting to hear direct about what hoops that the guy had to jump through to get the bike registered.

 

[flecc]

I assume then that the fitting of lights other than a brake light were of choice, indicators were of choice, and mirrors were of choice.

Not so I'm afraid Eddie. The required specifications for these items are laid down. For example the head light doesn't have to have a dipped beam but has strict light position, pattern etc requirements. The simplest solution is to adapt a dedicated moped headlight and position it according to the rules.

This manual shows all the inspection items, with outlines of the requirements to be met detailed in the annexes.
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[SRS]

Your points are of course correct, doing this to a pedal bike destroys all the fun and point of having a bicycle. You might aswell just by a moped and be done with it. But this does show what a legal eBike that does over 15.5mph assisted HAS to legally look like.

However by adding a dongle to your push bike, you have already turned it into a moped, you've just decided to bypass the law by not having the other features that mopeds are required to have.

This is a decision that is up to you as an individual clearly. However the risks will continue to grow as the moped sector of the market is NOT happy about riders like yourself being able to bypass all the laws that their customers are forced to abide by to use their vehicles on the road.

So now there is a situation, where the cycle trade and the motorbike trade want this clamped down on. These are two pretty powerful lobby groups who are pressuring the government to act.

The increase in awareness of eBikes will I'm afraid mean a clamp down on the use of illegal mopeds on the road.

KTM, I said I'd take a dongle over one of the type advertised.

I did not say that I was using a dongle. I said, I'd take a dongle over a home made moped any day. My point is that this guy has been forced to go to great lengths to get a faster legal bike. He has had to convert it into a moped. I am not sure why he has left the pedals on be they can be removed.

In contrast the Germans just fit a 350w motor to a production pedelec, remover the speed restriction, apply a few user restrictions and rules then get on with it.

As far as our government clamping down on illegal bikes., they can't even stop our elderly freezing to death in the winter. They have no chance on ebikes.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

It would be interesting to hear direct about what hoops that the guy had to jump through to get the bike registered.

If you search his posts on ES, he described the whole process.

 

[KTM Bike Industries UK]

KTM, I said I'd take a dongle over one of the type advertised.

I did not say that I was using a dongle. I said, I'd take a dongle over a home made moped any day. My point is that this guy has been forced to go to great lengths to get a faster legal bike. He has had to convert it into a moped. I am not sure why he has left the pedals on be they can be removed.

Yes, I understand what you're saying... what I was trying to point out... is that if you want to use a dongle legally. You HAVE to do this to your dongled bike.

Buy choosing to fit a dongle to an eBike or indeed simply using a sPedelec you've chosen to ride a moped under the current legislation.

So the problems of being caught using it on or offroad, or the liability issues of being involved in an accident are just the same to buying a moped, removing the mirrors, lights, plates and riding it with no tax, insurance or MOT.

You're all correct, that the chances of being caught are very slim, but as Dave@Kudos has said.... if you're (and I don't mean you personally SRS) riding one regularly you really need to check what risks you're taking, because should you be involved in an accident - the implications are very serious.

 

[flecc]

So the problems of being caught using it on or offroad, or the liability issues of being involved in an accident are just the same to buying a moped, removing the mirrors, lights, plates and riding it with no tax, insurance or MOT.

Actually worse rather than the same, since the dongled e-bike isn't even registered as a motor vehicle!
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