hidden throttle gas needed?

criispyhere

Finding my (electric) wheels
Apr 1, 2023
8
0
Hi guys, during this time when I'm waiting for the rest of the parts to be delivered I'm thinking what can I do to be safe during random police control and having throttle on the board.
It is illegal here at Netherlands where I live for now but it doesn't really matter because for the rest of our region probably also. Any tricks to be safe of not getting ticket?
What is happening if I have a police control but the throttle is turned off?

It's gonna be problem also or hidden toggle button is enough?
Do you guys had a similar situation already?

I'm thinking about that because sometimes on my way to work they like to check the lights randomly for ex.

/I'm not sure about administration, how you look at this type of posts, if I broke any point of the rules, feel free to delete this post :)
 

Sturmey

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jan 26, 2018
613
339
68
Ireland
I read a post on another forum (German I think) of a user who built a stealth throttle. If I can remember, he dismantled the throttle and stitched the magnet into one of the fingers/thumb of the glove. He drilled a largish hole in the handlebars under the handgrip and placed the 'hall' into it and held in place and covered with handgrip. He wired it back through the handlebars and out through another small hole in the center.
I am not saying I recommend it but the poster claimed it worked.
 

PC2017

Esteemed Pedelecer
Sep 19, 2017
1,306
330
Scunthorpe

flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
53,054
30,510
what can I do to be safe during random police control and having throttle on the board.
It is illegal here at Netherlands where I live for now but it doesn't really matter because for the rest of our region probably also.
There's no safe way with knowledgable police officers, it all depends on how harsh the penalties are there. France has now gone very tough indeed on illegal pedelecs, earning a fine of up to a staggering €30,000 with a prison sentence also possible and a loss of driving licence for a while, since riding an illegal pedelec is a motor vehicle offence.
.
 

portals

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jul 15, 2022
528
161
1. cut the throttle cable near handlebars and install a waterproof motorbike connector for quick disconnect for wiring.

2. you will need a 'quick release' mechanism to quickly remove the physical throttle, maybe a custom 3D printed one?

Then you can still use it as normal.

Are you using an illegal rear hub as it's this that will attract the cops not the throttle?
 

guerney

Esteemed Pedelecer
Sep 7, 2021
11,069
3,151
I read a post on another forum (German I think) of a user who built a stealth throttle. If I can remember, he dismantled the throttle and stitched the magnet into one of the fingers/thumb of the glove. He drilled a largish hole in the handlebars under the handgrip and placed the 'hall' into it and held in place and covered with handgrip. He wired it back through the handlebars and out through another small hole in the center.
I am not saying I recommend it but the poster claimed it worked.
I see that those horrible Swytch kits have a bluetooth connected display with wireless throttle option. After it's been impounded, surely they can't penalise you if they can't find a throttle on the bike... because the glove throttle @Sturmey mentioned communicates with a bluetooth module on the controller, and if that glove is at the owner's house, and if all of the throttle electronics was housed within the glove...
 
Last edited:

guerney

Esteemed Pedelecer
Sep 7, 2021
11,069
3,151
Are you using an illegal rear hub as it's this that will attract the cops not the throttle?
I saw a huge but legal 250W direct drive rear hub advertised the other day, can't recall what it was, on road.cc I think... but that looked like it could easily be mistaken for an illegal high powered hub drive, leading to a cop stop.
 

StuartsProjects

Esteemed Pedelecer
May 9, 2021
1,767
999
I'm not sure about administration, how you look at this type of posts, if I broke any point of the rules:)
Review the forum rules;

Terms and rules
Pedelecs operates a one account per person policy. You agree to not use the Service to submit or link to any Content which is defamatory, abusive, hateful, threatening, spam or spam-like, likely to offend, contains adult or objectionable content, contains personal information of others, risks copyright infringement, encourages unlawful activity, or otherwise violates any laws.
 

Nealh

Esteemed Pedelecer
Aug 7, 2014
20,764
8,443
61
West Sx RH
The forum terms and rules are very lax .
Often illegality of bikes are spoken of in all threads and not the correct speed ped sub forum, also the use of some harsh profanities.

I remember two or three years ago it took flecc & I and I think at least one other forum user quite along time to get the poster banned. A scot's poster who had it in for quite a few forum users and not a nice word to put in , in the end I think he was on a mission to get banned though eventually he was.
 

Bonzo Banana

Esteemed Pedelecer
Sep 29, 2019
773
446
I saw a huge but legal 250W direct drive rear hub advertised the other day, can't recall what it was, on road.cc I think... but that looked like it could easily be mistaken for an illegal high powered hub drive, leading to a cop stop.
Often the same hub direct drive hub motors can go from 200W to 2000W its the controller that ultimately controls how much power goes to the motor which itself may be limited by the battery. The legislation is extremely poorly written and seems to focus on mid-drive motors which have the controller built in typically so for those it's easier to just think of them as one unit but that is not the case with hub motors. Early direct drive hub motors were limited to 200W sustained I think and maybe peaking around 350W. Really anyone interested in the legality of hub motors should be looking at the controller not the hub motor as well as making sure it doesn't assist beyond 15.5mph. If you look at the early controllers for direct drive hub motors and the high power 2000W plus controllers there is a huge size difference between them.

Direct drive hub motors are optimised more for speed than torque so if they are actually restricted to 15.5mph assistance speed they don't typically need that much power and they don't provide huge amounts of torque either and with no internal moving mechanical parts and not operating through the drivetrain they are very efficient and can operate on a fairly small conservative battery capacity. Their benefits are extreme reliability typically and regen but definitely not competitive with mid-drive or even most geared hub motors for hill climbing. I guess about 25-35Nm would be typical for a direct drive motor. I think they look more impressive than they actually are in real terms but still the best choice for many who are happy with lighter assistance and looking for riding long distances with reliability in mind.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: PC2017

guerney

Esteemed Pedelecer
Sep 7, 2021
11,069
3,151

I hadn't bookmarked it... but after going through my browser history, because it was bugging me, it's this Neodrive:




"The kit made mincemeat of our two standard hill climb tests - long and demanding and short and ultra steep respectively. "

 
Last edited:

portals

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jul 15, 2022
528
161
Often the same hub direct drive hub motors can go from 200W to 2000W its the controller that ultimately controls how much power goes to the motor which itself may be limited by the battery. The legislation is extremely poorly written and seems to focus on mid-drive motors which have the controller built in typically so for those it's easier to just think of them as one unit but that is not the case with hub motors. Early direct drive hub motors were limited to 200W sustained I think and maybe peaking around 350W. Really anyone interested in the legality of hub motors should be looking at the controller not the hub motor as well as making sure it doesn't assist beyond 15.5mph. If you look at the early controllers for direct drive hub motors and the high power 2000W plus controllers there is a huge size difference between them.

Direct drive hub motors are optimised more for speed than torque so if they are actually restricted to 15.5mph assistance speed they don't typically need that much power and they don't provide huge amounts of torque either and with no internal moving mechanical parts and not operating through the drivetrain they are very efficient and can operate on a fairly small conservative battery capacity. Their benefits are extreme reliability typically and regen but definitely not competitive with mid-drive or even most geared hub motors for hill climbing. I guess about 25-35Nm would be typical for a direct drive motor. I think they look more impressive than they actually are in real terms but still the best choice for many who are happy with lighter assistance and looking for riding long distances with reliability in mind.
Interesting, my rear hub 1500W brushless/gearless motor kit is advertised at 45 NM torque, I wonder how realistic that figure is?
 

Bonzo Banana

Esteemed Pedelecer
Sep 29, 2019
773
446
Interesting, my rear hub 1500W brushless/gearless motor kit is advertised at 45 NM torque, I wonder how realistic that figure is?
That sounds completely realistic for 1500W even when you give them huge amounts of power its the speed that increases more than torque. The 25-35Nm figure is for legal 250W direct drive hub motors. It's also wheel size dependent so maybe 25Nm is 700c and 35Nm is 20". I have a 500W geared hub motor in a 20" wheel and there was a power chart for it and the motor in a 20" wheel was rated to 95Nm which I thought was huge but drops down to about 65Nm for larger wheels. It's almost the size of a direct drive hub motor but geared.
 

Bonzo Banana

Esteemed Pedelecer
Sep 29, 2019
773
446
I hadn't bookmarked it... but after going through my browser history, because it was bugging me, it's this Neodrive:




"The kit made mincemeat of our two standard hill climb tests - long and demanding and short and ultra steep respectively. "

I had a look at that review and I think its very fair and well written and shows the reality of direct drive hub motors properly configured. It may well be the windings are optimised for torque here but generally direct drive is still competitive with many mid-drive ebikes that are designed for more general riding. It's the e-mountain bikes which have more powerful mid-drive motors and combine that with much lower gearing that create the real hill climbing monsters. There are many road optimised mid-drive ebikes which achieve very little extra on top of direct drive and geared hub motors and yet sacrifice so much in reliability and drivetrain wear. Their point about battery consumption being very good I think is the reality for a direct drive hub motor limited to legal assistance speeds and not having a cadence sensor where as soon as cadence is detected provides full power and drains the battery quickly. Many entry level direct drive hub motors work brilliantly with their throttle controllers but have simplistic and poor cadence sensor systems as an option just to comply with the eu law but its an after thought as the kits are designed and sold in most markets without a cadence sensor supplied and are designed purely for throttle control. Then people criticise direct drive hub motors for being inefficient purely because they have had to comply with poor legislation in the EU and the low cost controllers have very little logic circuitry and can't do anything too clever with a cadence sensor. From a environmental perspective direct drive motors are ideal with their simplicity and long life and the ability to have regen which is a fantastic and useful feature on a ebike and works better than a car because it's basically storing the riders own power collected on slight declines and steep declines while riding and returning it to the rider when needed for climbing hills.
 

WheezyRider

Esteemed Pedelecer
Apr 20, 2020
1,690
938
Here's a question for the legal experts. If you have a UK pre 2016 e-bike that has a legal throttle fitted due to "grandfather rights", what happens if you take it to the continent, would you be breaking the law there?

Also, say you get an @wisper bike with a legal test approved throttle, will that be accepted on the continent?
 
Last edited:

PC2017

Esteemed Pedelecer
Sep 19, 2017
1,306
330
Scunthorpe
direct drive rear hub advertised
There is few on throttle bezzing @25+ around near me, I even saw one when 5.o was very near by how they didn't see them is anyone guess.
 

AGS

Esteemed Pedelecer
Feb 12, 2023
599
187
Interestingly, in France you can legally ride an electric skate board on the street at 50 kilometers per hour. And in the UK there is no legislation currently in place to limit the use of electric skateboards at all.

In Austria you can legally ride a Marty McFly hoverboard. However you are unlikely to find one for sale, because they haven’t been invented yet.

Anyone fancy a 30 mph 3Kw skateboard?
 
Last edited:
  • Informative
Reactions: PC2017

StuartsProjects

Esteemed Pedelecer
May 9, 2021
1,767
999
Maybe you are actually police phishing for ideas on how it's done? ;-)
Indeed.

If you have a throttle on display, you might get away with saying you 'did not realise'.

But if you are found to have concealed a throttle, you would think prosecution would be automatic. And in the UK that could be points on your driving license.