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Buying and riding an S-pedelec in the UK

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Dave Atkinson

Dave lives at the top of a big hill and his office is at the bottom, so he's all in favour of a helping hand. Plus, e-bikes are fun! He's the editor of ebiketips and one of the founders of EBT's road cycling sister site, road.cc. He used to work on Cycling Plus and What Mountain Bike back in the day, and he's a former mountain bike bog snorkelling World Champion. Really.

1 comments

10 months 1 week ago

I think it's risky and dangerous to suggest that S-Pedelecs - vehicles which can do nearly 50kph at the push of a button - be treated like bicycles.

If we had infra where they would go away from pedestrians that *might* make a differencem but we don't have it, and in much of the country it is narrow painted cycle lanes or shared footpaths as narrow as 1m.

One of our cogent arguments is that higher speed accidents are more serious, and therefore 20mph limits are important (and supported by the data). That also applies to heavier electric pedelecs riding at speed amongst pedestrians.

S-pedelecs are the light mopeds they are, not slightly faster pedelecs, and need to be treated as such imo in the absence of decent infra.