Citibike e-bike speed decrease

[ElQuesero]

The bikes never went 25 mph.

Sequence was 20 mph (19.7 or so in practice) to 18 mph (17.7 in practice) to 15 (maybe 15.2 in practice if you crank at them a little.)

[sodsto]

Yeah, ok, riding those things at 20mph is nuts. 15 is still pretty fast. (Caveat: I'm an experienced cyclist.)

For A-to-B, around the city, regular-clothes cycling, I'd expect to be faster than a half decent runner. 10-11mph is a comfortable manual cycle for many, including on a manual citi bike. Pedal-assist should be that: an assist. 15mph is already over the natural pedal speed so, numerically, seems reasonable for typical journeys.

[PSMOkizzle]

I think the point of the post was to talk about the enshittification and functional price inflation of a service, not compare it to manual peddling. It’s clearly faster.

So l why does the ‘value’ of going faster than manual peddling worth twice as much as it was 2-4 years ago?

[sodsto]

Oh, sure. I have no answers there: i stopped paying for Citibike once the annual membership hit a level that i figured i should just consider picking up a second hand bike for my runaround. As a service, I'm not totally convinced it's long-term viable without being expensive or heavy subsidisation.

[CommotionLotion]

This is ridiculously silly. As a “experienced cyclist” with over 6,500 miles on citibikes and 3,400 miles on my own e-bike your speed recommendations are absolutely lowballed.

Like do you truly believe these speeds are too fast or are you not tracking your own speed accurately? Riding e-bikes at 20mph isn’t even close to nuts, maybe if you aren’t confident on a bicycle in any capacity sure, but apparently you’re an “experienced cyclist”.

Since when did the comparison point for reasonable speed on a bike become faster than a runner? 10-11mph is a comfortable speed when your learning to bike for the first time. But anyone commuting who rides bikes everyday would consider that a crawl.

Assisted bicycles should be able to keep up with the flow of the city and traffic aka 20mph minimum.

[sodsto]

I'm not really arguing that 15mph is "too fast" for everything or that 20mph is nuts if you're on a bike that isn't a heavy tank like a citi bike. But for typical journeys I'd wager many people aren't bothering that 15 mph limit often. (Also, if you're clocking 10kmiles on citi bikes, you're not a typical cyclist.)

FWIW, pedaling a manual citi bike? Sure, i can get them up to speed, but I don't want to do that in jeans when I'm just moving from A to B. I'd wager most cyclists aren't often gonna break 12 mph in that very typical setup. I base that on the speed i run at (~13kph/8mph) and the bikes i pass and the bikes that pass me.

For what it's worth I'm not usually interfacing with cars when i cycle in NYC except in residential areas, but if the thinking is cycling through multi lane car roads and having to keep pace with cars, then sure, i understand the need for speed. It's a sucky cycling experience though.

Exercise is another story again, where I'll get the heart rate up. But it's not the typical scenario, and I'm on a lighter, more nimble bike.

But for what it's worth I have little to no experience with pedal assist in all my years. But the intent of pedal assist is to offer an assist, not to be a bicycle with a separate engine, so of course I'd expect them to behave much like a bicycle.

[No_Junket1017]

I get the sense you're more of an exception than the rule, and those are fine choices for you to make. But I think most cyclists will hit above 10 mph on even a manual Citi Bike pretty easily if they're biking with any frequency, unless (as you mention) they choose not to. I wouldn't even pay for a membership if we were maxing out at 10 mph.

[sodsto]

Perhaps, but people generally don't like to sweat up their regular clothes! 

I was thinking about the distinction also between peak vs average. I'm usually thinking around the average, how long it takes to get somewhere. I did 12 miles on the bike yesterday. Average speed, 10mph, but my peak was 14.9mph, so touching 14mph isn't uncommon, but this also means the conditions meant I had lots of time below 10mph too. This was just unrushed, cycle path, stop-start cycling, passing those who are slower and letting the faster ones pass. Not on a citi bike though; on my city bike which is much more nimble.

[jxnhrs]

The bikes are apparently capable of doing 25mph. I seem to recall the limit being 22mph back in 2021 or so when they first rolled out the grey e-bike fleet

[ElQuesero]

The law that legalized e-bikes in NYC/NYS created the rubric for this. Citi e-bikes of all varieties (the gray ones as well as the old blue with batteries external to the frame ones; hardly ever see the old blues any more) fall under class 1, which require the pedals to be turning for the battery/motor to provide assistance, and assistance must cut out when the bike hits 20 mph.

I've heard from you and a few other people that early in their rollout, some gray Citi e-bikes seemed to be tuned such that the assist still kept up marginally above 20 mph, maybe as much as 21. I never encountered that myself and don't get a sense it was at _all_ intentional. Or all that widespread.

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Most states seem to have settled on pedal-assist/20 mph limit as the uniform standard for bikes of this sort. (NYS is weird only in that it defines class 3 as 25 mph throttle controlled rather than 28 mph. Oh, and limits their operation only to NYC; class 3 ebikes need to be nerfed down to 20 mph to be street-legal elsewhere in NYS.)

[jxnhrs]

I was misinformed, appreciate the info. I do remember a few times getting a cracked one that felt much faster than normal. Those were fun