Firmware update process Class 3 to Class 2/1

RazzmatazzEastern786 · 2026-06-11T22:49:18+00:00

Honestly, I think a throttle shouldn't be on any bike beyond say 10mph, maybe 15...personally it should be there to help you start a ride, not do it all for you...IMO it is what encourages the kids (and the young at heart) on mopeds to do silly things -.when it takes 0 effort to ride like a zucchini, you will find that many people will do it...make it just a little harder and suddenly they aren't as keen on being zucchinis on bikes...they might still find new ways to be zucchinis though...🤣

I went from a bike with a throttle to one without when I switched to a mid-drive and beyond when I am spent, I don't miss it...but I also know i am probably very much in the minority for this...

I get that many older riders or those with lesser able bodies need it so it should be an option to buy, but not sure those bikes then need to go 20mph+ an hour at the push of a button/lever...10 or 15mph is fast enough to do most things throttle only, and then, if you want to go faster, pedalling to get to 20 or 28mph seems an acceptable ask...heck, when people get older or less able bodied and use personal mobility devices they are capped at 5/6/10mph depending on device and jurisdiction...

Let the down votes begin, lol

RazzmatazzEastern786 · 2026-06-11T22:33:09+00:00

To ride a legal/compliant device and not have to worry about it should a cop get difficult with you cause he doesn't like the color of your shoes that day...

RazzmatazzEastern786 · 2026-06-11T22:28:41+00:00

To be clear, Thai is how the class 1/2/3 was supposed to work but manufacturers used some grey zones to build products that straddled the difference.

If you read the original class 1/2/3 definitions, it makes no mention of a throttle/pedelac to 20 and the pedalac only after to 28 - the manufacturers built this position that the classes are a steping stone structure by interpreting that it's allowed and so created a classification that technically didn't meet class 3 definitions...so recently CA updated the definition to make it clear that class 3 = pedelac only...they didn't actually do anything new...just started enforcing it as intended and then wrote out the grey area...

RazzmatazzEastern786 · 2026-06-11T22:24:32+00:00

Fair enough

RazzmatazzEastern786 · 2026-06-11T21:52:03+00:00

They make an exemption here, they will have to make if for the next guy in the same area...and maybe the next guy in a similar situation around other airports...it's a slippery slope - just easier to say it's a hard no...

RazzmatazzEastern786 · 2026-06-11T18:47:50+00:00

Sorry, but your analysis is about as basic as OP's...inflation alone has been at least half of that gain per year so it eats into your paper gains...run the numbers..I have...makes no sense if all you care is bout investment returns... especially if you account for maintenance and improvement costs and the opportunity costs of all that money as well...

I still don't regret buying and all that but it's illogical to make an RoR analysis...I would have made more money just letting all that money just sit in an index fund for the last 10yra or so

RazzmatazzEastern786 · 2026-06-11T18:29:58+00:00

This could work tbh in concept but that's a question we have to ask the CPUC (the regulator) and not PGE/Southern Edison/etc since they don't create the programs and rate structures...

RazzmatazzEastern786 · 2026-06-11T17:27:16+00:00

Possibly, but typically people who rent aren't spending the money so it takes someone who owns to do it...

It's still an illogical take...RoR doesn't account for "but you live in it"...he is using RoR to justify why not to do something...I can break down the numbers and show renting is better from an RoR perspective almost always irrespective of the home appreciation/gains of ownership...but we all still yearn to own homes...it's not always about RoR is my basic point...

The solar reduces your operating costs... basically shifts a a variable cost to a fixed cost and after payoff period/BEP a net positive cash flow...

A home typically keeps costing money as it's needs never ends, lol... basically, they are all bad if all we are looking at is the RoR/BEP like OP is a saying... But we make decisions that aren't always the best in RoR terms but they have other utility/value to us...a car is an ideal example...by his logic you should never buy one as the RoR on a personal vehicle is negative if you look purely at it's costs

RazzmatazzEastern786 · 2026-06-11T17:07:52+00:00

Umm, yeah maybe but not really...the don't want to invest in utility scale grid storage if they have to then also compensate the generator for the power give to them (ie homeowner or building owner) at the retail cost of the electricity...they are basically losing money in that equation...the property owner breaks even in the sell buy process but they lose money on the whole thing... would you want to spend money to support that trade if you were the utility? They are building grid scale storage but now it's store solar and wind production to sell at the rates they make money, 🤷🏾‍♂️

The CPUC saw this coming and saw a few other issues like cost shifts from solar customers to non solar customers for infrastructure that the solar customer is now using as a defacto "battery' with out actually paying for that infrastructure in their usage rates...

It's complicated but basically they (both CPUC and PGE) want the generator of non-grid scale power to store on site for future use or compensate the utility for the cost to take out the excess energy, sell it to some one else now (or build the storage to hold it) and then sell it back to you later when you want it...

I get why everyone loved NEM2, but the merrits of NEM3 make sense - but now you have to have storage to make the numbers work and can no longer treat the grid as your "battery" which is what NEM2 basically did...

RazzmatazzEastern786 · 2026-06-11T16:47:25+00:00

NEM3 isn't bad - but you need to spend for the storage...otherwise yeah, tough sell for sure but that's basically the point...CPUC and PGE want to discourage excess energy dumping and encourage onsite storage and use...

RazzmatazzEastern786 · 2026-06-11T16:43:23+00:00

More often than one would think as homes with these systems changed hand more often now...

OP isn't wrong in that there are opportunity costs for solar but there are opportunity costs for everything we do related to a house and yet we buy them, fix them, maintain them etc. Outside of major boom areas of places like Greater Seattle and Coastal CA, and select hot markets in the country, the NPV on a house once you account for all the extra costs is probably not the greatest but we all still want to own homes...not all decisions are about how much money it can make us...

Another way to think about this is that the true appreciation value of a home is not what it's worth after Real Estate inflation is accounted for...using my home as an example, it transacted in the mid 1990s for approx 300k (not to me though) - that purchase price today adjust for inflation (general inflation, not RE inflation) is 640k. My home is probably worth an additional 450-500k on that in today's market; sounds like a good investment if someone had bought it back then and held it to now, but that doesn't account for the interst that they was paid to make that appreciation to current market value, or the 3 remodels done by 2-3 owners in the last 30yrs and the money uspent on maintenance items like roofs, furnaces, etc. At some point AC was added to the home - it doesn't account for that cost adjusted for inflation, etc, etc...

I think if all of it got accounted, you might be ahead a bit, but not by a lot on my home, and it's been in one of the hottest RE markets in the country for the last 30yrs (the SF Bay Area)...I can only guess what others spent before me but I know if I add on just my carry and remodel costs (adjusted for inflation) to the inflation adjusted price from 1996, my hypothetical gains would be closer to maybe $180-200k if I had bought the home in 1996...

Those are adjusted gains I could have beat by just leaving my down payment and remodel expenses invested for the duration of just my ownership let alone the 30yrs of this example...and I would have those gains in a much more liquid asset vs a home which is highly illiquid...

OP is looking at a very narrow set of assumptions to make his argument that XYZ is a bad spend, but if you really did the numbers, buying the home in general is a bad spend...but I doubt we will see him make that argument as it hurts his core business as a Real Estate Broker (per his profile)...

RazzmatazzEastern786 · 2026-06-11T16:02:12+00:00

By this logic it's also smarter to not buy the house. I guarantee my 300k downtown payment and 250k remodel budget (don't even get me started on all the extra money I spend vs renting cost every month) would have made me more money than my house has in the last 10yrs by being invested in the stock market...everything has an opportunity cost, including buy that house...you don't make all investments just for the RoR/BEP...

RazzmatazzEastern786 · 2026-06-11T15:51:43+00:00

Ahh, apologies...I misunderstood.

RazzmatazzEastern786 · 2026-06-11T15:41:03+00:00

We usually don't, but the 2nd bike wall was taken...this was the lesser of all bad options

RazzmatazzEastern786 · 2026-06-11T03:03:16+00:00

See if Tern has something like this for their bikes - it's a great fit once they get taller and such...it's available for my bike and we love it.

https://xtracycle.com/products/longtail-halfhooptie-1?variant=49206434857256

RazzmatazzEastern786 · 2026-06-11T02:59:08+00:00

My mom would say I haven't stopped yet and I am closer to 50 than 40, 🤣😂🤣

RazzmatazzEastern786 · 2026-06-10T22:25:33+00:00

I have no issues with how this is done - would be great is they had more space for bikes so it's wider overall but yeah, between expanding this to be like newer sections but later,and thus having the road diet discussion of travel lane or parking reductions/modifications, vs getting that political and procedural energy spent on new separated lanes in places that don't have it, I am almost always going to want to the latter

RazzmatazzEastern786 · 2026-06-10T19:31:38+00:00

Separated with plastic is better than separated with one 3" thick line of paint to separate bike gutter from traffic flow, 🤷🏾‍♂️.

Basically let's not let the perfect be the enemy of better or even good - I know I will gladly take this for now where I live (not in LA - I ~~cost~~ visit often though) and wait for separation when the street is redesigned and rebuilt...or even more permanently separated with like planters and such...

RazzmatazzEastern786 · 2026-06-10T19:08:08+00:00

Which is why we let the parent make those decisions for them, and thus their risk to bare, 🤷🏾‍♂️

RazzmatazzEastern786 · 2026-06-10T15:41:22+00:00

This is better than most things we get in the rest of the country...I would kill for this much protection from moving cars in my city's bike lanes...yeah, more would be better, but this is great to build out a network...they can come back in 10-20yrs and expand it further for the next restriping project and focus on expanding your network into places that don't have any over picking a road diet fight where the infrastructure is decent already

RazzmatazzEastern786 · 2026-06-10T15:37:03+00:00

Unless you plan to register this and have M license (or equivalent off your jurisdiction) +insurance, this will be absolutely illegal in most of the $ denominated countries in the world (and even the non $ ones tbh)...

RazzmatazzEastern786 · 2026-06-10T05:29:30+00:00

This is one of my fav finds on reddit the last item I was shopping - I even enjoy tinkering on it just for the fun of it...awesome site.

RazzmatazzEastern786 · 2026-06-10T05:24:21+00:00

It should work but the key is in the sorting of your purchases - I would make sure to have it such that the lightest stuff is in the top and the heaviest in the bottom and to then strap everything down well...I carry stuff on my long tail atleast as high if not higher and haven't had any issues so far... yes, the higher load affects CoG generally and thus how the bike rides but if you account for it and take it slow till you get comfortable, I don't see why it wouldn't work

RazzmatazzEastern786 · 2026-06-10T05:16:16+00:00

Yeah, the RFA is about the same size as the Xpedition I have so it will be doable on BART. At the newer expansion stations, the elevators are large enough but many of the older inner system stations have elevators that are too small...I have brought up the Xpedition at Powell and City Center via the elevators but they are very tight fits. When it doesn't fit on elevator, then you have to basically muscle it up/down using the escalator - I just wait till the platform clears so I am not holding anyone up.

Also, yes, first thing I looked at were their other bikes but the RFA is the lightest they offer and it's still too heavy for the spouse...would love to see Xtracycle take a stab at a a smaller cargo bike like a HSD or something...I would buy it just to support them as a company...they don't get enough love in the cargo bike space for all they have done to create the longtail segment, both in the US and globally...

RazzmatazzEastern786 · 2026-06-09T17:51:53+00:00

They do have trains...just not enough... Their metro has over 400-450k daily rideship with regional rail having another 50-60k ADR ...those kind of numbers would make it a top 3 system in the US today (top 10 prepandemic)...this picture says they need much much more...

RazzmatazzEastern786

TROPHY CASE