Sagan's Worst Ad

[Razors Edge ★]

...so far, is this BS one from Specialized.  Not because it wouldn't be great if folks with double knee replacements, etc. couldn't benefit from an assist, but rather that the focus is on the SPEED side of the equation.  Azzclowns on ebikes will be their downfall or will result in MANY unnecessary injuries (and lawsuits) from poor behavior. Want the "fastest" ebike, then go drive on roads only with the other mopeds and scooters.

Tom

[Parr8hed]

I liked the ad.  It made me LOL.  Call me a commie, but I feel like the E bikes have their place.  I'd love to have one to ride to work and back.  

[Indy]

9 minutes ago, Parr8hed said:

I liked the ad.  It made me LOL.  Call me a commie, but I feel like the E bikes have their place.  I'd love to have one to ride to work and back.  

The only eBike to me that is worth buying would be a Zero.  If I'm going motorized bike, I'm going full motorized bike and being done with it.

[Razors Edge ★]

10 minutes ago, Parr8hed said:

I liked the ad.  It made me LOL.  Call me a commie, but I feel like the E bikes have their place.  I'd love to have one to ride to work and back.  

Of course they have their place.  That place, sadly with high powered ones, is no longer in "bike" lanes, but rather in traffic lanes - with mopeds, scooters, & motorcycles.

Tom

[dinneR ★]

8 minutes ago, Parr8hed said:

I liked the ad.  It made me LOL.  Call me a commie, but I feel like the E bikes have their place.  I'd love to have one to ride to work and back.  

I'm with parr8hed. I think for grandma Joan, an ebike is perfect. Okay, selling speed via an ebike is not the wisest marketing tool, but ebikes have their place. 

Our National Parks are overcrowded with cars, trucks, suvs, and rvs. I saw a couple around Grandma Joan's age enjoying the park on ebikes. I'd rather see them on ebikes than in a car. 

[Parr8hed]

Just now, Indy said:

The only eBike to me that is worth buying would be a Zero.  If I'm going motorized bike, I'm going full motorized bike and being done with it.

I have a heavy assed diamondback fat tire bike.  It is really only good for riding around the campground.  Far too heavy to ride on trails.  I keep threatening to put one of those gas motor kits on it and ride it back and forth to work.  

[Parr8hed]

1 minute ago, Razors Edge said:

Of course they have their place.  That place, sadly with high powered ones, is no longer in "bike" lanes, but rather in traffic lanes - with mopeds, scooters, & motorcycles.

Tom

I cannot disagree with you.

[dinneR ★]

5 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

Of course they have their place.  That place, sadly with high powered ones, is no longer in "bike" lanes, but rather in traffic lanes - with mopeds, scooters, & motorcycles.

Tom

Yet we allow Porsches on our roads. Common sense still has to prevail. Just because you can go fast doesn't mean you should. 

[Parr8hed]

3 minutes ago, dennis said:

Yet we allow Porsches on our roads. Common sense still has to prevail. Just because you can go fast doesn't mean you should. 

I cannot disagree with you.

[Indy]

8 minutes ago, dennis said:

I'm with parr8hed. I think for grandma Joan, an ebike is perfect. Okay, selling speed via an ebike is not the wisest marketing tool, but ebikes have their place. 

Our National Parks are overcrowded with cars, trucks, suvs, and rvs. I saw a couple around Grandma Joan's age enjoying the park on ebikes. I'd rather see them on ebikes than in a car. 

There is a problem with that though, those bikes can fit places your larger vehicles can't and people being people, will abuse it and start taking them off on trails.  My disdain for them comes from the place as being on the end of fighting for mountain bike access to places after years of dirt bikes caused damage.  So we had to work hard to sell people on the idea that Mountain bikes aren't motorized dirt bikes and don't do damage like that.  I see the eBike trend reversing all of this hard work as they become more and more, basically a lightweight dirt bike.  Also a lot of the trails for MTB's stipulate no motors allowed, that is how access was granted, yet people with eBikes are getting on them and is going to result in us losing access. 

[Indy]

4 minutes ago, dennis said:

Yet we allow Porsches on our roads. Common sense still has to prevail. Just because you can go fast doesn't mean you should. 

Completely different as roads allow motorized vehicles, a lot of places eBikes are ridden, it is stipulated no motorized vehicles allowed.

[Razors Edge ★]

1 minute ago, dennis said:

Yet we allow Porsches on our roads. Common sense still has to prevail. Just because you can go fast doesn't mean you should.  

Common sense isn't very common

But here's the real crux of the problem in my neck of the woods.  I have a network of paved trails - some rail trails, some regular trails, and some bike lanes.  I can and sometimes do ride to work in DC on those trails.  I also ride to the Metro on those trails on the days I commute by Metro. I also use those trails to get out into the countryside beyond the normal traffic.

ALL OF THOSE TRAILS are marked "no motorized vehicles allowed".  Period. An e-bike is motorized, HOWEVER, it is just about the PERFECT tool for a longer commute and for broader adoption of commuting by "bike".  The rules are NOT enforced currently, but they will be soon. One jackass on an e-bike hitting (injuring? killing?) a pedestrian, dog, cyclist or even a car at a road crossing will completely spoil it for all the folks who actually have "common" sense.

That's sort of why the Sagan ad is so awful. It is selling the EXACT thing that will doom either e-bikes sharing paths responsibly OR e-bikes chasing normal folks off the network of trails.  Both are AWFUL outcomes.

Tom

[Page Turner]

13 minutes ago, dennis said:

Yet we allow Porsches on our roads. Common sense still has to prevail. Just because you can go fast doesn't mean you should. 

...common sense tempered by the voice of personal experience says that a certain percentage of e-bike owners will ride them as fast as they will go at full throttle. To suggest otherwise ignores the real world environment in my city. It appears to be an uncomfortably large demographic here where I live.  But it is true that there may be sane people riding them here that I don't notice because they are simply riding at speeds more in keeping with a bicycle.

[dinneR ★]

E-bikes are legal on bike paths here. They are not on mtb trails. If we take the approach that we should ban them because someone broke the rules, then ban guns and cars too. 

[Page Turner]

2 minutes ago, dennis said:

E-bikes are legal on bike paths here. They are not on mtb trails. If we take the approach that we should ban them because someone broke the rules, then ban guns and cars too. 

....guns and cars are also illegal on my MUP.  Except for the enforcement people. Sadly, e-bikes are legal, and I see dangerous behaviors on them demonstrated regularly.

[Page Turner]

...just to be clear, I'm more worried about the electric skateboards I see on the MUP.  Those guys are a fatality waiting to happen.

[Indy]

4 minutes ago, dennis said:

E-bikes are legal on bike paths here. They are not on mtb trails. If we take the approach that we should ban them because someone broke the rules, then ban guns and cars too. 

And now this thread is destined for P&R to be lost forever.

[Indy]

Just now, Page Turner said:

...just to be clear, I'm more worried about the electric skateboards I see on the MUP.  Those guys are a fatality waiting to happen.

Haven't seen those, for awhile we had an issue on some of the busier ones with people on time trial bikes.  Bad enough that the added a speed limit and started enforcing it.

[dinneR ★]

I think we are all going to have to agree to disagree. I see so much bad behavior from drivers on phones etc. Yes, a rider on an ebike can be an idiot or follow the rules. The same is true of a person a non-ebike. Should we outlaw those too?

[Page Turner]

...the local Spesh dealer here is loaded with electric bikes.  Spesh is all in on them, because they can charge more for them. I was talking to the head mechanic there (Mike's Bikes) and he told me that they are losing money on every service operation they do on them, becasue it always takes longer, is more involved, and their pricing reflects experience only with regular bikes.

 

[Page Turner]

4 minutes ago, dennis said:

I think we are all going to have to agree to disagree. I see so much bad behavior from drivers on phones etc. Yes, a rider on an ebike can be an idiot or follow the rules. The same is true of a person a non-ebike. Should we outlaw those too?

...the idiocy on regular bikes, while it exists, has some built in limits on speed and thus is somewhat less threatening.  Most of those guys I can either drop or just lose them some other way.

There's no feeling quite like having some old guy with a cane strapped to the back of his e-bike shout at you from behind to get over to the right in the bike lane because he wants to pass.  (Yes this has happened to me over at the college.  )

[late]

Loved the ad.

You go, Grannie!

[Razors Edge ★]

7 minutes ago, Page Turner said:

...just to be clear, I'm more worried about the electric skateboards I see on the MUP.  Those guys are a fatality waiting to happen.

Yeah -we have the e-skateboards, e-scooters, seqways, hoverboards, single-wheel doohickeys, and a large solar "car" on the trails.  Again,  everything is fine as long as those folks don't hit the critical mass of motorized azzhattery, but e-bikes (when marketed as speed machines) are dangerously approaching the "it is easiest to ban them outright than to try to keep them behaving" route.

I am a PROPONENT of e-bikes. On the trails. As tools to make life easier.  The Specialized ad is making that position increasingly untenable.

Tom

[Razors Edge ★]

2 minutes ago, late said:

Loved the ad.

You go, Grannie!

You know Sagan was soft-pedaling, right???

Tom

[jsharr ★]

8 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

Yeah -we have the e-skateboards, e-scooters, seqways, hoverboards, single-wheel doohickeys, and a large solar "car" on the trails.  Again,  everything is fine as long as those folks don't hit the critical mass of motorized azzhattery, but e-bikes (when marketed as speed machines) are dangerously approaching the "it is easiest to ban them outright than to try to keep them behaving" route.

I am a PROPONENT of e-bikes. On the trails. As tools to make life easier.  The Specialized ad is making that position increasingly untenable.

Tom

Do you hate car ads that show cars spinning their tires or racing along mountain roads or blasting around corners in Detroit, with the disclaimer about "professional drivers on closed course or street" at the very botton in tiny print?

Ads are designed to excite us.  In doing so, they may slightly alter real world facts.

[Parr8hed]

13 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

You know Sagan was soft-pedaling, right???

Tom

I cannot disagree with you.

[Razors Edge ★]

2 minutes ago, jsharr said:

Do you hate car ads that show cars spinning their tires or racing along mountain roads or blasting around corners in Detroit, with the disclaimer about "professional drivers on closed course or street" at the very botton in tiny print?

Ads are designed to excite us.  In doing so, they may slightly alter real world facts. 

I'll let you know once folks stop complaining about shitty drivers.  Heck, even in this thread - about e-bikes on non-auto paths - there are complaints about cars and shitty drivers. 

We've had 100+ years to "learn" from cars.  Maybe in the nascent years of e-bikes, we can make some rational decisions on how and where they are operated?

Tom

[Page Turner]

7 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

 

We've had 100+ years to "learn" from cars.  Maybe in the nascent years of e-bikes, we can make some rational decisions on how and where they are operated?

Tom

...unpossible.

[late]

24 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

You know Sagan was soft-pedaling, right???

Tom

It's a freaking ad.

Showed it to the wife, without saying a word about what it was. At the end, she said the same thing. "Go grannie"

[ChrisL]

41 minutes ago, Page Turner said:

...the idiocy on regular bikes, while it exists, has some built in limits on speed and thus is somewhat less threatening.  Most of those guys I can either drop or just lose them some other way.

There's no feeling quite like having some old guy with a cane strapped to the back of his e-bike shout at you from behind to get over to the right in the bike lane because he wants to pass.  (Yes this has happened to me over at the college.  )

This is pretty much my feeling on it.  I'm in favor of e bikes in general.  If they take cars off the road the more the merrier.  I am not in favor of e bikes blasting through mtn bike trails endangering me and others and by the same thought goingn 20 mph on MUPs endangering moms pushing strollers.

I got in a pretty heated discussion with the shop guy when I bought my mtn bike.  He rode one as a commuter and his dad had one which is how they can continue to mtn bike together due to medical issues.  OK fine ride it sensibly and I'm fine with them.  But I told him I had a guy blow by me on a flat but narrow and technical trail at well over 15 mph. That was too freaking fast for the conditions.  He saw my point.

what it boils down to is the people riding them.  Asshats are gonna ruin it for everyone.

[petitepedal ★]

LOL loved the ad...then again I might be grannie in a few years @Parr8hed on the other hand needs the e-bike to keep up withG-man aka LittleParr8  pedaling to work is his cover story.

[Ralphie ★]

I thought Carl Sagan has been dead for a billyun or so seconds?

[smudge ★]

I hated this ad the first time I saw it and am glad I've not seen it again. I love that @Longjohn put the assist on his wife's bike; THAT's exactly what that sort of thing is for. But this ad is just dumb. 

I want the Sagan on Roubaix cobbles ad again. Funny shit!