(Reupload) eBike for intra-city traveling in Taiwan

Author's note. This is a reupload at 2024-10-08 of a blogpost I made same year, 09-08 due to a data loss. I've found a backup in my Lagrange cache

I live in Taiawn and UBike, the bike sharing system in Taiwan, has been a godsend. You just need to register once and most cities in Taiwan have UBike stations. Not just popular places, but literarly everywhere, like ever 300m. It is the major reason I don't need a car or a scooter for my daily compute. Lately they introducted the new eletric bikes. The eBike is a bit more expensive but it comes with a motor that helps you pedal. It's not a full electric bike, you still need to pedal, but it makes going up hills much easier.

These bikes are great, they have a internal gear hub and does not need significant force to change gears. And the company behind UBike takes damn good care of them. They are always clean and well maintained. Ever since their 2.0 bikes came out, I've near 0 issues with them.

The following photo is somewhere near my home. The yellow ones are normal bikes wile the orange one is the eBike.

=> The UBike station near my home.

So I did some testing with the eBike. I am a reasonibly fit male in my mid 20s. I bike very often and can sustain 174W of power for nearly indefinitely (my record is 2 hours and then I ran out of water). And a max of 330W for a minute, most likely higher but the equipment in the gym can't ramp up as fast. That's to say, I can easily reach the design speed of UBike.

I tried to paddle at different power levels and see how fast I can go. And I find that

• The eBike really wants you to travel at 20km/h. Afterwards they start to reduce the motor assist significantly.
• The eBike is hevay, I got to 27km/h on a flat road and I gave up as the power-to-speed ratio is not worth it.
• The eBike says it will completely stop assisting at 30km/h. WHich is quite high for a bike in city traffic.
• The battries carries you far. An 8.8km trip used 6% of the battery.

Also due to the fact that I have to wait for traffic lights, The eBike is not much faster than a normal bike. It's definitely easier and I sweat less. But a few travels between my home and a cafe I vist frequently, I find that the eBike still takes the same amount of time if not more. As I can reach higher speeds with the regular bike.

The eBikes are definitely more useful for people who are not as fit as I am. And/or if carrying heavy backpacks. But for me, I'll stick to the normal bikes.