BBC Breakfast item today on illegally modded ebikes

[N0bodyOfTheGoat]

There's far worse examples of illegal ebikes out there, but here's an example of part of climb KOM taken yesterday that hasn't been flagged yet (and more importantly rider should be investigated by police for lack of insurance and motorbike license plus using an illegal ebike on the road)...

That 55sec stretch has gradients that vary between approx 6% and 12%. Bike believed to be an eMTB that will be approx 25Kg. Rider should only be getting motor assistance for the final ~7secs of above snip, when below 15.5mph.

Further up the climb, the gradient average drops to ~3.2%, with first ~10secs of the 38sec snip being 4-4.9%...

The main issue it's not a UK road legal ebike, he's getting motor assistance to at least 20mph.

But like at least a dozen other ebike riders in Hampshire that I've come across since April, they are extracting the urine out of Strava ebike leaderboards and for some unknown reason I cannot flag this activity... But the Strava autoflag system should know that it's completely unreasonable for someone to hold ~17mph on ~8% gradients and ~21mph on @3% gradients entirely under their own efforts on an ebike much closer to 25Kg than a ~8Kg normal road bicycle before we talk about the rider's ability (only a few local aliens on nice road bikes have gone up Beeches Hill faster than this ride last night)!

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

Hmm - yes
I know I ride an ebike
but yesterday I got my 3rd best time on a segment - which was pretty good

but the increase in speed is mostly because the canal path is dry and hard at the moment and hence faster

when I look at the faster times than be (I think I am 21st - which is good for me!) there are a fair number that are just over my time and a couple that are significantly faster

i.e. I am doing 13 mph average and they did 14/15 mph


The current leader is well over 20 mph
on narrow soil paths about 1 foot wide, bumpy and not straight

which sounds to me like either a professional on a top MTB
or an electronic motorbike


before anyone says - all my best times are done with no walkers - normally I am much slower due to having to stop or go off the track onto the grass and slow down
yesterday was just a gap in the walkers by luck

and also - I only bother looking when I get back - I don;t even know where they start and stop on the actual ground

 

[Mike_P]

Problem with Strava it uses AI logic to determine if a ride might be by ebike if uploaded by a Garmin etc and asks the user if that was the case, rather than having some setting so that a ride that is ebiked is automatically is recorded as ebike ride rather than ride
Having a legal ebike it rarely picks that up through the AI logic despite the ebike usually having a faster climb rate than by push bike efforts.

 

[classic33]

At least one less here now.
Frame and what was left of the rest of the bike brought out of a building fire in the town centre. Dumped into a pool of water on the road.

Not certain if it was the cause or just caught up in the fire. Flats above shops where there was at least four such bikes kept inside.