Ebike News: E-Fat Roundup, Kinesis Lightweight Town Model, E-bikes Mean Exercise & Much More! | Electric Bike Report | Electric Bike, Ebikes, Electric Bicycles, E Bike, Reviews

There is now a Gen 2 version of Lectric’s folding fat-tire e-bike, the XP with several upgrades, including adjustable oil-damped front suspension, increased cargo carrying capacity, improved handlebars, and 3” instead of 4” tires for more agile handling. .

Bafang’s new M325 and M625 are two powerful mid-drive retrofit e-bike kits designed to fit into conventional bottom brackets.

The M625 has a rated power output of between 700 and 1000 watts and so falls into the ‘for use on private land only’ category in most countries. It claims a torque rating of a massive 160Nm, almost twice that of Bosch’s powerful and road legal mid-drives. The smaller M325 has 500 watts of rated power and in many legal jurisdictions would fit into the category S-Pedelec (class 3 in the US) though the throttle only operation it comes with would have to be disabled (should that be technically possible).

Additional elements of the kits include large-screen color display, a cadence sensor and a downtube battery with a maximum capacity of 960Wh.

More details will soon be available at this website.

The UK’s Kinesis mission statement says ‘For us to put a Kinesis UK badge on any product it must be well made and dependable all year round, perform at a level beyond its price point and help people have fun while riding or in use.’

That’s pretty clear and there’s no denying the Brits like a lightweight e-bike, where the bike weight is arguably more important than in the US. Kinesis’ latest model, the Lyft, follows their similarly lightweight Rise e-mtb and the Range ‘adventure’ e-bike both of which use the Fazua mid-drive. Unlike previous models the Lyft uses the very lightweight Ebikemotion X35 rear hub system.

There are two options one ‘naked’ just called Lyft (36lbs / 16.5kg) and the other named Lyft Equipped (37.5lbs / 17kg)

Lyft is available for pre-order now though availability dates don’t seem to have been widely publicised.

The New York Times details a new study from Miami University that compared e-bikes and pedal bikes to measure how much exercise each kind of rider got.

The study compared pedal bike riders and riders on a 350W class 1 e-bike on a 3 mile commuting type course. During the rides, heart rate and oxygen consumption of the riders were continuously monitored.

Helaine Alessio, the chair of the department of kinesiology at Miami University is quoted as saying “riding an e-bike, like other forms of active transport, can be as good for the person doing it as for the environment.” Alessio adds the perhaps self-evident advice that to increase your potential health benefits the most you should keep the pedal assistance level set as low as is comfortable for you.

E-scooter companies Tier, Lime and Dott have been chosen by Transport for London (TfL) to run the first trial services in the UK capital, with the hire scheme due to be rolled out from June 7th.

There will be strict controls on their use however; as the Guardian article points out, the e-scooters will be limited to a maximum of 12.5mph, 3mph slower than in the rest of the UK and geo-fencing technology will be employed so they don’t work in certain areas including the Royal Parks.

Between 60 and 120 e-scooters will initially be available in each of the trial areas – Canary Wharf, the City of London and boroughs such as Kensington and Chelsea, Ealing, Richmond upon Thames and Hammersmith.

Much appears to be hanging on the results of the London trials as the UK government has delayed a decision whether e-scooters will be legalised in the UK pending results of the London trials. Around 50 trials are currently underway in various towns and cities across the country. A decision on legality had been expected this August but has now been moved to 2022 due to London’s lateness in commencing trials.

According to Bicycle Retailer and Industry News ‘Bike commuting is the third most popular U.S. transportation mode, increasing 61% nationwide from 2000 to 2019, according to a new report published by the Bike Adviser.

The report, coming a day before Bike to Work Day on Friday, measures what U.S. states and cities have the most bike commuters and the gender breakdown. In 2000, there were 488,000 regular bike commuters, according to the report; in 2019, there were 786,000.’

Bike-EU reports ‘54 countries yesterday adopted the first ever Pan-European Master Plan for Cycling Promotion at the Fifth High-Level Meeting on Transport, Health and Environment (THE PEP).’