[Toshi]

Copying a link over from the e-bikes thread, where it was posted derisively:

Electric bikes soon to be humming along national park trails

WASHINGTON (AP) — Motorized electric bicycles may soon be humming along serene trails in national parks and other public lands nationwide...

apnews.com

Cliffs Notes are that Class 1 and 3 e-bikes without throttles (as that'd be Class 2) Class 1/2/3 e-bikes with assist speeds up to 28 mph are hereby designated as non-motorized vehicles.

This is potentially HUGE news, because this should carry over to USFS National Forest lands as well as the National Parks that they highlighted in the article. Still not get it? LENAWEE WITH MY MOPED.

Hells yeah. I will still try to defatten myself, of course, but this appears to have just opened up a whole bunch of territory legally to my Shuttle.

 

[Nick]

How can something with a motor be designated as non-motorized ?

 

[Toshi]

How can something with a motor be designated as non-motorized ?

Lobbying dollars? I'm not complaining, though. Also note that they explicitly did not include those that have a throttle, as that's unambiguously motor powered. When blended human and motor powered apparently the human wins for the regs.

 

[Toshi]

If/when I hit 200, I also will allow myself to seriously look into alternative e-infused commute-quickening things, with an idea of staying under the radar for use on the Sand Creek Greenway. No sense in a motorcycle proper without lanesplitting, as I've posted before.

Some musings to be possibly enacted in the future as per the above:

1) The first category would be of bicycle-first e-assist bikes. To get something beyond what my Pivot Shuttle offers I'd want something with a 28 mph assist limit, with fenders, a rear rack, and ideally integrated lighting.

Although these are technically not allowed on several portions of the Sand Creek Regional Greenway that comprises my non-road route to get to campus they'd be fine practically as they look like bikes, would have gearing to pedal along at any achievable speed, and are generally inoffensive.

Listing out what meets this category is pointless since there are a ton of them now. 28 mph assist limit no-throttle e-assist bikes are Class 3, so anything in that category would be fine, with both supported/major manufacturer choices and sketchier better deal ones.

2) The second category would be of straight up mopeds. The rationale would be that they are allowed in bike lanes on roads (but not on bike paths!) so that I'd be able to potentially zip by traffic if not in it. CO law allows for electric vehicles to fall in the low-power moped category that gets this bike lane access if they have less than 4,476 W power.

(One potential big downside is that I'm not sure if there exists a route from work to my house that'd let me even take advantage of this benefit.)

There are some options that look like mopeds but are barely supra-e-bike in their specs, like this Juiced Scorpion at 28 mph on a nominally 750W hub motor. Its sorta-like-a-Monkey looks are charming, though:

Then there are straight up scooters that are eligible, like this 43 mph 3,000W (so definitely legal for bike lanes) NIU NGT:

With this option I'd clearly give up any potential health benefits of not being in a car, besides the opportunity for car drivers to body shame me as I drove by, I suppose. So I'd better pore over the map and see whether there'd be any routes where I could avoid routine congestion by diving into a dedicated bike lane. (Going on the Greenway with even that Monkey looking one would seem a major faux pas.)

 

[Toshi]

(One potential big downside is that I'm not sure if there exists a route from work to my house that'd let me even take advantage of this benefit.)

With this option I'd clearly give up any potential health benefits of not being in a car, besides the opportunity for car drivers to body shame me as I drove by, I suppose. So I'd better pore over the map and see whether there'd be any routes where I could avoid routine congestion by diving into a dedicated bike lane.

This one proved to be super easy to address: Google Maps has a bicycling overlay, where they put dedicated bike lanes in its own color (with distinction to dedicated trails, which would be off limits, and "bicycle friendly roads" which are useless).

My greater neighborhood has a fair number of bike lanes… but they are not where they'd be useful, where there's commute-time congestion. That congestion would be where the roads cross the train tracks and then I-70 when heading north.

The options to head north and cross said structures, from east to west, are:

- Peoria St: dedicated bike path on the bridge that heads over the train tracks, but then no lanes or path when it goes under I-70. Out.
- Havana St: besides an intersection with horrible light timing where it crosses the train tracks at grade it also has wide sidewalks/perhaps a bike path if one is generous, but no bike lanes. Out.
- Central Park Blvd: congested region in question has quite nice multiuse paths but the bike lanes proper are only north and south of the relevant region. Out.
- Quebec St: Only normal sidewalks, no bike paths, and a 45 mph limit from a mile or two south of the train tracks up to near where I live, compounded by no pedestrian or bike options at all at the I-70 interchange. Definitely out.

So my life shall remain moped-less because they'd gain me nothing relative to a car other than exposure to the weather.

 

[Toshi]

1) The first category would be of bicycle-first e-assist bikes. To get something beyond what my Pivot Shuttle offers I'd want something with a 28 mph assist limit, with fenders, a rear rack, and ideally integrated lighting.

Although these are technically not allowed on several portions of the Sand Creek Regional Greenway that comprises my non-road route to get to campus they'd be fine practically as they look like bikes, would have gearing to pedal along at any achievable speed, and are generally inoffensive.

Listing out what meets this category is pointless since there are a ton of them now. 28 mph assist limit no-throttle e-assist bikes are Class 3, so anything in that category would be fine, with both supported/major manufacturer choices and sketchier better deal ones.

Let us engage in some pointlessness since I don't feel like going to practice trumpet quite yet:

Raleigh Redux iE

Giant Quick-E

Haibike SDURO Trekking S 9.0. A name as ugly as the handlebar area.

Specialized Turbo Vado 5.0

Trek Crossrip+

Trek Super Commuter 8+

 

[Toshi]

Dark horse:

Luna Wolf Alite Plus, clearly based off of a KHS.

This one is cheap, $2,300, and doesn't come with what I want (fenders, rack, lighting) stock. But I could make it work: rear triangle has rack eyelets, I could certainly swap out that front fork for one with fender eyelets, the seat is easy to replace with something less hideous, and lighting can be as I do now with non-permanent mounting.

The upside is that it's from Luna Cycle, so one can pay them to unlock a 2,500W mode on that BBSHD mid-drive.

Reading more, though, that BBSHD is not torque sensing, though, so it'd feel like ass. Nevermind. If I go this route eventually I want something with torque sensing, so that I'm part of the equation and feel like I'm riding, just with bionic legs a la Lieutenant Dan.

 

[Toshi]

A fine batch this week:

 

[Toshi]

Copying a link over from the e-bikes thread, where it was posted derisively:

Electric bikes soon to be humming along national park trails

WASHINGTON (AP) — Motorized electric bicycles may soon be humming along serene trails in national parks and other public lands nationwide...

apnews.com

Cliffs Notes are that Class 1 and 3 e-bikes without throttles (as that'd be Class 2) Class 1/2/3 e-bikes with assist speeds up to 28 mph are hereby designated as non-motorized vehicles.
This is potentially HUGE news, because this should carry over to USFS National Forest lands as well as the National Parks that they highlighted in the article. Still not get it? LENAWEE WITH MY MOPED.

Hells yeah. I will still try to defatten myself, of course, but this appears to have just opened up a whole bunch of territory legally to my Shuttle.

I found a link to the actual memo detailing the changes forthcoming.

https://www.nps.gov/subjects/policy/upload/PM_19-01.pdf

Takeaways:

1) This will be effective no later than 30 days from August 30, 2019. This was the key bit that I was searching for and that was missing from most of the summary articles.
2) Class 1, 2, and 3 are all allowed but Class 2 e-bike riders are directed to not use the throttle when they are not on motorized vehicle-ok roads. Definition of these classes mirrors the Federal definition: less than 750W in particular.
3) This doesn’t mention BLM or USFS lands at all, so perhaps my elation was premature. It seems tailored to the National Parks as it sits. Perhaps it will percolate over later.

 

[Toshi]

I priced out a hitch for my Model 3 and compared it to the cost of driving the Land Cruiser.

Notes: I saw 15.7 adjusted-for-tire-size MPG last tank in the Land Cruiser so 15 is fair, and 260 Wh/mile is my real-world usage in the Tesla over its ~7k life thus far. The quoted price for the hitch is from Hitch Corner, one of two Torklift-approved installers in the area, and the hitch alone would cost a bit over $400 so it's a $500 install. Said install was reportedly 3.5 hours per a NASIOC poster who installed one on his 3, and I've decided I've installed enough hitches in my life (3 that I can recall) to warrant paying a $142/hr rate.

The long and the short of it is that with these assumptions it'd take just shy of 100 trips to Mountain Lion to pay off the hitch, as it were. Admittedly it'd be more fun to drive the zippy Tesla up, but the counter to that is that I already drive those roads at a faster pace than the vast majority of 4 wheeled traffic, don't need incentive to speed more, and I actually enjoy the process of hustling the tall beast through the corners--it's so wide that it doesn't really feel tippy at all.

I probably get on the order of 40-50 mountain bike rides in per year, many at Mountain Lion but some at closer in locales (few farther). So we are looking at least 2 years if there is no monetary value assigned to zoom zooming in the Tesla.

I'm leaning towards just continuing to burn gas in the Land Cruiser for heading out to riding. As it is now it lives with the hitch rack always on it and all my biking gear save for the actual bike stashed in the back. It's a pretty convenient setup.

 

[Pesqueeb]

 

[Toshi]

@rideit BEV F-150 “before 2022”:

Exclusive: the future of Ford, according to its bosses | Autocar

We travelled to Ford HQ in Dearborn, USA to speak to the firm's leaders and get an in-depth look at the Blue Oval's plans to turn its fortunes around

www.autocar.co.uk

Before it the Mustang based EV crossover, whatever the hell that is, and an electric Transit after—they didn’t apply the Connect suffix so the full size one for cargo routes perhaps?

 

[ALEXIS_DH]

At the car wash now. Some dude is just casually vacuuming out his Lamborghini Gallardo

 

[rideit]

@rideit BEV F-150 “before 2022”:

Exclusive: the future of Ford, according to its bosses | Autocar

We travelled to Ford HQ in Dearborn, USA to speak to the firm's leaders and get an in-depth look at the Blue Oval's plans to turn its fortunes around

www.autocar.co.uk

Before it the Mustang based EV crossover, whatever the hell that is, and an electric Transit after—they didn’t apply the Connect suffix so the full size one for cargo routes perhaps?

Just put 10k into a savings account in anticipation of this. Hope they don’t suffer from too many ‘Gen 1’ teething problems, that could have me waiting longer. We shall see.

 

[Toshi]

From the daily thread: Centennial Cone blows. Now I know.

I also very much dislike driving on Hwy 6 as opposed to on even Golden Gate Canyon Rd, let along the less-trafficked Crawford Gulch or Drew Hill Rds. Way too much traffic, cars parked on the side of the road with accompanying people-traffic along the shoulder to wherever they are going, etc.

From the Cone itself, with one of the few fun technical sections of the ride just ahead:

 

[Toshi]

I have no intention of getting such a thing (no, really), but this caught me eye from Jalopnik’s review of the Jeep Gladiator (the Wrangler-pickup thing):

Note that there is one configuration that yields good towing and good payload. Max payload rating is on a setup with low towing, and apart from that one Gladiator Sport config anything else that tows 6,000 lbs or up has shit payload. (For reference my Land Cruiser has a 1,500 lb payload and 6,500 lb tow rating.)

 

[Pesqueeb]

"150lbs for driver"

 

[Toshi]

An update. Relevant time points on this graph:

- 8/10 started intermittent fasting, maintaining lowish carb diet
- 8/25 PM through 8/29 PM did a 98 hour extended fast

I've been in a plateau since then but feel good in terms of clothes fitting, energy, etc. I therefore will soldier on with this and hope to be closer to 240 by the end of this month.

Maybe 210 or so by the start of ski season is possible!

 

[SkaredShtles]

<snip> Class 2 e-bike riders are directed to not use the throttle when they are not on motorized vehicle-ok roads.

- 8/10 started intermittent fasting, maintaining lowish carb diet
- 8/25 PM through 8/29 PM did a 98 hour extended fast

I've been in a plateau since then but feel good in terms of clothes fitting, energy, etc. I therefore will soldier on with this and hope to be closer to 240 by the end of this month.

Maybe 210 or so by the start of ski season is possible!

I've eaten 6 peaches today before noon.

 

[Toshi]

I priced out a hitch for my Model 3 and compared it to the cost of driving the Land Cruiser.

So I emailed my contact at Lampert Hitch and they'll do the installation for $425, me providing the hitch itself since they're not a dealer.

I know of a guy who got a Black Friday deal for $375 on the hitch itself, so if I snag that deal then I might just do it.

$425 to avoid 3.5 hours on my back under the car up on ramps is worth it, and I don't get that same "yer gonna get raped" sensation as with the other quote since they're not a dealer. The Lampert Hitch guy said it takes 2-4 hours for them, fwiw.

 

[SkaredShtles]

Just out of curiousity - where did you see the information about not using the throttle on Class-2 e-motos? I didn't see it in the memorandum...

 

[Toshi]

Just out of curiousity - where did you see the information about not using the throttle on Class-2 e-motos? I didn't see it in the memorandum...

Last sentence on page 2 crossing to page 3, emphasis added:

"Except on park roads and other locations where use of motor vehicles by the public is allowed, operators may only use the power provided by the electric motor to assist pedal propulsion of an e-bike."

 

[SkaredShtles]

Last sentence on page 2 crossing to page 3, emphasis added:

"Except on park roads and other locations where use of motor vehicles by the public is allowed, operators may only use the power provided by the electric motor to assist pedal propulsion of an e-bike."

Reading comprehension is hard.

 

[Toshi]

@stoney of possible interest to you:

Intermittent fasting: A “new” historical strategy for controlling seizures?

In antiquity, fasting was a treatment for epilepsy and a rationale for the ketogenic diet (KD). Preclinical data indicate the KD and intermittent fast…

www.sciencedirect.com

Intermittent fasting dissociates beneficial effects of dietary restriction on glucose metabolism and neuronal resistance to injury from calorie intake

Dietary restriction has been shown to have several health benefits including increased insulin sensitivity, stress resistance, reduced morbidity, and increased life span. The mechanism remains unknown, but the need for a long-term reduction in caloric intake to achieve these benefits has been...

www.pnas.org

First one is in kids, and only n = 6... but it does appear to show additional benefits for epilepsy control when adding intermittent fasting (they did 5:2 basically) on top of a baseline ketogenic diet. Second one is more basic science for why this effect might be real--there is a basis.

Something to discuss with your neurologist, perhaps? If you want PDFs of them let me know--I can get any and all journal articles for free.

 

[Toshi]

 

[stoney]

@stoney of possible interest to you:

Intermittent fasting: A “new” historical strategy for controlling seizures?

In antiquity, fasting was a treatment for epilepsy and a rationale for the ketogenic diet (KD). Preclinical data indicate the KD and intermittent fast…

www.sciencedirect.com

Intermittent fasting dissociates beneficial effects of dietary restriction on glucose metabolism and neuronal resistance to injury from calorie intake

Dietary restriction has been shown to have several health benefits including increased insulin sensitivity, stress resistance, reduced morbidity, and increased life span. The mechanism remains unknown, but the need for a long-term reduction in caloric intake to achieve these benefits has been...

www.pnas.org

First one is in kids, and only n = 6... but it does appear to show additional benefits for epilepsy control when adding intermittent fasting (they did 5:2 basically) on top of a baseline ketogenic diet. Second one is more basic science for why this effect might be real--there is a basis.

Something to discuss with your neurologist, perhaps? If you want PDFs of them let me know--I can get any and all journal articles for free.

I'll pass it along.

 

[rideit]

Might need to squirrel away some more cash

Ford F-150 Electric Coming As Early As 2021

Ford is trying to get people excited about the electric F-150 by doing stunts like having one pull train cars. The effort is apparently working.

www.motor1.com

 

[Toshi]

Surprisingly decent low carb food options at the cafeteria.

 

[Toshi]

Volkswagen Commissioned These Adorable Electric Vintage Beetles Dubbed E-Kafers

Using components from the E-Up!, these old-school-styled EVs have a range of 124 miles. Better yet, VW might even bring them to market.

www.thedrive.com

Let the e-conversions commence!

 

[rideit]

124 miles?
That barely gets a lot of people to work twice around here.
But looks great for urban use.

 

[Pesqueeb]

Volkswagen Commissioned These Adorable Electric Vintage Beetles Dubbed E-Kafers

Using components from the E-Up!, these old-school-styled EVs have a range of 124 miles. Better yet, VW might even bring them to market.

www.thedrive.com

Let the e-conversions commence!

I hunted down quite a number of conversion type things when I first started thinking about ditching the Jeep, but it sure didn't seem like it made a lot of sense, financially. Like as in, it was smarter money to buy something else, new. And sure a lot fucking easier.

I suspect most of these conversions only make sense for geeky types with a bent for tinkering, extra cars/garage space, and money to burn.

 

[Toshi]

Before it the Mustang based EV crossover, whatever the hell that is

So this is the Mustang based EV.

Not seeing any Mustang DNA in that blocky thing.

 

[Toshi]

This was pretty fascinating to me for a few reasons, noting both do intermittent fasting and ketogenic diets, Deanna with OMAD and a carnivorous diet in particular:

1) I am also a radiologist, in case you’ve been living under a rock. I do a lot of teaching, being faculty at a university and all. Hearing how this one describes the images he is showing to the non-medical Mike and Deanna was enlightening. (I wouldn’t use the word “filters” as he did as they are actually different sequences, and the diffusion weighted imaging that Mike touted actually wasn’t even gone over at all, but in general I liked his tone and approach.)

2) Both of them are incredibly fit both subjectively and objectively. The imaging of the liver where they look for fatty liver (there was no fatty liver despite a very high dietary fat regime!) and the paucity of visceral fat with preservation of muscle was impressive.

3) Funny how he mentioned the IUD and C section scar but not the breast implants. Maybe got edited out.

 

[rideit]

So this is the Mustang based EV.

Not seeing any Mustang DNA in that blocky thing.

Why would it have that screen on the front for airflow if it’s electric? Decoy purposes?

 

[Toshi]

Why would it have that screen on the front for airflow if it’s electric? Decoy purposes?

There still are radiators, for the HVAC and battery thermal management systems. But probably there’s a vestigial grill just for styling, to avoid the Voldemort face look.

 

[CBJ]

I miss the days of Toshi buying cars

 

[Pesqueeb]

So this is the Mustang based EV.

Not seeing any Mustang DNA in that blocky thing.

That is fucking hideous.

 

[Toshi]

Trek Crossrip+

Another one along a similar vein:

Schwinn Vantage RXe

Schwinn is only selling this through Amazon and yet it looks pretty decent. 28 mph assist limit 350W Bosch Performance Line mid drive motor, in particular. No fenders or racks, clearly, but at least a rear rack wouldn't be bad. I'm not sure if the tire size benefit outweighs the practicality of something like the Crossrip+ already being set up well as a commuter, but it's interesting nonetheless by its very existence.

 

[Toshi]

Attn @stoney

FS: (For Sale) CA: 2006 Forester XT/STI - San Francisco, CA - $21.5k - NASIOC

FS: (For Sale) CA: 2006 Forester XT/STI - San Francisco, CA - $21.5k Private Vehicle 'For Sale' Classifieds

forums.nasioc.com

 

[stoney]

Attn @stoney

FS: (For Sale) CA: 2006 Forester XT/STI - San Francisco, CA - $21.5k - NASIOC

FS: (For Sale) CA: 2006 Forester XT/STI - San Francisco, CA - $21.5k Private Vehicle 'For Sale' Classifieds

forums.nasioc.com

You have no idea how much I regret selling that car and the can of worms the downstream caused me. That being said, no. Also, why are you on NASIOC still?