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E-bikes are a thing
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BPaze
Well-Known Member
I am completely pro-e-bike, but these things they sell online that are just crap bikes with huge batteries, throttles, and motors that kids are riding around to school on the streets are deadly. I saw 2 kids without helmets this morning doing over 30 on one of these things. It was definitely only meant for 1 kid and the second was on a rack or something dangling off the back. This class of e-bike really needs to be classified as a moped and licensing and age restrictions should be required.
I don't know what these parents are thinking about getting these bikes for their kids and letting them ride, but I also know a lot of parents don't think and just do what makes their kids happy. Rant over sorry this really doesn't have anything to do with the e-bikes that most people on this board use and again I am completely pro e-mtb hoping to get one in the next few years as my knees continue to deteriorate.
I don't know what these parents are thinking about getting these bikes for their kids and letting them ride, but I also know a lot of parents don't think and just do what makes their kids happy. Rant over sorry this really doesn't have anything to do with the e-bikes that most people on this board use and again I am completely pro e-mtb hoping to get one in the next few years as my knees continue to deteriorate.
We used to tie sleds to car bumpers as kids. Being an idiot is sort of a rite of passage as a teenager, no?
Zaskar
Well-Known Member
we did the same but off the back of a 3-wheeler 👩🚀
BPaze
Well-Known Member
But did your parents tie the sled to the bumper or drive the car, my issue is much less with kids than parents enabling this and being ok with it. I def would have been doing the same thing, but my parents would beat my ass when they caught me being the dumbass I am and occasionally I would behave better.
thegock
Well-Known Member
4 Die in Fire Caused by Batteries in E-Bike Shop Near Chinatown
The blaze, which left two others in critical condition, began on the first floor of a building at 80 Madison Street shortly after midnight.
The fire began on a street that lies just outside the borders of Chinatown, near the Manhattan Bridge.Credit...Amir Hamja/The New York Times
By Hurubie Meko, Chelsia Rose Marcius, Winnie Hu and Ellen Yan
June 20, 2023
Four people died Tuesday morning in a fire caused by lithium-ion batteries, just the latest in a series of fatal blazes in New York as delivery people in the convenience-addicted city increasingly rely on electric vehicles.
The three-alarm fire at an e-bike service store, at 80 Madison Street near the Chinatown neighborhood, started around midnight and quickly spread through the business. About 140 firefighters and emergency personnel came to the six-story building, which includes residential apartments above the ground floor.
Six adults were taken to three area hospitals, where four of them — two women, 62 and 65 years old, and two men, 71 and 80 — died. The other two, both women, were in critical condition, the police said.
Tuesday morning’s fire, which was deemed accidental, was caused by a lithium-ion battery on the first floor, according to officials. The aftermath left soot smeared above the broken-out windows of the building, which also houses a deli, a laundromat and a news stand.
A mountain of charred e-bikes and scooters was piled up on the corner of the street.
“It is very clear that this was caused by lithium-ion batteries and e-bikes,” the fire commissioner, Laura Kavanagh, said at a Tuesday news conference at the scene of the blaze.
Such batteries are now one of the leading causes of fire deaths in the city, where e-bikes and scooters have become ubiquitous since the pandemic, widely used by delivery workers and for general transport. Officials are grappling with the flammability of their power sources, and have inspected stores and issued warnings after each fatality.
The Chinatown store, HQ Ebike Repair, had been cited by the Fire Department in August for violations related to charging lithium-ion batteries, as well as for the number of batteries and vehicles they had at the location, according to Daniel E. Flynn, chief fire marshal.
The store was found guilty in court and fined $1,600, he said. The department also issued violations to the business in 2021.
“We did do some surveillance recently at the location,” Mr. Flynn said, adding that investigators saw “many, many batteries,” though none were being charged at the time.
Reached by phone before the news conference, Biyun Liu, whose family opened the store about two and a half years ago, said he did not believe the e-bikes caused Tuesday’s fire.
“We turn off all the electric panels and we don’t charge anything inside the store. So there’s no way to catch fire,” he said.Lithium-ion batteries, which also power devices like phones, laptops and power tools, have started 108 fires in New York City so far this year, Commissioner Kavanaugh said, and have led to 13 deaths. About 200 fires were linked to the batteries in 2022.
Fire officials and battery experts have said that the lithium batteries can catch fire even when they are not being charged.
In April, two siblings, a 19-year-old girl and her 7-year-old brother, were killed in an “explosion of fire” caused by an e-bike that was being charged near the front door of an apartment building in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens. In early May, a fire killed four people in an apartment in Washington Heights, where lithium batteries were later found.
“The volume of fire created by these lithium-ion batteries is incredibly deadly,” Commissioner Kavanagh said Tuesday morning. “We’ve said this over and over: It can make it nearly impossible to get out in time.”
Belal Alayah, who was working Tuesday morning at his family’s deli on the corner, said he was about to close up shop around midnight when a customer ran in and told him about the fire. Mr. Alayah, 25, said he walked outside and saw “a circle of flames” burning through the e-bike store’s metal gate.
“It looked like it was melting,” he said. He called 911.
Within minutes, smoke filled the block, including his deli. “We packed our bags and ran out,” he said.
The Red Cross said in a tweet that it was providing emergency shelter for eight households, comprising 23 adults and two children.
Image
Officials have struggled to contain the risk of battery fires as electric vehicles have become widespread in New York.Credit...Amir Hamja/The New York Times
For many neighbors, the warning was the smell of smoke that wafted into their homes.
Shirley Ngai, who lives in a third-floor apartment above the store, said she was heading to bed when her mother smelled smoke. Ms. Ngai, 54, looked out the apartment door and then called back to her mother, who is 85, blind and has dementia.
“There’s black smoke everywhere, we’ve got to get out,” she recalled. “I just grabbed my mom and said, ‘Let’s go, let’s go.’”
During the commotion on the third floor, Ms. Ngai’s said her next door neighbor, an older woman, asked her what was going on, she said.
“I told her it’s a fire, that she needs to leave,” she said.
Moments later, firefighters arrived and helped Ms. Ngai and her mother out of the building. Once she made it outside, Ms. Ngai said she peered through the smoke, scanning the crowd for her neighbor. She did not see her.
Mr. Alayah, the deli worker, said he stood on the block with about 200 others, as sirens blared and people screamed, watching as firefighters broke windows and worked to extinguish the flames.
At around 3 a.m., firefighters began removing charred bikes from the store and piling them on the corner in front of his shop.
The cause of the fire was under investigation Tuesday morning, the New York Fire Department said.CreditCredit...Belal Alayah
Jacky Wong, coordinator of Chinatown Community Land Trust, a nonprofit that advocates shared ownership to build financial equity, said that fires in the neighborhood were becoming more common because of e-bikes and buildings that were so old they were no longer up to code.
“Local housing advocates and policymakers have failed to address this issue for the past 40 years,” he said.
In March, New York City adopted laws banning the sale or lease of e-bikes and e-scooters that fail to meet safety standards and prohibiting the refurbishing of used lithium batteries.
Mayor Eric Adams announced a plan calling for the creation of a fire marshal task force focused on identifying high-risk situations and fire code violations. Fire officials have also shut down illegal charging stations in bike shops and bodegas.
Mark Levine, the Manhattan borough president, said Tuesday that the City Council was considering measures that would establish a program to buy back spent batteries and that would install safe charging stations.
“There’s a lot more we have to do, because there are approximately 65,000 e-bikes already in the city used for delivery by delivery workers,” he said.
For Marshal Lee, who has lived on Madison Street across from HQ Ebike Repair shop for two years, it was no surprise that the e-bike service store was the scene of a fire.
“It’s really dirty,” Mr. Lee said. “There’s always grease everywhere,” he said, pointing to the sidewalk outside the shop.
Mr. Lee, 30, said another e-bike shop on the block was clean and well-kept, but HQ Ebike Repair opened and appeared to put them out of business, he said.
“The place is always busy,” he said. “There’s always a line of people.”
Mable Chan contributed reporting.
JFYI
Maybe the real story should be this is why you shouldn't have unregulated fire hazards and cheap amazon products in same buildings people live in.
Total gaslighting and
serviceguy
Well-Known Member
Is it possible that the fire was caused by about a million of batteries being charged simultaneously using about the same number of extension cords? How would that be different from the previously highly advertised fires caused by room heaters connected to undersized extension cords? As usual seems that they've found the bad guy (e-bikes in this case) and are now trying to blame it for every crime since JC...I think that if you squint your eyes really hard you may see that e-bikes are also responsible for subway surfing deaths.4 Die in Fire Caused by Batteries in E-Bike Shop Near Chinatown
The blaze, which left two others in critical condition, began on the first floor of a building at 80 Madison Street shortly after midnight.
The fire began on a street that lies just outside the borders of Chinatown, near the Manhattan Bridge.Credit...Amir Hamja/The New York Times
By Hurubie Meko, Chelsia Rose Marcius, Winnie Hu and Ellen Yan
June 20, 2023
Four people died Tuesday morning in a fire caused by lithium-ion batteries, just the latest in a series of fatal blazes in New York as delivery people in the convenience-addicted city increasingly rely on electric vehicles.
The three-alarm fire at an e-bike service store, at 80 Madison Street near the Chinatown neighborhood, started around midnight and quickly spread through the business. About 140 firefighters and emergency personnel came to the six-story building, which includes residential apartments above the ground floor.
Six adults were taken to three area hospitals, where four of them — two women, 62 and 65 years old, and two men, 71 and 80 — died. The other two, both women, were in critical condition, the police said.
Tuesday morning’s fire, which was deemed accidental, was caused by a lithium-ion battery on the first floor, according to officials. The aftermath left soot smeared above the broken-out windows of the building, which also houses a deli, a laundromat and a news stand.
A mountain of charred e-bikes and scooters was piled up on the corner of the street.
“It is very clear that this was caused by lithium-ion batteries and e-bikes,” the fire commissioner, Laura Kavanagh, said at a Tuesday news conference at the scene of the blaze.
Such batteries are now one of the leading causes of fire deaths in the city, where e-bikes and scooters have become ubiquitous since the pandemic, widely used by delivery workers and for general transport. Officials are grappling with the flammability of their power sources, and have inspected stores and issued warnings after each fatality.
The Chinatown store, HQ Ebike Repair, had been cited by the Fire Department in August for violations related to charging lithium-ion batteries, as well as for the number of batteries and vehicles they had at the location, according to Daniel E. Flynn, chief fire marshal.
The store was found guilty in court and fined $1,600, he said. The department also issued violations to the business in 2021.
“We did do some surveillance recently at the location,” Mr. Flynn said, adding that investigators saw “many, many batteries,” though none were being charged at the time.
Reached by phone before the news conference, Biyun Liu, whose family opened the store about two and a half years ago, said he did not believe the e-bikes caused Tuesday’s fire.
“We turn off all the electric panels and we don’t charge anything inside the store. So there’s no way to catch fire,” he said.
Lithium-ion batteries, which also power devices like phones, laptops and power tools, have started 108 fires in New York City so far this year, Commissioner Kavanaugh said, and have led to 13 deaths. About 200 fires were linked to the batteries in 2022.
Fire officials and battery experts have said that the lithium batteries can catch fire even when they are not being charged.
In April, two siblings, a 19-year-old girl and her 7-year-old brother, were killed in an “explosion of fire” caused by an e-bike that was being charged near the front door of an apartment building in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens. In early May, a fire killed four people in an apartment in Washington Heights, where lithium batteries were later found.
“The volume of fire created by these lithium-ion batteries is incredibly deadly,” Commissioner Kavanagh said Tuesday morning. “We’ve said this over and over: It can make it nearly impossible to get out in time.”
Belal Alayah, who was working Tuesday morning at his family’s deli on the corner, said he was about to close up shop around midnight when a customer ran in and told him about the fire. Mr. Alayah, 25, said he walked outside and saw “a circle of flames” burning through the e-bike store’s metal gate.
“It looked like it was melting,” he said. He called 911.
Within minutes, smoke filled the block, including his deli. “We packed our bags and ran out,” he said.
The Red Cross said in a tweet that it was providing emergency shelter for eight households, comprising 23 adults and two children.
Image
Officials have struggled to contain the risk of battery fires as electric vehicles have become widespread in New York.Credit...Amir Hamja/The New York Times
For many neighbors, the warning was the smell of smoke that wafted into their homes.
Shirley Ngai, who lives in a third-floor apartment above the store, said she was heading to bed when her mother smelled smoke. Ms. Ngai, 54, looked out the apartment door and then called back to her mother, who is 85, blind and has dementia.
“There’s black smoke everywhere, we’ve got to get out,” she recalled. “I just grabbed my mom and said, ‘Let’s go, let’s go.’”
During the commotion on the third floor, Ms. Ngai’s said her next door neighbor, an older woman, asked her what was going on, she said.
“I told her it’s a fire, that she needs to leave,” she said.
Moments later, firefighters arrived and helped Ms. Ngai and her mother out of the building. Once she made it outside, Ms. Ngai said she peered through the smoke, scanning the crowd for her neighbor. She did not see her.
Mr. Alayah, the deli worker, said he stood on the block with about 200 others, as sirens blared and people screamed, watching as firefighters broke windows and worked to extinguish the flames.
At around 3 a.m., firefighters began removing charred bikes from the store and piling them on the corner in front of his shop.
The cause of the fire was under investigation Tuesday morning, the New York Fire Department said.CreditCredit...Belal Alayah
Jacky Wong, coordinator of Chinatown Community Land Trust, a nonprofit that advocates shared ownership to build financial equity, said that fires in the neighborhood were becoming more common because of e-bikes and buildings that were so old they were no longer up to code.
“Local housing advocates and policymakers have failed to address this issue for the past 40 years,” he said.
In March, New York City adopted laws banning the sale or lease of e-bikes and e-scooters that fail to meet safety standards and prohibiting the refurbishing of used lithium batteries.
Mayor Eric Adams announced a plan calling for the creation of a fire marshal task force focused on identifying high-risk situations and fire code violations. Fire officials have also shut down illegal charging stations in bike shops and bodegas.
Mark Levine, the Manhattan borough president, said Tuesday that the City Council was considering measures that would establish a program to buy back spent batteries and that would install safe charging stations.
“There’s a lot more we have to do, because there are approximately 65,000 e-bikes already in the city used for delivery by delivery workers,” he said.
For Marshal Lee, who has lived on Madison Street across from HQ Ebike Repair shop for two years, it was no surprise that the e-bike service store was the scene of a fire.
“It’s really dirty,” Mr. Lee said. “There’s always grease everywhere,” he said, pointing to the sidewalk outside the shop.
Mr. Lee, 30, said another e-bike shop on the block was clean and well-kept, but HQ Ebike Repair opened and appeared to put them out of business, he said.
“The place is always busy,” he said. “There’s always a line of people.”
Mable Chan contributed reporting.
JFYI
I thought the article said they don't charge batteries there?
The big issue is once the mass of lithium batteries go on fire you can't really put it out.
one piece crank
1pc Cranky
What does it weigh?
Fat Trout
Well-Known Member
This was always my question before and right after i got one. Then i found the extra weigh brought stability that i didn't expect. Not all attrbuted to weight but my lightweight fs bike was way more chaotic on the backend vs the ebike so some of that i figure is the weight. Granted putting it back in the bed of my truck isnt as fun as my light weight bikes.
EJphotos
Well-Known Member
About 45 lbs.
See them in alpine/ Ringwood all the time already.
sundaydoug
Well-Known Member
Not gonna lie that thing looks fun.
Steve Vai
Endurance Guy: Tolerates most of us.
I was almost killed by a pack of them in 6-mile a few weeks back. People shouldn't be doing 40+ MPH in the woods.
mtn
Well-Known Member
Probably purchased by the parents for their kids because they didn't want to pedal.