Today I red light raced...

You are right furry they would suck but seriously it is illegal some places to have a twist throttle. The government needs to stay the hell out of making rules for bikes for f***s sake and let natural selection and common sense dictate how we ride. That's all Democrats do though is more government.
I think my state has pretty lax laws considering motorized bicycles. As long as it has pedals and no transmission, it is a bicycle. But transmission can be pretty vague. The chain transmits power from the drive sprocket to the hub sprocket right?

But they do have tighter laws on e Bikes. I haven't read the details but there are separate laws. disregard... The section I saw was about segways. Wow the dmv regulates segways
 
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Exactly, I'm not trying to say that it's not a pain to run cadence without a throttle, I'm saying you CAN, and HAVE TO in plenty of areas in the United States like New York City (although it appears they are passing a law to finally stop the crackdown on throttle ebikes).

When discussing cadence bikes without a throttle you can safely assume that they will be bikes in the 250-500w power ranges since those are the ones that are built by companies, sold, and used for this purpose. No currently sold ebikes over 500w are PAS only from what I've seen (could be wrong).

Obviously, if your building a 3kw bike you'd be an idiot to run pure pedal assist but that is outside of the realm of the discussion.

Since PAS only bikes are in the 250-500w range, it's a nonissue as you're expected to pedal the bike the entire time anyways. Those are set up to simply reduce the effort needed, not to be ridden like a super light motorcycle and don't need to worry about dangerous junctions anymore than a normal bicycle.
 
Exactly, I'm not trying to say that it's not a pain to run cadence without a throttle, I'm saying you CAN, and HAVE TO in plenty of areas in the United States like New York City (although it appears they are passing a law to finally stop the crackdown on throttle ebikes).

When discussing cadence bikes without a throttle you can safely assume that they will be bikes in the 250-500w power ranges since those are the ones that are built by companies, sold, and used for this purpose. No currently sold ebikes over 500w are PAS only from what I've seen (could be wrong).

Obviously, if your building a 3kw bike you'd be an idiot to run pure pedal assist but that is outside of the realm of the discussion.

Since PAS only bikes are in the 250-500w range, it's a nonissue as you're expected to pedal the bike the entire time anyways. Those are set up to simply reduce the effort needed, not to be ridden like a super light motorcycle and don't need to worry about dangerous junctions anymore than a normal bicycle.
Until just now very post you used PAS, I was interpreting "Piece A Sh!t" now I understand you are saying "Pedal Assist S [set up]"?
 
The throttle is illegal here too.
But the law is an ass and I have to be in charge of my personal safety.
There's no way my 500W bike with a cadence sensor is safe without the throttle, because the electric power can only begin after I have pedalled the frickin heavy bike several meters away from the dead stop. It's no joke absolutely unusable at traffic lights and tricky junctions without the throttle. It would be like killing the engine on my MAB at a dead stop and then pedal starting it again from the dead stop while entering the most dangerous place in the road. Total pain in the arse. Would get me killed.
So I just use the twist throttle to fill in for only the first second, accelerate away promptly and safely using the combined pedal power and electric power. It works fine. With the electric motor helping me (peaking at maybe 750W or a bit more?) I'm able to quickly (1 second) reach a speed where my cadence is enough to activate the cadence sensor and run the motor, so I only need to open the throttle for that one second, and I don't make it so obvious that I look like I'm riding a motorcycle. Most of the time I'm just pedalling with the assistance of the motor.

Maybe a light ebike with a small lightweight battery and low power motor would be more agile, more like a non assisted bicycle, and then would only accelerate out of the dead stop about as badly as an ordinary unassisted bicycle does, but that would be less of an advantage too. I would still strain my knees trying to get out of the danger zone like I used to, and be as likely to become a casualty as when I was riding unassisted bikes on the city roads. Bicycles aren't that safe in the city, even when you're young and fast. Tbh its so easy to use a throttle inconspicuously I have to say its the only sensible option. I'm getting older and the road traffic is getting heavier every year.
Immediate acceleration when you need it = safety.

The torque sensors are well worth having, I'm sure. They sense that you are putting pressure on the leading pedal even before you begin to move forward. They're just a lot more expensive and come on much more expensive pre-built ebikes.
I don't think it would be a problem to run a 1kw motor with only a torque sensor and no throttle as the power would be gradually applied in proportion to the torque being sensed, not just on or off, all or nothing, like with a cadence sensor. But it would be a lot more fun to use a throttle so you can keep some power on even when you are forced to stop pedalling, such as in a leaning turn. I can imagine that the very high wattage ebikes would be tricky to ride with any type of PAS on full power.
Perhaps the PAS could activate only a lower power setting, and the throttle would control the full power. That would be very appealing I think.
 
Perhaps the PAS could activate only a lower power setting, and the throttle would control the full power. That would be very appealing I think.

Yeah, there are usually two flavors of hub motors on eBay - the throttle only & max PAS or throttle & variable PAS. Meaning, you can set the PAS assist level from 1-5 its usually like 100W increments or so. I would like that on a 500-1000W system as you can be super stealth that way. Like cruising power is no where close to peak power needed to get to cruising speed, so having a variable PAS for cruising power and throttle for peak power makes a lot of sense both in power efficiency, stealth, and interaction with the bike. That being said, you cannot pedal above 33mph its too dangerous to have the balance of the bike thrown off as you shift your body back and forth to pedal, IMO...

So, if you had the option I would get the variable PAS. Its like $30-50 more than the throttle only (max PAS) but its differentiate worth it and comes with a large LCD display with speedometer ($10) so already worth.
 
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