Edit: mittens pop bike repair will be out tomorrow to fix it! They have the spike in stock, and I added on some extra work that I been meaning to get done.

Tip over yesterday, standing still. Not going to ride it till it’s fixed cuz I know never ride on anything broken.

This is rear wheel I can hear the nut inside the wheel,
I thought it was my hub motor.

Bike is VELOTRIC discover 2

Will most bike shops fix this or is it a wheel replacement or since it’s an ebike do I have to take it to one of those ebike shops,

I could hike up to Washington’s crossings to where I bought it but I think they are just sales.

https://share.inquirer.com/DxiCjT

I got good sleep last night, good breakfast this morning, and I finally feel motivated, the air quality is fine, and it's not murderously hot out. I wanna cast my cares to the wind and get a good 25-35 mile ride in, out and back any direction.

If you have a cool route you're into please let me know. Open to peeping at amenities along the way, have lock, love 2 shop.

Gonna charge my phone up to 100, and throw strava on and rock out to the unfinished versions of the Lorde tracks off Virgin that's about an hour and a half of music to start me off.

If I don't get any suggestions by the time my phone is full charge, I probably will hit the SRT up to the manayunk canal towpath, but idrk what I'd do from there lol. Route planning not my strong suit. I wanna get more long rides in in the next 3 weeks though in preparation for Citywide!!!

EDIT: I'm running a 650b rigid cross frame with 48c tubed gravelking SS front tire 42c tubeless WTB Resolute rear, I can do stairs, I can do mountain style trails I mostly ride road but my setup is versatile and capable so don't hold back with recommendations

Someone stole my bike while I was at work. It was parked on Penn campus near 38 and spruce. Lemme know if you see my precious baby 😭

friend sent me this on their commute home yesterday

I've got an appointment at HUP tomorrow (3400 Civic Center Blvd). Where's the best place around there to lock up?

I have a dream of riding to a lake or some other body of water for a swim this summer. Any ideas? Could involve a train ride as part of it, but ideally not! And ideally not much more than 20 miles of biking altogether. I live in West. Thanks community!

After my bike got stolen last year I started using Indego. At first I thought of it as a stop-gap until I could get a new bike, but I've just kept using it as it's very convenient and there are docks almost everywhere I need to go. Lately though I feel like there's been a big uptick in the following issues:

• No classic bike availability (this one's been talked about to death, I know)
• Entire stations full of dead e-bikes
• E-bikes that malfunction/turn on and off while riding
• This one I keep getting burned by. You can look in the app to see how many docks are available at each station. Last night when I was biking back from Center City, the app showed available docks at both of the stations near my house. Neither one of them had a single free dock, so I wasted time riding around and around to find a place to return my bike. I never experienced this before the last few weeks.
• Inaccurate e-bike charge levels in the app. A bike that shows a full charge in the app might actually be dead or have a single bar left.
• Poor balancing - some stations are completely full while others are virtually empty

All in all I'm really glad Indego exists and don't plan on canceling anytime soon. I just wish it took itself a little bit more seriously!

I recently moved back to Philly, and while I'm not new to biking the Wiss., the Valley Green Rd. bridge near the Inn (and its signage) is new to me.

Is it just me, or is the bridge signage - or lack thereof - really confusing? If you're coming from Forbidden Dr. or the White trail, there's no signage at the bridge entrance. The first trail marker is at the other end of the bridge, with a bike symbol (no slash), suggesting bikes are allowed. But that same marker also has a no bikes symbol pointing back toward the bridge, and the opposite side has another no bikes symbol.

What am I missing? Can someone make it make sense?

I'm a mountain biker too, but c'mon, man. This was about riding through a 600+ person trail race in the Wissahickon. Nobody's saying we have to park the bikes when an event is going on, but maybe don't treat a race like your personal skills park. A little common sense goes a long way.

Just sharing this here from the @criticalmassphilly Instagram page. "Every Last Friday of the month. Meet at 5:30pm, roll out at 6pm, north side of City Hall"

but all the construction workers park in the bike lanes 🫠 cover their plates up with high vis vests to evade reporting 🫠 I love it

does PA's "motor alone" ebike language actually cover pedal assist above 20 mph, or just throttle-only

Trying to nail down exactly what Pennsylvania's ebike law does and doesn't prohibit, and I think the wording leaves more open than people assume.

The statute caps speed at 20 mph "on motor power alone" on level ground. That phrase is doing a lot of work. If I'm pedaling and the motor is assisting, is the motor operating "alone," or am I contributing to that speed too. A defense reading of the plain text could argue that "alone" means solely motor-generated, without any pedaling input, so pedal assist above 20 mph on level ground wouldn't fall under that specific prohibition since the motor isn't acting by itself.

The counterargument, and probably the one a prosecutor would raise, is that the law means the motor is capable of contributing to speeds over 20 mph regardless of whether you're also pedaling, and that pedaling alongside it doesn't exempt you. Traffic court doesn't have room to weigh intent or interpretation freely, it has to apply the statute's literal wording, so it could easily side with that reading. If that happens, an appeal would be the path to actually get a higher court to address whether the prosecutor's interpretation only accounted for two words of the sentence rather than the full sense of it. That doesn't guarantee a win, but it's the mechanism for resolving the ambiguity for real.

Same open question applies to the downhill scenario. The statute specifies "level ground," and doesn't mention grade at all. Silence on downhill use doesn't mean it's automatically legal either. It just means that specific case isn't addressed in the text.

So the two questions I keep coming back to: is pedal assisting above 20 mph on level ground illegal under this law, and is throttle or motor assist above 20 mph on a downhill grade illegal. Neither seems clearly answered by the statute as written, and I'm curious if anyone here has run into a citation, a court case, or has more insight into how PA traffic courts actually interpret this.

EDIT: One more thing I want to ask. My understanding is that using public roads is a privilege, not a constitutional right, which means the government has fairly wide latitude to regulate how ebikes and cyclists use them. If that's true, does that mean courts are more likely to read ambiguous language, like "motor alone" or "level ground," in favor of the state, since there's no competing constitutional right in play. Curious if anyone with legal background can speak to how that privilege versus right distinction actually plays out for ebike and cycling cases.

https://share.inquirer.com/V3TyEz

This Sunday! Come show your support for Barb's family and safer streets!

before anyone jumps on this: i'm not saying ebikes should be banned or that riders are doing anything malicious. i ride one every day for work. this is about what the actual PA statute says, not my opinion on whether it's a good law.

did some digging this week and it turns out a lot of the ebikes rolling around philly, mine included, don't actually meet pennsylvania's legal definition of a bicycle. PA doesn't use the class 1/2/3 system most other states use. we have one single definition under Act 154 of 2014 (75 Pa.C.S. §102): motor 750 watts or less, bike under 100 lbs, capped at 20 mph on motor power alone, and working pedals. there's no class 3 in this state at all, period.

if a bike goes over on any one of those specs, it's not legally a bicycle anymore, it becomes a motor-driven cycle, which already requires a license, registration, and insurance under existing law. that's the part that matters most to me: we don't need brand new ebike laws in PA. the framework for dealing with non-compliant bikes already exists, it's just not enforced or widely known.

if you do get pulled over on a bike that's out of spec, traffic court has almost zero discretion. they're bound to the plain text of the statute, so if the bike doesn't meet the four criteria, you lose. appealing to a higher court gives you more room to argue, but it's a real long shot, not a guaranteed win.

not trying to scare anyone off riding. just think more of us should actually know the law before we're stuck arguing with a cop or a judge about it.

I was looking for another ride this weekend if the weather holds out. From Center City, I was considering heading west on Walnut Street, riding the Cobbs Creek Trail and back on Chestnut Street? A few questions - how is the Cobbs Creek trail after Saturday’s storms? Is there another way to get through West/Southwest Philly to Grays Ferry Avenue to cross that bridge and get back on the SRT? How safe is Chestnut and Walnut Streets in West Philadelphia? Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

I was riding thru town and my front wheel got jammed up in the trolly tracks and I collided with a parked vehicle and caused some minor damage to the side mirror and paint)

I was bleeding pretty bad (fine now, just some scrapes) so I left my phone number on their windshield and went home.

Anyone have any experience with stuff like this? Any idea of what may happen next?