this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2025
34 points (97.2% liked)

Australia

4675 readers
279 users here now

A place to discuss Australia and important Australian issues.

Before you post:

If you're posting anything related to:

If you're posting Australian News (not opinion or discussion pieces) post it to Australian News

Rules

This community is run under the rules of aussie.zone. In addition to those rules:

Banner Photo

Congratulations to @Tau@aussie.zone who had the most upvoted submission to our banner photo competition

Recommended and Related Communities

Be sure to check out and subscribe to our related communities on aussie.zone:

Plus other communities for sport and major cities.

https://aussie.zone/communities

Moderation

Since Kbin doesn't show Lemmy Moderators, I'll list them here. Also note that Kbin does not distinguish moderator comments.

Additionally, we have our instance admins: @lodion@aussie.zone and @Nath@aussie.zone

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
lodion@aussie.zone
bestusername@aussie.zone
eatham@aussie.zone
Nath@aussie.zone
34
E-bike rules in Australia will soon change with possible ban on sale of bikes faster than 25km/h (www.brisbanetimes.com.au)
submitted 3 weeks ago by Zagorath@aussie.zone to c/australia@aussie.zone
47 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Archive/non-paywall link.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] sem@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Where I live in USA, 25kph is equivalent to 18mph, and almost fast enough to match typical car speeds on neighborhood roads. But I wouldn't want to go much faster because unlike bikes, scooters are inherently unstable.

I don't ride a bike much any more bc of back pain, bit I do use a scooter with no pedal assist, and even at 500W it slows to about 10 mph going up 15° hills right outside my front door.

I'm no engineer, but in the cold weather, the scooter is even less powerful.

I like being able to avoid using a car for most trips, but I could not do that with a bike bc of the pain, and 250 W cannot get me up hills w/o pedal assist.

In hindsight I should have testridden more scooters and foynd one with ergonomics that allowed riding it more like a kick scooter. My current one has the battery under the deck which is great for center of gravity, but makes it dangerous to kick-push.

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I'm gonna assume you meant 15% hills? 15° isn't very much!

Anyway, the regulations around PMDs are different from ebikes. There aren't power requirements, I believe, only speed ones. But it's not an area I know much about because I've never really cared much about it.

[–] sem@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Thanks! I am not sure how hills are measured! I just know the one right around me is between 15 and 20, and causes the scooter to slow from 18.6 mph top speed down to 10 or so.

Don't use this info to calculate my weight lol.

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I was wrong in my previous comment, because I accidentally used a calculator that did percentages wrong (it converted percentages of a circle, but in measuring grade, percent is rise over run (or height over width, if you imagine it as a right-angled triangle—you can take the tangent of the angle to get the grade). So 100% would be 45°.

So 15° is actually just under 27%.

The steepest hill in my city is 31%, so that's not outside the realm of possibility. But it is very, very extreme. Heck, even 15% is an extremely steep climb. An extremely steep popular climb near me averages out to less than 9%. It gets decent stretches which probably average to 12%, and those are exhausting to get up.

[–] sem@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 points 3 days ago

Hmm well my hill is not close to a 9% grade, itis less steep than that. There are some popular cycling training hills near me and it is less steep than that. I suppose I could calculate the slope from rise/run but I will just say it is a moderately steep Hill the kind you might walk up as a kid but as an adult you can downshift on a bike.