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[–] 4 points 2 months ago (11 children)

It might require you to buy a kit and modify the bike yourself, but cops can't tell how many watts a motor makes by looking at it, nor are they likely to notice you're twisting the throttle to modulate speed.

Its not uncommon for kids in China to illegally modify emopeds so they do absurd speeds but look normal, presumably similar kits for ebicycles are on aliexpress.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (10 children)

    The police here have test systems that measure the power of the bike, if it’s over 250w, can go over 15mph etc. The bike gets crushed.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago (6 children)

    How do the test systems work? Surely theres a way to beat them or just don't get caught.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (5 children)

    Not really - unless you have a known model with the correct stickers your bike gets fully tested and searched top to bottom for test defeat devices.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (4 children)

    So you buy a known model with the correct stickers and switch out the motor and related circuits. If they're anything like bore-swaps, the motor will have the same case and say 250W on it.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (3 children)

    They still put the known models on a dyno, so you do all that work and spend all that money and it still gets crushed.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    When? Also it's probably not hard to have a setting to only use 250 watts of power. Illegally modified ebikes and emopeds are a thing everywhere, do you think the UK is uniquely effective at combating them?

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    All the details here: they just stop people randomly in the street and test them. https://youtu.be/XcFuN2fitOU

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

    Holy shit I forgot how much british news loves its fascism.

    But yeah, it shouldn't be too hard to put together a bike that can beat the tests, but it might require some creativity, such as setting up the phone holder to disengage the >250W circuit, so you can take your phone, hand the bike to the pig, and it will pass the test.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    The bike gets crushed.

    Hmm, this really reminds me of the book "1984" by George Orwell. No, I have not read it, but imagine it's that.

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