Comment by analog31

Yes, it's about weight.

Basically as long as it pass safety regulations, manufacturers will aim to make the lightest (and cheapest) parts. That's why they use plastic in low-end bikes and carbon/titanium in high-end ones.

You could put motorbike brakes on a bike, and a set of pads would last you a lifetime. But with so much weight there, the bike would feel unbalanced and hard to handle. So you'll need to put weight elsewhere to find balance. And soon enough, you'll have a bike weighting 50kg. Nobody would want to come near this monstrosity. People legitimately want a bike that they can power with their legs and handle easily when they are not riding.

Keep in mind that a single car tire is heavier than a whole road bike. It necessarily results in less atoms, and faster wearing.

Totally agree with this. eBikes are already too heavy for my tastes.

Having the motor means people don't care about things like slow rolling tyres, heavy finishing kit or the weight of the transmission to handle the extra torque.

That in turn means you need heavier brakes to stop.

Luckily not every bike has to be the same and we can pick and choose as needed. I'd rather have a lighter bike and have to service it once a year (if that) but that's just me.

I think that you got it right, expectations for cylcing are different. Even avid cyclists could never hit the kilometres travelled by your average car user in a year. Being a lot more expensive as well cars need to last longer for the cost benefit math to make sense. If your car broke every in 10,000kms you'd be livid, out of action constantly. If your bike breaks down, you can probably fix it that afternoon if not on the spot. Worst case you can probably walk it the rest of the trip.

That's where the e-bike is crossing barriers a bit. People will ride them much further, and getting the e-drivetrain repaired can be a real time and money sink. So you want it to be reliable, more reliable than the rest of your bike even.

Now that the edit window has passed, I realize that I have to add a correction or a caveat. I realized this when I added a drop of oil to my brakes. The car is "unreliable" too, but comes with expectations for periodic maintenance that replaces those parts. All fluids are unreliable. That might even deserve to be a law of engineering.

In fact, when I add up the time and money spent taking care of the periodic maintenance of my car, which involves driving it to the mechanic's, it's way more than what I would consider to be remotely acceptable for maintaining my bike.

People are quite careful with their cars. People are really not careful with bikes, including e-bikes.

> There must still be a limit to how much size and weight a rider is willing to tolerate.

This is true for bikes, and after decades of marketing and fearmongering, basically the inverse is true for cars.

I'm saying this as a european non car-owner who's never been to the US, but my impression of car brain from over here is that anything that approaches light-weight is seen as a "death trap" by a majority of US drivers, especially because the rest of car users drive cars that literally have the size of WWI tanks.