With ebikes the range becomes less of an issue, and the cost is low. Cars with expensive maintenance and high travel and parking costs (after looking for a spot). Your bike you just chuck in front of the store.
Bike bags and good clothing and you can easily travel the city while getting in some exercise.
Added, cities become cheaper in maintenance and way prettier and fun to live in.
This is true even in the states. I bought an electric scooter and sold my car a year ago and haven’t looked back. The more I ride, the more people I see doing the same. The only downsides are weather and dodging cars.
The dodging cars can be resolved by the Council making actual protected bike lanes. Not a bicycle gutter, if they strip a lane of a stroad on each side it can be replaced with a wider pavement, bike lane, grass strip with trees… Safety, shade, nature…epic win for everyone.
Road - parking - green buffer - bike lane - sidewalk - stores.
Where there is parking the green buffer is narrow and where there is no parking the green buffer is wide. Alternatively the parking is covered by PV panels.
Then the road would be much more narrow and drivers would find it harder to fit their ever larger penile-compensation vehicles in it, not to mention their egos!
To a point. If you are the only rider, your risk of dying is very high, because no one around is expecting it. Sometimes the right choice is to keep driving until the infrastructure finally makes things safe.
That is exactly the foresight our planners luckily had in the Netherlands. Build it and they will come. Now after more than 50 years of adding on the infrastructure is so accommodating.
This is a valid point. People indeed aren’t looking out for unusual vehicles going 20mph.
It’s the same reason motorcycle lane splitting works fine in California but would be a disaster in say Florida. People aren’t expecting it.
I think it’s inevitable though that more and more people will be using electric bikes/scooters in the coming years simply because people can no longer afford cars.
A decent E-Bike costs at least 3k Euro, and they get stolen. Not if, when. I say: use your legs. It’s healthy. And that tells you a fat German (who loves and uses his bicycle - which was btw stolen last week)
Wouldn’t 3k Euro be essentially the luxury sedan of ebikes? My first was a class 1 aimed at tourist rentals that cost around $1.5k CAD ($1k Euro). I considered that entry level at the time, though there are cheaper ones out there now. My current one is a $2.5k CAD ($1.7k Euro) class 2. It is pretty much everything I could want in a bike. I can’t see myself spending more. Well, maybe a cargo model would cost more?
I get what you’re saying about theft though. I am lucky in that I have indoor parking both at home and work. A coworker of mine lives in a condo where he can’t park a bike indoors. So while it was thankfully never stolen, he was sufficiently nervous about it that he eventually sold his and replaced it with an escooter.
Decent is less, used is fine too and less than 1000. For 3k you get a proper bike, new. And with ebikes you can consistently move at 20+kph. So further away becomes feasible for many. Especially on the commute. But you do you. Non ebikes are great too especially an old bike if you have to park it publicly cause theft is an issue.
bought my ebike a year ago for 600 usd, lock it up in a good place and its jist as likely to get stolen as anything else. i wouldnt be cycling to work daily if i had to push my bags up the hills to work, the motor helps my little legs get stronger without killing my motivation
I’ve lived and worked in several large european cities, commuting in most of them by bicyle, and the most I ever spent on a commuting bicyle was €250 and generally it was more like €100 because I usually bought them used.
Finding a cheap bicycle was definitelly easier in The Netherlands, but I also got some nice cheap second-hand ones in London and Berlin.
Absolutelly, those things get stollen (which is why you get a lock, but even then, all it takes is a mistake and it’s likelly you’ll never see that bicycle again), which is why you don’t pony up for a brand new carbon fibre bicycle for commuting unless you’re planning on making a big involuntary charitable donation to a random bicycle thief.
I’m not even against you advice to walk - were I am it’s quite dangerous to cycle (here in Portugal drivers are some of the worst in Europe) plus I live in a small city nowadays, so unlike most people here I refuse to buy a car and mainly walk - it’s just that human-powered cycling is a more natural alternative to E-Bikes than walking in places were drivers aren’t quite as bad.
It’s almost like most people will just use whatever is most convenient to get around, regardless of what exactly that is.
With ebikes the range becomes less of an issue, and the cost is low. Cars with expensive maintenance and high travel and parking costs (after looking for a spot). Your bike you just chuck in front of the store.
Bike bags and good clothing and you can easily travel the city while getting in some exercise.
Added, cities become cheaper in maintenance and way prettier and fun to live in.
This is true even in the states. I bought an electric scooter and sold my car a year ago and haven’t looked back. The more I ride, the more people I see doing the same. The only downsides are weather and dodging cars.
The dodging cars can be resolved by the Council making actual protected bike lanes. Not a bicycle gutter, if they strip a lane of a stroad on each side it can be replaced with a wider pavement, bike lane, grass strip with trees… Safety, shade, nature…epic win for everyone.
Yeah, but then were would the drivers park?
Why doesn’t anybody think of the poor drivers???! /s
Road - parking - green buffer - bike lane - sidewalk - stores.
Where there is parking the green buffer is narrow and where there is no parking the green buffer is wide. Alternatively the parking is covered by PV panels.
But, but, but …
Then the road would be much more narrow and drivers would find it harder to fit their ever larger penile-compensation vehicles in it, not to mention their egos!
To a point. If you are the only rider, your risk of dying is very high, because no one around is expecting it. Sometimes the right choice is to keep driving until the infrastructure finally makes things safe.
That is exactly the foresight our planners luckily had in the Netherlands. Build it and they will come. Now after more than 50 years of adding on the infrastructure is so accommodating.
This is a valid point. People indeed aren’t looking out for unusual vehicles going 20mph. It’s the same reason motorcycle lane splitting works fine in California but would be a disaster in say Florida. People aren’t expecting it.
I think it’s inevitable though that more and more people will be using electric bikes/scooters in the coming years simply because people can no longer afford cars.
A decent E-Bike costs at least 3k Euro, and they get stolen. Not if, when. I say: use your legs. It’s healthy. And that tells you a fat German (who loves and uses his bicycle - which was btw stolen last week)
Wouldn’t 3k Euro be essentially the luxury sedan of ebikes? My first was a class 1 aimed at tourist rentals that cost around $1.5k CAD ($1k Euro). I considered that entry level at the time, though there are cheaper ones out there now. My current one is a $2.5k CAD ($1.7k Euro) class 2. It is pretty much everything I could want in a bike. I can’t see myself spending more. Well, maybe a cargo model would cost more?
I get what you’re saying about theft though. I am lucky in that I have indoor parking both at home and work. A coworker of mine lives in a condo where he can’t park a bike indoors. So while it was thankfully never stolen, he was sufficiently nervous about it that he eventually sold his and replaced it with an escooter.
A Moma 26 is a pretty good ebike with 70km range, you can pick one up brand new for 1K. OP is possibly a bike snob ;)
You can also convert a normal bike for less than €500, and it’s incredibly easy
Source? Doesn’t sound that easy
Front wheel drive. Change the front wheel for an electric one, it’s the same as fitting a normal wheel, takes less than 30 seconds.
The controller box is hung in a bag, anywhere on the frame.
The batteries come in multiple fitting types; frame, seatpost, luggage rack
The rest is cable ties
I’ve done one in less than an hour, but to do it tidily takes about 4
Source - Me. Been doing it since the pandemic when it really took off
Interesting. Got any product links?
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ebike+conversion+kit
Here you go. Don’t forget to update us with the results of your research.
A decent E-Bike in Germany costs 3k€ and up. Luxury ones start at 5k€.
I don’t get the anti ebike stance.
Decent is less, used is fine too and less than 1000. For 3k you get a proper bike, new. And with ebikes you can consistently move at 20+kph. So further away becomes feasible for many. Especially on the commute. But you do you. Non ebikes are great too especially an old bike if you have to park it publicly cause theft is an issue.
bought my ebike a year ago for 600 usd, lock it up in a good place and its jist as likely to get stolen as anything else. i wouldnt be cycling to work daily if i had to push my bags up the hills to work, the motor helps my little legs get stronger without killing my motivation
Why not a normal bike then?
I’ve lived and worked in several large european cities, commuting in most of them by bicyle, and the most I ever spent on a commuting bicyle was €250 and generally it was more like €100 because I usually bought them used.
Finding a cheap bicycle was definitelly easier in The Netherlands, but I also got some nice cheap second-hand ones in London and Berlin.
Absolutelly, those things get stollen (which is why you get a lock, but even then, all it takes is a mistake and it’s likelly you’ll never see that bicycle again), which is why you don’t pony up for a brand new carbon fibre bicycle for commuting unless you’re planning on making a big involuntary charitable donation to a random bicycle thief.
I’m not even against you advice to walk - were I am it’s quite dangerous to cycle (here in Portugal drivers are some of the worst in Europe) plus I live in a small city nowadays, so unlike most people here I refuse to buy a car and mainly walk - it’s just that human-powered cycling is a more natural alternative to E-Bikes than walking in places were drivers aren’t quite as bad.
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I’d definitely use rail and cycling over driving even if it was less convenient. The problem is most of the time it is impossible or dangerous.
I’m taking the bus to work at the moment because it is more enjoyable that driving eventhough I have to walk 5 minutes each end and it takes longer.