Hi! I'm your host for this blog, and I love electric-assist bicycles, aka e-bikes. By now, you've probably heard about these newfangled contraptions. Maybe you've read the "scourge of illegal e-bikes driven by reckless restaurant delivery workers" in New York City. Maybe you live in the Five Boroughs and you've seen these bikes yourself; on the Hudson River Greenway, or zipping through a Manhattan bike lane. Maybe you have nothing to do with New York City, but you've heard e-bikes are a great way to stay active as you age. Or maybe you saw an e-bike on display on your last trip to Costco. There are almost as many experiences with and opinions of e-bikes as there are people.
E-bikes hold tremendous promise for personal mobility, while addressing some vexing issues of traffic, cost and pollution that currently plague our transportation. They are cheap and lightweight, and they cut through traffic easily --- all while getting using the electrical equivalent of about 0.13 l/100 km (1800 mpg), or less than 1/10th of the energy of an electric car.
Unfortunately, E-bikes are currently illegal to operate in New York State (outside of New York City), simply because the relevant laws were written before the invention of the e-bike. But that has not stopped the adoption of such a promising technology. It is therefore important that we figure out, and agree upon, how best to regulate this new technology. Is it a bicycle? A moped? A motorcycle? Should licensing and insurance be required? Should riders be required to wear helmets? Should e-bikes be allowed to use bike lanes? How fast should they go? Are throttles dangerous? These and more are all questions our lawmakers must grapple with as they debate and craft updated e-bike legislation. Unfortunately there also a lot of misconceptions about e-bikes, largely because most people have little experience with them; and that does not help as we try to answer these important questions.
The purpose of this blog is to increase understanding by sharing my thoughts and experiences with e-bikes, seen primarily as a form of transportation. I have been bicycling for transportation all my life. Growing up in New Haven, I found a bicycle gave me freedom to go wherever I wanted, as young as the age of 13. As I grew into adulthood and moved to Boston and later NY/NJ, I never stopped bicycling for transportation --- bikes are cheap, fun, easy to park, and not subject to traffic jams. I was always happy commuting on my bicycle, up to about 8km (5 mi) in Boston.
But then came the kid. The first inkling of a problem was when I did the Hub on Wheels 40 miles bike tour in Boston --- with the baby on my back! We both enjoyed the tour; however, I was so exhausted, I didn't want to bike again for a full week!
A year later, I was living in Jersey City and needed to take care of our toddler during the week --- alone --- while holding down a full-time job. I didn't want to buy a car just to bang around Jersey City a few km here or there; but it was also clear my touring bike wasn't up to the task. I remember loading it up with panniers and groceries at the supermarket, and feeling the frame flex and creak beneath me; that was before I added the kid on my back. Clearly, I needed something more substantial. E-bikes were a new thing at the time (2009), and I dove in and bought one. This would allow me to buy groceries, get the kid to school and get to work, all with relative ease and efficiency. It worked beautifully for my lifestyle at the time.
My life has changed a number of times in the eight years since; but in every situation, I have found my e-bike to be indispensable, especially to avoid buying a second car. I am now on my third e-bike, I live in Westchester County, and I commute 25-40 km (15-25 miles; 50-75 minutes) to work in Manhattan. Rain or shine, hot or cold, I'm out there on my e-bike. Surely I qualify as an "extreme e-bike commuter."
I love my e-bike, just like most Americans love their car: I love the freedom it gives me, I expect it to get me from point A to point B reliably, I feed it electrons, I expect someone else to fix it for me --- and otherwise I forget about it. My commute is already too long, although no longer than driving or taking the train; but by manual bike it would be 90-120 exhausting minutes. I couldn't do that every day. Like any New Yorker, I prefer the express over the local, and I feel it is my G-d-given right to get home faster rather than slower. Of course I'm going to use an e-bike: it is the fastest, safest, cheapest and most reliable way to get around. Cruising along the Hudson River watching the ever-changing scenery of wind, water, waves, animals and clouds is also more pleasant than squeezing onto a NYC subway train only to discover that it's delayed --- again --- because of a track fire, or police action, or a disabled train, or a disabled passenger, or "train traffic ahead," or maybe just because the god of transit is angry at New York today.
Most importantly, I never ride my e-bike for fun. In my free time I prefer other activities, dance in particular. We all have our limits; energy spent e-biking is energy not spent dancing. On the rare occasion I feel like biking for fun, I prefer my folding Brompton. It feels simpler, more "at one" with the experience of bicycling. I like to slow down, enjoy the space through I'm moving at less than the prescribed 34 km/h (20 mph) of an e-bike.
So there it is, I hope you join me on the Zen of E-Bike. I will write on a number of topics related to the experience of e-bike commuting; and when I'm done writing about these topics, I will stop and get back to dancing. E-bike commuting is mostly mundane and in many ways not so different from commuting on any bicycle; but it is also subtly different from manual bike commuting. I hope to give color to those differences; color that will help you, the reader, reach informed conclusions about e-bikes and their place in our society. But the conversation is not one way; please feel free to add constructive comments.
E-bikes hold tremendous promise for personal mobility, while addressing some vexing issues of traffic, cost and pollution that currently plague our transportation. They are cheap and lightweight, and they cut through traffic easily --- all while getting using the electrical equivalent of about 0.13 l/100 km (1800 mpg), or less than 1/10th of the energy of an electric car.
Unfortunately, E-bikes are currently illegal to operate in New York State (outside of New York City), simply because the relevant laws were written before the invention of the e-bike. But that has not stopped the adoption of such a promising technology. It is therefore important that we figure out, and agree upon, how best to regulate this new technology. Is it a bicycle? A moped? A motorcycle? Should licensing and insurance be required? Should riders be required to wear helmets? Should e-bikes be allowed to use bike lanes? How fast should they go? Are throttles dangerous? These and more are all questions our lawmakers must grapple with as they debate and craft updated e-bike legislation. Unfortunately there also a lot of misconceptions about e-bikes, largely because most people have little experience with them; and that does not help as we try to answer these important questions.
But then came the kid. The first inkling of a problem was when I did the Hub on Wheels 40 miles bike tour in Boston --- with the baby on my back! We both enjoyed the tour; however, I was so exhausted, I didn't want to bike again for a full week!
A year later, I was living in Jersey City and needed to take care of our toddler during the week --- alone --- while holding down a full-time job. I didn't want to buy a car just to bang around Jersey City a few km here or there; but it was also clear my touring bike wasn't up to the task. I remember loading it up with panniers and groceries at the supermarket, and feeling the frame flex and creak beneath me; that was before I added the kid on my back. Clearly, I needed something more substantial. E-bikes were a new thing at the time (2009), and I dove in and bought one. This would allow me to buy groceries, get the kid to school and get to work, all with relative ease and efficiency. It worked beautifully for my lifestyle at the time.
My life has changed a number of times in the eight years since; but in every situation, I have found my e-bike to be indispensable, especially to avoid buying a second car. I am now on my third e-bike, I live in Westchester County, and I commute 25-40 km (15-25 miles; 50-75 minutes) to work in Manhattan. Rain or shine, hot or cold, I'm out there on my e-bike. Surely I qualify as an "extreme e-bike commuter."
I love my e-bike, just like most Americans love their car: I love the freedom it gives me, I expect it to get me from point A to point B reliably, I feed it electrons, I expect someone else to fix it for me --- and otherwise I forget about it. My commute is already too long, although no longer than driving or taking the train; but by manual bike it would be 90-120 exhausting minutes. I couldn't do that every day. Like any New Yorker, I prefer the express over the local, and I feel it is my G-d-given right to get home faster rather than slower. Of course I'm going to use an e-bike: it is the fastest, safest, cheapest and most reliable way to get around. Cruising along the Hudson River watching the ever-changing scenery of wind, water, waves, animals and clouds is also more pleasant than squeezing onto a NYC subway train only to discover that it's delayed --- again --- because of a track fire, or police action, or a disabled train, or a disabled passenger, or "train traffic ahead," or maybe just because the god of transit is angry at New York today.
Most importantly, I never ride my e-bike for fun. In my free time I prefer other activities, dance in particular. We all have our limits; energy spent e-biking is energy not spent dancing. On the rare occasion I feel like biking for fun, I prefer my folding Brompton. It feels simpler, more "at one" with the experience of bicycling. I like to slow down, enjoy the space through I'm moving at less than the prescribed 34 km/h (20 mph) of an e-bike.
So there it is, I hope you join me on the Zen of E-Bike. I will write on a number of topics related to the experience of e-bike commuting; and when I'm done writing about these topics, I will stop and get back to dancing. E-bike commuting is mostly mundane and in many ways not so different from commuting on any bicycle; but it is also subtly different from manual bike commuting. I hope to give color to those differences; color that will help you, the reader, reach informed conclusions about e-bikes and their place in our society. But the conversation is not one way; please feel free to add constructive comments.
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