Six good reasons to change to an electric bike
Now that the spring weather has arrived in the Northern Hemisphere, some of us can reconsider our daily commute. The leading French newspaper Le Figaro has put together six reasons to keep our cars in the garage and switch to an electric bike.
Reason #1: It keeps you fit. Electric bikes don't run on their own and all the pedaling to keep the motor running burns calories as you traverse the miles. According to Hervé Douard, a member of the French Cardiology Federation, such low-strain regular exercise is good for our health. Such activity is claimed to reduce heart problems by 30 percent. However, keep your eyes open when you're riding: bicycle accidents in Paris have raised by 20 percent in the last two years.
Reason #2: It's green. Despite the unavoidable reality that a "regular" bike is actually greener, electric bikes make it easier for more people to switch from fossil-fueled transport to electric drive; to vehicles that use very little electricity on every ride.
See the rest after the jump.
[Source: Le Figaro]
Reason #3: It's affordable. Don't think that a new electric bike will ruin your wallet. You can get a cheap one for €1,000 euros and a reasonably good model for €2,500. Add on the lithium package, for about €450 more, and you likely won't regret it. According to Vélocito, a specialist in electric bikes, your yearly commute on an electric bike will not cost you more than €5 per year in utility charges. Don't forget that you won't need insurance, oil changes or MOT-like checkups.
Reason #4: The Dutch buy about 100,000 electric bikes per year, in a country with a population six times smaller than France. The market is large enough to have a variety of models, from cheap to sporty. French sports apparel chain shop Decathlon is now offering a model at €999. Oh, those of you living in an apartment and/or often take the train, consider a foldable electric bike.
Reason #5: It's really convenient in city traffic. According to most European studies about city mobility, bikes are the fastest means of transportation in cities, right after motorbikes. That's why there are quite a number of courier services that rely on bikes. The French postal service ordered 5,000 units for its inner city deliveries as well.
Reason #6: There are more and more places for you to ride. Did you know that there are more than 40,000 km of bicycle-friendly routes across Europe? We dare you to ride them all. When you're done, check out the similar network in the U.S.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Matt 11:57AM (4/14/2009)
How about an electric bike that doesn't cost $3000+...
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Collin 10:07AM (4/14/2009)
that is the most hideous looking thing I have ever seen, not to mention worst geometry ever. Who thought it was a good idea to put the bottom bracket shell pretty much behind the seat. Buy a real bike.
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KK 10:42AM (4/14/2009)
I agree - this particular electric "bike" is not a good bike. I think it's just an electric scooter, and the only reason the put pedals on the thing is so it qualifies legally as a bicycle.
Gary Ares 11:00AM (4/14/2009)
Just hope the battery never dies, because you'd need to pedal this Quazi-moto with your heels. The good news for the mfgr is what PT Barnum once said....it's sooooo true.
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Gary Ares 11:10AM (4/14/2009)
Oops...missed the point of the article.. Agree, and apologize. Thanks
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meme 12:38PM (4/14/2009)
"Despite the unavoidable reality that a "regular" bike is actually greener,"
Nonsense. Do you realize the ridiculous amount of energy that we blow to produce, process, and transport food, and how inefficient our bodies are at converting food to energy? Meanwhile, electric drive is incredibly efficient.
Electric bicycles are one of the most efficient ways it's humanly possible to travel, short of a hyper-streamlined, super-lightweight enclosed vehicle.
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KK 1:06PM (4/14/2009)
Most people in industrialized nations already eat more than necessary, and don't need to eat any more just to bike a few miles each day.
meme 1:42PM (4/14/2009)
Whether you like it or not, biking burns calories, and burning calories is bad for the environment. Whether you think people eat too much is irrelevant; it's *still* going to burn calories for them to bike. There's a reason you get hungry after exercise. And note that I only covered energy -- there's also the gross waste of land (look at the ridiculous percent of our planet's ecosystems that have been destroyed so we can farm such a huge chunk of the surface), water (the Colorado River no longer reaches the Gulf of California, largely thanks to agriculture, runoff (Mississippi river dead zone, anyone?), erosion, and on and on down the line.
Food is bad. Minimizing food is good.
KK 2:07PM (4/14/2009)
I'm probably being whooshed, but I'll play along...
It *does* matter if we're eating too much; if we are, then it takes no additional food to bike. It just means we'll actually burn the food rather than store it as fat. Or burn it to do something useful (transportation) instead of something unnecessary (exercising in a gym).
Also, bicycling can make you more fit and help you lose weight. If you lose weight, you'd need less food to sustain your body.
And this may be just me, but after I exercise I'm usually in the mood to eat healthy food. That usually means vegetables, grains, fish, maybe some lean meat but not much. A meal like that is also less damaging to the environment than big pieces of fatty meat.
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Collin 3:01PM (4/14/2009)
That debate is designed for the average fat American as an excuse to be lazy. You also burn calories just breathing, so what is the point?
I'm a road cyclist, bike between 160-200 miles a week, and eat between 2000-2500 calories a day, which is equal to or less then what the average american eats. Not to mention, most active people normally tend to avoid red meats, which are worse on the environment then chicken.
Somehow I am going to go out on a limb and say that the diet of a healthy/fit individual is much better for the environment then your average fatty.
Lets wait at a drive through, with your hummer idling, while waiting for your (maybe?) beef extra large triple stack cheese burger, your bucket of fries, and your tall pitcher of cola, while pointing and snickering at the "horrible terrorist who's ruining the environment" while riding past on pollution machine bike on his way to the local Co-op.
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majortom1981 3:13PM (4/14/2009)
I cant bike to work there arent any bicycle lanes or sidewalks for most of my commute. Heck no bus routes either.
I wish i didnt have to drive but i am stuck.
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dhofmann 3:30PM (4/14/2009)
I bought a bicycle in late 2007 in the hopes of commuting the 10 miles to work on it. On my first ride out, I got about a mile from home up a very mild hill (probably only a 1% grade) and dry heaved. Since that depleted me of energy, I turned around and rode back home. Knowing that just wasn't going to work for me, I converted it to electric (a $700 Crystalyte system). On my first commute, I still threw up, but at least I didn't need any energy to make it the rest of the way to work.
A couple of weeks later, I was no longer retching.
A few months later, my legs were no longer tired when I arrived at work. I could even ride a normal bike if I wanted to. I even rode for almost 50 miles one day through rolling hills.
A year later, I've lost an inch or two off the waist, and my body fat has dropped from 20% to 10% according to a skinfold caliper. The $400 battery pack on the electric bike needs replacing, but I really don't need it anymore.
If you have the money, I think the $2000 Giant Twist is a nice e-bike.
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George Krpan 5:05PM (4/14/2009)
Another reason this bike sucks is the wheel size. You'd feel every bump in the road and it would handle squirrelly too.
Why do electric bike makers feel the need to reinvent the bicycle?
Take a regular bike, put on an electric motor, and you're good to go.
It would save a lot on development costs and they wouldn't have to sell it for $3000.
Only a super couch potato would make the argument that bicycles are bad for the environment because they would cause people to eat more.
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PeterG 5:42PM (4/14/2009)
Big fan of e-bikes. I think they are the only affordable propulsion use of batteries at this time.
I only live about 2 kms from work so I walk (I moved for this), but if I lived 15-20kms I would like an ebike. Not because I am out of shape.
But because I don't want to deal with the shower at work, sweaty riding cloths storage in my cube etc.. (been there, done that) Ride in electric in the morning and pedal home...
Say you meeting friends for a movie/dinner, do you want to arrive soaked in sweat???
People are being pretty small minded when the shoot down ebikes saying they are for lazy people. It's like having a slow motorcycle to get you somewhere when you don't want to arrive sweaty, then you can pedal home later.
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Mark Tebbutt 7:01PM (4/14/2009)
Electric bikes are better for negating climate change as the person riding one will not emit as much CO2 as a conventional bike if the bike is charged by electricity from renewables i.e. solar, wind etc. :-)
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Darth Fester 6:04PM (4/15/2009)
I wonder just how 'green' electric bikes are. Most of them still use lead acid batteries that are good for 100-200 charges, with about 10-20 miles per charge.
Based on this, if I replace a car that gets 30 miles to the gallon, I am only saving 75 gallons of Gasoline.
So I wonder what the environmental impact is between 150 gallons of gasoline (including transportation/refining/etc.) is versus the manufacture and recycling of a lead acid battery. Or even worse, just throwing them away in a landfill, which I'm sure most people would do.
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ian in hamburg 12:00PM (5/09/2009)
I guess if you're not in good shape or unathletic an electric bike would be an option, but they look so heavy to me, and absolutely no fun. Why not ride a real bike and enjoy the feeling of unencumbered motion?
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