MEATengines 2022...

Posted by: Vikb

OTOH watching the people give up mobility/capabilities and become more motor dependent is sad and as is the environmental impact of the switch to e-bikes from bicycles.

I'm afraid this has been a lost cause since well before e-bikes entered the stage. Rarely saw anyone else taking the stairs in the 10 years in our apartment building in North Van. Just last week as we where walking back and forth bringing flattened moving boxes to the recycling container in our new building's parking lot, we saw another lady standing by the door with a stack of cardboard, she told us she was waiting for her husband to take the car out of the underground parking so they could drive to the recycling container, lol.

Posted by: [email protected]

I'm afraid this has been a lost cause since well before e-bikes entered the stage. 

Intellectually I know this ^^^, but emotionally I can't help my reaction.

2 rides in the past week and 2 negative run ins with ebikers. I was climbing up Jack's one evening earlier in the week, which some will know is a heavily used climb/two-way multi-use trail, and 2 jocky broped-ers sprinting down the trail almost cleaned me out on a blindish corner, skidding to an uncontrolled stop just in front of me. Then Saturday afternoon I was 2/3s of the way up Into the Mystic thinking about how nice it was I had only seen one other rider on the climb when I was jolted out of my thoughts by a mixed boomer group descending some low vis sections with basically zero etiquette, no yield, barely slowed down, almost ran me off the trail and of course half of them (the men) were on boomer scooters.  The lack of etiquette generally, especially whilst e-poaching, is pretty disappointing, though it isn't particularly unique to ebikes these days as we just generally seem to have created a self absorbed society. More than anything it's just made me seek out less high traffic areas and trails, and a lot more solo riding in those places, although that's always getting harder too with the people blowing up down low trails and areas on social media and strava and the sort.

Boomer scooters. Lol. 

My retired neighbour has one he’s always loading on the back of his Mustang.

Posted by: AndrewMajor

Posted by: Vikb

OTOH watching the people give up mobility/capabilities and become more motor dependent is sad and as is the environmental impact of the switch to e-bikes from bicycles.

It would be interesting to know how stats skew in terms of replacing car trips with e-bikes versus bicycle trips with e-bikes. Certainly, I know a lot of the latter personally, but that also speaks to my bias so it may be I'm looking to those stories. 

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My positive micro-campaign with family, friends, or neighbours who ask me about buying a blender is always to look at their plans for it. 90% of the time looking at their goals they'd be fully capable either right away, or with a little bit of training, of doing their planned riding under their own steam. 

The advantages of making that choice are epic. A significantly better bicycle for less money upfront and long-term. With proper care, it can last forever. Nothing to charge. Significantly less to go wrong. Sense of personal accomplishment. Building fitness while traveling places that can then positively impact everything you do. 

For folks riding to work, like my wife, the net time savings actually aren't that great either, even ignoring faffing with the charging setup and making up the lost exercise time (shorter ride / less effort). The e-bike doesn't cut down on time packing, changing, showering, etc. A commuter e-bike would shave an average of 30-minutes a day total, which is currently spent getting exercise.

Which goes back to my last post. Better to be selling what's rad about cycling instead of what sucks about battery-powered-everything.

Interesting, when it comes to the showering and clothing issue, we’ve had the opposite experience: the ebike eliminated this as an issue. For my wife, she can step off her ebike and walk into court, with a regular bike a shower and outfit change was always required. In her case, this is the one aspect of her commute that was keeping her on the bus/car and she’s much happier bikin, motorized or otherwise.

Thanks Andrew for sharing the "my people" sentiment a few pages back, I needed to hear that!

Posted by: silverbansheebike

Thanks Andrew for sharing the "my people" sentiment a few pages back, I needed to hear that!

Cheers,

One of my hobbies these days is reminding myself to be grateful for all I have. One of those things is all my old school mountain bike friends, including the ones I haven’t met yet.

Posted by: tashi

Interesting, when it comes to the showering and clothing issue, we’ve had the opposite experience: the ebike eliminated this as an issue. For my wife, she can step off her ebike and walk into court, with a regular bike a shower and outfit change was always required. In her case, this is the one aspect of her commute that was keeping her on the bus/car and she’s much happier bikin, motorized or otherwise.

I guess it depends on life habits and the facilities that work makes available. Almost all of my ‘professional’ friends who regularly cycle commute have shower facilities at work, as does my wife, so it’s a case of showering and getting changed when they get there. To the best of my knowledge none of them, including the e-bikers, commutes in their work clothes but I can see where that could save time for some folks if it works for them.

Anyway, I should clarify that my musings about time savings aside, my wife would still be pedaling herself to work if there was more time to be saved than the ~30minutes per day in our case. She loves the before/after work exercise. 

It’s also up to everyone to make their own best decision. I just get asked for my advice a lot and in the majority of cases I think riding a bicycle is the winning choice.

Worst injury in a long time happened at home. Not taking any chances these days.

I commute and don't change out of my riding clothes - I change t-shirts tho as they tend to get a bit windy.  Post Covid London seems to have accepted cycling and associated clothing.  Plus I'm now too old to care (plus it helps being self employed).

... including the ones I haven’t met yet.

The Shore / BC is definitely on my bucket list.  Hopefully one day I'll make it.

Posted by: fartymarty

... including the ones I haven’t met yet.

The Shore / BC is definitely on my bucket list.  Hopefully one day I'll make it.

There’s almost no bad time of year to come. In summer it’s beautiful here and in the spring, fall, and most the winter you increase the possibility of lucking into a proper North Shore riding  experience with greasy rocks and roots and sideways rain!

Posted by: Vikb

Worst injury in a long time happened at home. Not taking any chances these days.

You have some steel-toed flip-flops too?!

Posted by: AndrewMajor

You have some steel-toed flip-flops too?!

If I had just been wearing my "safety" crocs in the kitchen I'd be riding my bike right now! A full face for my feet!