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.
------
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.