After seeing a movie Saturday afternoon, my wife and I were headed home. Sitting at the corner of San Antonio and Cesar Chavez an electric bike “zoomed” by headed west. My wife commented that the person wasn’t pedaling. I explained to her that it was an electric assist bicycle. I described the various kinds and then when on to explain how we can’t allow the gasoline ones at Yellow Bike and we discourage the electric ones. She understood about the gasoline ones–safety. She wasn’t clear on the electric versions. Told her it was mostly philosophical but also we don’t have a lot of experience working on them.
At some point in the conversation she said:
If I rode a bike, I would pedal.
I think I just fell in love again.
When I started riding a bike to cut gas costs last year, I got an electric bike. My reasoning was that it was too warm in the morning to bike to work (and it still is). I always pedaled along and rode a normal bike on the weekends. After 6 or 8 months I got a road bike and with the conditioning from pedaling along with the electric, I was able to use the road bike a couple times a week. After a couple months of that I weaned myself off the electric almost entirely.
The way I look at it, we should encourage people to use electrics who think biking is too hard or slow. Riding an electric is easier than walking. Get as many people as possible onto whatever bike you can is still better than a car.
I guess I at least did pedal all the time, like your wife would. :-p
I won an electric bike (pedal-assist, no throttle), and promptly re-gifted it to my partner, who loves the cruiser-style, step-through frame. Don’t think I would ever buy another one, but it gets her riding, which is all I ask.
As for the mechanics of it, aside from the battery and hub, most of it it pretty standard (it still has a triple chainring, and 8 gear cassette in back with basic shimano shifters).
I abhor gas-powered bikes, and still think it’s cheating to have throttled, no-pedaling-required electrics…