SO WHAT THE HECK ARE ELECTRIC BICYCLES? Every September I make the pilgrimage to Las Vegas for the annual bike bash called Interbike. Its a trade show of most of the companies in the bicycle industry (except for a few big players who want to hold their dealers captive at a remote location so they can extort huge pre-season orders). You see new and unusual products at Interbike although most of the vendors are showing products that are new only in terms of color or logo. But one category of new products has been trying to gain a foothold in the industry for the last few years: electric bikes. Bike industry sources say that electric bikes have caught on in a big way in Europe and people who have visited Southeast Asia in recent years tell me that electric bikes and scooters are common there. There have been retrofit electric kits out for a few years now. We sold a few at the shop to test the market. These were front wheels built around a hub motor. Power was supplied by a set of lead-acid batteries that were contained in a nylon bag that attached to a rack over the rear wheel. They were kind of interesting in the sense of being something new but, like the Pedal-Paddle that I posted a picture of a few days ago, they were not very practical. The front wheel with the motor weighed around 20 pounds and the battery pack another 40. That was acceptable as long as there was power left in the batteries but when they ran low (around 15 miles max) the rider was pedaling a 90 pound bike--not real fun. The technology has improved a good bit in the last few years and now several companies such as Currie Technologies, Pedego and Evelo are marketing a number of models of electric bikes. These bikes all appear to be in the sub-40 pound range and are using small, high efficiency motors and (in some cases) lithium batteries. The bikes themselves are fairly basic from what I have seen and at a price of $2500-$3500 they seem overpriced. Its an evolving technology and I suspect we will see prices drop in the coming years. The argument that the industry makes for electric bikes is that the motor can be used as an assist on hills. It can also increase your average speed by giving you a boost as you pedal. There is a place for such a thing but Im not terribly enthused about the whole idea. Being kind of old school I tend to see bikes as a way to have fun and get good exercise. Im sure a person can do that on an electric bike too but its sort of, as the British say, not quite cricket. There are electric scooters which are fun to ride--we had one at the shop for over a year and I made regular trips on it to pick up inventory from the Vittoria Tire distributor west of downtown. It was somewhat practical and fun to ride but it was not a bicycle. Putting an electric motor on a bicycle--well, it may be somewhat practical also but it becomes something different from what we have always called a bicycle. Not that that is bad necessarily but it does give someone an out when they decide a hill is too steep. Its sort of like using an electric cart at a big box store--a good thing for people who really need it but a counterproductive crutch for people who do not. I do not want to come across as being too negative about electric bikes. There really may be some merit to the idea. But at this point most bicycle dealers are biding their time to see how the bikes are improved and made more affordable before stocking them. So Im keeping an open mind. If you are thinking of getting one I would advise you to wait and see where the technology goes. But if you do get one just dont get one like the one in the picture--well leave that one for the Discovery series Scary Looking Backwoods Inventors. https://imgur/9BYn7FP
Posted on: Sun, 03 Aug 2014 02:17:51 +0000