Today&#;s happiness and personal-finance gurus have no shortage of advice for living a good life. Meditate daily. Sleep for eight hours a night. Don&#;t forget to save for retirement. They&#;re not wrong, but few of these experts will tell you one of the best ways to improve your life: Ditch your car.
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A year ago, my wife and I sold one of our cars and replaced it with an e-bike. As someone who writes about climate change, I knew that I was doing something good for the planet. I knew that passenger vehicles are responsible for much of our greenhouse-gas emissions&#;16 percent in the U.S., to be exact&#;and that the pollution spewing from gas-powered cars doesn&#;t just heat up the planet; it could increase the risk of premature death. I also knew that electric cars were an imperfect fix: Though they&#;re responsible for less carbon pollution than gas cars, even when powered by today&#;s dirty electric grid, their supply chain is carbon intensive, and many of the materials needed to produce their batteries are, in some cases, mined via a process that brutally exploits workers and harms ecosystems and sacred Indigenous lands. An e-bike&#;s comparatively tiny battery means less electricity, fewer emissions, fewer resources. They are clearly better for the planet than cars of any kind.
I knew all of this. But I also viewed getting rid of my car as a sacrifice&#;something for the militant and reckless, something that Greenpeace volunteers did to make the world better. I live in Colorado; e-biking would mean freezing in the winter and sweating in the summer. It was the right thing to do, I thought, but it was not going to be fun.
I was very wrong. The first thing I noticed was the savings. Between car payments, insurance, maintenance, and gas, a car-centered lifestyle is expensive. According to AAA, after fuel, maintenance, insurance, taxes, and the like, owning and driving a new car in America costs $10,728 a year. My e-bike, by comparison, cost $2,000 off the rack and has near-negligible recurring charges. After factoring in maintenance and a few bucks a month in electricity costs, I estimate that we&#;ll save about $50,000 over the next five years by ditching our car.
The actual experience of riding to work each day over the past year has been equally surprising. Before selling our car, I worried most about riding in the cold winter months. But I quickly learned that, as the saying goes, there is no bad weather, only bad gear. I wear gloves, warm socks, a balaclava, and a ski jacket when I ride, and am almost never too cold.
Sara Hastings-Simon is a professor at the University of Calgary, where she studies low-carbon transportation systems. She&#;s also a native Californian who now bikes to work in a city where temperatures tend to hover around freezing from December through March. She told me that with the right equipment, she&#;s able to do it on all but the snowiest days&#;days when she wouldn&#;t want to be in a car, either. &#;Those days are honestly a mess even on the roads,&#; she said.
And though I, like many would-be cyclists, was worried about arriving at the office sweaty in hotter months, the e-bike solved my problem. Even when it was 90 degrees outside, I didn&#;t break a sweat, thanks to my bike&#;s pedal-assist mode. If I&#;m honest, sometimes I didn&#;t even pedal; I just used the throttle, sat back, and enjoyed my ride.
Indeed, a big part of the appeal here is in the e part of the bike: &#;E-bikes aren&#;t just a traditional bike with a motor. They are an entirely new technology,&#; Hastings-Simon told me. Riding them is a radically different experience from riding a normal bike, at least when it comes to the hard parts of cycling. &#;It&#;s so much easier to take a bike over a bridge or in a hilly neighborhood,&#; Laura Fox, the former general manager of New York City&#;s bike-share program, told me. &#;I&#;ve had countless people come up to me and say, &#;I never thought that I could bike to work before, and now that I have an option where you don&#;t have to show up sweaty, it&#;s possible.&#;&#; (When New York introduced e-bikes to its fleet, ridership tripled, she told me, from 500,000 to 1.5 million people.)
But biking to work wasn&#;t just not unpleasant&#;it was downright enjoyable. It made me feel happier and healthier; I arrived to work a little more buoyant for having spent the morning in fresh air rather than traffic. Study after study shows that people with longer car commutes are more likely to experience poor health outcomes and lower personal well-being&#;and that cyclists are the happiest commuters. One day, shortly after selling our car, I hopped on my bike after a stressful day at work and rode home down a street edged with changing fall leaves. I felt more connected to the physical environment around me than I had when I&#;d traveled the same route surrounded by metal and glass. I breathed in the air, my muscles relaxed, and I grinned like a giddy schoolchild.
&#;E-bikes are like a miracle drug,&#; David Zipper, a transportation expert and Visiting Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, told me. &#;They provide so much upside, not just for the riders, but for the people who are living around them too.&#;
Of course, e-bikes aren&#;t going to replace every car on every trip. In a country where sprawling suburbs and strip malls, not protected bike lanes, are the norm, it&#;s unrealistic to expect e-bikes to replace cars in the way that the Model T replaced horses. But we don&#;t need everyone to ride an e-bike to work to make a big dent in our carbon-pollution problem. A recent study found that if 5 percent of commuters were to switch to e-bikes as their mode of transportation, emissions would fall by 4 percent. As an individual, you don&#;t even need to sell your car to reduce your carbon footprint significantly. In , half of all trips in the United States were less than three miles, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Making those short trips on an e-bike instead of in a car would likely save people money, cut their emissions, and improve their health and happiness.
E-bikes are such a no-brainer for individuals, and for the collective, that state and local governments are now subsidizing them. In May, I asked Will Toor, the executive director of the Colorado Energy Office, to explain the state&#;s rationale for a newly passed incentive that offers residents $450 to get an e-bike. He dutifully ticked through the environmental benefits and potential cost savings for low-income people. Then he surprised me: The legislation, he added, was also about &#;putting more joy into the world.&#;
This story is part of the Atlantic Planet series supported by HHMI&#;s Science and Educational Media Group.
Electric bikes and regular bicycles are very similar. In many ways they hardly differ &#; both have a frame, two wheels, handlebars, seat, pedals and other parts. This means that when thinking about buying an electric bike, you&#;re probably already a cyclist.
We&#;re going to compare an ebike to a regular bike rather than a motorbike, car, or public transport. In this article, we will look at the main pros and cons of electric bikes compared to regular bikes, as well as some common features between them.
An ebike is environmentally friendly &#; just like a normal bicycle. It does not produce harmful emissions into the atmosphere because it runs on electricity rather than liquid fuel. For the same reason, electric bikes are as quiet as regular bicycles.
Riding a bike is very healthy. When you turn the pedals, it&#;s not only your legs that work, but your whole body &#; your arms, shoulders, core etc. It&#;s like swimming in the sea, only you&#;re sailing through air currents, not water currents.
Importantly you&#;re getting exercise when you ride an ebike. Rather different that riding an electric scooter, for example.
If you like to participate in sports events on a regular bicycle, you can also do it on an electric bike. Even today there are many competitions on electric bikes, even popular regular bike events such as Giro d&#;Italia have an electric bike alternative such as Giro-E.
News flash &#; you need to pedal on an electric bike. Yes. If you thought that electric bikes move on their own, then you&#;re wrong. The motor works when you pedal. These bikes are called &#;pedal assisted electric bikes&#;.
Having said that, there are ebikes you don&#;t need to pedal, but they are fairly rare. But to add to that, you cannot ride them on the streets without a license because they are basically mopeds, or motorcycles.
An electric bike is easy to ride &#; the motor helps you pedal. You put less effort into it, you sweat less, riding is even more comfortable and pleasant. This is especially important for commuting if you do not have a shower at work.
Electric bikes are also great for the physically less strong or able. You can read many reviews on the Internet around people having &#;a second bicycle life&#; with their ebikes.
You can reach speeds up to 15.5 miles per hour (25 km per hour) in motor assistance mode. This is quite enough for riding city streets, and everywhere else. It&#;s a lot faster than the average speed of a car in traffic during rush hour (7 miles per hour).
When riding an ebike, the motor will help you pedal until you reach a speed of 15.5 miles per hour. This is the maximum speed allowed by law, otherwise, the bike will ride too fast (more like a moped or a motorbike). You can go as fast as you like after that, but under your own power. Motor manufacturers, therefore, limit the speed for you. (But you can keep pedalling and ride faster &#; you just have to put in more effort.)
If you are looking for more details, kindly visit Electric Bicycles.
There are e-bikes that go faster &#; up to 30 miles per hour, or more. Once again, we are talking about the motor assistance mode. These bikes are called &#;speed pedelecs&#;. The motor in these bikes assists the rider in the same limited way, and in the UK these need to be registered with the DVLA to be road legal.
The power of electric bicycle motors is limited &#; in the UK, by law, up to 250W.
Depending on the battery, and charger, it can take around 2.5-8 hours to fully recharge from flat. However you don&#;t need to run the battery down before charging, there is no &#;battery memory&#;. Charge it any time you need to!
If the battery of an ebike runs out on the road, you can still ride it just like riding a normal bike. A heavy normal bike. You just need to continue pedalling. It will not just stop, like a car that&#;s run out of petrol.
If you have ever ridden a regular bicycle, you know that 20-30 miles is a pretty long ride. You can ride further on an electric bike with the same amount of effort. On average this is between 40 and 75 miles on one battery charge, depending on its capacity and the terrain, the way you ride, etc. Bosch have a great ride simulator that is amazingly accurate: Click here to try it out in a new tab
One of the main benefits of an e-bike is that it is much easier to ride on uneven terrain and when climbing hills or mountains. Riding up hills or mountains can be very difficult if you&#;re not a very active person.
An electric bike also makes it it easier to tackle those nasty headwinds. What headwinds??
The range of electric bikes available matches, or even surpasses, the range of non-electric bikes. All categories are catered for, from sport road cycling to delivery bikes, from taking the kids to school to advanced technical descents at high speed. In addition, almost all regular bicycle manufacturers now produce electric bikes too. If you love a particular brand for example, Cube, you are likely to find an electric bike from that manufacturer.
So, these days you will find all types of bicycles on the market from both regular and specialist ebike producers (like Moustache, Riese & Müller, etc). There are city bikes, road bikes, mountain bikes, folding bikes, cargo, and family bikes, and many others. For example, if you already have a city bike, you will find there&#;s an electric equivalent as well. The same is true for mountain bikes and so on.
Electric bikes are usually heavier than a normal bike. They can weigh up to 25 kg or more, while a regular bike weighs around 10 kg. It is not difficult to work out that the heavier parts of an electric bike are the motor and battery.
Electric bikes can be harder to transport because of their weight, particularly if you don&#;t live on the ground floor. To store them, you might need a little more space. And to transport around you may need to put them inside the car, or on a towbar-mounted rack, rather than on the roof.
Electric bikes are more expensive then a non-electric bike. As a comparison, you can buy a good regular bicycle from a well-known manufacturer for around £1,000, and you need at least £-£1,500 to buy a basic electric bike. For that price it&#;s likely to have a hub motor, but those ebikes usually work very well. On average, good electric bikes cost up to £3,000, but often £4,000 or even more. So you should consider it more an investment than an ad-hoc purchase!
Electric bikes are very sought after and desirable so there&#;s a greater risk that it could be stolen if left on the street, so it&#;s always advisable to store it inside or securely outside.
If you don&#;t need your ebike any more, or want to buy a new one, it&#;s likely to retain it&#;s value very well. In this way it is similar to selling Apple products. They hold their value well and slowly drop in price over time.
If you buy a new model rather than a used one, electric bicycles will hardly need any maintenance. The most important things are to keep it clean, especially the chain &#; don&#;t forget to lubricate this with an appropriate product &#; and to keep your eye on brake pads. Pretty much like an analog bike!
But if you do need to repair your bike, it is usually as easy as an ordinary bicycle, this is something we can help with too. Maintaining and repairing an electric bike shouldn&#;t be more expensive, though finding a repair specialist might be difficult. Motor manufacturers such as Bosch and Shimano have a network of qualified dealers who are able to work on any bike equipped with their systems.
You don&#;t need a license to ride a bike and you don&#;t have to pay any tax. You will need to comply with motor law though as you would riding a regular bicycle. The benefits compared to a motorbike or car is that you can pop to the shops in the same way, but there&#;s no road tax, MOT, insurance etc &#; big payments to pay every year.
Of course if you opt for more powerful or faster bikes, you will need to register it, have a license, tax, MOT etc.
If you buy a more powerful bike here and intend to travel on it or want to take it with you on a bus, train, or plane, it&#;s important to stay up to date with the rules that apply in other countries. The laws on riding ebikes are still being written.
It is not possible to install a more powerful motor on an ebike (it&#;s illegal). However, other than the motor and battery it&#;s really a normal bike so you can find countless accessories and parts to make the bike your own.
Riding an electric bike is a fashionable and trendy thing right now. As the eco-movement continues to gain traction, ebikes are seen as a viable eco-friendly alternative right now and we see that trend growing day by day.
By buying any bike, you become a member of one large family of cyclists. There are many cycling clubs in England and around the world where you can find other fans of this mode of transport to ride together. Not to mention the whole world if you look at apps like Strava. Electric bike clubs are very similar in this way.
Electric bikes and regular bikes have many common features and almost the same number of e bikes pros and cons. Riding any bicycle is not a comparison between motors or the power of your legs, but a choice of healthier and more environmentally friendly type of transport.
Therefore, the main advantage of an electric bike over the regular one is, of course, the electric motor, which helps you pedal and makes it easier to ride. You can travel longer distances &#; from 40 to 75 miles per charge.
The main disadvantage is the higher price and greater weight.
We hope that this article will help you make the right choice in our e-bike shop.
Pros of ebikesCons of ebikesEasier to rideMore expensiveKeeps you fit and healthyHeavierIf the battery runs out, you can still rideHeavy without motor supportYou can sell a used ebike and still make moneyMore sought after and therefore more likely to be stolenAssistance up to 15.5 miles per hourFaster ebikes need to be registered, etc40-70 miles on one battery chargeEasy to climb hills & mountainsVery fashionable!Good clean healthy fun!
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