Our stories -- who we are

[charlie]

I'm a 53 year old cycling commuter in the Washington DC suburbs. A couple of decades back my wife and I did loaded camping tours by tandem, but now you're more likely to see me cycling to work on a Bacchetta recumbent bike with a Bionx electric assist.

My beloved Motobecane diamond-frame bike is well more than half my age, but I find that my wrists, neck, and back prefer the recumbent position a lot better. Most of the rest of me does too (though I have been through a couple of surgeries lately to address nagging knee and hip issues.)

After several years of a short ride on my diamond-frame bike to a locker at the Washington DC Metro subway I switched to the recumbent, added the electric assist, and began riding to my downtown DC office couple of years back. I typically made the 14-mile ride in 60 minutes (downhill) in the morning and 70 minutes (uphill) in the evening. With the electric assist, it's 50 minutes flat each way -- and about the same length of time it takes me to get to work any other way.

I guess I've always been drawn to odd and slightly underpowered vehicles. (My dad drove a Citroen DS21 for years.) The 'bent is certainly odd, the electric assist only adds to that, and any bicycle I pedal is underpowered (electric assist notwithstanding.)

I hardly ever use the Bionx throttle. The proportional pedal-assist feature is a joy, and easy to turn off for the part of my commute on a sometimes-crowded trail. (My commute includes the trail and both suburban and very urban streets.

I hate driving to work. I did that for years and really do want to reduce my carbon footprint. I think cities are better with more bikes and less cars (and I'm better with the regular exercise that commuting by bicycle brings.) I'm also a heck of a lot more presentable when I arrive at either end of my commute if I can cool off a bit towards the end of it with a bit of an electric boost.

That's my story -- what's yours?

[Dick]

I am a 66 year old retired former transit supervisor from Seattle. When I retired we moved 60 miles north of Seattle to a smaller, quieter place to live, getting out of Pugetopolis. I bought a Honda Metropolitan II moped which is more like a 49cc motor scooter with a 25mph top speed, just to put around town on and save a bit of gas as it gets around 100mpg. This past fall I got to thinking that if I bought an electric assist bike I could probably still manage the hills in my community and also get some exercise.

Since I had given up my regular bike a couple of years earlier so didn't have anything to add a kit to so I looked into ready made ebikes. This was one area where my smaller community was a handicap as there were no ebikes in the bike shops here but lots of them in Seattle. I used the Internet to search and research the various bikes.

I settled on a eMoto bike that is built by Urban Movers of England. It is light weight (47 lbs) so should be fairly easy to pedal home if I went beyond my assist range and requires pedaling in order to get electric assist so I will get exercise. Anyone want to buy a good very slightly used Honda moped?

[MomOnBike]

OK, I'll bite.

I'm a fully adult female with a creaky knee. (Did you know that knees are decorative only? I messed up and used mine. My bad.) I haven't pulled the trigger and bought an electric bike yet, but I can feel it coming on. I'd like to use an electric assist for a grocery-getter, a go-out-on-a-date-without-sweat-or-chain-grease bike, and a pootle-around-town-looking-fetching bike.

I really want to ride a bike from Vancouver to Key West. With The Knee, I fear that the only way I'll get up the hills is with a bit of assist.

So there you have it. I want two different electric bikes to assist me in my chosen lifestyle - each with its own distinctive personality and function. Now, to win that dratted lottery. . .

[Dean]

I have been a stay at home Dad for the past four years and really needed to get back in shape. I used to commute by bike some years ago and still have a funky old recumbent no longer manufactured. In the course of researching EV alternatives, I became interested in e-bikes and arbitrarily chose a hub motor kit last autumn to see what I thought of the technology. I have become so enthused about it that I am now a dealer for a particular brand and perform conversions for others.
There is a large amount of information out there that can get you where you want to go but there is also a great deal of misinformation too. I am happy to lend my experiences and knowledge here if anyone has specific questions for me and shall try to keep my own biases to myself if at all possible. I'm not really in it for the money as much as I am interested in helping to green us up. I figure that for every e-bike created, a car is used less. Can't hurt, right?
A few things to consider: 1) You get what you pay for most of the time. Try to deal with businesses that are based locally enough, or reputably enough, that any warranty issues can be quickly addressed. Most of the e-bike industry is deeply rooted in Chinese manufacturers and there is a wide variety of both quality and responsiveness when issues arise. 2) Many regular bike shops seem to carry a bit of diminished regard for e-bikes (unless they sell them). Don't expect much help from the purists of cycling but for those of us seeking the particular benefits of e-biking, you can often find people who will try to give you straight answers or honest I-don't-knows. 3) Batteries are key. The technology is in constant and fairly rapid flux. You will have to pay much more for the high end but it eventually pays off in longevity, environmental impact, performance and coolness. LiFePO4 (Lithium Iron Phosphate) battery chemistry is the current darling of the industry and it does seem to represent the best overall compromise between energy storage, reliability, longevity, green-ness and safety right now. 4) Play safely. You can make an e-bike go pretty fast but you are still riding on tires and brakes designed for less. Legally, 20 mph is the generally recognized limit but your local rules and regs might be different. Finally, 5), be prepared to have some fun. It may take a bit of sorting out before you and your new bike are in total accord, but once there, it is a revelation. For me, it not only made biking possible again, it made it an ongoing enjoyable experience.
If you decide to do it, I hope it works that way for you, too.

[BradElder42]

Hi Charlie,
I saw your post on Slate and finally made it here. Anyway, I am 41, 6’2” and 270lbs. I live about 6 blocks from my office in a 4 stoplight town, just south west of Lincoln Nebraska. The town itself is basically flat except for the Hill on which my office and the college sits. I had biked through much of graduate school and loved it. Because of where I’ve lived the last several years I've been unable to biked to work (I'm not interested in being a white cross on the edge of the highway). But now I live close enough to walk or bike to work. What I found is that walking just takes too much time (I know I should make more time for this but my life does not allow that at the moment). Biking seemed like a reasonable solution. This has its own set of problems. For starters, biking up the hill first thing in the morning was not that appealing all on its own. Add that I weighed almost 30 pounds more made it was even less appealing. But I did purchase a bike (the Breezer Greenway) and started commuting with it. What I found is one basically needs to be in shape to start with. I certainly could bike up the hill but it required a bit of a zigzag approach to the surrounding blocks as I climbed. Further, when I arrived I was generally hot and sweaty. This basically meant I had to arrive much earlier and cool off before I started class. In the first year of owning the bike I probably commuted to work 30 times. In the summer heat and humidity it just became undoable. There was just no way to arrive at work without being sweaty. Frustrated, I started looking for other alternatives. Then I stumbled across the electric bike option and eventually settled on the Bionx system. I have the 350 and love it. Now the only days I do not commute by bike are days when there is ice or snow on the ground. This has been so successful that we actually got rid of my jeep. Before the Bionx conversion we generally drove to the grocery store even when I had the bike (six blocks on flat ground), now the only time I use the car is to pick up heavy items. I am building a bike cart this summer and should be able to eliminate the heavy items as a concern. (if you are in the area and want to take it for a spin stop by)