Comment by jstanley | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jstanley | Hacker News Reader

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If your bike doesn't stop at your door or doesn't go where you want to go, you're using it wrong.

I bought an electric bicycle recently after years of being a staunch car supporter. I am now convinced that the electric bicycle is the perfect mode of personal transport for non-rural areas. It takes up hardly any room, it doesn't make much noise, it doesn't go fast enough to be a danger to anyone, it doesn't get stuck in traffic, you can park it anywhere for free. You can even take it through pedestrian-only zones if you get off and push. Being electrically-assisted, it can actually get you up hills at a fair speed without making you arrive at your destination sweaty and smelly. Being a bicycle, it can still be used even if you ride it so far that the battery goes flat (well over 30 miles).

It's personal transport of the future. Everyone should get one.

Edit: and if you want to try out an ebike, there's almost certainly a bike shop near you that will rent you one for a day.

It's personal transport of the future. Everyone should get one.

In warm and dry parts of the world with good roads. You try biking in Toronto in the winter! Some people also understand that roads are dangerous, and being hit by a car when you’re on a bike is very bad news.

Fair points. Where I live there is actually a very good network of cycle paths.

But I didn't even know they existed until after I got the bike and started planning routes for journeys.

Even if the cycling infrastructure near you is unsuitable, there are still lots of people in places that do have good cycling infrastructure but either don't realise it or just haven't tried it.

Those people should strongly consider trying out an ebike!

> In warm and dry parts of the world with good roads.

All you need are good roads. Bicycling in the winter in Helsinki or – even further north – Oulu is completely mainstream. People know how to dress for the outdoors, and as long as the bike lanes are cleared of snow, cycling is not viewed as the major inconvenience that people in warmer countries expect it to be.

“All you need are good roads.” That’s a Big expensive undertaking. In Canada (which is ever so slightly bigger than Finland) the roads range from excellent to abysmal. In the US the roads often have potholes and little accommodation for cycles, and the U.K. has some of the worst roads I’ve seen outside of a developing nation. Finland is also a small country with a population which all lives in the same climate. Countries like the US and Canada are huge, and far more populous, with population densities varying wildly. In addition, the climate ranges from lovely to arctic.

Needless to say, this creates a host of issues you won’t find in Helsinki, where 1.2m of Finland’s 5m inhabitants live. A bunch of very similar people living in the equivalent of one American state or small Canadian province, speaking the same language and sharing the same culture and weather can make roads and cycling a priority. Good luck scaling that.

Note that I mentioned Oulu. The bike lane infrastructure constructed there – the sheer total distance of lanes versus the city’s population – makes it preposterous to claim that Toronto (the example city in the grandparent post) cannot also have decent winter cycling.

We are talking about one city; no one is suggesting that Canada’s rural areas – which is the only place it would be relevant to bring up distance or low population density like you did – need bike lanes, too.

FWIW, I live in the UK. The roads are fine for cycling and the cyclepaths are excellent.

There is a "National Cycle Network" of cyclepaths and roads that are exceptionally well-suited to cycling (low traffic etc.), and it is signposted well.

(But, again, I hadn't noticed any of this until after I got the bike).

https://www.sustrans.org.uk/ncn/map

> Some people also understand that roads are dangerous, and being hit by a car when you’re on a bike is very bad news.

Some people understand that cars are dangerous, and would see the risk of killing people with your car as a downside to using a car.

The parent specifically mentioned 'it doesn't go fast enough to be a danger to anyone' as an advantage for the bike.

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