Electric bikes are the future of transportation | Hacker News Reader

Electric bikes are the future of transportation

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37 pointsTomte18 comments

Electric bikes are great! During peak rush hour traffic, it's actually faster for me to commute using my bike than driving down the freeway.

The only thing that prevents me from riding my ebike more often is the irrational fear that I'll get my bike stolen as soon as I park it on the street.

I put a two-way car alarm on my e-bike. The whole thing was still cheaper than a car.

I have had an e-bike for about 2 years. It’s faster than driving and I am not a sweaty mess when I get to or from work. It’s been great. Some ebikers are jerks and just use throttle to pass people at 24mph but they are few and far between.

Ebikes really are amazing. I think they are particularly suited to the US, because much of our infrastructure is designed entirely around cars.

The ebike allows you to traverse a car-designed landscape with the ease of biking on flat ground. And where there is bike friendly infra, it's even better.

Not to mention, it's an absolute joy to ride at about 15 mph, wind in your hair, all that stuff. And for short trips say to the grocery, it can be faster than your car, cheaper, more comfortable, better for the environment, and healthier.

I highly recommend trying an ebike to anyone.

I see this argument and I just don't get it. My local grocery store is less than a mile away on city streets. There is no way an ebike is faster, more comfortable or healthier (since it's an ebike I'm not pedaling, or not much, so maybe a touch healthier) than my car. I'll go along with cheaper and better for the environment, but as for the others I don't see how that can be. Especially after getting groceries, which since I'd be on a bike would have to be a small amount (say 1 bag or so) as opposed to my car where I could do a week's worth of shopping at once, saving time and number of trips.

I'd love to find a reason to get one, but I can't justify it. I work from home 3 days a week and my office is 25 miles away on the other side of a major metropolitan area. I live in a suburb and the office is in another suburb, so non-freeway travel to it would be a nightmare.

Op writes “can be faster”, not “is faster”. In densely populated neighborhoods, cycling can certainly be faster than driving a car.

Also: how long does it take you to find a parking spot for your car at the grocery? How far from the shop is it, on average? Do you have to find a parking spot at home, too?

And a double bag on the back of a bike can easily hold 50 liters. That’s quite a bit of shopping.

Fair enough about "can be".

It takes me seconds to find a parking spot. The parking lot is large and right there, I could park in the farthest away spot and be inside in less than a minute. I live in a detached single family home and have a garage, so I don't have to find parking at home.

Again, I'm not saying it's not viable, but in many cases the "advantages" aren't there.

Note: this is in a suburb of a major US city. There is plenty of space, all single family homes, US-like supermarket.

Edit: added note about city.

I don't think the people replying to you understand what a suburb or small town or city is like. I feel sometimes I should make a video of my home town (pop 40,000) to show people here why a lot of things like bicycling to work would actually play out here.

Edit: Like I really do't have traffic jams here...traffic is steadily moving at 40 mph or so with only minor stop and starts.A lot of things you have to get on the highway for, which makes bicycling simply impossible. Even depending on the town, where you work matters; most people here are knowledge workers who can fit into a downtown center with no hazard. The guys working at the local lowes distribution center, chicken farm, or industrial park have their workplaces in the middle of nowhere due to noise and pollution concerns.

Merely maintaining balance on an e-bike would exercise some amount of muscle. Probably not enough to matter, but still.

And you get the option to put the effort in when you feel like it—you don’t ever get that choice behind the wheel.

(no ebike here though, normal bike only)

"My local grocery store is less than a mile away on city streets. There is no way an ebike is faster than my car."

as i don't have private parking at home a bike is a lot faster, as the overhead of getting to the car before and finding a parking spot + getting back home afterwards is huge.

furthermore i can take a more direct route with my bike (may or may not apply to others), i'm more nimble and can thus get around obstacles and i don't get stuck in traffic jams.

so for a single trip, from door to door, a bike is a lot faster for me than the car.

on the other hand, i actually go shopping almost every day; i mostly buy only as much as i can fit into my back pack. as i have shopped this way for the last 20 years i don't even know where i'd put perishables for a week; i buy, i cook, i eat. that said, i'm a remote worker and i welcome the opportunity to get some fresh air and exercise during the day

One option for getting groceries would be to get a bike trailer (like the one you see people dragging small children in). This could let you carry a weeks worth of groceries pretty easily. And that does sound like a tough commute, but you could try looking at google maps and using the bike option to see if a potentially usable route would work. If you could charge at work, then even better!

The commute isn't too bad especially since I only do it twice a week (and technically wouldn't need to at all). Since I'm not customer facing or anything I have shifted my hours to be from 6AM-3PM so I miss all the morning traffic and the afternoon is just starting to pick up at that time, so it's more of a distance thing than traffic.

For grins I looked at Google Maps and it says my biking commute is 1 hour 47 minutes. Yikes! With an ebike I'm sure it will be less, but it's still significantly longer (which is expected, that's not a criticism). Note, however, that I do live in a Northern climate and have snow during the winter, which would definitely contradict the "more comfortable" claim that some of said.

Also, yes, I could do groceries more often, but I hate to do it which is why I actually tend to have them delivered.

Totally fair, it would probably be closer to an hour on an ebike depending, but that is rough. I will say that it is super fun though!

I feel more like electric scooters or motorcycles would be a better bet. 40 mph+ cruising speed would be a lot better, and enable them to use the main lanes instead of needing dedicated bike paths or using hazardous shoulders.

I'd love to e-bike to work but the way neighborhoods are set up, I have a minimum commute of several miles just to get out of the neighborhood. And everything is just so far apart. It's hard to move close enough to work to make an e-bike make sense.

The fastest bike they said at 28mph means my average speed including red lights would be about 15mph, means It would take me an hour to get to work! Here in the US, it's probably better to just get a motorcycle.

the big adv of e-bike is no need to pay yearly registration, right? also, no insurance and no gas cost or maintenance. So, the savings can be pretty big

I wish that was the case, but the harsh winter and the 14km commute to work where I am make this roughly impossible several months per year.

*for places that have infrequent rain and mild winters =(

I mean if you gear up for it, it's not so bad. This article has some suggestions for handling it! https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/11/03/how-to-ride-your-...

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