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Comment by ckemere | Hacker News Reader

Having just moved from Houston to Manhattan , I have been really impressed by the number of bikes I see. One factor, which this article doesn’t seem to discuss, is the e-bike. In Paris, is it mostly classical bikes, or are the electronics becoming widespread there too?

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I would say there is a 80/20 ratio between mechanical and e-bikes. The regional council offers ebikes for 40€/month[1] which boosted ebike adoption. The service is very popular with both office workers and food delivery workers.

[1]: https://www.iledefrance-mobilites.fr/en/the-network/mobility...

On that topic, I ride a regular bicycle but I love that there are so many e-bikes on the roads these days. The city where I live is blessed with pretty good weather for a lot of the year and e-bikes enable people who live out towards the edge of town to get downtown with relative ease.

Even though they lack some of the benefits of a simple bicycle, they drive the same infrastructure development that I need.

I imagine that’s just about the starkest within-US move you could make with regard to bike friendliness. I once made the mistake of visiting Houston without a rental car, and it was bleak. Welcome to NYC!

Note that ebikes in the EU are limited to 25 km/h and 250 W. Thus there is little difference in practice with regular bikes ... except when climbing hills.

Max 25kmh is stupid. 5km slower than the traffic I'm trying to keep up with, so being constantly close-shaved is an e-bike pain.

It's the perfect speed. It's around the upper speed of cycling somewhere like Copenhagen, so the people on e-bikes by too annoying for the people on bicycles.

I bike in Manhattan and it's a dream. A literal grid of 20-30mph traffic, with a greenway up and down in case you want to avoid traffic entirely.

I'm in a Paris suburb. Lots of e-bikes and lots of electric scooters.

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