Electric bikes might just be the healthiest thing to ever happen to teenagers
electrek.co
electrek.co
I live in the Netherlands, where the average teenager used to ride a regular Dutch city bike. Internal hub, no-frills bicycles.
Nowadays, however, fat e-bikes are all the rage among that age group. They are quickly becoming extremely popular, and are essentially electric scooters without plates or registration. Many of them require little or no effort to pedal, and can carry up to two riders in them. These are also designed to meet regulations, while also being able to easily be modified to circumvent them, such as removing speed restrictions, and removing the need to pedal itself.
This is also reflected in the shape of these things, which generally does not account for ergonomics. Their seat and handlebars are usually fixed in place. They appear to be designed without pedaling in mind, as exerting effort without proper ergonomics would quickly become uncomfortable and painful. You can actually see some such bikes in the linked article.
Time will tell whether this is truly healthy to them, but I have a hard time believing this to be the case. I think the fat bike demographic might start putting on weight.
United States, obviously. Article makes zero pretence being about anything other than that and it's stated right there in the opening paragraph: "among America’s youth".
I do cycle (normal bike). These are some of the things that I told myself that kept me from getting into it when I was younger.
Yes, that's what happens when you exercise, and judging by how fat Americans are, seems like they could use some.
>Lot of 2 lane roads without shoulders or sidewalks makes cycling on them scary.
How do ebikes fix this? It's still a bike, not a tank.
On fat Americans: at the time and still I'm likely a 99.9%er cardio wise, and I still had the concern about being sweaty. I wasn't exactly trying to smell bad during lectures.
Ob ebikes not being tanks: Going 20 in a 25 is a lot less scary then going 8 up a hill where cars are BLASTING past you. Lower effort also means you can spend more brainpower on spacial awareness, when you are gassed you tend to notice less around you.
They'll definitely gain weight, it is quite easy to tell that they aren't exerting much effort during pedal assist.
Tire noise is enormous though. I think their tires are made / selected with this in mind, as young males often do like to get attention. Most e-scooters are way quieter than these ugly things.
But somehow the Dutch have this collective amnesia on the topic, and today nobody remembers how the "snorfiets" problem of 10-15 years ago has pretty much disappeared, to be replaced by a quieter and safer mode of transport (even ilegally modified E-Bikes usually fall far short of modified "snorfiets" speeds).
> [...]appear to be designed without pedaling in mind,
> as exerting effort without proper ergonomics would
> quickly become uncomfortable and painful.
The "fat bike" design is something that wouldn't work well unassisted, because it trades a severe increase in rolling resistance for better ride comfort.
But as a clean sheet design it makes more sense than the alternative. Why incorporate a complex suspension design (which, to be fair, some of them also have), when you can just have the tire absorb the bumps in the road? The marginal cost in electricity is trivial.
Class 1 e-bikes are limited to 32 km/h here, but simple mods push them well above 50 km/h.
Many of these bikes are designed to be hacked, with unlocked power output significantly higher than the locked output. It’s a selling point and a key part of reviews.
It's only a trend because people are not using them like bikes. The people who still want to pedal but need help because of illness, old age or too-long-distances for normal cycling often purchase actual bicycles which use normal bike parts.
> The "fat bike" design is something that wouldn't work well unassisted, because it trades a severe increase in rolling resistance for better ride comfort.
That is an understatement. People would quickly develop knee and/or lower back pain if they had to put any effort for any meaningful distance.
> It's only a trend because people are not using them like bikes.
The grandmother maintaining an easy 20 km/h against strong headwinds on her Sunday cruise? The petite mother bringing her kids to school at a comfortable 20 km/h in a 50 kg cargo bike, something she'd probably struggle to do at 5 km/h unassisted by an electric motor, if at all?
The fact is that E-Bikes have have opened up all sorts of use cases that wouldn't be practical without motor assistance.
I don't think "Fat bikes" are a particular outlier here. The basic design (or something similar) has been around since the 60's[1] as lowrider bikes. Fat Bikes provide basically the same riding geometry, only with an extra wide tire.
> actual bicycles which use normal bike parts.
Yes, the frame and seat are custom/unusual for a bicycle, but the same is true (at least for the frame) for a lot of modern bicycle designs, e.g. VanMoof and Cowboy bicycles (both of which you'd presumably consider "like bikes").
The difference is, of course, that a snorfiets/bromfiets requires a driving license (AB) and a fatbike does not, nor does it have any age restriction. A classic case of the legislator not keeping up.
> A classic case of the legislator not keeping up.
This is the trend near me: Kids buy hackable e-bike, immediately unlock it, and then ride their new electric scooter (motorcycle) around pretending it’s an e-bike.
There’s a separated mixed use bike path parallel to a road on my commute. It’s typical to see e-bike kids driving up it faster than the road traffic on the road, while pedestrians and families jump to the side.
The mopeds would barely go 30mph as sold. That was hackable though if you were so inclined and had a set of wrenches.
Still, parking is such a racket in Seaport, including unnecessarily strict ticketing on motorcycles, that I don't blame the delivery guys for using the mopeds. I'm not sure what their realistic alternative would be.
Came here to write exactly that. Those who design those bikes clearly don't know a thing about bicycle design. Want to use them for pedaling? Say hi to knee problems and inefficient pedaling!
Can't they be regulated based on weight or otherwise the width of the tires?
The article is about "touching on independence, mental health, social behavior, and even environmental awareness" just as much as not sitting on your butt inside.
It talks about car culture and social challenges. It recommends class 1 e-bikes so you still have to pedal (no throttle). Yes e-bikes are "cheating" the exercise of cycling, but teens aren't getting e-bikes to go cycling they are getting them to travel without asking somebody to drive them.
Throttle e-bikes are a bit of a menace in my area, but that's whatever. If more people can get outside and enjoy life that's a huge win.
Where I live, the trend is either to buy an electric motorcycle and ride it around as if it was a bike (on sidewalks, bike trails, crosswalks) or to buy a hackable e-bike and unlock the power limit and add a throttle.
The interest in real class 1 e-bikes seems minimal. The hacked e-bike and electric motorcycle people are making bike paths and trails much more dangerous for everyone.
Even the normal e-bike people have seemingly forgotten that there are rules. I had to jump out of the way of a middle aged woman who blew through a stop sign on her e-bike and turned right straight into us pedestrians. It’s common to see e-bike riders jumping between the sidewalk, road, and crosswalks as convenient and blowing through the four way stop by my house.
> many teens haven’t yet learned the road rules,
There are few nations in the world that respect cycling as a mode of transportation enough to legislate that cyclists are permitted to ride two abreast (I am only aware of the Netherlands). Instead, in most nations two cyclists out for a "convivial" trip together are forced to ride single file while two seat wide vehicles operated typically by a single driver in a vehicle wider than two bicycles riding abreast speed merrily by.
Let the teens ride side by side.
1: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/rules-for-cycli...
Teenagers in the rest of the developed world are also spending increasing amounts of time in front of screens despite not have the constraints imposed by American car culture. E-bikes might have removed one barrier, but that does solve the problem.
Kids where I live often, maybe usually, walk or take busses to school. If they pay monthly through the app they get unlimited bus travel in the county. Its not atypical in the UK, and its even easier (albeit more expensive) in big cities. We still have kids spending all their time doom scrolling.
I think it is a combination of over-protective parents and addictive stuff on their phones that is the real problem.
Ebikes are a definite menace here, and e-scooters are worse.
I fear that once started on an e-bike, with all the benefits the article lists, the one thing that may never happen is changing to a conventional bike later. For example, some serious mountain biking Youtube channels I watch point out that electric mountain bikes are just as good at the cool stuff (berms, jumps etc) but simply take the drudgery out of getting to the top of the hill in the first place. If a less fit teenager on an e-MTB is seen as cooler than a more fit one on a conventional MTB... you know what will happen. The conventional crowd, though fitter, will be seen like the poor Android cousins to the "right coulour texting bubble" iPhone crowd.
My 70 year old, double-ankle replacement mother who I don't remember ever walking very comfortably bought an ebike a couple of years back.
The sheer joy on her face watching her whizz up a hill made me realise just how transformational these things can be.
Teens + other able bodied people are inactive for reasons unrelated to ease of pedaling.
That’s on my slow mountain bike, which I ride for comfort some days. But it’s still a weird experience.
Our local bike trails allow them in certain sections and it's wild to see old people just zipping around. Our paths are single track but traffic both directions. Not sure what's going on, they have zero awareness, especially for someone that's made it to 70.
She learned at 70 a lesson she never got to learn as a teenager! She probably has some badass scars.
Yesterday I went to a meetup.com board game night by myself while she was at work and the only option was to take a $17 Uber there even though I live as central as you can get (central means very little in a place like Houston).
It's especially ridiculous after living in Mexico City which has world class mass transit and the liberation to go where you want with nothing but 5 pesos. Houston's mayor calls cyclists "activists" and routinely rips out or rejects bus and bike lanes. Huge lifestyle downgrade, but I love her and this is where she got a job.
Mopeds are becoming increasingly rare.
How will we demonstrate the Doppler effect to kids now?!
I haven't lived in NL for about ten years, but I still have PTST from these 100dB mopeds at 4am. Whatever else can be said about e-bikes: mopeds will not be missed.
Saw a hilarious exchange of some cops vs teens on ebikes in a relatively affluent restaurant area a few months ago. The teens were taunting the cops as they had their normal vehicle and obviously couldn't go where the teens were. The teens just ignored the cops as they feverishly got nowhere.
-It's a big win for the elderly and out of shape who otherwise would not be getting that exercise and fresh air at all. I have a friend who's Aunt has a heart problem and apperently otherwise wouldn't be unable to bike without an e-bike.
-It brings many new people into the orbit of biking that otherwise wouldn't. The more bikers the more demand for good bike infrastructure, and the fewer cars on the road, and the more attractive biking becomes as a means of transport in a virtuous cycle. This could be huge.
Though I do worry about a few things:
-I think with its battery an e-bike is significantly more of an issue when people do stupid things like throw bikes in rivers/lakes/ponds. Even if this weren't common in places it still needs a good end of life for recycling.
-I do think maybe some people will be so used to an e-bike smoothing out the ride that they will never go to a full bike, but this may be a relatively low number (e.g. many people choose to bike over driving because they want to exercise)
-Many people on e-bikes in my area are a bit of a menace. Because it takes no effort to use, people fly around at max speed (well above the limit posted on our bike paths) and e-bikes are heavy; if someone gets hit it might seriously injure them. I think it may end up giving them a bad reputation if they aren't managed well.
Edited for formatting
But just solely from my own actual personal lived experience, they are making my rides less enjoyable on a daily basis.
I’m hoping much of it will be ironed out over time as etiquette catches up. But I dunno, once the masses flood any given environment it tends to become permanently worse.
As a paid Lime bike user, I don't mind this.
Unpaid, they are terrible heavy bikes - but that is clearly better than no-bike.
Lime already somewhat violates social contracts by having their bikes everywhere.
I want something that's not a cheap Chinese thing, but something of some measure of quality. I kinda hate the fat-tire thing and I'm not a real fan of hub motors (they add so much weight to the wheel that trying to ease a bike down off a curb results in slamming the wheel for me). I prefer mid-drive.
Canyon (German brand) sells bikes in the US with this system: https://www.canyon.com/en-us/electric-bikes/electric-touring...
(Might have to do with the weather and/or affluence? In a lot of places you can't bike year-round and an ebike is a bigger investment for only 6 months.)
I agree that we shouldn't let fear rule us, but I think the risk of fatal and disfiguring accidents is high on roadways in the US. It's kind of like letting your cat be an outdoor cat, but instead of a sad nextdoor post we are going to be seeing teen funerals
It's funny when they wrap up though and you watch all of them kickstart the bikes. Riding off down the trail as they beep and click. Haha.
exercise : e-bikes == real thinking : AI useAlthough I do agree that if it encourages the yutes to get outside and socialize that seems like a win.
[insert obligatory old man grumble about sidewalkriding and rulesignoring kidsthesedays]
But, as I said if it encourages healthy behavior, that's great.
But if you found biking way too exhausting, maybe living in a hilly area, riding an e-bike is ten times better than doing nothing. Would it be even better to ride a non-e-bike? Maybe. Would it happen? Probably not.
we're now in a world where the youth of developed countries are way more overweight than they were before, because of a radical shift in diet and exercise
upon reading that using electric bikes (that are basically mopeds disguised as bikes, i.e. which do not induce "real" physical activity due to assistance from the motor) are the healthiest thing to ever happen to teenagers, I have the feeling that the title is being a bit over the top
I'm not even talking about being fit or anything, just that actual bike riding (normal bikes) or just walking maybe would be actual good news. I understand that people in hilly areas benefit from ebikes, but is this the majority of the people mentioned here? or is it just that we're all like "well, I guess it's better than staying inside all the time eating doritos"? That's why I'm saying that this is a sign that we've given up, we're counting this as some sort of win, which I don't think it is
Maybe you should read more than the title than? Like say...the article? Just a suggestion.
an excerpt from the article you pretend I didn't read (which I did)
But let’s be honest: even throttle-only riding is more active than sitting on a couch
it's also saying things about mental well-being, the sense of community, which I can get behind of course, but there's some sense of course to the bottom in our expectations
Except... you clearly didn’t read it, or you read it and didn’t understand it. I actually gave you the benefit of the doubt by assuming it was the former.
> the article is literally saying that
The article is literally saying a lot more than just that.
You cherry picked one point out of a multi-faceted discussion about health benefits, ignored the rest, and then acted like that narrow takeaway was the entire message. Pro tip: “health” doesn’t just mean physical exertion.
So again, either you didn’t read the article, or you didn’t get it.
> it's also saying things about mental well-being, the sense of community, which I can get behind of course
Cool. But no one’s asking whether you can “get behind it” and nor does anyone care. The point is those are part of what makes it beneficial.