Yup! I lost weight since getting mine and I’ve been a happier, healthier feeling person all around. I’ve seen and experienced more of my city, been places I never even knew existed, and had a great time doing it all.
I’m currently on a regular bike, and lucky to have my main destinations (work and the store) within a few miles on flat terrain with bike lanes. I definitely want to upgrade to an e-bike so I can ‘unlock’ more reasonably bikeable places and ditch the car for everything except long trips and moving big cargo. I have some people at my work who commute on personal e-scooters and electric longboards, too which is awesome. The more the merrier!
Same. I moved to a place “bikeably” close to the things I needed most (like post office for my work). Every day of the week I toss on some ANC headphones (transparency mode enabled) and head out for a 10 mile bike ride to drop off mail and explore the neighborhoods as I burn some calories and jam out to some tunes. I have a nice size tactical backpack which I use as my “trunk” to carry stuff around (as well as spare parts/tools to fix my bike on the go if needed)
An E-bike is high on my wish-list, but I’m letting the “market” mature and see where things end up so I can get something with an upgrade/repair path to replace the batteries as they age. But I would love to ditch the car for 90% of my weekly needs.
For now I keep my bike tuned up and enjoy the workout.
I don’t know about you but I enjoy biking because I see the same regular people in the neighborhoods all the time, if nothing more than a friendly smile and a hello - you don’t get that same interaction with people when you’re driving everywhere.
I totally feel you on enjoying biking way more. Biking around feels so much more human to me than cars ever will because you can like, see people’s faces. I only need to see a face once or twice for it to be recognizable, but I could definitely sit in traffic and next to the same person in the same Honda civic every day while commuting and never realize. Cars just put so much space, separation, and obstruction between people.
I still have less-than-ideal interactions with pedestrians in high traffic times- our pedestrian/bike infrastructure is mixed and fairly imperfect, and often I get funneled into tight spaces and people on foot tend to do unpredictable things. In cars, when drivers do things that annoy or endanger each other, it’s always horns and middle fingers and road rage behaviors. But on a bike, you can talk to each other. On your left, coming through, excuse me, sorry. I’ve had a lot of interactions where pedestrians say sorry to me as I pass and they realize they were in a weird spot, and I have a chance to holler back that it’s okay, no worries as a ride off.
I’ve also noticed that with other bikers, we have a mutual understanding of how to move out of each others way and navigate the pedestrians/obstacles around us, just through body language and facial expressions. It is so much easier to be nice and considerate and communicative on a bike.
I live in an area that’s terrible for bikes, otherwise I’d consider an e-bike.
The big probem in the US is that even when biking and walking is technically viable, you have to do it along side the 45 mph 6 lane stroads that intersect other stroads with awful intersections and crosswalks, and if there is a bike lane it’s a painted stripe along the dirty unmaintained shoulder.
Yep. The roads around me are way too fast to even think about a bike.
Same here especially with the widest of roads and the lack of bike racks. I also gotta mention the hills. I remember when our car broke down, we had to bike for groceries at a Walmart 2 miles away. Going home was uphill and sharing the road with gigantic cars are terrifying. I would be riding our bikes more if it weren’t for those factors.
Do people have issues finding somewhere secure to leave the bike? I’ve been considering ebikes but my area doesn’t have a lot of biking infrastructure.
Get a very expensive lock, I wouldn’t go cheaper than a kryptonite fahgettaboutit lock for around $100 and 14mm thick.
If it doesn’t require at least two angle grinder blades to open then it’s far too cheap.
I would add a cable as well for securing the front wheel. Back one too if you’re paranoid like me. I’ve had one stolen and can’t let its replacement out of my sight for more than a few minutes.
We bought a moped two summers ago and we rarely drive our car anymore. My brother got an e-bike and he loves it. I hate driving in my car and try to avoid it as much as possible. I am thinking we are going to get an e-bike or two soon
I hate living in an area where biking just a half mile would give you heat stroke.
I started riding ebikes instead of a normal bicycle, and as a result, I cycle more often. The winds has a nice cooling effect, and since there’s almost no physical effort, I arrive at my destination without a drop of sweat, even on a hot day.