Month: May 2022

What I Ride

Parked bikes in Utrecht, The Netherlands

What’s your style? Plodding but steady? Head down in the wind keeping tight with your pelet0n? Adventurer? Down-hill racer? Paths and parks with a touch of gravel?  Strictly urban workaholic? Some combination of the above?

Me, I’m grandpa, old,  a bit decrepit, tooling about Alexandria between 10-16 mph depending upon the incline, the wind, my often aching legs and reluctant lungs. Far from concerning myself on how fast I go, I’m much more concerned on how slow I travel. I wave and smile at babies and kids, nod to approaching riders. I often stop to chat with fellow e-bikers: “Love your ride! What do think of it? Do you like it?” I’m strictly an urban biker now, my attempts at becoming even remotely proficient on single track or downhill many years in the past. I’ve learned to slow down to just enjoy. That’s me, though, not you.

For those wanting to enter the electric mobility market, and its not just bikes,  the consumer is faces a welter of choices, styles , with nascent technologies and a permutation of accessories and options in the hundreds. New companies seem to appear and wilt away like spring daffodils; every day it seems there’s some new concept vehicle offered on Indiegogo or online. What’s it all about? And how does one decide?

Given the price point of quality e-bikes, people are often looking for multi-purpose vehicles, much like SUV’s today. They want it for work and daily errands, for play, for exercise, for taking the kids to school, for the spring visit to Lowe’s to haul 100 lbs. of garden mulch homeward. For the adventurer, they want range, a rack that’s sturdy enough to haul their temporary lives about. For the downhill racer: suspension, suspension, suspension, and lots of torque to get you up the mountain. For the speed freak, acceleration and top end power is key.

All of which are available, and all of which you gotta pay for. The price range and quality is really wide, from Walmart, around  a $700 impulse buy to the luxurious and sophisticated tech of Riese and Muller, $10,ooo+ fully kitted out. Many potential e-riders I’ve spoken with favor Walmart; after all why pay more than ten times over for serviceable transportation? Or why not a Rad Power bike (and I in no way want to discourage anyone from buying one – they’re great bikes) for less than $2000?

Which gets back to my original question: what’s your style? Are you a pedal power type or are you more of a scooter, moped type of rider? Are you comfortable dealing with this area’s hills, climbing, pedaling, exerting yourself to get to the top or would you rather let the motor do all the work for you?

The difference is whether or not a bike has a throttle, that is, a Class 2 Pedelec  (with) versus a Class 1 (without). With a throttle you depress or twist a lever and go. Though the bike may require you to keep the crank rotating, and faster rotation may even make the bike go faster, exertion, i.e. torque, i.e. human wattage, is NOT required.  Bikes such as these have cadence sensors that detect if and how fast you pedal and controllers that deliver power to the motor accordingly. Rad Power bikes are good examples.

Quite a few riders mention that “I just use the throttle to get going or to climb hills.” Could be, but that’s not what I’ve observed on the trail; most every e-biker I’ve encountered with a throttle bike uses the throttle – always. I know, I’ve owed two such bike before.

I’m decidedly in the pedaling, effortful camp. I believe in the cycling experience: without exertion, you do not move at all, but the more you exert yourself the faster you go and higher you get.  For me, exercise is vital. I’ve got to keep the ole gams in shape, the blood pumping and my brain oxygenated. E-biking every day does that.

Adaptive assist e-bikes, without a throttle, do not replace your effort but rather amplify the wattage YOU output.  Thus power and range become a function not of your motor and battery, but of your legs, lungs and overall stamina. The motor, though, certainly helps.

Most e-bike marketing misses this point. An advertised range may indicate 100 miles per charge, but can your legs go that far? For many touring e-bikers this is often an un-asked question. Can you go 50-100 mi. a day, day after day? Even with assistance, do you have the legs?

And they’re expensive. These bikes generally use mid-drive motors which are more expensive than the hub drives typically found on Class 2 throttle bikes.  And the experience should be transparent, it should be smooth, it should be quiet. Ideally, you should not be aware of the motor at all. To accomplish this effect, these bikes require sophisticated controllers, power regulators, torque and cadence sensors and lots of software. A quality e-bike will fool you into thinking you’re an awful lot stronger than you think you are. Try going up a steep hill under power and turn the motor off halfway up. You will quickly be disabused of your super powers! 

I chose a Class 1 Pedelec, a bike  that enhances my power, not something that replaces it. I wanted to smooth out the hills and extend my range. I wanted a transparent, responsive experience, without the distraction of a system’s latency or noise.

For safety, I insisted on UL certified battery with thermal regulation, hydraulic disk brakes and built in lighting package. I also wanted  a low step with an upright riding position and the smoothest drive train available – a carbon belt drive. I chose the Enviolo continually variable transmission, completely sealed from the elements. No chain, no oil, no mess, no constant adjustment, no maintenance. 

After months of searching, I found the Gazelle Ultimate 380  and I felt this was just about the perfect, purpose-built urban commuter. My Gazelle has it all: utility, comfort, safety and reliability.  I can even go fast if I work at it.

But if you want to plunk down 7 C-notes for a Walmart bike, go for it. It’s an introduction without a great deal of commitment. Or a fat tire bike, or a beachside cruiser for your retirement, go for it. Above all, before clicking the BUY button, go to bike shops try their rides. Try as many as you can. Try different styles, different prices, especially the wildly expensive ones, the highest quality models – you don’t have to buy ’em. Try them on flats (precious few around here), on hills, in traffic. 

And check out vloggers who post about their bikes. But remember, anyone who does so (including me) loves their bike and thinks they’ve made an absolutely brilliant choice (including me). Be aware that there is no credible list of “Top 10 Electric Bikes” or “Best Bikes of 2022”. Such lists are just reflections of the authors’ biases or commercial agendas. However, somewhere out there, with a bit of searching, a bit of nerding out over styles, components, systems and of course the right color, there’s an e-bike for you. Enjoy.

Why I Ride

I vividly remember the day, my tenth birthday, when I inherited my older brother’s nameless and battered 5-speed bike (yeah, with one of those gear levers)! For months I anticipated days of adventure, freedom – all of those small ponds, rivers, beaches (I lived on the shores of Lake Erie). I was not disappointed. There was not a road or cranny I failed to explore in Lorain County often starting early in the morning, biking til dusk, mindless of  traffic, trucks, the rough roads.

All that ended, however,  when I got my driver’s license at 17. But those feelings never left me.

When I moved to Chicago in ‘98, I quickly tired of the  bus and the El commute from the North Side to downtown. So I got a bike and started riding seven miles to and from work. I cycled all seasons. Even in Chicago’s brutal winters, exposed to the gentle Arctic breezes wafting across Lake Michigan, I generated my own internal heat, arriving at my destination quite toasty.

Chicago is a great biking town. It’s flat, very flat and most streets are bike-able even though congested. The Mayor, Richard Daley, was a confirmed biker – “stop signs are for cars, not for bikes” he claimed. And blast through stop signs I did!

I now appreciate how much more dangerous it was back then and how lucky I was to survive my kamikazi, hell-bent-for-glory style uninjured. But I left work and stress behind, pedaling against the wind, cursing the drivers who cut me off, a  happy middle-aged man reliving much younger days.

I became a serious commuter, convinced that the bicycle was the ideal mode of personal urban transportation and swearing off cars forever.

Unfortunately, health reversals sapped the strength in my legs and heart. By the time I arrived in Alexandria, there was no way I could manage the hills of Northern Virginia. And as good as public transportation is in this area, I just couldn’t abide by it. What to do?

I thought about this new invention: electric bikes. I discovered a dealer in Tacoma Park that offered an unbranded model made in Malaysia that was essentially a bike with a battery bolted to it.  Very primitive, but it got me from Seminary Hill to my workplace in DC  just off the Mall. An inspiring ride to say the least!

But once again, health issues stole my strength and affected my balance. The e-bikes I rode were of the kind that required no torque, no pressure on the pedals, no effort. Just twist the throttle and go. They did require moving the crank .  I wishfully thought moving my legs constituted exercise; it did not. Even though I was commuting 20 miles per day, I gained no physical benefits from riding. Eventually, because I was not attending to my health, I could do no longer ride safely and stopped entirely.

When I retired (gee, it’s been four years already) I had completely given up. I could barely walk 100 feet before the pain in my legs and the pounding in my chest caused me to stop and rest. Clearly, I had to make a change, a big change. So I lost some pounds, I changed my diet, I began walking. At first 100 yards at a time, then  a thousand, then miles. It took two years, exercising, first pilates and then yoga. I got stronger, my legs, my heart, my balance improved. I was back on my bike again!

But age and disease have taken their toll; there is no way I can manage the hills of Virginia. I need help, but I also need a challenge. Exercise is critical to maintaining my strength and health. My bike provides exactly that. It’s a Class 1 Pedalec – the motor only amplifies my human effort, it does not replace it. The hills remain just as steep and just as long, but for me, with assistance, they are possible.

Anyone who walks or bikes around this city inevitably encounters issues of safety and convenience. One definitely gets the impression that on city streets outside of an automobile you are an afterthought, an inconvenience. I took me a long time, and a lot of searching before I came to realize that safety and convenience are either pro-actively designed into pedestrian and cycling infrastructures or they are intrinsically un-safe. In that search I encountered the concepts of Complete Streets and Vision Zero. Complete in the sense that they are accessible to all, young, old, the very abled, the disabled, the adept, the naive: everyone! Vision Zero in the sense that we will soon see the day when our streets are inherently safe. When people on foot, on bikes, using alternative forms of mobility, and yes,  in automobiles will arrive at their destinations safely without fearing injury or worse.

This city, this country, this world needs to take advantage of the most innovative of transportation modalities. We are at a juncture today similar to when the Wright brothers opened their cycle shop in Dayton Ohio in 1892  and 130 years ago, offered the ‘Van Cleve‘ model safety cycle, of very high quality and very expensive. The cycle shop was a victim of its own success as competitors mass produced cheap knockoffs. The brothers could not complete and left the business in 1902 for another preoccupation. You can’t defy physics, however; then as now there exists no form of human transport more efficient than the bicycle. The bicycle reinvented in the age of information. 

Many years and many miles later, I still seek adventure and joy in city streets, bike paths, excursions to other places, cities and sights. Should you see some old man puffing his way up Braddock Road or King Street, please wave, it very likely could be me.