Why We Don’t Bike More – Can Electric Bikes Help?

Jul 24, 2012
Why We Don’t Bike More – Can Electric Bikes Help?

Bike Auckland

Guest blog by Jace Hobbs (Electric Bike Hub*)

You love to bike, always glad when you arrive home from that bike ride, but still you don’t get out as much as you would think.

My theory is that it’s that one big hill that you have to huff over, that one part where the wind just slows you to frustration, or that narrow patch of road that you must pedal along where the cars are just too close for comfort. How true is that for you?

I’ve known folks that wanted a view from the house, built up a steep driveway, and positively hate having to push the bike up that hill, their hill! What if you could take that particular problem and obliterate it?  You’d be left with all the great portions of the ride. If not for that one big disincentive, a lot of us would bike more.

My suspicion why we don’t make the bike our primary transportation mode is we can’t always feel like pedaling over that hill or quite as far as our shopping trip needs to be.

To be fair, we can’t be expected to, but if our biking experience had the option of a super-efficient, quiet motor assist, we will might make this choice quite often, perhaps making bikes our primary transportation. This is where an electric bike shines. Electric bikes flatten a few hills, keep up with traffic better for safety, and you can simply be dragged to windward like a hand pushing you on the back. You’re cruising again and you have got a week’s groceries and your kid on the back who loves the ride. There are some added benefits to electric bikes that may win you over:

  • Electric bikes allow us to stop and greet that person  we like so well, see so seldom, but stopping the car in a parking spot is too difficult.
  • Electric bikes allow you to park right at that farmers stall in the market, right in front of the grocery, right at the bank door. No parking fees, no hunting for  a spot.
  • Electric bikes can get you away from the polluting fumes of cars on our roads and onto bike paths and byways. Did you know that even when you are driving your own car, you are inhaling what experts judge is the worst air you will ever breathe.
  • Electric bikes just may reform our communities away from the private motorcar, resulting in fewer roads, more bike paths,  more green space and a cleaner environment.

We are not dreaming some future invention; they are here for us today.

(* Electric Bike Hub has locations in many towns of New Zealand. Jace is the national importer and distributor for eZee electric bikes, a world leader in electric transportation. His website is www.electricbikehub.co.nz)

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