5 ms·

Totally agree with the premise that e-bikes are the most appealing option for urban mobility. I don't need a full workout when commuting and 250W of torque-sens

by hnov 4y ago

Totally agree with the premise that e-bikes are the most appealing option for urban mobility. I don't need a full workout when commuting and 250W of torque-sensing assist makes me, the average cyclist feel like superman. Just wanted to point out some downsides: - $3300 + $1000 for upgrades/maintenance to cover 4k km works out to $1/km which is fairly expensive. Longer use will obviously amortize the cost further and the resale value of that bike is at least $2k, but still, I could buy a motorcycle/scooter and gear for similar money. - Any US city I've lived in, riding such a bike to anywhere where I'd be leaving it out of sight for >5min is a non-starter because of rampant theft. - Riding a sustained 20mph with a bicycle helmet without first developing the requisite skill to go that fast on a regular basis exposes you to much higher risk. Similar to if your first car had 400hp and no active safety features.

worik 4y ago
> - Any US city I've lived in, riding such a bike to anywhere where I'd be leaving it out of sight for >5min is a non-starter because of rampant theft. That is very sad. How can people exist in such an environment?
- tantalor 4y ago
  This is why commuting to work with an e-bike is a great option, assuming your workplace offers secure bike storage, which it certainly should.
- dont__panic 4y ago
  Why do you think suburbs are so popular in the USA? A lot of us are interested in living in cities, walking and biking as much as possible, but eventually the crime (personal or property) becomes too much and folks move somewhere "safer." It happened in the 60s and 70s with "white flight," it's happening now with millenials who are getting fed up with rent, crime, etc. That being said, cities still have more things to do than most alternatives unless you really like outdoor activities. And the dating scene is much better in cities. And physical workplaces are nearly all near cities. So a lot of Americans work around the problems US cities have for those advantages.
thebigjewbowski 4y ago
> I could buy a motorcycle/scooter and gear for similar money I did a similar calculation myself recently. I sold my car for a profit given I was driving very little. The furthest I’d been driving most of the time was 3 miles away / 6 round trip. I looked into an e-bike but it seemed to make more sense to get a motorcycle. The bike, title transfer, helmet and some gloves wound up being less than $3k. I also decided it was probably safer to ride with traffic at 35-40mph than be riding on the side of the road at 20mph tops.
- grokx 4y ago
  > I looked into an e-bike but it seemed to make more sense to get a motorcycle. The bike, title transfer, helmet and some gloves wound up being less than $3k. In the long run, the motorcycle will likely cost more than the bike, considering gas, insurance, and maintenance expenses. Also, for 6 miles, it might not be worth to have an e-bike. I do ~17km round trip on a so-called "fitness bike", and after some training I go faster than e-bikes. :) > I also decided it was probably safer to ride with traffic at 35-40mph than be riding on the side of the road at 20mph tops. This is a good point. I chose a longer trip, but way safer with separated lanes for cycles. Disclaimer: I rode motorcycles for ~10 years, now I'm full bicycle for commuting, and we use a long-tail e-bike to carry the kids around the city. We still have a car for family WE trips (main blocker!) and weekly groceries.
  - nickstinemates 4y ago
    > In the long run, the motorcycle will likely cost more than the bike, considering gas, insurance, and maintenance expenses. Gas cost is nominal - premium, $6/gallon and 130mpg with a 1 gal tank. Insurance is equally nominal - $20/month for single motorcycle for a clean record driver in their late 20s/30s with more than minimum coverage Maintenance - a wash. Bikes are cheap/easy to maintain yourself and are more complicated in their E versions I'd imagine.
picture_view 4y ago
There are lots of decent ebike options < $2000 and they generally require very little maintenance. $1000 for inner tubes, break pads, and chain grease is not a reasonable estimate.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  I'd say $1000 is pretty high and likely is mostly labor. You can almost all of your bike maintenance yourself for a small fraction of what it costs at the bike store and if you are halfway handy you will probably do as good or better. $1000 would probably also include things like cassettes, chainrings, chains and brake discs. Depending on the system on your bike this stuff can get quite expensive.
- sliken 4y ago
  Er, what? Sounds crazy high, maybe $50 for tubes/pads (at huge bike shop markups) and even a very generous hourly rate for a generous 1 hour should be WAY less than half of that.
13of40 4y ago
Another downside and word of caution: I left my $1200 Rad City bike in the garage over the winter and it got unplugged somehow. By spring it was no longer able to charge, and replacing just the battery cost another $600.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  It should have kept charge easily if it was full when the winter started. I've two 36 V nominal packs here lying around in case the other one dies (but it never does) and they've dropped 0.5V from 39 or so over the winter. Quite probably there was something wrong with that previous pack already that caused a self discharge rate so high that the pack had gone completely empty. The best way to store them for long term is to charge to either 3.7 or 3.9 V / cell (depending on whether you want to check them in 3 or in 5 months).
- jdboyd 4y ago
  I hope that your bike failed like that was a fluke. I didn't recharge my $1100 Ancheer all winter and it was fine when I started using it again 2 weeks ago. I didn't even think it might be a problem to worry about. I'll have to be more careful next winter. FWIW, I would encourage anyone who isn't certain enough about it to buy a $3,000 bike to start with a cheaper Chinese model to decide if it is for them. There are things I don't love about this bike, but it definitely has me sold on electric assist bikes given the hills I have around me and my knees, and when it comes time to replace it, I expect I will get a nicer model.
lazyier 4y ago
> Riding a sustained 20mph with a bicycle helmet without first developing the requisite skill to go that fast on a regular basis exposes you to much higher risk. It's not really that "sustained" in reality. Sure you need to be careful, but it's not like you are going to risk flying off your bike if you hit a pebble. There is a hell of a lot of bike snobbery coming from the roady groups when it comes to ebikes and they act like if you don't put in the physical conditioning necessary to ride that fast you have no business on a ebike. The whole thing is pretty silly. Grandmas and mothers and kids have been riding 50cc scooters all over the planet for decades in public roads in speeds in excess of 30mph without having their faces explode. > - $3300 + $1000 for upgrades/maintenance to cover 4k km works out to $1/km which is fairly expensive. If you a DIY sort, which you should if you are considering using bicycles as viable transportaation, then a reasonable ebike that will handle 20-40 thousand miles can be put together for under 2 grand. Much less if you don't mind replacing throttles that wear out or having ugly wiring. The expensive part is the battery. That is the heart of the bike. Everything else is almost incidental. If you are worried about theft a used mountain bike and a 200 dollar kit will get you were you are going just as well as a 4000 dollar bicycle. The expensive part, the battery, you take with you.
- Zigurd 4y ago
  I'm one of those lycra clad roadies and even a carefully planned load of groceries in a messenger bag, nevermind loaded panniers, weighs you down a lot. OK on flat terrain, but the hills in my town would make it pretty miserable. If I were to use a bike for regular errands for groceries, taking trash to the transfer station, shirts to the cleaners, etc. an e-bike would be perfect. The thing about calculating per mile costs is: 1. e-bikes are on a downward cost track, interrupted by COVID supply chain issues. But, recently, you can get a Giant e-bike for under $2000, which is very reasonable. Lightness is expensive. As long as you do not need to lift your e-bike, costs can continue to come down. 2. They are for local journeys. I would not commute from the exurbs on an e-bike. Up to 10 miles is a reasonable distance.
  - AtlasBarfed 4y ago
    E-bikes eliminate two factors that inexperienced bikers struggle with: wind and hills, two things that a couple hundred extra watts really help with even when limited to 20-25mph. Especially if you are towing a burley or have panniers or aren't in full spandex. The wind resistance really adds up. Ebikes are such an effective and useful form of urban transportation that very efficiently leverages what battery supply we have for cheap and FUN travel. To the point that the government should make this the "summer of the ebike" and offer a $500 rebate on e-bikes this summer. When I lived in a downtown, I could not wait for bikeable weather to come (midwestern winters). A city shrinks by a factor of ten over walking, and when you consider you often can park right by your destination for free, while cars almost always have a 10-15 minute penalty for finding parking and walking from the parking spot. The convenience range of an e-bike that can do 250-300 watts over a regular bike is probably 20-30 miles further, especially when often bike routes can be more direct. And an ebike gives the horsepower to cart around rain gear. For things like watching marathons, parades, and festivals (as long as you aren't THAT GUY trying to walk his bike through shoulder to shoulder crowds), they are unmatched. You get so much more of the experience. Of course so much of this is because people don't bike, maybe things would change if a lot more people did. If you are ever doing the tourist thing in Washington DC, their city is perfect for their bike share service. It was AWESOME. Being able to go monument to monument, smithsonian to smithsonian, to the zoo, to the hotel, to restaurants, was amazing on a bike with no hassles with car parking, the roundabouts in cars, or dealing with the metro schedules and line transfers. Bonus: you can go to Georgetown easily which doesn't have a metro. Manhattan/NYC SHOULD be like this, but it wasn't in the same league as DC last I did it. Brooklyn was still not well served. Manhattan/NYC would be much better with an ebike. It would shrink Manhattan neighborhoods by a huge amount.
kashkhan 4y ago
Even $0.50 per km is pretty bad. With no safety shell. I drive a used Lexus which costs me less that 30 cents per mile all up.
- Zigurd 4y ago
  It's a faulty comparison: If you drove only in city traffic, your costs per mile would be at double or more. A few hours at highway speed is low-cost. Cost per city journey, including parking, would be a more enlightening comparison. And if you substituted an e-bike for those journeys your car costs per mile would drop.
  - kashkhan 4y ago
    Lexus RX 30 MPG on highway 18 MPG on city streets with medium traffic (Denver Metro) So yes city uses twice the gas. But average is 24MPG. I bike (no battery) and it is super efficient for 5-10 miles. My point was ebikes make no sense economically.
    - hnov 4y ago
      Yet. I think part of that is that cars are ubiquitous enough for you to able to buy a fully depreciated, reliable Japanese car for the cost of a decent ebike, we have some of the cheapest fuel in the world and everything is built around cars. I expect economies of scale to kick in with eBikes while cars continue to become more and more expensive to run in dense urban centers.
- Zobat 4y ago
  Honest question; What's included in those 30 cents? I'm just guessing that that's gas alone, and not including parking, insurance, repairs and depreciation.
  - kashkhan 4y ago
    includes all of that (2004 RX330). Gas: 15 cents depreciation and repairs: 5 cents (bought for $4k(180k miles), no repairs (3 years), lasts 300k-400k if driven with care maintenance: 1 cent. $50 oil change every 6 months Insurance: $50/month. 5 cents parking: 0 cents free on the street (live and work in suburbia) even in city find street parking and walk half mile (Denver/Boulder) you could go even cheaper buying a camry.
nawgz 4y ago
> - $3300 + $1000 for upgrades/maintenance to cover 4k km works out to $1/km which is fairly expensive. Longer use will obviously amortize the cost further and the resale value of that bike is at least $2k, but still, I could buy a motorcycle/scooter and gear for similar money. I just want to say, as someone who just got into mountain biking, this is a shockingly expensive sport and these machines are requiring surprising amounts of maintenance. The cheapest full-suspension bike I found was $1250 lightly used, and I promptly had to go spend $130 to have just the rubber of the front tire replaced (tubeless wheel - $70 part $60 labor). I admit I got boomed by the seller and should've asked for money back when when he told me the tire was needing repairs, but the bike shop I went to did not have low prices beside tune-ups or installs
- grokx 4y ago
  The good news is that most of the maintenance can be DIYed with a few inexpensive tools. Replacing tires, inner tubes, or brake pads is not really complex. Cleaning and greasing the chain is also easy, but must be done regularly to preserve the transmission. In the same way, tire pressure should be adjusted regularly to preserve tires and avoid punctures. Transmission replacement could be a bit more complicated and requires additional tools, but it's still feasible. What I would leave to a pro is the suspension maintenance and break fluid replacement.
  - nawgz 4y ago
    > Replacing tires, inner tubes Note I did say tubeless - I bought the bike to ride trails and I understand these to be more durable. If it took the guy at the shop an hour to put a tire on, have him describe it as not fun, requiring specialized tools, and say it'll last a year if I maintain it a bit, I can assure you I'm not going to DIY that. The transmission is simple, just a rear derailleur with 12 speeds, I am glad for this, it seems very well built and I don't expect issue, but I would be hopeless to fix it were it to severely break. The brakes are extremely critical on steep and rocky trails so I will also leave this to the professionals. Overall, I don't think becoming a bike mechanic is a trivial venture, and given the relatively high stakes nature of trail riding I prefer to have it done at an expert level.
antisthenes 4y ago
> $3300 + $1000 for upgrades/maintenance to cover 4k km What happens to your bike after 4k km?
sliken 4y ago
> I could buy a motorcycle/scooter and gear for similar money. Sure, purchase price, but not cost to own. Don't forget the total cost to own. Gas, Oil, Oil changes, license, registration, insurance, etc. Also exercising while commuting makes it a daily activity, doesn't require a gym membership, and can save you a few hours a week of trying to get exercise elsewhere.

by hnov 4y ago

worik 4y ago

> - Any US city I've lived in, riding such a bike to anywhere where I'd be leaving it out of sight for >5min is a non-starter because of rampant theft. That is very sad. How can people exist in such an environment?

tantalor 4y ago
This is why commuting to work with an e-bike is a great option, assuming your workplace offers secure bike storage, which it certainly should.
dont__panic 4y ago
Why do you think suburbs are so popular in the USA? A lot of us are interested in living in cities, walking and biking as much as possible, but eventually the crime (personal or property) becomes too much and folks move somewhere "safer." It happened in the 60s and 70s with "white flight," it's happening now with millenials who are getting fed up with rent, crime, etc. That being said, cities still have more things to do than most alternatives unless you really like outdoor activities. And the dating scene is much better in cities. And physical workplaces are nearly all near cities. So a lot of Americans work around the problems US cities have for those advantages.

thebigjewbowski 4y ago

> I could buy a motorcycle/scooter and gear for similar money I did a similar calculation myself recently. I sold my car for a profit given I was driving very little. The furthest I’d been driving most of the time was 3 miles away / 6 round trip. I looked into an e-bike but it seemed to make more sense to get a motorcycle. The bike, title transfer, helmet and some gloves wound up being less than $3k. I also decided it was probably safer to ride with traffic at 35-40mph than be riding on the side of the road at 20mph tops.

grokx 4y ago
> I looked into an e-bike but it seemed to make more sense to get a motorcycle. The bike, title transfer, helmet and some gloves wound up being less than $3k. In the long run, the motorcycle will likely cost more than the bike, considering gas, insurance, and maintenance expenses. Also, for 6 miles, it might not be worth to have an e-bike. I do ~17km round trip on a so-called "fitness bike", and after some training I go faster than e-bikes. :) > I also decided it was probably safer to ride with traffic at 35-40mph than be riding on the side of the road at 20mph tops. This is a good point. I chose a longer trip, but way safer with separated lanes for cycles. Disclaimer: I rode motorcycles for ~10 years, now I'm full bicycle for commuting, and we use a long-tail e-bike to carry the kids around the city. We still have a car for family WE trips (main blocker!) and weekly groceries.
- nickstinemates 4y ago
  > In the long run, the motorcycle will likely cost more than the bike, considering gas, insurance, and maintenance expenses. Gas cost is nominal - premium, $6/gallon and 130mpg with a 1 gal tank. Insurance is equally nominal - $20/month for single motorcycle for a clean record driver in their late 20s/30s with more than minimum coverage Maintenance - a wash. Bikes are cheap/easy to maintain yourself and are more complicated in their E versions I'd imagine.

picture_view 4y ago

There are lots of decent ebike options < $2000 and they generally require very little maintenance. $1000 for inner tubes, break pads, and chain grease is not a reasonable estimate.

jacquesm 4y ago
I'd say $1000 is pretty high and likely is mostly labor. You can almost all of your bike maintenance yourself for a small fraction of what it costs at the bike store and if you are halfway handy you will probably do as good or better. $1000 would probably also include things like cassettes, chainrings, chains and brake discs. Depending on the system on your bike this stuff can get quite expensive.
sliken 4y ago
Er, what? Sounds crazy high, maybe $50 for tubes/pads (at huge bike shop markups) and even a very generous hourly rate for a generous 1 hour should be WAY less than half of that.

13of40 4y ago

Another downside and word of caution: I left my $1200 Rad City bike in the garage over the winter and it got unplugged somehow. By spring it was no longer able to charge, and replacing just the battery cost another $600.

jacquesm 4y ago
It should have kept charge easily if it was full when the winter started. I've two 36 V nominal packs here lying around in case the other one dies (but it never does) and they've dropped 0.5V from 39 or so over the winter. Quite probably there was something wrong with that previous pack already that caused a self discharge rate so high that the pack had gone completely empty. The best way to store them for long term is to charge to either 3.7 or 3.9 V / cell (depending on whether you want to check them in 3 or in 5 months).
jdboyd 4y ago
I hope that your bike failed like that was a fluke. I didn't recharge my $1100 Ancheer all winter and it was fine when I started using it again 2 weeks ago. I didn't even think it might be a problem to worry about. I'll have to be more careful next winter. FWIW, I would encourage anyone who isn't certain enough about it to buy a $3,000 bike to start with a cheaper Chinese model to decide if it is for them. There are things I don't love about this bike, but it definitely has me sold on electric assist bikes given the hills I have around me and my knees, and when it comes time to replace it, I expect I will get a nicer model.

lazyier 4y ago

> Riding a sustained 20mph with a bicycle helmet without first developing the requisite skill to go that fast on a regular basis exposes you to much higher risk. It's not really that "sustained" in reality. Sure you need to be careful, but it's not like you are going to risk flying off your bike if you hit a pebble. There is a hell of a lot of bike snobbery coming from the roady groups when it comes to ebikes and they act like if you don't put in the physical conditioning necessary to ride that fast you have no business on a ebike. The whole thing is pretty silly. Grandmas and mothers and kids have been riding 50cc scooters all over the planet for decades in public roads in speeds in excess of 30mph without having their faces explode. > - $3300 + $1000 for upgrades/maintenance to cover 4k km works out to $1/km which is fairly expensive. If you a DIY sort, which you should if you are considering using bicycles as viable transportaation, then a reasonable ebike that will handle 20-40 thousand miles can be put together for under 2 grand. Much less if you don't mind replacing throttles that wear out or having ugly wiring. The expensive part is the battery. That is the heart of the bike. Everything else is almost incidental. If you are worried about theft a used mountain bike and a 200 dollar kit will get you were you are going just as well as a 4000 dollar bicycle. The expensive part, the battery, you take with you.

Zigurd 4y ago
I'm one of those lycra clad roadies and even a carefully planned load of groceries in a messenger bag, nevermind loaded panniers, weighs you down a lot. OK on flat terrain, but the hills in my town would make it pretty miserable. If I were to use a bike for regular errands for groceries, taking trash to the transfer station, shirts to the cleaners, etc. an e-bike would be perfect. The thing about calculating per mile costs is: 1. e-bikes are on a downward cost track, interrupted by COVID supply chain issues. But, recently, you can get a Giant e-bike for under $2000, which is very reasonable. Lightness is expensive. As long as you do not need to lift your e-bike, costs can continue to come down. 2. They are for local journeys. I would not commute from the exurbs on an e-bike. Up to 10 miles is a reasonable distance.
- AtlasBarfed 4y ago
  E-bikes eliminate two factors that inexperienced bikers struggle with: wind and hills, two things that a couple hundred extra watts really help with even when limited to 20-25mph. Especially if you are towing a burley or have panniers or aren't in full spandex. The wind resistance really adds up. Ebikes are such an effective and useful form of urban transportation that very efficiently leverages what battery supply we have for cheap and FUN travel. To the point that the government should make this the "summer of the ebike" and offer a $500 rebate on e-bikes this summer. When I lived in a downtown, I could not wait for bikeable weather to come (midwestern winters). A city shrinks by a factor of ten over walking, and when you consider you often can park right by your destination for free, while cars almost always have a 10-15 minute penalty for finding parking and walking from the parking spot. The convenience range of an e-bike that can do 250-300 watts over a regular bike is probably 20-30 miles further, especially when often bike routes can be more direct. And an ebike gives the horsepower to cart around rain gear. For things like watching marathons, parades, and festivals (as long as you aren't THAT GUY trying to walk his bike through shoulder to shoulder crowds), they are unmatched. You get so much more of the experience. Of course so much of this is because people don't bike, maybe things would change if a lot more people did. If you are ever doing the tourist thing in Washington DC, their city is perfect for their bike share service. It was AWESOME. Being able to go monument to monument, smithsonian to smithsonian, to the zoo, to the hotel, to restaurants, was amazing on a bike with no hassles with car parking, the roundabouts in cars, or dealing with the metro schedules and line transfers. Bonus: you can go to Georgetown easily which doesn't have a metro. Manhattan/NYC SHOULD be like this, but it wasn't in the same league as DC last I did it. Brooklyn was still not well served. Manhattan/NYC would be much better with an ebike. It would shrink Manhattan neighborhoods by a huge amount.

kashkhan 4y ago

Even $0.50 per km is pretty bad. With no safety shell. I drive a used Lexus which costs me less that 30 cents per mile all up.

Zigurd 4y ago
It's a faulty comparison: If you drove only in city traffic, your costs per mile would be at double or more. A few hours at highway speed is low-cost. Cost per city journey, including parking, would be a more enlightening comparison. And if you substituted an e-bike for those journeys your car costs per mile would drop.
- kashkhan 4y ago
  Lexus RX 30 MPG on highway 18 MPG on city streets with medium traffic (Denver Metro) So yes city uses twice the gas. But average is 24MPG. I bike (no battery) and it is super efficient for 5-10 miles. My point was ebikes make no sense economically.
  - hnov 4y ago
    Yet. I think part of that is that cars are ubiquitous enough for you to able to buy a fully depreciated, reliable Japanese car for the cost of a decent ebike, we have some of the cheapest fuel in the world and everything is built around cars. I expect economies of scale to kick in with eBikes while cars continue to become more and more expensive to run in dense urban centers.
Zobat 4y ago
Honest question; What's included in those 30 cents? I'm just guessing that that's gas alone, and not including parking, insurance, repairs and depreciation.
- kashkhan 4y ago
  includes all of that (2004 RX330). Gas: 15 cents depreciation and repairs: 5 cents (bought for $4k(180k miles), no repairs (3 years), lasts 300k-400k if driven with care maintenance: 1 cent. $50 oil change every 6 months Insurance: $50/month. 5 cents parking: 0 cents free on the street (live and work in suburbia) even in city find street parking and walk half mile (Denver/Boulder) you could go even cheaper buying a camry.

nawgz 4y ago

> - $3300 + $1000 for upgrades/maintenance to cover 4k km works out to $1/km which is fairly expensive. Longer use will obviously amortize the cost further and the resale value of that bike is at least $2k, but still, I could buy a motorcycle/scooter and gear for similar money. I just want to say, as someone who just got into mountain biking, this is a shockingly expensive sport and these machines are requiring surprising amounts of maintenance. The cheapest full-suspension bike I found was $1250 lightly used, and I promptly had to go spend $130 to have just the rubber of the front tire replaced (tubeless wheel - $70 part $60 labor). I admit I got boomed by the seller and should've asked for money back when when he told me the tire was needing repairs, but the bike shop I went to did not have low prices beside tune-ups or installs

grokx 4y ago
The good news is that most of the maintenance can be DIYed with a few inexpensive tools. Replacing tires, inner tubes, or brake pads is not really complex. Cleaning and greasing the chain is also easy, but must be done regularly to preserve the transmission. In the same way, tire pressure should be adjusted regularly to preserve tires and avoid punctures. Transmission replacement could be a bit more complicated and requires additional tools, but it's still feasible. What I would leave to a pro is the suspension maintenance and break fluid replacement.
- nawgz 4y ago
  > Replacing tires, inner tubes Note I did say tubeless - I bought the bike to ride trails and I understand these to be more durable. If it took the guy at the shop an hour to put a tire on, have him describe it as not fun, requiring specialized tools, and say it'll last a year if I maintain it a bit, I can assure you I'm not going to DIY that. The transmission is simple, just a rear derailleur with 12 speeds, I am glad for this, it seems very well built and I don't expect issue, but I would be hopeless to fix it were it to severely break. The brakes are extremely critical on steep and rocky trails so I will also leave this to the professionals. Overall, I don't think becoming a bike mechanic is a trivial venture, and given the relatively high stakes nature of trail riding I prefer to have it done at an expert level.

antisthenes 4y ago

> $3300 + $1000 for upgrades/maintenance to cover 4k km What happens to your bike after 4k km?

sliken 4y ago

> I could buy a motorcycle/scooter and gear for similar money. Sure, purchase price, but not cost to own. Don't forget the total cost to own. Gas, Oil, Oil changes, license, registration, insurance, etc. Also exercising while commuting makes it a daily activity, doesn't require a gym membership, and can save you a few hours a week of trying to get exercise elsewhere.