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Ebikes, albeit still very expensive, are a great option. Even my weaker radmission can kind of help get my 250lb body up Cincinnati hills but im a seasoned bike

Ebikes, albeit still very expensive, are a great option. Even my weaker radmission can kind of help get my 250lb body up Cincinnati hills but im a seasoned bike commuter, new riders my size wont go for it in the winter.

kennywinker 4y ago
> still very expensive Plenty of decent ebikes available in the $1000-$2000 range. I don't think that counts as "very expensive" - for a lot of people that'll be 6 months or less of gas usage
- nomel 4y ago
  I don't think that math is realistic. Most reasonably sized cars get > 30 these days. $1500 is 9,000 miles of fuel, or an average of 51 miles per day for 6 months. If you're commuting that far, then a bike probably isn't going to work anyways. Let's say you can afford to live within some reasonable commute distance of 10 miles from your office, which is 2x the average bike commute distance, and 30 minutes at max legal ebike speed. That $1500 will get you 2 years of commute fuel, if you consider the seasons prevent you from driving for 3 months of the year.
  - kennywinker 4y ago
    Not your point, but I'd like to mention it since this is the scenario you brought up - if you live 10 miles or less from your work, unless you've got zero traffic and perfect parking on both ends, I'll bet an ebike is faster door to door than a car - and when it's slower it's like 5min slower. But back to the numbers: I just typed in "average miles driven" to get my numbers, but you're right that's not exactly realistic. So taking your numbers, and settings aside other savings that not driving 5200miles/year will get you, two years of gas still doesn't count as "very expensive" imo.
    - notesinthefield 4y ago
      This is more or less my logic, when I am in the office and the weather is not debilitating, by bike I can get to my desk ten minutes faster despite living only 6 or so miles away. Ive done this for a long time and its probably kept a few thousand miles off of my car.
  - ThatGeoGuy 4y ago
    Okay, some more realistic math then - that's often less than 9 months of insurance. Cars are extremely expensive, so if we're comparing car replacements we should look at the total cost. Some sources are [1], [2], if you're curious how expensive cars can be on average. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2rI-5ZFW1E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2rI-5ZFW1E [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpBIhQhjZuo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpBIhQhjZuo
    - nomel 4y ago
      > Cars are extremely expensive I don't think this math is right either. If I live 30 minutes from work by bike, the additional monthly housing costs will be over 10x what what my car payment + insurance + charging is, over the next 10 years, compared to 30 minutes by car. And, using average car cost is not useful for something like this. That average includes luxury cars, sports cars, and new cars. You can choose to buy outside all that. I think most people would consider sacrificing their personal transportation, for a car and public transport, as a significant quality of life reduction, so luxuries of the car world would not be included when trying to make a rational comparison to a bicycle. I've never paid close to that average.
      - kennywinker 4y ago
        Cost of an ebike: Ebike (amortized over 5 year): $2000/(5*12) = $33.33 $150/year maintenance $20/year electricity (made this number up... it's small whatever it is) Which works out to about $47/month. Cost of a car: Car payment: $300/month Insurance: $1500/12 = $125/month Gas: $62/month (your estimate) Maintenance: $500/year (again just spitballing - this is low from my experience but idk what the average is) Comes to: $529/month The difference $529-47 = $482. Now, idk where you live, but the cost of living a 30min bike ride out from downtown vs a 30min drive is definitely not 10x that $500ish monthly cost. For most people in most areas it's going to be in the range of 1x to 5x. You can quibble with my numbers if you like, but I'm definitely somewhere in the ballpark for most people. You might spend a little less on the car and more on maintenance, or more on the car and less on repairs, etc. And of course none of this takes into account your time. I've always tried my best to live under 20min commute from work, with my best being 5min, and to me saving that time has always been worth the smaller living spaces I've had to accept to get that. When you're talking about dense cities, that last 10-20min of your driving-commute is usually related to traffic and parking - which you can bypass freely by riding. I suspect if you live 20min drive out and 20min cycle out you're talking about the same distance.
digitallyfree 4y ago
While ebikes can indeed handle hills, they don't work well in heavy snow or icy conditions.
- eitally 4y ago
  They can handle any snow or ice you could drive in. Lots of studded tire options out there. That said, I think this problem is truly minuscule relative to the size of the opportunity as a whole.
  - mywittyname 4y ago
    And it's way easier and economical to store and swap out bike tires for winter/summer than it is to do the same for cars.

kennywinker 4y ago

> still very expensive Plenty of decent ebikes available in the $1000-$2000 range. I don't think that counts as "very expensive" - for a lot of people that'll be 6 months or less of gas usage

nomel 4y ago
I don't think that math is realistic. Most reasonably sized cars get > 30 these days. $1500 is 9,000 miles of fuel, or an average of 51 miles per day for 6 months. If you're commuting that far, then a bike probably isn't going to work anyways. Let's say you can afford to live within some reasonable commute distance of 10 miles from your office, which is 2x the average bike commute distance, and 30 minutes at max legal ebike speed. That $1500 will get you 2 years of commute fuel, if you consider the seasons prevent you from driving for 3 months of the year.
- kennywinker 4y ago
  Not your point, but I'd like to mention it since this is the scenario you brought up - if you live 10 miles or less from your work, unless you've got zero traffic and perfect parking on both ends, I'll bet an ebike is faster door to door than a car - and when it's slower it's like 5min slower. But back to the numbers: I just typed in "average miles driven" to get my numbers, but you're right that's not exactly realistic. So taking your numbers, and settings aside other savings that not driving 5200miles/year will get you, two years of gas still doesn't count as "very expensive" imo.
  - notesinthefield 4y ago
    This is more or less my logic, when I am in the office and the weather is not debilitating, by bike I can get to my desk ten minutes faster despite living only 6 or so miles away. Ive done this for a long time and its probably kept a few thousand miles off of my car.
- ThatGeoGuy 4y ago
  Okay, some more realistic math then - that's often less than 9 months of insurance. Cars are extremely expensive, so if we're comparing car replacements we should look at the total cost. Some sources are [1], [2], if you're curious how expensive cars can be on average. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2rI-5ZFW1E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2rI-5ZFW1E [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpBIhQhjZuo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpBIhQhjZuo
  - nomel 4y ago
    > Cars are extremely expensive I don't think this math is right either. If I live 30 minutes from work by bike, the additional monthly housing costs will be over 10x what what my car payment + insurance + charging is, over the next 10 years, compared to 30 minutes by car. And, using average car cost is not useful for something like this. That average includes luxury cars, sports cars, and new cars. You can choose to buy outside all that. I think most people would consider sacrificing their personal transportation, for a car and public transport, as a significant quality of life reduction, so luxuries of the car world would not be included when trying to make a rational comparison to a bicycle. I've never paid close to that average.
    - kennywinker 4y ago
      Cost of an ebike: Ebike (amortized over 5 year): $2000/(5*12) = $33.33 $150/year maintenance $20/year electricity (made this number up... it's small whatever it is) Which works out to about $47/month. Cost of a car: Car payment: $300/month Insurance: $1500/12 = $125/month Gas: $62/month (your estimate) Maintenance: $500/year (again just spitballing - this is low from my experience but idk what the average is) Comes to: $529/month The difference $529-47 = $482. Now, idk where you live, but the cost of living a 30min bike ride out from downtown vs a 30min drive is definitely not 10x that $500ish monthly cost. For most people in most areas it's going to be in the range of 1x to 5x. You can quibble with my numbers if you like, but I'm definitely somewhere in the ballpark for most people. You might spend a little less on the car and more on maintenance, or more on the car and less on repairs, etc. And of course none of this takes into account your time. I've always tried my best to live under 20min commute from work, with my best being 5min, and to me saving that time has always been worth the smaller living spaces I've had to accept to get that. When you're talking about dense cities, that last 10-20min of your driving-commute is usually related to traffic and parking - which you can bypass freely by riding. I suspect if you live 20min drive out and 20min cycle out you're talking about the same distance.

digitallyfree 4y ago

While ebikes can indeed handle hills, they don't work well in heavy snow or icy conditions.

eitally 4y ago
They can handle any snow or ice you could drive in. Lots of studded tire options out there. That said, I think this problem is truly minuscule relative to the size of the opportunity as a whole.
- mywittyname 4y ago
  And it's way easier and economical to store and swap out bike tires for winter/summer than it is to do the same for cars.