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I'm reading in the comments on this HN story about how things like lack of showers or longer distances or hills make bicycling impractical. As a lifelong cyclis

I'm reading in the comments on this HN story about how things like lack of showers or longer distances or hills make bicycling impractical. As a lifelong cyclist and a recent electric bike owner, I view recent technological advancement in electrified micro-mobility to be a game changer. I've made a significant investment in a custom-built steel frame electric bike that I have outfitted with racks and panniers for shopping trips and commuting to the office. As a former Trek customer who hasn't been inclined to purchase another bike from them, they still send me their new product line magazines. Maybe I haven't been paying close enough attention, but I was astonished when I grabbed the latest edition from my mailbox yesterday and thumbed through it. Trek is going ALL IN on electric bicycles. Pages 4-5 have a big flow chart helping people decide what type of electric bike to buy, depending on factors such as whether you're on dirt trails or paved streets, whether you will be transporting cargo and children, whether you value speed or comfort, and so on. Non-electric bikes are now sort of an afterthought. If you flip to the back of the magazine you'll still find them, but the electric versions of several models are still interspersed. For example they have the Domane SLR (a model I still have in my garage), but on the next page they pimp the electric Domane+. Their blitz on electric bikes might be working for me, since I'm seriously considering being a Trek customer again and "trading up" for it, in spite of the bad experiences I've had trying to get them to support the Domane SLR they sold me in 2017. America is facing a reckoning with its transportation infrastructure and car culture. Electric bikes are so compelling in terms of cost, convenience, fun, and practicality, more and more people will be riding them on the "stroads" and will be demanding changes so they feel safer doing so. If that means taking away lanes and parking spots from vehicular traffic, adding separated cycle tracks, reducing speed limits, adding traffic-calming measures, introducing safe-passing laws, and stepping up enforcement and penalties, then in my book that can't happen soon enough.

bootlooped 4y ago
We have a long way to go. In the US I think bikes are still primarily seen as toys for either children or upper middle class adults. Car culture is deeply ingrained here, and discouraging personal automobile use is going to be seen by a large part of the population as practically anti-American. There's also the fact that we have a flood of low quality and outright dangerous electric micro-mobility devices catching on fire. On the hopeful side, I see e-bikes as being part of the wave towards sustainability, a swing back towards childhood independence, and increased interest in fitness. We'll see how far it goes, but there's going to be resistance every step of the way.

bootlooped 4y ago

We have a long way to go. In the US I think bikes are still primarily seen as toys for either children or upper middle class adults. Car culture is deeply ingrained here, and discouraging personal automobile use is going to be seen by a large part of the population as practically anti-American. There's also the fact that we have a flood of low quality and outright dangerous electric micro-mobility devices catching on fire. On the hopeful side, I see e-bikes as being part of the wave towards sustainability, a swing back towards childhood independence, and increased interest in fitness. We'll see how far it goes, but there's going to be resistance every step of the way.