The PROBLEM With E-bikes

The electrification of bikes has meant a lot more people are going by two wheels because it’s better for the planet (and it’s easier than pedaling!), but… is it wheelie our best option??

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Script: Holly Maley
Editor: Jasnik Moreno + Kirsten Stanley
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Now i am willing to bet that most of you watching this video right now learned how to ride a bike as a kid but that core memory of what felt like flying for the first time often fades as we get older when biking suddenly becomes this frivolous children’s activity but today

Those dreams could be rekindled because there has been a huge resurgence in bike interest and particularly e-bikes the electrification of bikes has meant a ton more people are deciding to go buy two wheels because it’s better for the planet or it’s better than pedaling or it’s just because they’re searching for

That bit of happiness that they felt when they were kid and they didn’t have to pay taxes and remember to brush their teeth every night but as the momentum builds behind this new movement we need to take a step back and see whether or not this movement is really all that

It’s cracked up to be that was a real pun Now we were not expecting this but apparently electric bikes have been around since the late 1800s i honestly didn’t even know the batteries existed back then but uh here we are learning stuff obviously these bikes were not a huge commercial success back in the literal horse and buggy days being quickly

Overshadowed by something you may know as the old automobile it would take a totally different cultural and technological landscape for e-bikes to really get rolling but that wouldn’t stop innovators from tinkering with the idea for a full century before it really gained traction over the years e-bikes have improved

With their design and their weight and superior batteries and in 1993 yamaha which is a motorcycle company introduced the world to the first ever pedal assist model which is sort of the norm today see with most previous e-bike models the motor was controlled by a throttle just like your standard motorcycle but

E-bikes today ride like a normal bike with the motor kicking in as you pedal because of these pesky things called laws however e-bikes are often capped at speeds of about 20 or 28 miles per hour however we have technology to make them go a lot faster than that whether by

Pedal assist or throttle these things can reach speeds of over 70 miles per hour by the early 2000s the term ebike started entering public awareness and interest has steadily been rising through to 2019 government and corporate incentives to ditch the car and get a bike continued to fan these flames and then

Kovet hit initially most e-bike consumers were baby boomers and people who just needed an excuse to get out of the house but now electric bicycle companies are seeing a large shift towards younger customers living in cities who are using electric bicycles as an alternative form of transportation but we children of the

90s have something that our 1890s counterparts didn’t the complete and utter dominance of car culture in north america and the ever-pressing reality of climate change i don’t know why i made that sound exciting today most of north america gets around in cars and more and more commonly trucks

However people are starting to realize that the freedom depicted in the car ads we see on tv is not exactly the reality of driving around in the streets uh what is this traffic traffic that’s some kind of national holiday you mean to tell me this happens every single day

A lot of people are spending a lot of money to sit in increasingly insane gridlock roadways in cars that are statistically very dangerous all while contributing to the destruction of the world oh and gas prices just hit another record high it feels like the perfect storm for a new fun sustainable

Transportation mode to take over but there are some things that we need to clarify before you put the fun in between your legs that’s like a hashtag um for like biking like the bike is the fun um probably just cut that part out e-bikes are like the spork of

Transportation let me explain they are faster than a normal bike but they’re slower than a car they lack the storage of a full-size vehicle but they cost significantly less you don’t have to work as hard to get to where you’re going but you’re still exposed to the elements this weird middle ground means

That e-bikes are very good for certain kinds of people in certain contexts now as a person who rides a bike regularly without electrical assistance i can say with complete personal bias that bikes are awesome and that everyone should ride them but i am a 30 year old who is

Already a very confident bike rider who lives in a city with a lot of bike infrastructure the choice to ride bikes for me is pretty easy the e-bike is appealing to people like me as well as the people who i like to call bike curious people who buy e-bikes are

Typically the ones that are looking for an extra push to make biking a feasible form of transportation or maybe just a little less work ebikes are a wonderful tool when it comes to accessibility because it gives cyclists of all levels an opportunity to go further and faster

Than they would on a normal bike i’ve also seen a lot of people who already ride bikes buying e-bikes to replace their commuters to make their trips a little easier or to help transport their kids or cargo so these bikes are just widening the scope of what people might

Be able to do and accomplish via bicycle and this is good across the board because the more people who ride their bikes to commute the more likely a city is to build the infrastructure to keep those riders safe which means that more people feel safer riding bikes which

Means that more people do which means that the city makes more bike lanes which leads to more people riding bikes which you see what i’m saying here it’s it’s a bit of a positive feedback loop and e-bikes could be a huge push for that to start but let’s just be clear

For a minute i’m not saying that everyone should just go out and buy an e-bike right now because there are some challenges of course with everything and one of the things that makes an e-bike and e-bike is the battery now of course electrifying our society and moving away

From fossil fuels is an extremely important step to stop the planet from becoming a real-life rendition of mad max there is a very common misconception that drives me insane that if the thing you’re driving doesn’t have a tailpipe it’s somehow more sustainable it’s this kind of mentality that allows leonardo

Dicaprio to own five different cars and call himself an environmentalist because you know they all have batteries come on leo like if you’re gonna be the spokesperson dude then do better in reality as many of you probably know there isn’t a battery tree that we’re getting all of this technology from

From unethical and unsustainable lithium extraction to questionable sources of energy to power these places and the inability or willingness for frigging anybody to recycle these things batteries have their issues the emissions that we tend to over focus on is a big focal point for whether or not

Bikes are considered to be green from a sustainability standpoint e-bikes are definitely lower impact than cars but the thing is they have to be replacing car trips because if you just buy an e-bike and it sits in your garage for a year all of the environmental impact that went into creating the physical

Product is wasted so if you are going to be buying a bike make sure that that thing is being used because otherwise you’d be better off just riding the bike you already have the reality is that a standard pedal bike is going to be way better for the planet than any e-bike

Will in most cases someone riding their e-bike back and forth to work every day is going to work off the carbon footprint of that bike within a matter of months but the thing is on top of all this no matter how gung-ho you are about this major lifestyle change whether it’s

For saving the planet or saving a penny or becoming more physically active or whatever an e-bike just might not make sense for you and that’s because where you live has a huge impact on whether or not you can actually ride a bike safely if you live in the u.s or canada chances

Are your city is not even remotely designed to be safe or effective for cyclists pedestrians and e-bikes the youtube channel not just bikes summarizes this way better than we ever could but basically a lot of streets and roads or as he calls them strodes are unsafe and inefficient for pedestrians

And cyclists alike now if he were doing this video for example he would probably say something like this strodes are hostile to people outside of a car traffic engineers are concerned about drivers hitting a tree hitting a cyclist is expected dangerous or restrictive infrastructure like this doesn’t exactly

Allow a lot of people to adopt different modes of transportation these cities and suburbs make riding a bike electric or not completely impractical while riding them for recreational purposes is fine and dandy we need to look at the bigger picture here and focus on urban development that encourages the use of bicycles in

General if you’re at all interested in this kind of subject matter you should definitely watch not just bikes we’ll leave a link to them down in the description thankfully many cities across north america are making strides to improve bike ability including my hometown of victoria where we have seen

Bike lanes pop up all over the place and just like i mentioned before when those bike lanes went in bike ridership went up and e-bikes are a huge component of this more people on bikes whether they’re e-bikes or otherwise increases the number of people using it which

Means that more people are going to get on board after the fact so should you buy an e-bike and i’m here to tell you of course definitely with absolute authority that it depends the problem with new trends like ebikes is that it’s easy to latch on to them

Regardless of whether or not it actually suits your lifestyle especially when there is that comforting green label and association attached to it it can be really easy to forget that it’s never a green purchase decision if it’s not something you really needed or have no

Use for if you were looking to move away from driving and there’s just like that one hill from you to work that you keep avoiding maybe try out your old bike and see if it’s really something you enjoy and maybe an e-bike makes sense after

That but let us know what you think of the e-bike trend if you liked this video make sure that you literally like it and we will see you in the next one transport they’re chilled out