The Year of the E-Bicycle

theodp writes "Electric bicycles have been around for more than a century, but they have never quite captured the imagination of auto-obsessed Americans. That may be about to change. At CES this month, Sanyo showed off its sleek, lightweight Eneloop Hybrid Bicycle. Priced at $2,300, the e-bike sports a black lithium-ion battery strapped to the frame beneath the seat. Press a button on the left handlebar, and a 250-watt motor kicks in, providing about twice as much power as your own pedaling. Some basic e-bike models, like the Ezip Trailz can be had for as low as $500. Both Trek and Schwinn began selling e-bikes last year, and Best Buy is offering e-bikes in three test markets: Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Portland, OR."

Comments

Great, still doesn't fix the Houston problem.

[pecosdave]

I love the idea of using one of these bikes for my daily commute to work and back, however they don't come anywhere close to solving the beer bottles from pickups aimed at cyclist problem, or the Houston has no safe way to ride a bike much of anywhere problem.

I love to ride my bike, but Houston is a city built by politicians with pockets lined from oil companies. The oil companies decided people in Houston should drive individual cars to get around and dammit, the politicians not only saw that it happened, they made sure the public transit system sucked as well. Sure there's a great bus to get downtown and back, but you still have to drive locally to the bus stop, even if it's only a mile or two away unless you want to become road pizza. Then it's only to downtown, not across town. You can go around your area, you can go downtown, but getting from one area of Houston to another isn't easy, and unlike Phoenix and certain other cities putting a bike on a bus is hit and miss. Some drivers forbid it if they don't have a bike rack and bike racks are rare.

Re:Great, still doesn't fix the Houston problem.

[pecosdave]

Yes, and people sticking their hands out the window trying to smack you on a high speed drive by, and attempting to side swipe you. This is worse in the FM 1960 area where I used to live as opposed to the Clear Lake area where I now live. The Clear Lake area has a bit higher class of people around.

Neither is bike friendly as both areas are built by the same Houston. I saw a guy in an electric wheelchair get stranded off of FM 270 about a year and half ago do to lack of good ways to get around, I was in the process of making my way over to help him out when someone beat me to it. There are NO sidewalks in most areas. Bike lanes are a rarity and qualify more as a vehicle sprawl lane for our many commercial vehicles, a good percentage of which are driven by unlicensed illegal immigrants.

Just try to use one of these to get around random parts of Houston - not isolated to JUST the Montrose, downtown, or historical/old areas. I hear people argue they have no problem getting around a few areas of Houston, especially the older areas, but not everyone lives in these areas nor are they the destinations for everyone.

Show me someone willing to commit to using one of these to commute Houston without limiting their travel horizons for a year and I'll show you someone who wont be alive in a year to claim their prize.