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.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

And even if you do survive the trip, there's no where safe to lock it up ... I'm waiting for the workable wheeled vehicle that I can fit in a backpack.

Try a razor-style scooter! It's so fast and efficient! Once you start scoo-muting you'll never turn back. I take mine into my office, restaurants, cinemas, on dates... all the while looking resplendent in my bright-green bike gloves. It's the way of the high-density urban future!

(posted anonymously to preserve the last remaining tatters of my dignity)

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

[Animaether]

Having been to Houston as a tourist, I find parents' notes to be absolutely true.

Not only do motorists freak out if there's somebody on a bicycle on their streets (and unless it's a highway/etc., that should be perfectly legal - share the road, dammit) and use any existing bicycle lanes as just more room for them to zigzag all over the place... ...there's almost no sidewalks! Okay, that's not true, there's plenty. But a lot of them just suddenly end with nowhere in particular to go next.
I couldn't legally walk from my hotel to The Galleria (just 1.6 miles) because the sidewalk just -ends- after the last commercial store (a garden center)'s plot it straddles. The -only- way to walk there via the 1.6 mile route was by crossing freeways, walking through an interstate (I-10) underpass, crossing a road on a bend (speeding car surprise special *every time*) then walking through a bunch of muddy (sprinkler over-use) grass (by a rug store), before finally there were businesses again and - surprise, surprise - sidewalks.
If I were to maximize actual sidewalk usage instead - ignoring the spots where there's no sidewalk - it's a 4.3 mile route. wtf.
( virtual cookies for whoever can identify the spot on google maps )

People thought I was nuts for even attempting to walk there... suggesting that I should go rent a car. "For 1.7 miles? really? holy crap.", I thought. Then I started looking more closely as I was driven around by friends and it became clear to me as well that Houston was practically built around the idea that everybody and-I-do-mean-EVERYBODY has a car. It's evident from the clear lack of respect for cyclists and pedestrians - both by the majority of the people and by the city itself, courtesy of its lack of proper infrastructure for these groups. I mentioned that there are plenty of sidewalks... well, of sorts anyway; they were all concrete abominations that were crooked, cracked, and grown through by weeds.. so those who do like to walk are probably discouraged from that as well as you're likely to eventually trip and faceplant.

For me, within a city, it is absolutely insane that it would be an easier and shorter trip for a motorist than for a pedestrian.

Now, Seattle on the other hand.. completely different story - and with the odd hill here and there, and longer treks to get around the sound/bay, I suspect the e-bike could come in quite handy and not be a death-magnet.

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

[Tumbleweed]

Most of us road our bikes to school by 4th grade here in San Diego.

And some need to ride right back to school. :)

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

[Anonymous Coward]

As an avid cycle commuter I spent 3 years in the 90's in Houston: after experiencing that cycling was impractcal, inconvenient and not entirely safe in the 290/1960 area and then around the Galleria, I did commute to downtown from the Montrose area; and, as posted above, if one stay inside the loop, biking is not so bad, but outside is totally a nightmare.

Note: After Houston I lived in Portland Oregon and now Munich Germany, both of which are a totally different world where cycling is a normal, expected, desirable, supported and respected form of transportation.

As noted by others, the problems in Houston are multifold: designed only for cars, citizens do not expect to see bicycles (= lack of safety), cycling is not respected or desired, etc.) --- the most difficult aspect to comprehend is how socially undesireable it is to be a cyclist in Houston (or most of Texas for that matter): everyone assumes that anyone on a bicycle is either too poor to own a car or pay for gas or has had his driver's license revoked for DWI. When I used to commute the 4 miles to downtown my colleagues would continuously offer me a ride home, ask compassionately what finincial problems i had and if they could help (i couldn't possibly be choosing to cycle so it must be because i had no money!), offer to loan me money, etc. Even after I explained that my car was all good and well but sitting at home in the garage, they simply didn't believe me! THAT is an anti-cycling environment!

P.S. although I love the percetant of bicycle usage in the Netherlands, I do not believe its bike system should be taken as the model, as its system is based on "separate but equal" facilities for bikes, autos and pedestrians (i.e. lots of bike lanes but bikes are generally forbidden to ride on the roads if bike paths are available). Germany follows a similar system in theory where cyclists are often grouped with pedestrians (leads to higher rate of minor accidents), but in practice is somewhat less restrictive as fewer bike paths are available. (It has been shown numerous times in studies that the safest system in urban areas involes biking not on completely separate facilities (i.e. bike paths) nor along with pedestrians (i.e. sidewalks), but along side cars on the roads (either with or without bike lanes), with large numbers of cyclists on the road such that car drivers both expect and respect cyclists on the road).

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

[DamonHD]

"When bikers pay into the highway system, then they can have bike lanes."

Motorists in the UK try to use this argument too, but motoring-related taxes (in the UK) do not cover the direct costs of providing the road network IIRC. So the cyclists paying their general taxes are *already* paying, and given that wear that drives road-maintenance costs is something like the fourth power of the axle weight, the cyclists' contribution need only be tiny to be proportionate. Cyclists may already be *overpaying*...

I believe that in the UK almost the only transport form that fully recovers costs year-on-year is the train system, which people then whinge about the expense of.

Many motorists continue to behave as if the full cost of a journey is the marginal pump cost of the fuel, ignoring externalities from pollution to tarmac to road-deaths.

Rgds

Damon

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

[mea37]

Because you've seen some people on bikes violating traffic rules, it's ok to attempt to murder any cyclist you see? Because that's what you're doing when you throw something at an unprotected cyclist in traffic, in case you're unaware.

Two arguments were raised:

That cyclists should pay to accont for increased road maintenance is an interesting argument. Let's see some hard numbers. What is the marginal increase in road maintenance costs due to cyclists. What are the budget allocations that pay for that maintenance, and how do they align with various taxes - many of which cyclists do in fact pay. Show me the numbers, and if they show that cyclists are underpaying I'll buy that something needs to be done to tax cyclists. Oh, but if they show that cyclists are overpaying (which I bet they will), I don't suppose you'll support giving them a credit, will you?

The second argument had to do with some recent state law that protects pedestrians, cyclists, etc. His argument is that this unbalances the risks and burdens and cycilsts should pay more for the greater protection. First of all, this clearly comes from someone who has never been vulnerable on the road. A car that decides to ram a bicycle stands to lose nothing unless caught by law enforcement; the cyclist stands to lose his life. The law works toward establishing balance; it is not something from which balance needs to be restored. Second: why single out cyclists? Register every pair of walking shoes.

Make all the excuses you want; laws like this are aimed at nothing other than trying to keep people from exercising rights you find inconvenient.

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

[BenEnglishAtHome]

I guess bikers are too insecure to ride in single file, I see packs of them on the weekends riding 4 and 5 deep, taking up half the right lane in their funny outfits, even with a clearly marked bike lane. They run stop lights, and dart out across traffic without hand signals.

What you're describing is very common. However, what irritates me is the undeserved sense of entitlement evidenced by such bechavior, more so than the actual breaking of the law.

Some years ago, a nurse who was tending to my mother in the hospital was making conversation during some lengthy time he was forced to spend in her room due to her condition. The conversation ranged broadly and it eventually came out that he was a weekend cyclist (one of those funny-tight-pants guys) and he regaled us with his account of a recent run-in with the law. It seems that the rural folks where his (apparently rather large) group rides had complained to local law enforcement about the bikers who were running lights, failing to yield, taking up too much road space by riding abreast, etc. The local lawdogs set at a stop sign on their customary route. As was their habit, the entire group simply blew through the sign without stopping. The cops pulled over about 30 of them and wrote tickets.

Come court day, the entire group showed up to fight the tickets. There were a couple of lawyers amongst them. They simply stood up in court and started talking about how they'd fight using some sort of (spurious, it seemed to me) argument that if each rider stopped at the sign, the group would get so strung out that various hazards would be created for both the group and other traffic. In a bit of a mob scene in the tiny traffic court of this tiny, rural courthouse, they vowed to gum up the works with enough paperwork and motions so as to keep the entire city legal staff occupied doing nothing else for as long as possible.

It was a sort of "We're a big enough mob that we can get away with breaking the law" confrontation. The judge grabbed onto a technicality in the first case and simply dismissed them all.

I said all that to say this - If I were part of a mob that managed to break the law and get away with it simply because the mob was big enough to overwhelm the resources of a small town, I'd be pretty embarrassed at getting away with such a thing. This guy wasn't. He was actually *proud* that he was able to get away with breaking the law. He felt that he was such a righteous person for riding a bike that he deserved to be allowed to run stop signs. Now, why on earth does riding a bike make someone a better person? Where do bicyclists get this attitude? I don't get it. I just don't get it. But I do know that I have a very low opinion of bicyclists because of this incident and so many others I've experienced on the road where cyclists seem to have an attitude of "The rules don't apply to us."

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

[Locklin]

Your second hand story about proud, self-important cyclists flouting the law and believing they "own the road" is the same experience cyclists, including myself, see regularly from motorists! Perhaps there are just idiots out there, some ride bikes some drive cars. The ones who drive cars, however, kill people (including other motorists).

If you want to talk about misapplied justice, there are countless cases of motorists killing cyclists, pedestrians, and other motorists by gross negligence and careless driving. Many of these people never see the inside of a jail cell and most will drive again.

Why not just buy a motorcycle?

[Rix]

The price point for these seems way off.

Re:Why not just buy a motorcycle?

[cduffy]

For one thing -- exercise!

I own a 2009 Optibike 850 -- an expensive toy, sure, but my pride and joy. It gets me to work and back in less time than driving followed by a gym session would require (and much less time than taking an unassisted bike both ways, which I've started doing on occasion as well), while being great exercise -- the way the Opti is geared encourages the rider to pedal along with a cadence in the 85-90 area, and my cholesterol and waistline are both way down since I dropped the car from commute duty.

I also like being able to take my ride inside the office with me rather than needing to fight for parking. (Motorcycle parking is close to the building too, so not a big deal when I ride my scooter... but getting a chance to work out on my way to and from work makes all the difference in the world in terms of stress, and having the workout be part of my commute means I stay with it).

Re:Why not just buy a motorcycle?

[MartinSchou]

but also less gay looking

So using something that will get you into shape is gay. Interesting.

No wonder my ass is always so sore after my workouts. I thought it was because the seat isn't all that comfortable, but it turns out that apparently I'm actually taking a cock up my ass for hours on end.

best quote

[phantomfive]

I'm pretty skeptical about the ebike thing, I'm sure some people will find a use for it, but this quote from the article was eye-opening about cultural differences:

In China, riding an electric bike conveys professional achievement, even a certain degree of wealth. People in the United States, said Ed Benjamin, an independent consultant in the bike business, don't quite know whether these bikes are fashionable. The e-bike is "an ambiguous statement," Mr. Benjamin said.

I'm not entirely sure what the cultural significance of that is, but it must mean something.

Old

[ZirconCode]

We had those here (Japan) for 5 years now, they're quite popular in rural areas or for shopping but otherwise everyone takes the train.

Re:These are useless as transport

[pitterpatter]

Probably Lance Armstrong can produce over 250W for much of a day. I on the other hand, break a sweat just thinking about it. A hardworking horse can keep up about 750W (definition of a horsepower). Imagine yourself and two buddies playing tug-of-war with a Clydesdale.

Re:Sounds like a nice place to live

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Because of the anger among the cyclists, Critical Mass was started which generally only pisses off the drivers but also is a lot of fun.

And you wonder why so many drivers get pissed off to the point of violence? Golly gee, I can't imagine how that could happen.

Re:These are useless as transport

[bertok]

Surely humans can produce well in excess of 250W.

Yes. 250W is only "twice as much power as you provide" if you're taking it very easy. Based on measurements provided by the exercise bikes at my gym, I know I'm able to produce around a kilowatt for 5 minutes or so at a time, and can sustain 500W practically indefinitely.

OTOH, there are regulatory reasons for the motor being 250W: at least here in the UK, you'd need a full drivers licence, annual vehicle inspection and all-around crash helmet to ride it if it were more powerful. It should also be designed so that the motor cannot make the bike go faster than 15mph.

Errr... according to this:

Lance Armstrong can ride up the mountains in France generating about 500 watts of power for 20 minutes, something a typical 25-year-old could do for only 30 seconds. A professional hockey player might last three minutes and then throw up. (source)

...it sounds like you're either an olympic-level athlete... who reads slashdot... or your gym equipment is severely miscalibrated. I've tried those bikes at the gym, and 250W is
my limit for a 10-15 minute stretch, and I'm by no means unhealthy. Are you sure those weren't imperial units? I know the UK has switched to metric, in theory, but I know some of you poms still get confused. 8)