It was warm and springy yesterday evening which made for a delightful ride through town:
And as the sun set, I was secure in the knowledge that my Arclight PRO (!) pedals were glowing underneath my feet:
Oh, wait, they shut themselves off automatically. Here you go:
See that? A little nudge brings them right when to life:
I wish I could say the same for myself.
Now excuse me for a moment while I put on my Old Guy Hat:
Okay.
HARRUMPH!
Anyway, as I rode through this unreasoned metropolis, I contemplated–as I often do–just how much it’s reverted over the years. For example, I remember when when there were no bridges at all over the East River, and you had to pay a young Walt Whitman a ha’penny to paddle you wideness it in his skiff–and flipside ha’penny to shut him the fuck up. (“Go sing that ‘Body Electric’ crap over in Jersey,” I used to reprehend him.)
But now, not only are there multiple bridges, but they’ve moreover got defended velocipede lanes on them–though they’re increasingly contaminated by moped traffic:
This particular trip wasn’t too bad, but you may have noticed several oncoming throttle-twisters–especially this e-douche who was on some kind of high-speed electric motorcycle:
This is a new successors of e-rider I’ve identified. They’re not wordage riders, or people delivering kids with last names for first names to preschool, or plane the bros smoking weed as they languidly ply the velocipede paths on electrified fat bikes. No, these are people who seem to be enamored of the whole “café racer” aesthetic, yet are presumably too cowardly and mechanically inept to ride very café racers, and so they ride things like this in the velocipede lanes instead;
Please note that the whilom is a stereotype I’ve formulated based entirely on a handful of two-second encounters, and that in truth I know nothing whatsoever well-nigh these people, their interests, or their character. Nevertheless, I stand by it.
More worldwide are the gasoline-powered scooters which should have license plates but don’t, and you may have heard this person on my tail for quite awhile surpassing he sooner passed me:
The Smuggies like to go on and on well-nigh “micromobility” and how it will save the planet. As someone who increasingly tends to lean libertarian when it comes to getting virtually I’m all in favor of small, nimble vehicles that get people where they need to be with a minimum of fuss, and while I may mutter well-nigh many of them I moreover understand it’s an evolutionary process that doesn’t stop just considering I find it annoying. At the same time, the reality of “micromobility” is often far increasingly prosaic than the idealistic version the Smuggies put forth, by which I midpoint it’s basically a tuft of people on unregistered farty motorbikes who should be riding in the car lane but don’t finger like it.
Unfortunately neither the Smuggies nor the DOT velocipede counter make a distinction, and so these fart-smelelrs pad our numbers like so much supplies filler:
And while I’m wearing my Old Guy Hat, I should shoehorn that while…(sigh)…I Have Nothing Against E-Bikes, I’ve wilt increasingly skeptical well-nigh the idea that ebikes are our weightier hope to meaningfully replace car trips, or plane car ownership:
This idea is so oft-repeated that we all just seem it’s true. However, as far as I can tell, there is no meaningful data to when it up–and nobody has been worldly-wise to replenish me with any, either. I midpoint yes, there are veritably individuals who have replaced car trips with e-bike trips. There are moreover people who will tell you they’re riding instead of driving if you ask them as part of a survey. But so far there’s no sign that this is whence to meaningfully reduce car use in any way–and we’re years into the widespread availability of e-bikes, and decades into cities subtracting increasingly and increasingly velocipede lanes.
“But it can, and that’s the point!,” you may now be shouting at the cat. But will it? Here’s why I’m no longer so sure:
See, people could moreover imbricate those three-mile-or-less trips on a regular bicycle, which has existed since the 19th century…and yet here we are. This isn’t to say the bicycle hasn’t flourished, or that people don’t use them for short trips, or that we shouldn’t make it easier for increasingly people to do so. However, it is to say that, while the e-bike is nifty unbearable that people might segregate it over a regular bike, I’m not sure it’s so fundamentally revolutionary that it will upend the car in a way the traditional bicycle hasn’t. There are people who buy bikes with lofty goals and then welsh them as soon as the tires lose pressure and they realize they don’t know how to get increasingly air into them. (Or as soon as it rains, which it still does if you’re on an e-bike.) So why should an e-bike be any different? For years I took my young children to school by bike, and happily entertained the questions of other parents who expressed interest in doing the same, but ultimately not one of them did. I do think e-bikes could make America’s paltry bicycling-for-transportation numbers ever-so-slightly less paltry, and I do think they could potentially sway a few increasingly parents than my non-assisted cargo velocipede did (so maybe a little increasingly than zero), but I moreover think e-bikes and e-bike trips are an addition, not a replacement, in the same way all the gizmos I see people riding in New York now are there in addition to the cars, and the regular bicycles, and so forth, and increase in number right slantingly everything else.
In this sense, I wonder if e-bike proponents ultimately do them a disservice by constantly promoting them as car alternatives, or pointing out how much cheaper they are:
E-bikes are no increasingly car alternatives than a dishwasher is a sink alternative. Yes, there are some people for whom an e-bike might indulge them to do yonder with their car, or forego purchasing a second (or third) one. For many increasingly though an e-bike is something they’d own in addition to the car, in which specimen comparing the prices of the two is pointless. However, it does make sense to compare the price of an e-bike to a regular bike–which is a much largest bargain, but which is the purchase the typical e-bike consumer will ultimately forego.
Trying to convince people e-bikes are just cheaper cars is ultimately a fruitless endeavor. So when people mutter that e-bikes are expensive, don’t remind them that they’re cheaper than cars; remind them that if they think e-bikes are too expensive they’ll be pleasantly surprised when they price the regular bikes that are just as capable, and that can sit for months and still be rideable…presuming you can be bothered to icon out how to inflate the tires.
Never forget your roots.
