I must admit that I used to look down (just a tiny, tiny, little bit) on people who chose to ride power-assisted bikes. And that's not surprising when you find yourself caught behind a noisy and smoky two-stroke engine on an otherwise quiet bike trail—the chap who rattles along Gardiners Creek and Yarra trails of a morning springs to mind here.
But happily my disdain is firmly in the past, at least when it comes to electric motors, for I've seen what a difference something like this can make in a person. Yes, I can feel an anecdote coming on, so make yourself comfortable.
Antidote anecdote
One of my fellow miners, a woman of middle-ish years and reasonable though not excellent health (neck and back pain is a particular problem for her), enjoys riding but last year managed to throw her leg over the bike to ride to work not more than a dozen times.
One of her problems is that, at the end of her pretty demanding day at work, she rarely has the inclination to ride the mostly uphill journey back home. So although she's keen for to ride most mornings, she doesn't because she knows she won't be up to the ride home in the evening.
Then in January she lashed out for a power conversion kit for her bike, something a bit like this:
That's a battery pack on the luggage rack and what looks like a dynamo hub on the front is the motor. Acceleration is controlled by a twist grip throttle.
Transformation
And she's been transformed. She has ridden almost every day, arriving faster than she would in her car, cheerfully bouncing into the office full of energy, and she appears generally happier. I'm not sure if the exercise is helping her neck/back pain but she doesn't seem to apply the heat pack quite as often.
Exercise?
Hang on, did I say "exercise" there? How can she be getting exercise if she's got an electric powered bike? Well, she still pedals but the motor just assists her where the going gets hard. And no doubt on some days that's probably most of her ride home. So she's not working as much as she would if she was doing it without the power-assist motor, but without the motor she wouldn't be riding at all. And a little bit of gentle pedalling is better exercise than just walking from the front door to the car and turning the key.
Savings
A related advantage that she's found is that where previously she would put fuel in her car weekly, since getting the power pack on her bike four months ago she has bought petrol only twice (and the second time was about a week ago).
Rev it up
And she's having fun with it. She told me a terrific tale about sitting at some traffic lights with a handful of other bikes. The lights changed, she twisted the throttle and took off.
At the next set of lights, a younger bloke in full Lycra kit came panting up behind her and asks, "Have you got a motor on that?" When told that indeed she had, he replied, "Thank god for that—I was getting a bit demoralised!"
Heh, I suppose being dropped by a trundling "granny" on a hybrid would be a bit depressing for a sporty young cyclist…
Changed my tune
So yeah, I've changed my tune on power-assisted bikes—while they are not my sort of thing, power-assisted bikes are good! Well, I'd actually changed my tune ages ago, but it's nice to confirm that the new song sheet is a better one.
No two-stroke
That said, I still think that petrol-powered motors are not the way to go. Invariably these things find their way onto bike trails, where their noise and trailing plume of smoke are highly unpleasant impacts on all other trail users.
And in the hands of an inexperienced and/or nervous rider, they can also be quite dangerous—a few weeks ago I was stuck behind two of these rattling smoke machines. I wasn't keen to stay in their wake, so moved to overtake as soon as I had a safe opportunity to do so. Despite ringing my bell incessantly, the rider with the lawn mower engine couldn't hear me and wasn't aware that I was there, and as I came past she veered to my side and we very nearly had a bingle. I was not best pleased.
Another option
So power-assist offers another option to get people out of cars and onto bikes. Some back-of-envelope calculations should show that in fuel savings alone (putting aside health and lifestyle benefits) a power-assist kit is a cost-effective choice for many.
A quick web seach dug up the following tidbits on the topic:
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Bicycle-Power offers information on fitting a motor to a bike.
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Greenspinner wants to know why more people don't ride motorised bikes?
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Sunny Day, a solar-powered bike, has just won the grand prize at the International Bicycle Design Competition.
Comments
hi there,
i agree, my mum has had a hip operation but she now has one of those (electric) power assisted bikes. it doesn't have a throttle but it automatically adds power when you are pedaling. so you still have to move to get it going. it keeps her moving and mobile.
cheers
I've had an electric for about 2 years.
Pluses:
Minuses:
Power-assist bikes are only a problem when they're used as powered bikes that happen to have pedals.
I think most of us hate seeing noisy stinky 2-stroke powered bikes trundling along with the rider doing nothing to assist except squeeze the throttle harder and grimace a bit. In my opinion, an electric bike in the same situation is not much better.
But if the motor is used for assistance only... that's a different matter.
I'm imagining a completely self-managed assistance motor, controlled by a throttle on a spring-loaded idler pulley on the tight side of the chain. The more effort you put in, the more the idler pulley spring deflects, opening the throttle a bit more. If you slack off, idler spring relaxes, the throttle backs off.
It would be great for taking off from a standstill, and for climbing with a load (for loaded climbing on cargo bike, such an assist motor would be a wonderful thing!).
At cruising speed on flat land, you don't NEED an assist motor to help you along. Just spin along without much effort (ie not much chain tension, little if any motor assist).
The Stoke Monkey does something similar - assists depending on effort.
tim
I have an electric assist bike on loan, and the experience riding it has generally been very positive. My main issue with it is battery life - it's uses two 6 volt batteries (I don't think they're NiMH or Lithium), and it looks as though one of them has gone bad and needs replacing. Getting replacement batteries isn't a huge hassle for me, but might be for some people.
I also have to readjust the brakes fairly regularly. The bike is quite heavy so the brakes wear more quickly than on an ordinary MTB. Not really a big deal for me, but again, might be something not everyone will find simple to do.
Also, the particular bike I've got on loan only has front suspension, which can make for bit of a rough ride on some roads. You can take the bike off road where the electric assist can really comes into its own, but the sheer weight (and extra length) of the bike can be a bit of a problem sometimes.
The bike's motor circuit is designed so the motor stops spinning when you're doing about 20 km/h, which means you have to pedal on the flat if you want to maintain a decent speed. This is fine, but I can go faster on the flat with an ordinary road bike or MTB. In other words, if you live in a flat area I don't think a 200W electric assist bike is going to help you much.
When the batteries were good I had a range of about 20-25 km.
Some photos:
http://picasaweb.google.com/ozzmosis/DynoCB24V200
I never really looked down on power-assisted bikes. Usually the characters that ride them are truly that: characters, the spice of life. At least, that has been my impression. For instance, they all seem to have the old school white styrofoam helmets from the 70s. But I find the two-stroke a crime against the environment. It also seems maintenance intense which is not what you want in a commuter, but that is a personal observation.
I know it is shallow but my principle "objection" against power assisted bikes is that they tend to be butt ugly. Tend to be. There are examples of better looking bikes (e.g. the Sparta Ion) where the battery is integrated in the frame. If you didn't know it, you wouldn't recognize it as an electric bike. Cost you a small fortune though, but if money is no option then, hey, may as well look good out there. I'm sure there are enough cashed up seniors in Australia. There is also this group of people at Suitable Transport. They rode from Melbourne to Sydney on power assisted bikes, one in a business suit, just to show you can commute "in uniform" without breaking a sweat. Nice. I hope that when I need power assistance somewhere beyond 2050 (inshallah) the battery will be the size of a mobile phone and have a 100km radius at 30km/h.
Governments shoud support pedal assisted bicycles. Not only it provides people with heap transport but at the same time it is a good healthy sport since you still have to pedal here and there.