Is an Electric Bike Right for You?

If you&#;re thinking about buying an electric bike, commonly known as an e-bike, first consider how you intend to use it. Eleven percent of Americans have ridden an e-bike over the past year, according to a recent nationally representative survey conducted by CR of 2,035 U.S. adults (February ). The survey also found that, among those who had ridden an e-bike or an e-scooter in the past year, fun and leisure activities were one of the reasons 71 percent chose to ride an e-bike or e-scooter.

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There are almost as many types of electric bikes as there are pedal-powered bicycles, and many of them do specific things very well. A big factor in your decision will be where you live, because climate, the presence (or lack) of bike lanes, how far you want to ride on a regular basis, and how your locale classifies and regulates e-bikes will affect how you can use one.

Micah Toll, who digs into the particulars of electric bikes and other battery-powered personal transportation for Electrek, a website focused on everything electric, says budget is an important consideration for e-bike shoppers.

He advises consumers to avoid the extreme low end of the electric bike range, where cheaper components can affect the overall quality. He also says first-time buyers might not want to get the most expensive models, to give themselves time to figure out whether or not they like riding one. He says that although there are so many options for every price range as the number and types of e-bike models continue to proliferate, $1,500 is generally a sweet spot in terms of price. You may find cheaper alternatives from no-name manufacturers that pop up on Amazon and other online sales venues, but quality e-bikes tend to start in the $1,000 to $2,000 range.

&#;There are more players than ever in the industry, and the options have really expanded on both the low and high ends of the market,&#; Toll says. &#;Manufacturers are making good-quality bikes but aren&#;t using top-shelf components. It&#;s a good balance for people who don&#;t want to spend a fortune but also don&#;t want the bike to fall apart after a year or two.&#;

Steve Volkers, who lives in suburban Maryland and commutes several miles over rolling hills, says he actually gets to work a little faster on his electric bike because he doesn&#;t have to sit in the Washington, D.C., area&#;s notorious car traffic.

Glen Mayenschein, who works several miles from his home in northern New Jersey, has been commuting exclusively by bicycle for 20 years, and, at age 62, decided to buy an electric bike.

&#;I have a bad knee, so I figured I&#;d make it easier on myself and get an electric bike,&#; Mayenschein says, noting that he rides a hilly route to and from work. &#;I like riding a bike, and I still ride regular ones from time to time, but now I mostly ride the electric one.&#;

Commuter bikes vary from the type with narrow tires and straight handlebars that city dwellers are used to seeing in conventional form to beefier models with fat tires and thicker frames.

Experts say fat-tire bikes&#;which can be difficult to get going on pedal power alone&#;are gaining in popularity as electric versions have become more widely available. There are also folding electric bikes that are easier to stow in a tight storage area or aboard a train or bus.

As with conventional bicycles, there are several types of e-bikes, each with a special purpose, whether it&#;s riding mountain or forest trails, taking long rides on the open road, or cruising around at a leisurely pace near home. Some conventional cycling purists knock electric bikes because of the greater ease of pedaling, but some converts have told us they love them.

The extra boost from a battery and an electric motor has also opened up cycling to people who might not otherwise have been able to ride. Sarah Johnson, the Omaha cycling advocate, says she faced having to give up cycling when medical problems made it difficult for her to pedal a conventional bicycle.

&#;I used to be an e-bike hater, but when I realized that it was e-bike or no riding, I realized how great they are,&#; she says. &#;I&#;m feeling better, but I don&#;t think I&#;ll ever get rid of my e-bike.&#;

Performance Road Bikes
The defining characteristics of a road bike are usually a lightweight frame, skinny tires, and drop-down handlebars that help the rider maintain an aerodynamic riding position. It&#;s not unusual to see a cluster of bright-shirted cyclists pedaling furiously down a bike trail or along the side of the road on lightweight speed machines.

Like their pedal-powered counterparts, electric road bikes feature slimmer, lighter components and require an aerodynamic riding position, both meant to increase efficiency over long distances. The assistance offered by an electric motor makes it possible to cover longer distances and handle steep grades with less of the fatigue associated with conventional bicycles.

Even though they&#;re fast and relatively light, performance bikes still aren&#;t for everyone, because the aggressive riding position can be uncomfortable for some riders.

Mountain Bikes
With beefier frames, bigger tires, and sometimes long-travel suspension components, mountain bikes are built to handle trails, large rocks, logs, and other rough terrain and obstacles. A spin through mountain bike racing videos on the internet reveals that their riders sometimes expect the bikes to handle much more than that&#;big air jumps and rough terrain, among other demands.

Of course, the fun part is the faster, more effortless downhill portion. Getting there usually involves a demanding pedal up steep grades on loose terrain. Adding an electric motor to a mountain bike makes a lot of sense for someone who wants to experience the thrill of downhill riding but may not have the fitness to handle the grueling uphill slog.

The e-bike segment makes bikes with larger tires&#;which are more difficult to pedal using leg power alone because of the increased weight and rolling resistance that comes with their beefy wheels and tires&#;more appealing, and also makes it possible to do more riding in a day because of reduced fatigue. Electric mountain bikes aren&#;t permitted on some trails, so be sure to check state and local regulations. Also, as CR&#;s testers found, it&#;s important to buy an electric mountain bike with brakes that can handle the extra weight of the battery and electric motor.

Hybrids and Cruisers
Hybrids offer a combination of road bike efficiency and the more upright riding position preferred by mountain bikers and commuters. They usually have straight handlebars. This type of bicycle can be a good all-around setup for those who seek the best of both worlds.

Cruisers offer a relaxed, comfortable upright seating position and often a softer ride because of bigger tires and cushier seats. Look for swooping handlebars that keep a rider&#;s arms a relaxed distance from the body. The addition of an electric motor to either of these configurations makes it possible to use a thicker frame and wider tires to soak up bumps in the road. Volkers, the Maryland commuter, bought this type of e-bike because he can ride it on light off-road trails and paved roads with ease.

If you want to learn more, please visit our website Future Electric Vehicles.

E-bikes can travel at speeds similar to conventional bicycles and carry the same safety risks. However, models that can travel at 20 mph or more add another level of risk to the equation.

Higher speeds mean the rider has less time to slow down or stop. Whether riding a bicycle or a motorcycle, the results of even low-speed crashes&#;especially when cars and trucks are involved&#;can be painful and even fatal. A study in the journal Injury Prevention found&#;based on an examination of emergency room records&#;that electric bike riders were more likely to suffer internal injuries than those riding conventional bicycles.

The easiest and most obvious way to avoid a serious head injury is to wear a bicycle helmet. A review of bicycle helmet research published in the journal Injury Prevention in says that wearing a helmet can reduce the chance of serious head injury by 63 to 88 percent. Wearing bright clothing and adhering to traffic laws can also help.

Another important safety factor for cycling is the availability of dedicated&#;and specially protected&#;bicycle lanes. If you must ride in the road with cars, take into account the prevailing speed and flow of traffic. Motorists may be distracted or driving too fast to see cyclists.

There are aftermarket devices that can be added to any bicycle with features similar to those in the active driver assistance systems (ADAS) found on cars and trucks. They include blind spot warning and crash detection.

There hasn&#;t been much academic study yet about the injury risks to children posed by the newest electric bikes, but it&#;s best to exercise extreme caution when addressing the needs of new or inexperienced cyclists. As anyone who fell off a bicycle when they were young can recall, even low-speed crashes and tip-overs can result in injury.

Because most e-bikes use lithium-ion batteries, there&#;s also fire risk to consider. It&#;s important to use the correct charger and charging cord, supplied by the manufacturer that built the bike you own.

If you end up having to replace the battery for some reason, use only a UL-listed battery approved by the bike&#;s manufacturer. Don&#;t leave the bike unattended while it&#;s charging, and don&#;t charge e-bikes in sleeping areas, or where they can block entry or egress to a room or building. Lithium-ion battery fires are rare, but they can be violent. They are often related to improper charging or storage.

Today&#;s happiness and personal-finance gurus have no shortage of advice for living a good life. Meditate daily. Sleep for eight hours a night. Don&#;t forget to save for retirement. They&#;re not wrong, but few of these experts will tell you one of the best ways to improve your life: Ditch your car.

A year ago, my wife and I sold one of our cars and replaced it with an e-bike. As someone who writes about climate change, I knew that I was doing something good for the planet. I knew that passenger vehicles are responsible for much of our greenhouse-gas emissions&#;16 percent in the U.S., to be exact&#;and that the pollution spewing from gas-powered cars doesn&#;t just heat up the planet; it could increase the risk of premature death. I also knew that electric cars were an imperfect fix: Though they&#;re responsible for less carbon pollution than gas cars, even when powered by today&#;s dirty electric grid, their supply chain is carbon intensive, and many of the materials needed to produce their batteries are, in some cases, mined via a process that brutally exploits workers and harms ecosystems and sacred Indigenous lands. An e-bike&#;s comparatively tiny battery means less electricity, fewer emissions, fewer resources. They are clearly better for the planet than cars of any kind.

I knew all of this. But I also viewed getting rid of my car as a sacrifice&#;something for the militant and reckless, something that Greenpeace volunteers did to make the world better. I live in Colorado; e-biking would mean freezing in the winter and sweating in the summer. It was the right thing to do, I thought, but it was not going to be fun.

I was very wrong. The first thing I noticed was the savings. Between car payments, insurance, maintenance, and gas, a car-centered lifestyle is expensive. According to AAA, after fuel, maintenance, insurance, taxes, and the like, owning and driving a new car in America costs $10,728 a year. My e-bike, by comparison, cost $2,000 off the rack and has near-negligible recurring charges. After factoring in maintenance and a few bucks a month in electricity costs, I estimate that we&#;ll save about $50,000 over the next five years by ditching our car.

The actual experience of riding to work each day over the past year has been equally surprising. Before selling our car, I worried most about riding in the cold winter months. But I quickly learned that, as the saying goes, there is no bad weather, only bad gear. I wear gloves, warm socks, a balaclava, and a ski jacket when I ride, and am almost never too cold.

Sara Hastings-Simon is a professor at the University of Calgary, where she studies low-carbon transportation systems. She&#;s also a native Californian who now bikes to work in a city where temperatures tend to hover around freezing from December through March. She told me that with the right equipment, she&#;s able to do it on all but the snowiest days&#;days when she wouldn&#;t want to be in a car, either. &#;Those days are honestly a mess even on the roads,&#; she said.

And though I, like many would-be cyclists, was worried about arriving at the office sweaty in hotter months, the e-bike solved my problem. Even when it was 90 degrees outside, I didn&#;t break a sweat, thanks to my bike&#;s pedal-assist mode. If I&#;m honest, sometimes I didn&#;t even pedal; I just used the throttle, sat back, and enjoyed my ride.

Indeed, a big part of the appeal here is in the e part of the bike: &#;E-bikes aren&#;t just a traditional bike with a motor. They are an entirely new technology,&#; Hastings-Simon told me. Riding them is a radically different experience from riding a normal bike, at least when it comes to the hard parts of cycling. &#;It&#;s so much easier to take a bike over a bridge or in a hilly neighborhood,&#; Laura Fox, the former general manager of New York City&#;s bike-share program, told me. &#;I&#;ve had countless people come up to me and say, &#;I never thought that I could bike to work before, and now that I have an option where you don&#;t have to show up sweaty, it&#;s possible.&#;&#; (When New York introduced e-bikes to its fleet, ridership tripled, she told me, from 500,000 to 1.5 million people.)

But biking to work wasn&#;t just not unpleasant&#;it was downright enjoyable. It made me feel happier and healthier; I arrived to work a little more buoyant for having spent the morning in fresh air rather than traffic. Study after study shows that people with longer car commutes are more likely to experience poor health outcomes and lower personal well-being&#;and that cyclists are the happiest commuters. One day, shortly after selling our car, I hopped on my bike after a stressful day at work and rode home down a street edged with changing fall leaves. I felt more connected to the physical environment around me than I had when I&#;d traveled the same route surrounded by metal and glass. I breathed in the air, my muscles relaxed, and I grinned like a giddy schoolchild.

&#;E-bikes are like a miracle drug,&#; David Zipper, a transportation expert and Visiting Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, told me. &#;They provide so much upside, not just for the riders, but for the people who are living around them too.&#;

Of course, e-bikes aren&#;t going to replace every car on every trip. In a country where sprawling suburbs and strip malls, not protected bike lanes, are the norm, it&#;s unrealistic to expect e-bikes to replace cars in the way that the Model T replaced horses. But we don&#;t need everyone to ride an e-bike to work to make a big dent in our carbon-pollution problem. A recent study found that if 5 percent of commuters were to switch to e-bikes as their mode of transportation, emissions would fall by 4 percent. As an individual, you don&#;t even need to sell your car to reduce your carbon footprint significantly. In , half of all trips in the United States were less than three miles, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Making those short trips on an e-bike instead of in a car would likely save people money, cut their emissions, and improve their health and happiness.

E-bikes are such a no-brainer for individuals, and for the collective, that state and local governments are now subsidizing them. In May, I asked Will Toor, the executive director of the Colorado Energy Office, to explain the state&#;s rationale for a newly passed incentive that offers residents $450 to get an e-bike. He dutifully ticked through the environmental benefits and potential cost savings for low-income people. Then he surprised me: The legislation, he added, was also about &#;putting more joy into the world.&#;

This story is part of the Atlantic Planet series supported by HHMI&#;s Science and Educational Media Group.

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