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The
Promise of Electric Bicycles
For the past
several years we have all become aware of rising fuel
costs, our dependence on cars and their smoggy impact to
our beautiful cities.
The skylines are constantly hazy from the millions of
cars congesting our roads, especially in the huge city
that I live in, Los Angeles!
Electric
bicycles are slowly starting to get well known in the
US. I can envision that they will play a special
role in making our world a "greener" place; easily
reducing our pollution yet retaining our freedom to
travel around town however we like.
What
are Electric Bicycles?
Electric bikes
are bicycles fitted with an electric motor and a
powerful battery that can help take you long ranges with
minimal effort. It's your choice how much you want to
pedal. It doesn’t matter whether you haven’t biked
since you were a child or bike all the time, you decide
how much effort you want to use. It's not necessary to
pedal at all, however the more you do, the lighter the
load is on the battery, the longer your range can be,
and the more exercise you fit in your day!
This concept
has been around for a while, however the lithium
batteries that power these ebikes used to be
prohibitively expensive making long-range travel very
impractical with heavy lead-acid batteries.
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Regular Bike Transformed Discreetly To
Electric Bike->
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Why
Should I Ride A Bicycle!?
If you
like saving (lots of) money, saving the environment, increasing
your health, snapping out of your routine and having
life be FUN again, that is why you should ride a
bicycle.
When you ride a bicycle, your
perspective is completely clear and open. You'll
see details you never noticed before, even if you drive
that exact same route EVERY DAY. There are no
doors or windows around you. You can feel the air
rushing past you and see the ground moving below your feet. When riding
next to a park, you can literally smell the fresher air
thanks to the grass and trees. And if you wanted to,
you can quite literally stop and smell the roses! You
couldn't do that with a car, it’s just not the same.
When you're riding in a car,
you're always on the GO GO GO and forced to stay with
the flow. On a bicycle, your
speeds are slower, your perception of time slows down,
stress levels
go down, way down. You don't get caught
up in the mentality that you have to get from point A to
point B while working your way through traffic and
staying with the flow of traffic or trying to beat it
somehow. Now imagine you
replaced your routine of going to work, with a bicycle!
Commute By Bicycle? That'll Take Forever, won't
it?!
With an electric bike you will
be going 18-20mph and going up hills will barely slow
you down. Also, if your area has a lot of traffic,
you will most likely be FASTER THAN A CAR.
Our local areas such as Downtown LA, Santa Monica, Hollywood, West
Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Glendale, Culver City, North Hollywood,
etc have so much traffic
that you are almost guaranteed to be faster on your e-bike
during rush hour! You don't even have to think
about parking.
For example, suppose your
commute to work is 10 miles away and takes 15 minutes by
car to get there and there's no traffic jams ever.
With an e-bike you would stick
to the streets and your commute will probably be about
35-45 minutes long instead of
15. Although the ride is longer, you have
effectively added 45 minutes of excellent
cardio exercise into
your day. And more importantly, the ride is a lot less
stressful than driving a car. Leaving your home earlier
and moving at that slower pace makes your entire day
a lot less stressful and fun! Also because you
are on an electric bike, you won't get yourself dirty,
sweaty or tired coming into work.
The costs associated with a
bike will always be a fraction of the costs of a car.
With an e-bike, you don't have to pay for any insurance,
registration, license and fuel. If you need any
tune-up done on the bike, just ride it down to your
local bike shop, wait 15-30 minutes while they fix it,
and pay anywhere from $5-20 depending on the job.
If you had to do maintenance on a car, your entire day
would be killed and you'd be hundreds of dollars poorer.
There is absolutely no comparison
to the savings, especially if you combine your bicycling
with public transportation.
Many riders comment on how the commute feels safer on
an e-bike. Everyone’s confidence on a e-bike is far
greater because you can maintain speed going uphill and
integrate yourself with the traffic flow very easily.
Facts of electric
bicycle commuting
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No license
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No registration
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No insurance
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No gas, EVER (it’s funny stopping by a gas station just to get a tissue)
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No worry about parking,
ever!
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Never get stuck in traffic or experience stress from
traffic
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Your boring commute by car becomes extraordinary!!!
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You
add exercise to your daily routine!
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Maintenance is minimal, inexpensive and takes only minutes at a shop.
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Life becomes FUN
again
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