E-Bikes - the other kind

 E-Bikes as Transportation vs Sporting Fun

 

Regular blog readers might remember this, our take on e-bikes after Zio Lorenzo's first experience. He's still never ridden a Pinarello Nytro so doesn't know if they're like his MAHLE-equipped e-bikes, with their gentle assist or more like the LIME bikes we used to get around Paris recently.

These things were everywhere! And like that first e-MTB Zio tried, they're really like e-mopeds rather than bicycles. There's no control on the amount of power the motor provides as far as we could tell, you just stamp down on the pedals and the thing takes off with a lurch, quickly zooming you up to  the 25 kph limit. This was great for getting around Paris but Zio's fitness tracker showed he wasn't making much of an effort compared to riding his own e-bikes.

With those the tracker usually shows a 50/50 split between "peak" and "vigorous" effort while these e-mopeds showed a similar split between "moderate" and "light", so I guess he was making more effort than sitting on a couch, but not much.

With so little effort required there's really no excuse (except maybe if it's raining?) not to use one of these to get around. It's not really cheap but compared to a car, fuel and the hassle of parking, it's probably far less. We tried the city-supported scheme first but the "app" was difficult to make work and the bikes weren't in very good condition, something that you'd understand with a sharing scheme with nobody much caring about the bike since they'll ditch it and get another for the return trip.

We eventually started to inspect each one before taking it. Some had the phone holders destroyed (not good if you're using one to navigate the city streets) while others had soft tires, broken fenders or worn-out pedals. One thing Zio would suggest is a sprung saddle - normally the tires are rock-hard and the upright seating position jackhammers your back when you hit any sort of bump in the road, so some cush there would be nice if a vandal-resistant sprung saddle could be fitted?

Sporting Fun they're not, but a great substitute for a motor vehicle to get around a crowded city. You could almost park 'em anywhere, though sometimes the battery would get low and they'd message you to park 'em in an easy-to-service area. Finding another one to get back after doing whatever you were doing was pretty easy since they were parked pretty much every/anywhere.

Amazingly, with all these e-bikes going everywhere and pretty much nobody wearing a helmet while using them, you don't read much about terrible accidents and injuries. Are all the "helmet-nazis" wrong?