"Huge Rise In E Bike Sales Amazes Again"

[lemmy]

I've seen two ebikes in my area. One happily whizzed past me in bionic manner in Bushey Park a year or so ago. The other is a woman whom I asked about the bike out of interest.

She was a nurse, lived in Kingston and worked at St George's Hospital in Tooting. She had been either driving or getting a bus to work but the traffic in Colliers Wood getting worse and worse, she looked for alternatives.

A small motorcycle was considered (too much trouble and still some traffic problems), a normal bike (too much like hard work when finishing work at 8.30 am after a 12 hour night shift) and then a friend mentioned ebikes to her.

Her reasons for buying an ebike were the same as mine. Essentially, it's a moped, more related in her mind to a motorised vehicle than a pedal powered one.

That's more or less alluded to in previous posts. I think these are being bought because you do not have to wear a helmet, have insurance or need special training and apparel yet they still constitute a practical vehicle.

We were laughing at how much some cyclists put other people off, the grim faced lycra clad types with their thuggish bad road manners and ever ready curses. Ebikers seems so much more civilized, somehow.

 

[GT3]

In hilly areas e-bikes are used by people who are prepared to pedal but for some reason the routes they want to cycle require even more effort then they are prepared/able to provide.

That's me!

The Dutch amuse me with the dichotomy between the high quality bikes you see around the villages and the bikes that are left in the station racks, which are best described as rideable junk.

 

[flecc]

The Dutch amuse me with the dichotomy between the high quality bikes you see around the villages and the bikes that are left in the station racks, which are best described as rideable junk.

The Dutch use poor condition as an anti-theft protection, and many stick to old boneshakers for that reason. It's not uncommon for them to deliberately make a bike look in far worse condition than it really is, which makes a lot of sense. Few want to steal what looks like junk.
.

 

[lemmy]

The Dutch use poor condition as an anti-theft protection, and many stick to old boneshakers for that reason. It's not uncommon for them to deliberately make a bike look in far worse condition than it really is, which makes a lot of sense. Few want to steal what looks like junk.
.

A photographer friend of mine bought an old dented Land Rover for use around central London for precisely that reason.

Never cleaned, it looked so awful that he never got blocked in on meters and had quite easy passage around Hyde Park Corner because he so plainly didn't give a damn what happened to it.