HOW CAN E-BIKES PROLIFERATE

• In 1969, 48 percent of children 5 to 14 years of age usually walked or bicycled to school (The National Center for Safe Routes to School, 2011).

• In 2009, 13 percent of children 5 to 14 years of age usually walked or bicycled to school (National Center, 2011)

It might be bicycles in general that aren't proliferative.

Great point!

I was hoping the mention of highly increased childhood obesity and new illnesses at the same time, although hopefully we all also know that's likely not just lack of fitness.

Well, with stuff like this going on why would any sane parent let their child go anywhere unattended?

Said by someone who was riding a bike to school by age eight, sans helmet I might add.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/13/parents-investigated-letting-children-walk-alone/25700823/

SILVER SPRING, Md. — Maryland parents accused of child neglect for letting their kids roam around their neighborhood had to retrieve them from the county's Children's Protective Services after police removed the youngsters from a park.

At about 4:55 p.m. ET Sunday, Montgomery County police received a call to check on the welfare of Danielle and Sasha Meitiv's children — Rafi, 10, and Dvora, 6 — at a park here. Officers found the children unattended and brought them to the agency as part of protocol, they said.

Montgomery County police and county Children's Protective Services are jointly investigating the Meitivs of Silver Spring for allowing their children to walk repeatedly around the neighborhood alone. The parents say they know where their children are but are allowing them independence.

Officers picked up the children about two blocks from home, Rafi said, telling them they would drop them off at home. Instead, the two sat in a patrol car for 2½ hours then were taken about 10 miles away to Children's Protective Services offices in Rockville, Md.

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WoodlandHills said:

BTW if your kid or your bicycle is on the freeway or the on-ramps I think you are lost.......

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Typical self-entitled driver thinking. Not all freeways are off limits to bicycles, not even all US Interstate Highways.

I live half a block from 2 elementary schools. In 15 years I saw one kid riding a bike to school, once. Now, it's true, I don't sit there watching out the window. but you'd think in 15 years you'd see a kid on a bike from time to time. The bike rack in front of the school holds 4 bikes, and is always empty. When I was a kid, the bike rack was 50 feet long holding about 100 bikes, and was full. I do see kids in cars coming from a block away though. Elementary kids don't ride a bike a mile to school anymore here.

We did start walking to school in middle school though, hard to pass a doobie while riding.

Since the mid-1960's I've had a bicycle in some form in my life. The first was a Schwinn Stingray I got for Christmas. It was NOT just a possession, or simply a toy I could play with. It was also transportation. I could cover ten times the area riding, as opposed to walking. And boy, did I ride. One Saturday, me and three of my friends rode our ten-speeds to the beach, which was about 40 miles away. It took all day to get there, rest up, and ride back.



The modern suburban phenomenon of kids being driven everywhere is odd for me to see. There is a crowd of soccer-moms in line with their mini-vans waiting to pick up at the schools front door. I wonder why they don't have their kids walk down one block, where there's no traffic? Now that there's smart phones, nobody minds waiting in line. BTW, kids see more porn before they get to high school today, than most adult men in my generation saw by the time they were in their 30's.

The single thing that I would recommend to anyone to improve the quality of their life, is to move close to their work (or get a job near your home). Car breaks down? easy to get a ride, or to take a bicycle/ebike. Save on gas, save miles on the car so it lasts twice as long, plus...you have more time at home every single day. I admit I am a fair-weather ebiker, but because I live near my work, I actually have the option to use an ebike when the weather is nice (or the weather is bad and my car is broke down).

As long as most people live far from work, ebiking could only be a week-end recreation for them, so the target demographic then is the moms...to help them up the hills, or to keep up with dad on his pedal-only bike...

spinningmagnets,

Houses and jobs are not as easy to flip/change as they were 30 years ago. The last decade I worked, after the industry I had worked in for 13 years went offshore, I worked for four different outfits with zero benefits/security. Selling our house and moving for some temp job would not have been prudent. Since 2008, that plan could see you with two houses, and no work.

Reflection of comments so far:

1) The culture has changed and pampered kids no longer are imbued with a walk to school mentality (remember some parents have been ostracized for allowing this). I'm like some of the rest of you in that I used my bike for a paper route when I was seven. Even my children walked, biked or skated to school.

2) We can't expect the population to embrace e-bikes because they want to save the environment.

3) For some individuals it's not feasible to bike to work or be closer to their place of employment. Maybe as more individuals work from home this will change.

4) It took us a long time to get this way and change will be slow.

Best hope for proliferation:

1) Manufacturers see this as a way to provide impetus to accelerate flat sales.

2) New bills are passed permitting some e-bikes in wilderness areas.

3) There are more opportunities for individuals to try different models.

4) Population realizes that e-bikes provide fun and utility.

5) Families save money by using as a second car, in some cases maybe even as a replacement.

Demand safer biking infrastructure that relys less on 'sharing the road'

in my little community in the US there are 100's of e-bikes, trikes and at least one "elf" and a couple of other e-velo things.
Good biking infrastructure (for a usa area) is likely the significant reason, along with a couple of e-builders and prolific non-stealth e-bikes and trikes...
Keeping it legal; Advertising their presence by pedaling (for the most part) the e-thingies all over town.

...oh, and my local has less than 10000 inhabitants.

2old said:

Also agree that $999 is a good price point.

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Ummm... Currently can finance purchase of one new ebike for about 1/2 monthly pubic transit pass. (With a thing termed "good credit rating".) So, runs 24/7, no more "last mile", always a free seat. Add pedaling and annual health/exercise club dues built in. Gotta go to the store? Usually the best parking right outside the front door is reserved for you. Need to recharge? Handy-Dandy brand charger fits in a pocket and plenty of 120VAC plugins available, usually with no lineups. (Actually, my "gas bill" usually paid by someone else.)

EDIT: Sorry. My spellchecker keeps getting "public" spelled wrong.

Two area ebike retailers have told me the same thing. Their most effective "selling tool" is to just let folks go for a test ride. I tend to appeal to folks pocketbooks. Ebikes as "cheap" transportation in urban environments. (Relative to most/nearly all other options.)

Money much better spent on good wine, women and song.

(hic)

Many of the suggestions here boil down to increasing the public's exposure to ebikes, whether through media, dealers or services. So how can we expand on this theme?

Direct exposure like test rides, demo days, ebike expo, ebike rentals : How about ebike racetracks?

There are places you can pay a few bucks and race somebody else's go-kart on a specially built track. I have never heard of anything like that for ebikes, and it is about time that changes. We need something like that. It's not a road so you could make them high powered, which is a huge plus, and you could build different terrains with different ebike types as well. The public would get to really experience what ebikes are capable of with a low barrier to entry, maybe only $20. And there's no sales pressure because the bike they're riding is not for sale. Could be very profitable too, I know I would use it despite already owning an ebike because it sounds fun.

Media exposure such as ads, articles, news: This is easy, share stuff on social media.

Doesn't matter whether it's an article, picture, ad, kickstarter, whatever. Just share, retweet, instagram, submit it to reddit, really anything that increases awareness and gets ebikes higher visibility. Many people still don't even know that this kind of thing exists and that's where anyone here can help the most.

I've been also trying to startup local uphill bicycle racing:
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=56834

(Where we pretty much ALL get to cheat. Hehe)

It seems leebolectric is taking on a <snobby> mtn bike forum to get some converts!
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=75509

Probably last post on this, but received some positive news; at least one local p-bike shop owner that hated e-bikes and wouldn't allow them in his store, has started carrying them. Maybe manufacturer pressure, or possibly change of perception. Also, the local monthly bike rag has incorporated e-bikes into its spectrum. It will be interesting to see the affect of Sea Otter from race and expo considerations.

I am one of the folks who will likely never ride an e bike to work. At 22km one way, its just too far. During the season I commute with a motorcycle, but its still a good 15-20 minute ride, and I for one like to sleep as long as possible, so for me getting up an hour early, is not really an option, however if my commute was within 10km or so? I feel this is a somewhat newer technology and still in its infancy stage so to speak, and agree, if more people were able to try one before buying, and production boosts, as well as competitive pricing in stores like walmart they would most definitely sell.

ddk said:

in my little community in the US there are 100's of e-bikes ... oh, and my local has less than 10000 inhabitants.

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Sounds like a great community. Where is this, if you don't mind me asking?

fidorama said:

At 22km one way, its just too far.

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If there's traffic, an ebike will be faster than a car. And if not, 22km with a reasonably powered bike will get you there in 40 minutes, about 30 minutes more. If you can do away with the car entirely, I'd say this makes a lot of sense. If not, you're only saving maybe around 10$ a day by riding an ebike over driving, so you'd have to do it for the enjoyment.

UPDATE: I guess I should address the actual topic, but it's pretty much all been said. Cheaper bikes that are also higher performing (Tesla will help a lot with this), more dedicated bike paths and lanes, and more shops with ebikes are all needed. Also servicing! It's absurd that most shops only offer 1 year warranty, and then refuse to work on anything outside that. An ebike should easily last 5-10 years and beyond with about 100$ / year maintenance. This means standard compatible parts.

Since the goals of an urban bike centric travel management plan and ebike centric travel management plan are the same, promoting and demonstrating ebikes to existing cyclists and city travel planners is a no brainer to me.

If some guy who used to ride his bike 10 miles to work once a week and showed up all sweaty started riding his ebike 3 or 4 days a week arriving fresh with a big smile on his face and let his coworkers try it out at lunch time, you'd start to get converts.

Great thread! I know this is an old one, (came up with a google search ) but I will add also:

Depends on your market, if you're going to try and mass-market like Walmart, good luck competing with them, better to do like Tesla, start high end with low quantities, make a name for your self with each successive new offering being more affordable as you can pay to get the infrastructure to increase your production.

The main reason you don't see E-Zipps being sold at Walmart anymore to speak of, is they went the opposite approach, cheap and lots of it.

Probably got them a nice pay-day at the cost of a short-term market, much like the average bicycle sold is a good way to get people interested in the idea of bicycling, but only the serious ones then appreciate a better quality bike sold at a bike shop. Unfortunately many are just turned off on bicycles in general, probably part of the reason young people don't ride them much anymore. :?

Curry Technologies has come a long way since the the lead sled "electro drives" and now offer some of the most affordable high quality pre-built E-Bikes around.

I have found the best market in my area to be aging baby-boomers and those unable to drive for various reasons, but I don't have to sell the bikes, they sell themselves once they go for a test ride.

Have yet to have one sit for any length of time (maybe a month at most?) but building up inventory slowly until we have more funds to play with.

Ideally, we would love to have around 5 - 10 bikes in the showroom at all times, but based on the demand so far (just sold a bike a week ago even in the midst of the snow and ice!) it won't be too much trouble.

I appreciate companies like E-Bike kit for making the basic kits available for LBS's through J & B, but I feel that selling a higher quality kit such as the BBS02 as sold by Luna Cycles will reap much greater rewards in the end.

Simply put, I have nothing against Yugo's, but I'd rather sell the E-Bike equivalent of a Toyota Camry.

People who buy Toyota's or Honda's tend to be more concerned about quality and service, and are willing to pay what it's worth VS the guy at Walmart who only has $500 and wants "something cheap" and then tells all his friends what a piece of crap his bike is.

I would never try to compete with Walmart's ability to sell huge volume.

Also, the best "advertising" for E-Bikes is being courteous, friendly, and passing cars stuck in traffic (In the bike lane ) while climbing steep hills from what I have seen personally.

Sonders has done E-Biking a great service at getting something affordable out there that doesn't suck, but honestly, again, I'd rather sell a higher price point higher performing E-Bike.

Having riding clubs for E-Bikes would be great too, perhaps some of the bicycle clubs out there with older members will start to be more open to the idea of E-Assist bikes in their rides with injuries preventing some riders from otherwise joining in.

One year later and the "e-nvironment" seems the same for ebikes. Pedego, which identified its market well, continues to service it and prosper. The Specialized dealers are doing okay with their Turbo Levos; however, there hasn't been an appreciable increase in acceptance. My LBS, a Giant dealer, hasn't sold one in the couple of months they've been available AFAIK. The MTB crowd and their local forum are avidly opposed to the bikes on trails, but it's so easy to find desolate areas to ride that it's not a concern. Any other respondents discovering conditions that have changed in the last year?

That ugly word "financing" not mentioned EVen once yet in this thread?

OTOH, "Search found 5 matches: +financing" in ES thread "More E-bikes found in NON-ebike media":
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=57933

:wink:

Financing might help selling a few more, but 'proliferation' does rely on urban and economics context.

Let's face it, riding is not for an important segment of population. For most it is seen as dangerous and not practical. In a context where cost and crowd are making city travel excessively complicated, people start to find courage and motivation to ride. Then only, ebikes do proliferate. That is why the ebike market is mostly in Asia. In the western world, people have enough money to afford a car and there is no motivation to ride. So here, ebikes are of any interest only to those who are riders already. Then, many of them are riding too long distances to make the ebike an option, and even more of them are riding for exercise and will always prefer a lightweight bicycle.

Until the western world start to suffer incitative context, the EV revolution has to be starting with cars.

^^ "... people have enough money to afford a car"... LOTS "trapped" taking pubic transport? `Round here, (with a thing "good credit rating"), monthly loan payments for purchase of one new ebike = about HALF the cost of a monthly transit pass. So, no more "last mile"... always a free seat... long list of advantages (sharing the road w/large, heavy (mostly empty) vehicles that go "too fast" one "down side"). [sigh]

I am lucky to live where bicycle bike lanes along roads and separate paths are fairly common, however, either people bike, or they do not. Most customers are already interested in biking, and those who aren't are not likely to be swayed.

I take for granted that others are willing to ride along in traffic on a bicycle, many are not, but those who do see us riding our E-Bikes at speed along side slow rush hour traffic seem to then have their curiosity peaked!

All we now is some celebrity rider or some "quicksilver" movie with E-Bikes or something lol! :wink: