Bloomberg doesn't seem to like E-Bikes.
Where I live ebikes are extremely rare. You hardly ever see them. In fact, I've only bumped into one other e-biker in my town (in nine years) and we have paved paths everywhere. The one time I saw another e-biker was a guy on a dedicated bike path/bridge. He was coasting on a recumbent trike at about 15mph on level surface, and I noticed he wasn't pedaling. The place he was "coasting" was a flat spot at the top of a hill. I thought, "There's no way he could climb that hill and coast at a consistent pace across that area."
As he passed I asked loudly, "hey, is that thing electric?" He stopped and said, "No." But the look on his face betrayed him. I asked, "How did you maintain that speed all the way across the bridge?"
He then said, "Okay. Yes, it's electric." He didn't want to talk to me..............until I said, "I have an electric bike, too." That got his attention.
I was actually on a regular bike, so he looked at me skeptically, so I pulled out my phone and showed him my ebike.
After that he let loose, telling me everything. We had a great time talking ebikes, motors, etc.
Turns out he has Parkinson's Disease, and once it started getting worse he couldn't keep up with his wife (they ride around town all the time on their two yellow recumbent trikes). So he bought a mid-drive motor kit (it was surprisingly quiet...super quiet) and told me how he spared no expense. He paid a couple grand for the kit alone because he wanted to be as stealth as possible.
Back to who hates e-bikes: Where I live the cops couldn't care less and wouldn't even know what an e-bike is. In fact, they have a huge bicycle rodeo each year in which the cops teach kids how to ride safely, give out free helmets, and perform bicycle stunts to entertain the crowd while building connections with the public. It's really cool. Plus, we have a team of bicycle cops in our town. They use Trek mountain bikes outfitted for police work. Really nice bikes.
I showed up a few years ago on an e-bike to show them the possibilities and how they could apply motors to their bikes in order to be faster, have more range, etc.
The guys in charge of that department had no interest whatsoever and blew me off.
I could easily go 45mph (if I had a bike capable of it) around here on the streets and the police wouldn't even care. They don't even really know they exist.
When I was in NYC a year ago I saw more E-bikes per block than I've seen in my entire state (Georgia). In Georgia I've seen maybe five or six ebikes pass by. That's it. In NYC I counted six on one block and two to three on each other block.
