Vive la révolution! OK, maybe a little dramatic but Electric Bikes (or E-Bikes) are getting really popular these days, along with other rechargeable battery vehicles and sports equipment, and I think that this will change things quite a bit in the world of bike riding and transportation. 

I had been noticing a lot of E-Bikes out on the trails and roads this summer and they really got my interest so I did some research and have started paying more attention to them.

Electric Bikes are more heavy duty (and heavy) than regular bikes and you can usually spot them by the battery on one of the lower bike frame bars.

They often have much fatter tires too which originally made me think that all these fat tire bikes bikes that I was seeing zipping down the trails were mountain bikes and I was wondering how so many people could be going so fast on mountain bikes with huge tires. Then I realized that, although there are some mountain bikes with huge tires these days, many of these bikes were actually E-Bikes.

So although I have just started my research into this I have posted a summary of the Electric Bike Basics on this web site here. I even started a new category on this site for E-Bikes since I believe that they will continue to grow in popularity.

What do I think of E-Bikes? Well, at this point I have some mixed feelings but overall I think they are pretty good, look like a lot of fun and I believe that they will get more people into biking than ever before.

I also believe that they can become another good option for alternative transportation. For example, depending on where you live, you may be able to hop on an E-Bike for a quick trip to the store or other local trips rather than driving your car everywhere. Plus you will still get some exercise in the process! So these things are great on many ways.

So why mixed feelings? Well, my concern is mostly with the safety side of things. Don’t get me wrong I believe that E-Bikes are actually very safe in general. The fact that they have a limit on how fast they are allowed to go (20mph-28mph) helps a lot but 20-28mph is really pretty fast on a bicycle.

I think that the safety issues would mostly have to do with the speed and reckless or inexperienced riders. Of course, I believe that most of us bike riders are pretty responsible but there are always exceptions and when it becomes easy to go that fast those exceptions can cause problems. I guess time will tell how this is going to play out. I just hope that a few reckless or irresponsible riders don’t cause a lot of over-regulation and restrictive laws for the rest of us.

So there you have some good and potential bad sides to E-bikes. I think it is going to be really interesting in the coming years how the revolution will turn out. 🙂

I know that I will be continuing my own research into this so stay tuned…