E-bike First Commute: No sweat

I rode my new e-bike to work today. Using a BionX kit I converted an old aluminum trail bike over the weekend. Apart from my mistakes, assembly went pretty well. It's not simple, but the only special tool needed as a torque-wrench.


The ride was surprisingly simple. I rode 20 km over two bridges each way from West Vancouver to to U.B.C. This is a beautiful ride and the e-bike lets one appreciate it much more than my non-e-bike did. I climbed the Lions Gate Bridge, passing a few fast guys in tights and stopped to take pictures at the top. (I usually can't stop, as I'm rushing to catch my bus.)

Next through Stanley Park, then the West End, over the Burrard Bridge and out along the beaches to the U.B.C. bluff (over Wreck Beach).

The e-bike is fast -- just 50 minutes coming home, when I avoiding the bike paths -- and seems much safer than my non-e-bike. For one thing, I can accelerate with the traffic, so I can merge better and make fewer drivers angry when I ride in centre lane. More on the advantages of regenerative braking in a later post.

Pro-Bikes but Anti-Hybrid

I commute with a human-diesel hybrid: biking the nice bits (Stanley Park and Vancouver harbor) and busing for the busy, hilly, boring bits of Vancouver. Unfortunately, City Council is planning to make my commute much more difficult, by restricting lanes of the Burrard Bridge bottleneck to bicycles.

As a bike commuter, people think I'd favor this change. They forget that many of us that use bikes to commute a ways (20 km in my case, from the far left shore in this picture focused on UBC) often use the bus to save time and sweat.

Vancouver is beautiful in summer, attacting many tourists. My summer bus often gets stuck in tourist traffic, forcing me to hop off early to escape the crowds and heat. With the new bike lane I'll likely need to bail out even earlier. At least I'll have a lane of my own to cross the extra bridge. (To climb it, I'm thinking of buying an Bionx e-bike. Any advice?)

Lesson for Technology & Ethics: It's easy to misidentify prospective winners and losers on a change in regulation. As a bike commuter, I'm likely counted a winner from adding a bike lane. Had someone asked, I'd have self-identified on the loser side.