As the rain settles to remind us that Summer is over, it's a good time to review two summers of commuting by e-bike, from Ambleside, in West Vancouver, to UBC, on Point Grey.
1. I've had a lot of fun, cycling ~ 20 - 25 km each way in about 50 minutes.
2. The worst experience: getting the controller ripped off, busing home with a very heavy dead e-bike, and paying too much for a replacement, which was mis-configured by the dealer and almost fried my bike's computer. All's well now plus I've removed some of the constraints built in. Generally, security is my biggest problem. Bikes suffer from Vancouver's tolerance of a culture of petty theft; e-bikes have more to steal from. I can't shop on the way home, because rumor has it that the street knows how to break the BionX computer/battery lock, and lugging two panniers and a battery into a store isn't worth it, except at Costco. I wish BionX would build a secure bike; it would be even more useful.
3. Scariest moment: crossing the Lion's Gate Bridge in a 75 Km gale one morning in July. Another biker flew into me because he failed to foresee the vacuum effect of the call box I was resting behind.
4. Best accessory: 120 db Airzound horn -- a bargain at ~$20 from Mountain Equipment Co-op here on the North Shore. The surprise is that blasting away like a truck gets cars respect. I'll follow this up with a detailed post on the "experiment".
5. Risks: it's easy to neglect maintenance and the motor gets you there even with a dry chain or, in my case, only the highest gear working. At my average speed of ~ 30 kph lots gets shaken loose, so I've lost lots of fasteners.
6. I've put e-bike on a new Bell Motivator mag resistance stand (from Costco) so I could continue getting some exercise.
Bottom line: 15 pounds lighter and my WiFit puts my age at 19 years less than my birth certificate, plus all the new ideas -- mostly good, I hope -- incubated during my morning traffic wars.
Friday, September 17, 2010
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