Why Not Zoidberg? 🦑Jul 1, 2024

Hot take: if you can choose between an #ebike and a car, of course take the bike.

However if your choice is between a regular bike and an e-bike the former is much more environmentally friendly.

In short, biking become less and less environmentally friendly the more regular bikes get replaced with e-bikes and e-scooters.

#climatechange #environment #biking

Show threadDavid HembrowJul 1, 2024
@WhyNotZoidberg Agree 100%. But it's worse than that...
E-bikes are not only more expensive and not only have a larger environmental footprint, but they also have very much shorter lifespans.
The result of the rise of e-bikes in the Netherlands is that total sales of bicycles (inc e-bikes) has dropped by more than half. What's more, because e-bikes become unmaintainable after a few short years, they do nothing to add to the the long-tail of second/third/fourth hand bikes which have always made up the majority of daily use machines so all the old bikes in the future will have to come from the small number of non-assisted bikes still being sold.
In the past, the average bicycle lasted for abut 14 years before it was scrapped. The much lower sales of non assisted bikes now require that of those machines lasts on average over 40 years before it is scrapped. This is not realistic , especially as non-assisted bikes have also become less maintainable over time.
A high cycling modal share cannot be maintained with a smaller pool of usable bicycles.
http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2022/03/the-challenge-of-declining-bicycle.html
The challenge of declining bicycle sales in the world's leading cycling nation

A few days ago I quote tweeted this graph from Datagraver on twitter with a comment that "Sadly, cycling is dying in the Netherlands." The ...

Show threadJonathan👣🚲
@hembrow @WhyNotZoidberg On another level, e-bikes are simply antithetical. The point of a bike is that it HAS to be efficient on human power. E-bikes sacrifice an already typically suboptimal function for form. Heavy, bad speed control, now fatbikes which no one in their right mind would ride without the motor. Pedals are mostly a fashion accessory.
Jul 1, 2024 at 3:00pmWeb
Show threadJonathan👣🚲Jul 1, 2024
@hembrow @WhyNotZoidberg Riders behave like motorists with that binary between stop and go, not feeling the energy it takes. They ARE motorists. Transport efficiency is lost. The minimum of exercise is lost. They cannot remove even more pressure from the standard for cycle infrastructure which must support flow and momentum.
Show threadDavid HembrowJul 1, 2024

@jonathanavt Absolutely agree.

The documented negative effect of e-bikes on the fitness of teenagers is especially sad to see.
https://nos.nl/artikel/2497778-rivm-maakt-zich-zorgen-nederlanders-zijn-flink-minder-gaan-bewegen

Human powered bicycles have to be built to be efficient or they're not usable. Even the better E-bikes are horrible to ride without assistance, and the ridiculous designs (e.g. fatbikes) are basically impossible to ride.

Fatbikes remind me of the Yamaha FS1E of the 1970s. These were really popular with teenagers in the UK because they were unrestricted in speed (if built before a certain year) but because they had pedals they were licensed in a really liberal way. You couldn't actually pedal then anywhere, though. Those pedals existed only to get around the law.
I understand they were also available in NL under similar conditions (but I didn't live here then).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha_FS1#/media/File:Sweet_16_Fizzy.Yamaha_FS1E._-_Flickr_-_mick_-_Lumix.jpg
@WhyNotZoidberg

RIVM maakt zich zorgen: Nederlanders zijn flink minder gaan bewegen

Jongeren zitten steeds minder minuten per week op de fiets. Een mogelijke verklaring is de opkomst van de e-bike.

Show threadJonathan👣🚲Jul 1, 2024
@hembrow @WhyNotZoidberg Of course e-bikes can help some people who wouldn’t otherwise be able to ride. But I’ve lost faith in that as a primary narrative. I bring it up at times. The reaction is always that it’s better than a car (without substantiating modal shift) or that they have to go ~10 km. It doesn’t take much fitness to go 20 km a day. That’s just complacency, never experiencing how a few hours of exercise can change you. Motorized transport is too alluring to know what it’s about.
Show threadJonathan👣🚲Jul 1, 2024
@hembrow @WhyNotZoidberg Not to mention that more efficient bikes exist. Again not considered because the form is weird or there is no hype around them. You can go faster than many motorized bikes with minimal effort.
Show threadDavid HembrowJul 1, 2024

@jonathanavt Indeed. 20 km just isn't that much to ride in a day if you keep a reasonable level of fitness. Actually, it's only slightly more than you need to ride each day (without assistance) in order to keep your body at a reasonable level of fitness:

https://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2017/12/cyclings-recommended-minimum-daily.html

But as we already discussed, people aren't too concerned about fitness these days.

Fifteen years ago things were very different and e-bikes were IMO quite a positive thing. For instance, I remember working on adapting an e-trike for a young girl who'd been thrown from a horse (the danger of horses being a whole other subject). She could no longer balance or pedal well and providing her with an e-bike meant she could still join in with friends on the way to and from school or for after school events. One of our kids had a friend who used an e-bike because she had a breathing problem, so that allowed her to join in with everyone else. But now it's just everyone, all the time.

I sometimes wonder if e-bike usage, and perhaps also increased driving, to some extent now compensates for long-covid (over a million Dutch people suffer from this).
@WhyNotZoidberg

Cycling's Recommended Minimum Daily Allowance. Do you ride your bike enough to maintain good health ?

Do you ride your bike enough to maintain good health ? I suspect that many people actually do not. A surprising amount of cycling is require...

Show thread Why Not Zoidberg? 🦑Jul 1, 2024
@jonathanavt @hembrow talking about full powered e-bikes and scooters owned by people who could easily use a bike or e padec yes, they are only another consumer toy.