Yes of course there is some negligible fossil fuel cost if your electricity comes from fossil fuel burning plants, and yes not everyone can ride an ebike for various valid reasons. That does not mean that I permit anti-ebike rhetoric in my mentions.
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@jonny I have an e-car because I live in a rural area and office is 60 km away. I recharge from PV though 😉
@jonny sorry, I’ve personally been to the funeral of a local cyclist in the last year. I’m not riding bikes on the roads around here, and the cycling infrastructure is only bits and pieces. Realistically I expect to keep a car for as long as I can drive, and we live in a city centre.
@jonny I can’t haul waste to the local tip (dump) in a cargo bike because bikes are banned there. I can’t go to the store or cafe because there’s no cycle racks and the bike would be stolen in minutes. It’s also illegal to ride bikes on the sidewalk here.
@theolodian alright cool thanks for telling me i guess
@jonny What is a normal roundtrip distance you drive on your ebike? I.e. from home to given destination and back?
@rainynight65
My commute is just over the median for the US, around 30m, 6mi going one way, but I happily take this thing twice that if I can charge when I get there (used to be able to handle it fine, but battery has a few thousand miles on it)
@jonny My commute is three times that - and that's just to get to the train station where I catch the train for the rest of the way to work.
What's the distance your bike can go on a single charge?
@rainynight65
Oops, that was one way, both ways is double that. My bike can only do like 20mi on a charge, but see other comment, mine is v old and stock battery system, but I want to rig up a dual battery system when this one is time to be recycled. Surely not everyone in every place can commute by ebike, but my commute is actually 10m faster one way on my bike because I get to skip all the traffic.
@jonny Yeah, I was unclear. My commute is a 60km roundtrip, or ~37mi. Given that traffic is the leats of my worries (I live somewhat rural and travel to a small town to catch the train), even using an ebike would likely add substantial amounts of time to my already long commute. Which, granted, I only have to do twice a week, but even on those days I prefer to minimise the time I have to spend on the road.
@rainynight65
Well, up to you! I find it worth it to be doing the most fun thing you can do when I am all tired from work
@rainynight65
My bike is also one of the first wave ebikes before they really existed as a widely manufactured thing, nowadays there are a number of >100mi range bikes, and that's before getting into the multi-battery custom Frankenstein bikes
Yes of course there is some negligible fossil fuel cost if your electricity comes from fossil fuel burning plants, and yes not everyone can ride an ebike for various valid reasons. That does not mean that I permit anti-ebike rhetoric in my mentions.
@ellenor2000
You should not need to accelerate 2 tons of steel just to move one human body! The ebike is the most energy efficient means of personal transit ever devised!
@jonny @ellenor2000 not to be picky, but the regular bike is the most efficient 🙃
@txo_elurmaluta @jonny @ellenor2000 "Don't tell me what to do!!"
Could totally go on an anti-ebike rant about them staying off the singletrack with that moto shit.
@crazyeddie
@txo_elurmaluta
up bup bup what did I say about anti ebike rhetoric buster
@txo_elurmaluta
@ellenor2000
I love my analog bike too! Even when accounting for embodied energy from production and shipping, ebikes actually have a much higher full lifespan input energy/converted to motion efficiency! This is mostly because food production and human metabolism is pretty energy inefficient, both the food creature and human creature bodies need to do a lot of other things! Electricity generation, transfer, charging, and motors are comparatively very efficient!
@jonny @txo_elurmaluta @ellenor2000 sure, but this assumes people substantially cut down on their food intake id they start using an ebike over a regular bike. I am just not sure that really happens (for your standard daily usage).
So in overall impact on the world, I am pretty sure a regular bike wins. Both are orders of magnitude better than car use though so 🤷🏻♂️
Just be careful where and when you charge the battery, don't do it overnight and where you block your only route out of your home.
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