The NYTimes is once again trashing the most promising mobility innovation of the 21st century
The NYTimes is once again trashing the most promising mobility innovation of the 21st century
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/16133154
Link to original Tweet: https://x.com/DavidZipper/status/1795048724021862898
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What, the NYT is demonizing bicycles?
Oh, wait.
E-bikes.
Right.
Because I guess pedaling is too hard for people that live in one of the flattest cities in the world.
Because I guess pedaling is too hard for people that live in one of the flattest cities in the world.
Some people, yeah. They might have a longer distance to ride, they might have disability, or just not be that fit. There's no problem with that.
most people however, are straight up lazy.
IMO if you're riding a bike, even if it has pedal assist, you're not lazy.
But even if that is the case, what's wrong with that? Is it not better to have these "lazy" people on ebikes than in cars?
I used to do 14 miles one way in Chicago, year 'round. (I stopped because I moved to Georgia, and now my commute involves about 2000' of elevation difference, which is likely around 4000' of elevation change.) If you're not fit, well, that's a pretty good reason to start riding then, isn't it? NYC also has a fantastic public transit system, one of, if not the best in the US, and it's readily accessible by people with disabilities. Much more so than an electric bicycle.
New York's public transport is heavily focused on getting people in and out of Manhattan. If you're going between the other boroughs it can be very lacking. A bike can save you a lot of time in certain cases.
If you're not fit, an ebike is a great way to get started because it allows you to start cycling for your commute before you're at the fitness level needed.
In my experience in Chicago, a bike was almost always faster than public transit, period. Even before I was fit, when it was painful to ride my bike in to school, it was faster than the train during rush hour.
If you're not fit [...]
...Then riding an e-bike isn't going to make you fit, because you aren't going to pedal it. An e-bike isn't going to make you fit, any more than my Triumph Speed Triple is making me fit. Sure, I'm still on two wheels, but I'm not getting any physical fitness out of it.
I was--briefly--a personal trainer. I saw a lot of people avoiding putting in the work using almost every excuse they could. People that tried to ease themselves into getting fit were still going easy months later. The only people that made progress were the people willing to do the work, even when it was difficult and uncomfortable. For myself, I don't like making excuses for people that won't put in the effort, and that's pretty much everyone that uses e-bikes. If you want a motorcycle, just do that, pay for insurance, and obey the rules of the road, rather than riding on sidewalks and bike paths while putting in zero effort.
The term ebike generally refers to a bike with pedal assist, not an electric motorcycle. Pedal assist means you are still exercising and you can set the level of assist you want.
Many--most of the ones that I see in Atlanta--do not require any pedaling at all. They're functionally speed-controlled electric motorcycles that people ride on sidewalks.
So no, most people aren't exercising, any more than they're exercising on electric scooters.
Again, you're talking about something different. I'm talking about electric pedal assist bicycles (often called an ebike), not electric mopeds.
@HelixDab2 @mondoman712 you're wrong. An actual ebike, with assist rather than a throttle really does get you to exercise because you are pedalling, but you're not adversely affected when going uphill. It's cycling, it burns calories, but it doesn't have the tiring bits.
I don’t want the first thing I do at the office be a shower.
E-bikes let me control the amount of sweat, while still giving me a cardio workout.
if you got fitter you wouldn't sweat.
i bike 5 miles to work, year round, freezing winter and hot summer. i never sweat unless it's like 90 and high humidity. that's a handful of days per year.
I've competed at a country level in martial arts. I'm not unfit.
It's a genetic thing, I sweat like crazy and it takes a long time for me to cool down after I get a good sweat going. Even if I shower, I still keep sweating for a good 30 minutes.
It's really not a big deal. You just shower before you leave, and have clean clothes in your bag.
Seriously. Hundreds of thousands of people do this every day.
Shower before I leave where? I arrive at the office covered in sweat. My clothes completely soaked.
Then I need to shower, change and still haven’t clocked in.
Shower before you leave home, duh. And then change into the clean work clothes in your bag--the one I said you should carry--once you get to work.
Since this is apparently difficult, I'll break it down.
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Wake up, get coffee. Maybe breakfast if you eat in the morning.
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Pack your work clothes in a messenger bag (I used a Chrome Kremlin for a decade, but ended up switching to a Trash Bag). Pack lunch if you want to; make sure lunch is in a leak-proof container.
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Shower. Change into cycling clothes appropriate for the weather.
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Carry your bike down three flights of stairs to the street.
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Ride to work.
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Lock bike to a heavy, immobile, hard to destroy object (I was partial to light poles when there wasn't a city rack available; I used a Kryptonite Evolution chain and lock for about a decade with zero bike thefts.)
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Change into work clothes and shoes. Comb hair again to minimize helmet hair.
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Stow backpack under desk, get to work.
you are trying to reason with someone who is operating on the belief that cycling to work a few miles will make them sweat 5L or something.
give up.
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Why are you gatekeeping? Some people only want transportation, not a workout. Ebikes are infinitely better than cars in every way.
Why are you gatekeeping cars then? Some people only want transportation where they don't get soaked in the rain, or cold in the winter.
Do I really need to repeat every reason why cars suck?. Just check everything else in this community.
Relevant for this conversion is that driving a car is far less exercise than even an ebike, and that generally people riding any kind of bikes creates a positive feedback loop where others feel more comfortable, cities build infrastructure, ect.
All those same things apply when you compare actual bicycles to e-bike though. An e-bike is a half-measure, at best.
Let's say that for the same journey, an ebike is a half as much exercise as a pedal bike(or whatever you want, the actual number isn't important). A car journey is 0 exercise, it's infinitely worse. Going from a car journey to an ebike journey is infinite times more exercise, going from an ebike journey to a pedal bike is twice as much exercise.
By gatekeeping you're stopping people from making smaller improvements because they aren't going all the way