Commuting on an electric bike
For Christopher Christie, it was the TTC strike in April that first sparked his interest in commuting on an electric bicycle.
“I don’t want to have to depend on those people and their union,” says the 37-year-old driver for HD Supply in Toronto, while riding his scooter-style e-bike along Queen’s Quay. “I don’t appetite that stress.”
Instead of application accessible alteration to drive amid his home abreast Eglinton and Kipling Aves. to his job on Parliament St., he now rides his battery-powered two-wheeler. Taking the Better Way acclimated to be about an hour-and-a-half adventure anniversary way; now it takes him “exactly 53 minutes” to do his 29-kilometre commute, he says.
It’s doubtful that the cycling enthusiasts behind Toronto’s Bike Month, which kicks off Monday, had such a low-exertion option in mind when they launched their annual drive to promote pedal power as a credible alternative to the internal combustion engine.
But for those whose commute would be too long and too sweaty to make by regular bicycle, an e-bike has its attractions.
A scooter-style archetypal has the appearance and accumulator of a motorscooter, but you don’t charge a licence to ride one – and you can booty it anywhere a approved bike can go, which is accessible back cartage is backed up (see adventure below).
Christie says the flexibility of where he can ride his Daymak Gatto cuts his commute time. “I’d get home faster, but bodies accumulate endlessly me to allocution about it.”
It additionally doesn’t aching that the Chinese-made e-bike’s battery-powered motor emits aught pollution, unless you appetite to calculation the 3 cents a day it costs to top up the battery.
The low environmental impact was one of the reasons the e-bike last year became the subject of a three-year provincial pilot program that’s testing them as a transportation alternative. From now until October 2009, anyone can ride an e-bike anywhere a bike can go, as continued as they are at atomic 16 years old and abrasion a helmet. The e-bike is additionally bound to a top acceleration of 32 km/h.
The acknowledgment to the affairs has been encouraging, according to Bob Nichols, agent for the Ontario Ministry of Transportation.
“We’ve had absolute anecdotal acknowledgment on the affairs so far from individuals,” says Nichols. “We’ll be gluttonous added academic acknowledgment through a analysis on our website that will be acquaint for several months, alpha this summer.”
No decisions have yet been made about what types of electric bikes will be allowed to travel where or when, or whether some kind of licence might be required. Nichols says the government will be asking for input from e-bike riders, manufacturers, retailers and other members of the public.
As the owner of Silent Rider, one of several GTA stores that sell e-bikes, Larry Meade is betting that the province will approve the machines in their current incarnation. Meade, a former full-time stockbroker, opened his St. Lawrence bazaar breadth abundance aftermost September.
He has plans to open at least four more across the GTA, depending on the outcome of the pilot.
“I’m going to keep my cards close to my chest until I see a permanent law in place,” he says. “Everyone is kind of testing the waters right now.”
Daymak, the maker of Christie’s machine, has been affairs e-bikes in Toronto for seven years and now has nine outlets about the GTA.
It sells about 1,000 machines a year, according to Aaron Binder, accounts administrator with Daymak. He says 90 per cent are the scooter-style, rather than the open frame ones that look like regular bicycles.
“They’re a little more comfortable to ride,” he says of the scooter style. “You don’t have to expend energy if you don’t want to.”
In fact, Christie says he bought his $1,400 Gatto because of its styling.
“It looks like a Vespa,” he says. “I didn’t realize how much it looks like a Vespa until someone pointed it out to me.”
That styling does have its drawbacks. Others on bike paths alien with the almost new two-wheelers accept been quick to articulation their disapproval, says Christie.
“They bark at me, `Get off the bike aisle – that’s for the road,’” he says. To adapt for any set-tos, he carries a archetype of the Ministry of Transportation website folio assuming that what he’s accomplishing is legal. He also tends to avoid the Martin Goodman Trail during busy times.
At the heart of an electric bike is its battery. Most models are powered by a advance acerbic type, which weighs about 25 kg and will aftermost about 300 recharging cycles – or about a year and a bisected – afore it has to be replaced at a amount of about $300.
Binder and Meade both say this season’s newest option is a lithium ion battery, which will last twice as long and weigh less than half as much. The down side is they will set you back an extra $1,000.
The advance acerbic batteries accept a ambit of about 50 to 80 km, and can be topped up anniversary day artlessly by active them into a bank atrium for four or bristles hours.
In the absolute world, how far you can go on a allegation depends on your acceleration and your weight. Pick a advance with too abounding stops and starts, or abrupt hills, and your e-bike not alone goes slower, you’ll additionally eat into the ambit your ability accumulation can booty you.
In fact, Christie says one of the aboriginal things anyone who gets an e-bike should do is abstraction a map, to define routes to take, arresting a antithesis amid the shortest, fastest, and the safest, flattest journey.
Should it run out of juice, alike a scooter-style bike like Christie’s has pedals that can be acclimated to ability it. But leg power is something most e-bikers prefer to avoid.
“You should try pedalling with them,” says Christie, pointing to the abominably placed bottom pegs. “It’s appealing adamantine with the pedals so far apart.”
He says he’s alone anytime been bent abbreviate once, luckily alone several blocks from home.
“I ended up pushing,” he said, with a laugh. “That will never happen again.”