Why don't people want to pedal anymore?
 

There is a 52 mile paved bike trail about an hour from home that I will ride at least once a year. I've been riding this trail for 7 years now.

This past weekend I spent a day riding it and was amazed that roughly ~80% of the users I encountered were on e-bikes and the majority of them were young people...20's and 30's. Not the older people that may have some disability or other physical limitation that would otherwise prevent them from riding. This is something that I never seen before in the years I've been riding it and found it somewhat disturbing.

Then to top it off...some of them almost ran into me causing a crash. You could tell that they lacked biked handling skills (probably their 3rd time riding a bike in years) and were weaving all over the trail instead of sticking to the side and normally wouldn't be riding that fast if they had to pedal.

I just don't get this e-bike craze.

You probably also shake your head at the electric scooters that lay around everywhere in the urban areas.


Me too.

I “get” it, but I don’t necessarily like the way it’s evolving. It’s a cheaper and easier (I think) way to get around. And that’s good, I guess, if/when it’s used by responsible riders. But for less than $2000 mom and dad can get junior a speedy form of transportation, and now they don’t have to drive them to soccer practice, or over to their friend’s house. But I don’t agree they should be allowed on MUPs that are designated “No Motorized Vehicles.” And when they’re riding in the streets and roads in the travel lanes, and at speeds for motorized vehicles, by grade school kids, it makes me wonder if they need to be regulated more.

Dan

I don't live near urban areas or intentionally visit them. So electric scooters are not a thing where I live. At least not yet anyway.

I ride our bike-share e-bikes for commuting all the time. They're awesome. I can ride 4 miles in 15-20 minutes during the middle of the summer through the center of the city and not break a sweat.

I don't really see a problem with e-bikes being used on MUP's, and we have plenty of them around here. Obviously if someone is riding way too fast for the situation or conditions, that's a problem, but that problem isn't exclusive to e-bikes.

I get the commuting aspect of it and I've thought about one for myself so I don't come into the office all sweaty. The recreational aspect I can kind of see, but usually most of us get into cycling for the physical fitness aspect of it. Failing to see why young folks want an e-bike when they are capable of pedaling.

Seriously...We had some close calls on the 40 mile ride we did encountering some e-bikers going in the opposite direction. They were all over the trail bobbing and weaving due to lack of bike handling skills. Not something I've ever seen with those that pedal without assist. Almost made me feel as if I would be safer on the road with cars.

In a similar vein, but may be related; I am always a bit shocked by parents whom buy their children electric powered min-cars rather than good old pedal powered cars. I live in a neighborhood with parents with young children and they are out driving their electric vehicles at speeds (without helmets) which make me wince. These same kids might graduate to e-bikes.
And yes I sound like a grumpy old man, but when the parents complain about their kids having too much energy, I just shake my head.

We've got scooters all over here. It's fine.

I ride them once in a while when I can't find a bike to check-out, but I prefer the bikes. The smaller wheels on the scooter make the handling a little squirrely, especially with potholes, cracks, etc. and I also feel like motorists give me way less respect/space when I'm on a scooter. Our shared scooters all top out at 15mph, which is a little slower than the bikes.

I guess you need to ask why are they riding, we like to automatically think that people are riding for fitness but that is not always the case, I could understand that people that just like to get outdoors or ride for social interaction may opt for an electric bike, I ride primarily for exercise so no e-bike here, I often hear "at least there doing something" , and that is good

At some point, you might not be able to pedal the way you used to, if at all. An e-bike turns that paradigm upside down. You can still be on a bike with limited or no physical input compared to not being on a bike at all. I don't have a problem with this.

And for those who still have the physical mobility to pedal, it's still their choice. I don't begrudge anyone their e-bike. I don't see them going away anytime soon.

Because they want to. For me, that's good enough. I don't care what someone else does as long as it doesn't affect me. I hope they enjoy being outside doing whatever they want.

E-bikes are fun to ride. I would've absolutely wanted something like that when I was a kid. I didn't care about the "physical fitness" aspect of cycling until I was much older. I rode bikes because they were fun to ride and got me to where I wanted to go.

That brings up another thing I saw...a lot of people on e-bikes with no helmet.

Agreed that the problem of unsafe riding is not exclusive to e-bikes but maybe they make the problem worse as people with relatively poor bike handling experience are going faster than they otherwise could on a "push" bike. At least that has been my experience.

When there are people on e-bikes that almost run into me on the paved path (something that I have never once experienced with those that pedal on this trail) that does sort of affect me and other users.

I am glad that escooters and ebikes will offer people more options to get out of their cars. The issue of young people riding without regard and consideration of others is no different from drivers who drive without regard for others, except that drivers in this manner are way more dangerous. That's not an excuse to accept bad ebiking and escootering but I don't have a solution except to remind them the speed limit on MUPs and bike lanes.

I have seen plenty of road bike riders do the same, so it has nothing to do with the e-bike. I also see plenty of idiots with dogs allowing the retractable leashes to go across the trail. It's the people, not the bike.

I see this as being the issue. Going faster than they normally would on pedal only bike. And it shows.

Not dangerous riding by e-bikes but once had the crap scared out of me. Was riding out in the middle of nowhere in a forest and hadn’t seen anyone for miles and all of a sudden two people on e-bikes came screaming by me with zero warning. The adrenaline spike was spikey indeed.

no helmets on them.

:popcorn

This thread is part of a conspiracy by Big Dental Floss.

a starting age for e bikes (like toys have) would be a thing to consider. make it 21+ & limit the capped MPH to 12 MPH. If that doesn't work for the user, then take the bus, get a motorcycle, uber, etc. The close encounters from e-bikes demonstrates the lack of control that the user often has, as speed increases the risk goes up fast. If the user cannot handle a motorcycle/moped they likely are not ready for an ebike.

The couple times I have ridden this trail over the past 7 years...I have never seen it before with non-pedal assist bikers. This trail is a mix of road bikes and hybrid bikes.

That's a whole different topic that I'm not even talking about. But I have seen very little of that so not worth the discussion. We don't have an explosion of dog walkers on the trails. But we do have an explosion of e-bikers.

I prefer the floss picks myself. But not the e-floss.

I wouldn't limit it to kids, I see plenty of Teenagers, young adults, middle-age adults, and seniors on e-bikes going way too fast for the road conditions. MUPs in my area are not a problem, as folks on pedal bicycles have been riding oblivious to other MUP traffic for all the years I've been using them regardless of age or gender.

As this e-bike craze keeps progressing, it’s likely more and more of the riders will have had little or no analog bike experience. Now, in addition to the danger of cars if I decide to ride on the roads, I have to contend with e-bike bike path users on machines that are much faster that have limited handling skills. At least with cars you can (mostly) count on them do "car things" that you would expect. There seems to be a strong correlation between incompetent/reckless riding, and e-bike ownership...They are able to ride fast before they’ve built the wisdom and skills to do so safely.