What can you do with a cargo bike? How about deliver a christmas tree? You see those people with trees strapped to the top of their cars, but how many bikes did you see this year with trees strapped to them?

In this video, experience a little slice of life here in our hometown, Carrboro, NC, as Dave takes a Christmas Tree to the local gathering spot and gives it away. I love how when filming this video, little things happen here and there that just have “Carrboro” written all over them….

Enjoy and Happy Holidays!

-Elise

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When I read comments on articles and such that are published about electric bikes, there are almost always one or two people who are extremely negative on the idea. They are often defensive of their road or bike path “turf” and seem personally offended that people would choose an electric bike. I even saw a post recently on a road bike forum, where the apparent roadie personally attacked some poor guy who happened to be riding an ebike slowly in the bike lane, apparently blocking said roadie’s progress and forcing him to go around.

Really – are these kinds of things necessary? We’re all riding bikes people, and that should be a good thing whether the bike is a road bike, mountain bike, cruiser, ancient falling apart bike, electric bike or whatever. If you’re a biker and offended by someone else riding a bike, doesn’t that strike you as a bit hypocritical?

I think that in many cases, these people are actually offended because they view biking as a physical challenge and take pride in being able to be up to the challenge. I think it’s awesome that people ride bikes for physical exercise, I mean, we could obviously use more physical exercise in our culture. And many of those people are in far better physical shape than I am – an accomplishment for sure.

But there are more uses for the bike than just a physical workout, and can we please get over that attitude?

Today, when I was riding my electric cargo bike, bucket full of kids, over my 6 mile hilly commute, my battery gave out (apparently because I forgot to charge it fully – oops). After finishing the commute sans batttery, here were my comments:

It’s not that this kind of bike ridding cannot be done without assistance (many, many people do it), it’s just that having a little help makes it easy, so I don’t have to be up for a huge workout every morning when I just want to get the kids to school and get myself to work. That’s when most people take the car – and if you drive, you get zero exercise (not to mention, you burn a bunch of fossil fuels and create a bunch of pollution).

If I had to do the huge workout every morning, I would think twice about it every morning, and many of those times I’d decide I was too tired, in too much of a hurry, or just plain feeling lazy that day. Adding the assist makes riding a no-brainer and easy to make into a habit. I really think of this bike more akin to a highly efficient, lightweight electric vehicle, which technically it is. It’s just an EV that you can also pedal.

So, if you’re one of those people that is somehow offended by ebikes, please reconsider the bigger picture here. Would you rather have that slow person in the bike lane be driving a car that’s passing you and polluting the air you are breathing? Or is there room for another biker on the road, even if they aren’t in it for the exercise?

In pursuit of a more congenial world…..

-Elise

Go By Bike is a daily video series that talks about how to be green by riding more and using your car less, including electric bikes, electric kits, cargo bikes, bike safety, and getting motivated to bike

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Everyone who bikes regularly in traffic has considered the possibility and consequences of a crash. For many cyclists, it’s their biggest fear and for some it prevents them from riding on the road at all. This, despite the fact that you’re more likely to be involved in a crash in an automobile than on a bike. Perhaps it is just our extra feeling of vulnerability, being exposed and relatively small compared to the motor vehicle.

In today’s episode of Go By Bike, Dave (of the Banana Ride fame), talks to me about bike safety and perspective after a recent crash with a car. Find out what happened and why Dave still considers biking safe and enjoyable.

I’m very glad that Dave was (more or less) ok after his recent incident, and was willing to talk about it on camera. As he mentioned on screen, his main message is to be more visible. It’s a good reminder to those of us who travel regularly by bike to re-assess our strategies to visibility and safety. Keep in mind that Dave was riding in the dark in the very early morning when drivers may or may not be awake or paying attention. The number of crashes with cars during the daylight hours are less because (surprise!) we’re generally more visible then.

Now that the daylight is changing quickly but the weather still relatively warm (at least here in NC!) it’s a good time to think about your lighting systems and other items you use to be visible at night, as well as your assumptions about your visibility. I think a great strategy is to aim for high visibility with front, back AND side lights, but assume people can’t see you well in the dark and ride extra defensively as a result. That way you get the most of both sides of that coin.

Leave any comments below. Have you been involved in a crash before? Does this kind of interview make you more scared to ride or offer some utility? Thanks for your feedback.

Ride On!

-Elise

Go By Bike is a daily video series that talks about how to be green by riding more and using your car less, including electric bikes, electric kits, cargo bikes, bike safety, and getting motivated to bike

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Ebikes and regenerative braking

One of the most common questions I get from people first encountering an electric-assist bike is “Does it charge while you pedal?” or “Does it have regenerative braking?”. This question shows me what a great marketing campaign Toyota and others have with respect to their hybrid cars. We hear “electric vehicle” and think “regenerative braking”. Or more unconsciouly, “free energy”. Well, unfortunately, you can’t get something for nothing in the energy world (at least not YET).

Today’s video addresses this most common question and what I tell people who ask it.

Two links to detailed analysis of Regenerative Braking (equations and calculations included – don’t say I didn’t warn you!)

http://www.ecospeed.com/regenbraking.pdf

http://www.ativsolutions.com/cblog/index.php?/archives/24-Regenerative-Braking.html

(below is a brief summary of the video)

Regenerative braking captures energy from momentum when you slow down. Momentum is a function of the speed you are going and the amount of mass(wieght) of the object. This is easy to relate to – a small ball thrown at you slowly is not going to hurt your hand when you catch it. Nether is a large, lightweight beach ball. But a large heavy ball or a ball moving fast at you might cause you to step out of the way.

In the vehicle world, a car is heavy and generally moves fast, so looses a lot of energy when is slows down. A bike is lightweight and generally moving much slower, so there is not as much energy to be lost (or gained).

In addition, bicyclists are very good at using their momentum when they ride. When you come to a stop sign, you probably slow down, but only as much as necessary to make sure it’s safe to cross. When you cruise down a hill, you get up speed that helps take you up the next hill. If you are spending this momentum energy to charge your battery, well then you’re not using it to get going again on the other side of the intersection or up the hill. Given that any form of energy transfer has some associated losses, it’s probably better to maintain your momentum for that uphill.

The other common question I get is “does the battery charge as you pedal?” While this seems like a great idea, what that means is that your leg power is now being used to charge a battery rather than make your bike go faster in the forward direction. i.e. it feels like pedaling with the brakes on. Now most people want biking to be easier, not harder. So they’d rather plug the battery in and use the 3-5 cents of energy to charge it up.

——

So there you go! Please comment below. And remember to join or Facebook page or sign up (on the upper right) for our email list to stay in touch!

-Elise

Go By Bike is a daily video series that talks about how to be green by riding more and using your car less, including electric bikes, electric kits, cargo bikes, bike safety, and getting motivated to bike

If you like this video, please  digg it, stumble upon it, tweet about it or post it to delicious or facebook using one of the links below

Logistical issues are usually of our own creation

Think you can’t bike more because of logistical issues? Here’s my thought to share with you today:

Many people complain that they can’t bike more often, especially with kids, because their lives are too challenging logistically. You know, child A has to be here while child B has to be there. The daycare is on the other side of town. You have to run here then there.

A few years ago, my life was filled with this kind of logistical nightmares – running errands all over town several times a week. But then I decided to make biking my priority rather than all that “stuff” I was doing. And you know what? I don’t miss all those trips to pick up this or that thing and I don’t even miss the thing I thought I really needed! My life is easier because I CHOSE to make it easier.

There’s plenty of choice in this world, and it is easy to find activities that are fun and enriching while at the same time don’t require driving everywhere. You can do it, especially if you examine where your priorities are.

And if you do have kids, check out THIS family who wrote about a challenging day, done ALL by bike

Ride on!

-Elise

Go By Bike is a video series that talks about how to be green by riding more and using your car less, including electric bikes, electric kits, cargo bikes, bike safety, and getting motivated to bike

If you like this video, please  digg it, stumble upon it, tweet about it or post it to delicious or facebook using one of the links below

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Sustainability, and the Connections Between Humans and Earth

The earth is a changing and adaptable place. In fact, the very nature of a changing environment is what leads to the great diversity of life in this world. We humans are changing the earth as well, but we are not separate from the earth. There is no time we can “go back to” before we “changed the earth”. The earth has been changing and adapting long before and will be long after we humans are around.

I am not a climate change nay-sayer, nor am I one of those “technology will save us all so do nothing” people. But I do think a lot of folks concerned about environmental issues view humans as the root of the problem somehow, and I disagree. The pace of our effects on the earth are greater than what has come before due to our culture and ability to communicate. But those effects can go in many different directions, not just bad ones. We also have the ability to view potential future scenarios and have some effect on how we’ll get there. So I’m not writing us off. Neither am I writing off the earth and all it’s creatures. Today’s video explores this idea.

-Elise

Go By Bike is a video series that talks about how to be green by riding more and using your car less, including electric bikes, electric kits, cargo bikes, bike safety, and getting motivated to bike

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Teaching Kids to Ride

Over the weekend, I had a great opportunity to work with some middle school aged kids and their parents. The kids wanted to ride their bikes to middle school and we spent a couple hours talking and practicing some road safety skills.

I had a great time seeing these young people who are the next generation of bike transportation advocates! In this video, I go over 4 critical areas to teach young bike riders when they’re learning to interact with traffic. And I even throw in one extra area that I noticed when watching the kids interact.

The 4 major accident areas for young riders are

1. entering traffic from a driveway without looking

2. riding on the left side of the street

3. veering in front of oncoming traffic when going left, and

4. failing to stop at a stop sign.

Leave me your comments below!

And don’t forget to join our Facebook or Twitter communities for a great resource on lifestyle biking, sustainable transportation and electric info.

-Elise

Go By Bike is a daily video series that talks about how to be green by riding more and using your car less, including electric bikes, electric kits, cargo bikes, bike safety, and getting motivated to bike

If you like this video, please  digg it, stumble upon it, tweet about it or post it to delicious or facebook using one of the links below

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Replace your car with this load-carrying machine

If you’ve been thinking of going carfree, but have stuff or people to carry, then I’m sure you’ve been looking for options on how you can do that. An electric cargo bike is a great car-replacement vehicle for most of the trips we do to the store, to drop-off and pick-up children, to get to work and back, and to attend social outings. The cargo bike gives you the capacity to carry what you need, and the motor makes it so you don’t have to kill yourself pedaling the extra weight.

Your excuses for not biking will disappear with one of these babies! And you’ll be LOVING the $8,000* your saving a year by selling your second car!  (* According to edmonds.com, the average price of owning a car in the US is $8,000 a year, and that was calculated when gas was just $1.50 per gallon!).

In this video, I give a brief overview of the Electric Yuba Mundo, or E-Mundo. The Mundo is the “pick up” of the cargo biking world with 400lbs of cargo carrying capacity. The Cycle 9 electric mundo is designed to fit most people’s needs right out of the box. Unless you’ve got killer hills, this kit will transport you and your stuff wherever you want to go (if you DO have killer hills, ask about upgrading to our high torque version!).

Leave me your comments below!

And don’t forget to join our Facebook or Twitter communities for a great resource on lifestyle biking, sustainable transportation and electric info.

-Elise

Go By Bike is a daily video series that talks about how to be green by riding more and using your car less, including electric bikes, electric kits, cargo bikes, bike safety, and getting motivated to bike

If you like this video, please  digg it, stumble upon it, tweet about it or post it to delicious or facebook using one of the links below

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Head to Head!

A little friendly competition – the electric Madsen with 150 lbs of cargo versus the lightweight road bike. Short video today for your enjoyment…

I’m sure there are many road warriors out there who will appreciate that the electric bike is not ALWAYS faster. (However, I’d love to see them tote the 3 children and still be that fast – different strokes for different folks).

-Elise

Go By Bike is a daily video series that talks about how to be green by riding more and using your car less, including electric bikes, electric kits, cargo bikes, bike safety, and getting motivated to bike

If you like this video, please  digg it, stumble upon it, tweet about it or post it to delicious or facebook using one of the links below

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What is Peak Oil and what can we do about it?

I had the opportunity recently to listen to a talk and discussion about peak oil and climate change here in our local town . The talk was interesting and a good presentation of the topic, but also interesting was the reactions of people in the crowd. Here’s what happened:

It’s a serious issue that we shouldn’t take lightly, but it’s also easy to feel overwhelmed and get into gloom and doom mode. I found my way to take action on this issue, both personally and through starting Cycle 9. What about you? Is Peak Oil something that motivated you to ride more?

What are people in your areas doing about sustainability, climate change and energy use?

Here are some links to :

General information about Peak Oil

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil

http://www.energybulletin.net/primer.php

and the Transition Town Movement

http://www.transitionnetwork.org/

-Elise

o By Bike is a daily video series that talks about how to be green by riding more and using your car less, including electric bikes, electric kits, cargo bikes, bike safety, and getting motivated to bike

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