Bought Myself an Electric Bike

Spent a great deal of time researching before purchasing my first electric bike - while not knowing that our neighbor has designed bikes for several companies and could have given me free advice! Anyway - he approved of my choice. These things can be very expensive but I got one I’m really happy with on the low-ish end of the price range.

Five pedal-assist speeds, the frame folds in half if you need it to fit in a car, built in speedometer and lights obviously. Great range. Big puffy tires. Front and seat suspension. And more!

This is life-changing. I’m now biking to work. We are still a one car family. And I have rediscovered the feeling of freedom that comes with biking.

Going uphill using the throttle and not pedaling is a newer feeling and also a thrill, especially for us Seattleites.

I remember biking as a kid and the relaxing feeling I got from that forward movement, the wind. Roaring through parking garages at an Appalachian university in Southern Ohio - feeling free. Just like a young J.D. Vance. It really calmed my brain to be on a bike.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Politician J.D. Vance is from a Cincinnati suburb. Cincinnati is definitely not in Appalachia.

At one glorious point in my life I went ten years without paying for a car, or medical insurance (the gamble paid off). Rent was $300 a month - with a view of the ocean - until a new condo blocked that view. I was a bike person then. Total freedom.

And now I’m feeling the mental and physical health benefits of biking again. Don’t worry - I’m extremely safe. Courteous sidewalk biking, side roads, conservative speed settings, hyper-awareness of surroundings. An understanding that a bike lane that is just a line painted on a road is not a bike lane, and that, as a baseline, nobody in a car can see you.

—Alex