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
Aloha Alex! Mahalo for all that you are doing to forward the good things about humans. Feeding them, especially. Regarding your take on cycling and its restorative powers…Having being struck by a car when on my bike 4.5 years ago, I especially appreciate your attention to paying attention while cycling. It’s key, I believe. I was shy of getting back on my bike but lately I am thinking that I’m going to “get back on”. In more ways than one. Enjoy. You know how. J
1. Electric bikes sound really cool. If I were, say, two decades younger, I'd get one.
2. JD Vance is such a fraud.
3. I'm really impressed with Nirvana Wok.