Electric bikes are speedily becoming the “must “have” form of transport for urban travellers and city commuters.
If you’ve not yet got around to considering this cracking little vehicle for your local needs, here’s five excellent reasons why you should.
Swiftness.
On the metropolitan commutes and similar short trips which make up about 80 per cent of electric bike usage, the electric bike wins hands down over every other kind of powered vehicles in terms of speediness.
Although the motor car enjoys a significant speed advantage over the electric bike, traffic conditions, particularly in congested and built-up areas, frequently renders the speed differential meaningless. The overall speed of a motor car on an urban journey is often !
Mopeds and motorcycles, which have the ability to overtake queues of cars in stationary traffic and have the nimbleness to dodge in and out, are faster than cars in clogged-up traffic, but are still constrained by the same road network.
The electric cycle shares the traffic-avoiding abilities of other two-wheeled transport but has an additional advantage.The ebike is free to ramble off road, which means that it can take diversions through parks and up footpaths and practically anywhere else that its bigger relatives can’t go.
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It is,absolutely the swiftest way to get around a metropolitan environment.
Economy.
The operating costs of an electric bicycle are just slightly greater than those of an unpowered cycle, when you take out battery depreciation. According to A to B Magazine (http://www.atob.org.uk/) and the London Cycling Campaign an electric bicycle costs 5 to 8 pence per mile and a bicycle 4.2 pence per mile, with nearly the whole difference accounted for by the battery.
But it’s when you compare costs against a car, which is the most popular urban means of transportation, that the savings become more evident.
According the The British Automobile Association a car costs 1.00 to 1.70 GBP per mile to run, which is considerably more than the two-wheeled alternative. And with no eligibilty for parking fees or congestion charges,an ebike must be the clear victor when it comes to urban transits.
Mean, Clean, Green.
The electricity that powers an e-bike is undoubtedly one of the cleanest energy sources around, but you can trim your footprint even more if you shift to a green energy supplier, or use a photovoltaic or solar system to make your own. The only CO2 emissions come from your lungs!
And if you learn <a rel=”nofollow” onclick=”javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackPageview', '/outgoing/article_exit_link/5122897']);” href=”http://www.howtobuildanelectricbike.com”/>how to build an electric bike</a> yourself, you’ll be going even greener!
Of course a pedal bike is even more environmentally friendly. You have to remember, though, that a pedal bike relies totally upon the rider for energy input. This is provided by the food uptake of the user,which unless it’s all home-grown, comes from a food chain not noted for its environmental sensitivity.
The manufacturing of an electric bicycle does involve a substantial level of environmental cost, but as this the case with all vehicles we can exclude it from this study.
Safety.
You are at no more peril on an electric bicycle than you are with other means of transport, as long as you act responsibly and stick to the road safety rules. Actually, an electric bicycle offers you that additional acceleration and quickness which can sometimes get you out of a
hazardous situation.
Freedom.
No drivers licence or driving test needed. No necessity for an MOT. No necessity for Road Tax. Registration plates not needed. No obligatory insurance. No necessity for a crash helmet.Just get on and go!
Now that’s what I call freedom!
James Edgar is a writer and internet marketeer whose first website How to build an electric bike is a reflection of his–not always successful– efforts to live a throughly modern lifestyle in a natural and sustainable way.
Visit us at www.comcycle-usa.com In this video we begin our electric bike conversion project by briefly looking at all of the components and the bike we are going to convert.
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