Re: E-Biikes are not bicycles

On 9/27/2024 12:22 PM, Wolfgang Strobl wrote:

Am Thu, 26 Sep 2024 14:54:27 -0400 schrieb Frank Krygowski
<frkrygow@sbcglobal.net>:
 

Another guy on the ride is ~80, will always be somewhat overweight, but
wants to ride with the club for social reasons. When his ebike was
recently out of commission, he was desperately tired trying to keep up
on a very fancy, lightweight conventional bike. The motor and battery
allow him to socialize with his friends.

 Perhaps.  But perhaps he got overweight and stayed overweight, because
he was given a tool that enabled and rewarded this very behaviour.
Including a narrative suitable as justification. A fancy, lightweight
conventional bike might have been the the road not taken, twenty years
ago, figuratively speaking.

Not true in his case. He and his (younger) wife moved here and joined our club maybe 10 years ago. Then, he rode a conventional bike, and they did lots and lots of mileage on club rides. He had a belly then, and it's never gone away. His wife recently did some senior races. His first ebike (maybe 4 years ago?) may have been motivated by a desire to ride at her speed - well, and the speed of other club members.

It is worse now.  Nowadays, as both older and somewhat disabled people
have long been captured by the marketing teams and many healthy middle
aged people have already bought an E-Bike too, children have been in
focus an the target for marketing for a few years now. Have a look at
 <https://www.mystrobl.de/ws/vp/ebike/vsf_e-bikes_fuer_kinder.JPG>
 That picture shows the cover of a magazine from VSF ("Verbund Service
und Fahrrad", formerly and translated "association of self-managed
bicycle companies", a nation wide marketing and lobby organization in
Germany)
 The title on the cover, in bold letters, says "E-bikes for children".

That's horrifying to me.
Last year, my friends and I were enjoying playing in an acoustic music session at a park pavilion. For a while we watched three or four kids zooming back and forth on an adjacent (very low traffic) road. They were being goofy kids, but at 20 mph at least, so crashes could have real consequences. I think their parents are nuts.
I occasionally see kids zooming around on electric scooters. Apparently it's no longer fashionable to use one's muscles. This is not a good trend.
--
- Frank Krygowski