Re: Electric bicycles, social policy & culture

Wolfgang Strobl <news51@mystrobl.de> wrote:

Am Thu, 10 Apr 2025 12:40:59 -0400 schrieb Frank Krygowski
<frkrygow@sbcglobal.net>:
 

On 4/10/2025 12:09 PM, AMuzi wrote:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/are-e-bikes-a-godsend-or-the-road-to-
perdition-an-amish-community-is-torn/ar-AA1CAple

 
A couple remarks:

...
 

Holmes County, Ohio is quite hilly. We did a weekend there, riding
tandems with our best friends. One little side road marked the first
time we ever had to dismount and walk a hill despite our tandem's low
gearing. I can see why the Amish there would be motivated to accept
electric assist.

 
Sure. Who wouldn't?   But how many people of those who switched from a
bicycle to a motorized bike during the last decade are Amish people?
Wikipedia tells me that only 0.12% of the US population are Amish, so as
a first guess I'd expect > 99% of e-bike users not to be Amish.
 

I believe they are quite clustered in areas so would need to go below state
level, to see what % (if that figures exist!) of Amish are using E bikes vs
population.

If they are using it as transport over the cart at least to some degree,
which the general population would probably use car/truck/tractor as it a
rural set up they seem to exist in.

 
Finally, while I'll never be Amish, I can admire that a culture has
priorities other than "How much shit can we buy before we die?"
Community is very important to the Amish, and community is a good thing.

 
But switching from bicycles to motorized bikes isn't a good thing in
general, especially not in a country known for their obesity crisis.
 
IMO, this is marketing for a motorized vehicle whose design mainly
consists of giving riders the illusion that they are riding a bicycle.
 

Certainly the UK ones be they mates or hire stuff are bike like vs
motorcycle, the hire ones in particular have a fairly sluggish pickup,
faster than your normal roadie granted but still slower than mine, and I
regularly just roll on past them as they cap out at 15ish mph.

Motorcycles are unless it’s very congested junction etc, that they
momentarily can’t filter through are just gone!

Roger Merriman