The big summer e-bike celebration, #176

E-power, ending the distraction of culture wars and the gift of non-standard cycles.

This week we’re seeing a drift of e-bike stories, piling up like the leaves beneath our rather parched trees. E-cycles’ ability to transform urban transport is still largely untapped in the UK, but the evidence and public understanding of their potential is growing. Meanwhile, consider what happens when we let local authorities get on and do their jobs on transport.

BIG STORIES FOR CYCLING ADVOCACY

HOW SAFE ARE LEGAL E-BIKES? Very, is the answer, and Cycling Electric’s Mark Sutton has been to visit Bosch’s factory in Stuttgart, to find out more. Sutton was, it seems, left rather awestruck by the scale of the factory site, and the mindboggling number and variety of abuse tests the batteries are subjected to. The only one that caught fire was supposedly the one someone left, forgotten, under an active grill. Reassuring, and a good counter to misinformation or confusion generated by substandard illegal models, which lack such safety testing and regulation.

THE POWER OF E-BIKES TO REPLACE CARS. Research in hilly Wuppertal, Germany, looked at the impact of cycle infrastructure and e-bike ownership, and found the availability of e-bikes had a big impact on how people travel in challenging cycling environments. E-cycles can offer genuine alternatives to driving, with huge potential to reduce car dependency, but people need help accessing them. Meanwhile, another study, also using German data, underlined e-bikes’ potential to replace cars, noting ‘43.1% of electric bicycle trips and 63.2% of electric bicycle mileage would have been undertaken using a car if no e-bike had been available’. Both shared by Stephen Frost.

IN PLAIN ENGLISH. If scientific papers aren’t your thing, this piece from the Guardian’s Australian output neatly summarises what makes e-cycles so powerful in shifting people out of their cars. It also makes the case to stop conflating regulated, safe machines with dangerous illegal products known to catch fire and go too fast. Facts and narrative blend nicely to sum up why e-bikes are fundamentally a good thing and negative news surrounding them is often referring to a different type of product entirely.

CULTURE WARS DOMINATE ILLEGAL E-BIKE DEBATE. Speaking of which, it’s all very well picking on those at the pointy end of the gig economy, i.e. delivery riders, but it won’t solve the problem. This TransportXtra piece argues the case for looking at the economic drivers encouraging riders to take risks with unsafe equipment and behaviour. Those economic drivers are created by the delivery app firms. Large tech companies are a tougher target but unless we’re tackling their role in the problem, we’re feeding the culture wars narrative, while tinkering around the edges.

GOOD RIDDANCE TO THE ‘WAR ON MOTORISTS’ NARRATIVE. Writing for the Evening Standard this week, I make the case for LTN’s road safety benefits and of letting local authorities get on with delivering safer streets in their areas. It’s worth reflecting that the UK has one of the world’s most centralised governments, and seeking to somehow control via Whitehall where bollards go in Birmingham is a nonsense.

OTHER HEADLINES

LIFE IN PUBLIC SPACES ‘THINNING’. That’s the conclusion of a fascinating study contrasting interactions in public spaces across America, 30 years apart. AI analysis of footage recorded in 2010 and in 1979 found that people in the same locations in New York, Boston and Philadelphia linger less, walk faster and are less likely to meet up in 2010. This reduction in interaction is attributed to work pattern changes, phone and technology use, as well as changing weather patterns, and cities’ responses to those at street level.

INTERESTING GRAPH(IC) OF THE WEEK:

This week, it’s a video of cyclist Jeremy, who discovered recumbent three-wheeled Ice Trikes thanks to Wheels4Me after a critical illness that impacted his lower limbs and ability to use a regular two-wheeler.

ACTIVE TRAVEL WORD OF THE WEEK:

Battery Management System. The thing that helps stop abuses or injuries to e-bike batteries turning into a fire. In regulated, legal e-bikes the BMS features multiple failsafe mechanisms to prevent fire at every step. Cheap, illegal machines, often lacking sufficient BMS, or indeed tampered-with batteries, are the ones causing the fire and road safety problems.

Until next time,

Adam

Adam Tranter

CEO, Fusion & Founder, #BikeIsBest

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