I went biking in NL last summer (great vacation!) and I was completely amazed by the number of elders biking using ebikes. Ebikes absolutely make cycling available to a vast range of people who wouldn’t or couldn’t bike otherwise.
I do have and use a traditional bike, but I will consider in the future a (cargo?)ebike.
A good counter-example is Copenhagen. There, almost nobody uses ebikes in the city. (It would not be faster because there are so many bikes on the road. There is a bridge across the harbour where at rush hour times there pass more than two bikes per second, that’s over 5000 vehicles a hour.)
What made the difference was good, safe bike infrastructure. And NL has this, too.
I think it’s worth noting that Copenhagen doesn’t only have good cycling infrastructure, but also a relatively young and fit population, a population that has grown up cycling, a good public transport network leading to a completion of public transport vs ebike instead of car vs ebike, and it’s very flat.
For many people, an ebike can be the difference between a workout vs a regular commute. It might be just what they need to leave their car at home (or not have a car at all)
Nice, does it depend maybe on the terrain as well (NL is flat, but I was in southern towns and they were a bit hilly).
Anyway, I 100% agree that safe infrastructure is a necessary condition for bike usage. But I look at Rome for example and I can’t imagine elder people biking (even if there was infrastructure) without ebikes, due to so many hills - let alone smaller towns in the inland.
In practice, e-bikes open up cycling to more people and for more trips, likely making them far more net positive than regular bikes.
And this is coming from someone who bikes like mad on non-ebikes
I went biking in NL last summer (great vacation!) and I was completely amazed by the number of elders biking using ebikes. Ebikes absolutely make cycling available to a vast range of people who wouldn’t or couldn’t bike otherwise.
I do have and use a traditional bike, but I will consider in the future a (cargo?)ebike.
A good counter-example is Copenhagen. There, almost nobody uses ebikes in the city. (It would not be faster because there are so many bikes on the road. There is a bridge across the harbour where at rush hour times there pass more than two bikes per second, that’s over 5000 vehicles a hour.)
What made the difference was good, safe bike infrastructure. And NL has this, too.
I think it’s worth noting that Copenhagen doesn’t only have good cycling infrastructure, but also a relatively young and fit population, a population that has grown up cycling, a good public transport network leading to a completion of public transport vs ebike instead of car vs ebike, and it’s very flat. For many people, an ebike can be the difference between a workout vs a regular commute. It might be just what they need to leave their car at home (or not have a car at all)
Nice, does it depend maybe on the terrain as well (NL is flat, but I was in southern towns and they were a bit hilly).
Anyway, I 100% agree that safe infrastructure is a necessary condition for bike usage. But I look at Rome for example and I can’t imagine elder people biking (even if there was infrastructure) without ebikes, due to so many hills - let alone smaller towns in the inland.