The motor removes obstacles that discourage people from riding a
bike, notes Tom Boss, off-road and events director for the Marin County
Bicycle Coalition. “Because of Marin’s hilly terrain, most people are not
going to choose to ride a bike if they’re going to shop. They’re not going to
want to haul that stuff up a hill on a bike without assistance,” says Boss,
who got his own e-bike four years ago after noticing one overtake him
on the road, its rider sitting straight up as if on a Sunday cruise. “It’s also
about getting to your destination in a little faster time frame.”
E-bike riders laud the convenience: avoiding traffic, parking and school
drop-off lines. One San Anselmo couple, Andrew and Rebecca Popell,
turned a 35-minute freeway school commute into a nine-minute bike
ride up a (formerly) forbiddingly steep path, thanks to an e-bike with two
motors. “For pickup, there’s this huge lineup of cars, and they’re all waiting
there for their kids, and there’s nowhere to park. And with the bike, you just
zip right by them,” Popell says in a trailer for Canning’s Motherload. San
Geronimo’s Michael Bock uses e-bikes for pretty much everything, even
getting back up Mount Tamalpais to his van after hang gliding.
How do these bikes work? Most e-bikes go up to 20 miles per hour, although
a more powerful variety can reach 28. Thanks to a 2015 California law,
the slower type of e-bike is allowed on regular bike paths and lanes,
while the faster kind faces some restrictions. The growing popularity
of electric mountain bikes has raised some controversy, with some
parks and open-space areas banning them from trails; check rules before
you go. Most modern e-bike motors are powered by lithium-ion batteries
that you detach from the bike and plug into a standard outlet, where
they’ll fully charge in a few hours. Battery range varies from 20 to 120
miles per full charge.
How can you get started? The first step is to test-drive an e-bicycle,
or better yet, a few different models. Customers at The New Wheel in
Larkspur can get on the Marin North-South Greenway bike/ped path
right outside the front door and in minutes experience the thrill of
effortlessly pedaling straight up nearby hills. The New Wheel also has a
rent-to-buy program wherein the rental cost can be applied to a purchase.
Fairfax Cyclery has a few e-bikes for test riding. Vallejo’s e-bike seller
Leonardo Cycles guides a community bike ride on the second Sunday
of each month and offers two of its e-bikes for use on these rides; call
for more information. If you’re sold on the concept, you can buy from
one of the outlets listed below. Or, considering that new e-bikes usually
cost between $2,500 and $5,000 (more for souped-up cargo bikes and
really high-end models), you can save money by browsing used e-bikes
on Craigslist or on The New Wheel’s website. m
The New Wheel, Larkspur, newwheel.net; Leonardo Cycles, Vallejo,
leonardocycles.com; Blue Heron Bikes, Berkeley, blueheronbikesberkeley.
com; Mike’s Bikes, San Rafael/Sausalito, mikesbikes.com; Pedego, Tiburon
pedegoelectricbikes.com; Fairfax Cyclery, Fairfax, fairfaxcyclery.com
