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I’ve long wondered why people are habitually renting e-bikes. They’re much cheaper and easier to store than cars, so I’d point to the usual reasons given as not applying.
Like, it might be trendy social contagion, but you’d think people would notice that just buying the things is the better deal.
You're paying for the ability to ditch the bike literally anywhere, and someone stealing it or wrecking it is not your problem.
In places where property crime is actively encouraged that is an underrated part of the package- and people don't bother stealing them anyway, because even if they weren't all GPS-tracked, they're very obviously stolen to pawn shops whereas private e-bikes are not (and if you want to be more cynical, the police will go where the local rental company tells them the stolen scooters are, where private citizens don't generally enjoy that even if you can prove it with an AirTag or similar).
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I do own a bike but I rarely use it because using it involves bringing it in from my back balcony, through my apartment to the front door, then carrying it downstairs 2 floors (and all that in reverse when I'll be back, maybe tired). Then I have to carry a lock, I have to find a place to lock it at my destination and hope it's still there when I go get it. And that's a normal bike, NOT an e-bike, which is usually heavier, more expensive and appealing to thieves, and adds the concern of having to have it topped off before I take it out.
Browsing quickly, it seems the low-end of the "worth buying" ebikes starts around 750$ (so close to 1000$CAD). Mechanical components and batteries wear off on bikes, and those bikes at the low-end of the spectrum are likely Aliexpress specials that you cannot expect to get any significant post-sales service for. This is also no counting any electricity cost.
The local bike share program is 107$CAD from mid-april to mid-november (the months non-crazy dedicated "bike people" would consider riding in). After that it's 0$ for any number of "up to 45 minutes" rides in non-electric bikes, or 17c CAD/minute for an ebike.
Unless it's for daily commute, and/or you live at the ground floor and have a safe place to keep your bike, I can see the bike share system having massive appeal!
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I do it all the time. Renting is not opposed to owning. I own my bike and rent e-bikes all the time.
Few reason:
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You're paying for the optionality here -- you can take the bike for one ride then pivot to bus/Uber/walk for the next.
Buying is the better deal in money but severely constrains options.
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Because, depending on the program, it can be significantly cheaper than owning. In Pittsburgh, the bikeshare program charges $120/year for a subscription with unlimited 30 minute rentals. Compare that to owning one, which is going to cost at least $2,000 for one that's worth buying, and comes with the attendant maintenance and theft risk. Compare that to transit, which in Pittsburgh is over $1,000 for an annual pass and requires you to operate on their schedule. Compare that to a parking lease, which is going to run you between $170 and $350 per month depending on where it is. And the network of stations is much larger than I would have thought, covering pretty much the entire East End plus the South Side and most of the lower North Side. (It should be noted that other parts of the city are cut off from any potential bike network by extreme topography and dangerous roads. This is doable for some people, but most will balk at the idea and it's certainly a liability nightmare.) For a certain kind of person, this subscription makes sense. Based on the pay-as-you-go rates, this makes sens for anyone who thinks they're going to use the service 20–30 times per year. I can't speak to how this works in New York or any other city.
Ok, this makes sense why you wouldn't buy one, but I have questions about the economics- are there just huge numbers of people who buy a subscription but prefer cars and only use it twice a year, or is this the product of a low interest rate environment?
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Seems like the math will make sense for any young person who doesn't have kids nor a need to carry large loads around, and for whom a car + insurance + gas + parking would be a serious burden.
I don't know as much about the associated expenses of owning a bike, but reducing the risk of theft takes a pretty decent concern off your mind.
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Bikes are hard to lock, and easy to steal, and police generally aren’t going to do a single thing about your $1500 bicycle being gone.
Ubiquitous e-bike/scooter rentals are preferable because almost all of the downsides are hidden from me.
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They're also much easier to steal than cars [citation needed], so I could see that driving behavior in some cities. Being able to just drop it off at a dock rather than making sure you're locking it in a good, visible location could be worth a few bucks to people. For small apartments, storage could become relevant as well - small studios aren't exactly rare and storing a bulky e-bike is kind of clunky.
But e-bikes aren’t much bigger than a regular bike, and most people don’t rent those?
You have a point about theft, but I don’t know that it’s a huge one in a world where existing responses to theft are already priced into major purchases with things like insurance.
These folks do have the answer. The cycle in every American city has been:
As a cyclist I can say that the risk of thievery is high enough there's no way for me to justify ever leaving my nice, light bike out of my sight. I'd rather outsource the risk to someone else, and they're great mobility enablers for tourists who misjudge the relative risk of public transport vs being on their own two wheels.
To be hard to steal and stand up to abuse at all, they're also heavy and slow. My 20 year old boat anchor of a low-end hardtail mountain bike is far nicer to ride than a Citibike.
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Before ebikes became common there were plenty of similar rental programs for pedal bikes, and the program in Pittsburgh still has pedal bikes. They're just slowly replacing them with e-bikes because they're an easier sell to the typical American who's allergic to exercise.
But honestly, even my very-fit parents for example still ended up springing for e-bikes, because... have you ridden one? The feeling is at least that you still get a workout (with lower assistance settings) but without a lot of the misery. They are wonderful (in everything but the price) Now, I'm well aware that in some sense, misery is a sign that exercise is working, and is not a "bug", but anyone who has biked a steep hill will tell you that they might wish that specific part of the ride would disappear. And lo and behold, with e-bikes, it has! Plus, the lower effort might be at least partially offset, or surpassed, if an e-bike gets you to ride more often than you otherwise would.
I'll counter @Rov_Scam here. The studies (admittedly that bike companies have done) suggest that people with e-bikes burn more calories and go further. I know with a high-class e-bike I'd feel more comfortable on the road to connect non-road sections for instance and open up my total range.
I also know that the appeal of a top-end E-MTB is fucking huge. Going downhill is 10/10 on the fun scale, but masochism is required to go up. An E-MTB lets you... double? the number of runs you get in a given day or carb bucket, so even very serious mountain bikers I know either have or would consider one.
From my perspective E-Bikes let people with a tiny fraction of my fitness level come with me on journeys. That's reason enough to consider them compelling for other people and me as a second-order effect.
I also would be able to use one as a substitute for my desire for a motorcycle. I can pedal very fast but only rarely get the experience of controlling the turning and maneuverability of a cycle which is super fun on its own. An E-bike would let me do that, so I've definitely thought about getting one.
I have to say, as an accomplished and fast road cyclist, e-bikes have ruined everything. People’s skills and awareness generally rise with experience and the shortcut (e-bike) means the roads are now packed with idiots who don’t know what they’re doing. You expect a rider who can pace at 20-25 mph to have the skills commensurate with their fitness. E-bikes ruined that. It’s decidedly worse now for actual cyclists. Delivery guys and out of shape people without the situational awareness of a seasoned rider have no place on a heavy, dangerous electric moped going 25 mph.
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As an avid cyclist, I've taken a couple of test drives, and I'm honestly not that impressed. To be fair, the one I took the most extensive ride on was a mountain bike, so it's not exactly typical commuter conditions, and with that in mind, the whole experience felt kind of stupid. I felt less like I was riding a bike and more like I was driving some kind of motorized vehicle. Pedaling felt less like moving the bike and more like actuating the motor, as if i was just flipping switches. Shifting seemed pointless; why bother with the higher gears when I can just keep it in low gear and adjust the power output as necessary? Now, I don't want to knock e-mountain bikes particularly, because I know a lot of older riders who are only able to stay out because of them. I also don't have any problem with people who use them for commuting or otherwise as a form of transportation.
My issue is with the people who buy them for recreation and take them on bike trails. It used to be that the only people who would do 20 mph on these trails were serious riders on serious bikes who were skilled enough and had enough courtesy that they weren't a problem. It also didn't hurt that there are few people in good enough shape to do 20 for any distance. Now that any schlub can do 20 there are regular near-collisions with teenage jackwagons who think they're on dirt bikes. At a state park near me, where several concessionaires run e-bike liveries, they're having serious problems with erosion on the crushed lime surface. This isn't a problem with e-mountain bikes, because the terrain naturally limits speed (the only advantage is on uphill sections, which already see much faster speeds from downhill riders). On a wide open trail though, it doesn't take much skill to open up the throttle.
Beyond that, what's the point? I fail to see how much advantage there is to an ebike when riding on a relatively flat path at normal speeds. As much as I dislike the asshole riders, there are plenty of normal people riding them slower than I'm riding my pedal bike, and all I can think of is "Why?" Only the frailest among us would have trouble pedaling a normal bike at reasonable speeds, and these people don't seem to ride their ebikes any faster, or at least much faster. And I lied about e-mountain bikes. One problem I do have isn't with the bikes themselves, but the people who claim they get just as good of a workout on them as they did on pedal bikes. Bullshit. I went on a weekend trip with friends this past summer, a couple of whom had ebikes. A friend of mine had a gizmo you could use to estimate wattage, and we took turns trying it out. Those of us on pedal bikes averaged about 225 watts, and the hardest riding guy peaked at over 700 watts on a tough climb. The ebike guys averaged around 70 watts of output at the cranks, with little change on hills. Like I alluded to earlier, it's an equivalent workout to riding a pedal bike in low gear at low cadence.
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