Electric bikes are becoming increasingly popular for commuters, for a variety of reasons. Here are just a few good reasons to ditch your car for an e-bike.
Picking an e-bike over a car saves money on gas and car maintenance. For example, e-bikes will generally cost anywhere between $100-150 in parts every year. If you bring your bike to your dealer for seasonal tune-ups, that figure rises to about $300 yearly. This is still a bargain compared to the basic annual maintenance that a car requires, and that’s before any major repairs or replacements.
E-bikes let you go where you want, when you want. Just jump on your bike and you’re on your way; no more waiting in traffic jams or looking for parking spots. Just make sure to take care of your bike with a top-of-the-line lock.
Bikes and e-bikes are kinder to the environment than cars. That’s obvious. But what about electric cars, you might say? In the long run, studies show that, though electric cars reduce pollution levels, they don’t reduce traffic. This means that commuting by e-car still leads to more energy consumption for the same commute than e-bikes. Cars are also heavier and need more battery capacity than an e-bike. While it’s true that batteries are linked to some environmental concerns, the bike industry is taking steps to reduce its footprint with initiatives like Call2Recycle, a North-American program to recycle damaged and end-of-life e-bike batteries.
You can get where you're going faster and easier. Even on a regular bike, most urban rides under 5 kilometres are faster by bike than by car.
With all that zipping around, it’s no wonder that bikes and e-bikes are a lot of fun! So even though you can get to and from work quickly and easily, we recommend that you enjoy the ride and take the long way home from time to time. Visit your local rail trail, mountain lookout, or riverside cycle path. With an e-bike, you can relax after a long day at work and still enjoying getting outside.