The New Republic

As a pragmatist, I am all for this. Purists can cycle the old - fashioned way all they want. As with so many things, unit price will come down if a market develops and such bikes become increasingly popular. Thanks for another fine post, Dayo.

- liberal reformer

May 16, 2008 at 9:32pm

The price would have to come down.  Otherwise, a scooter like the ones  you see shooting all over European cities, would be preferable.  Where I live -- uphill from work  -- a regular bike works.  I sweat on the way home only.

- stgla

May 16, 2008 at 9:58pm

Your comment about the Segway being a novelty, not a necesity reminded me of this big from Onion Network News.

www.theonion.com/.../in_the_know_do_you_remember_life

- aeromonas

May 17, 2008 at 12:24am

Dayo,

Ask one of these purists to demonstrate how long he can hold his breath while riding a bicycle, and then when he exhales casually observe that he just spewed a bunch of CO2 into the atmosphere.  (For shame!!)

The primary contributors to a bike's efficiency are the low speed, and those two skinny wheels mounted on almost frictionless bearings.  Whether it's being propelled by a human or electric motor is secondary.  For what it's worth, though, the electric motor is the more efficient of the two, and will effectively emit less CO2 per bicycle mile traveled.

How's that for purist-deflating irony? : )

-Z

PS    I wanted to point out, there are a number of companies out there manufacturing good quality "hub motors" now.  Most sell the hub motor already laced to a wheel ready to bolt to your fork.  Converting a bike you already have to electrically powered or electrically assisted operation that way is a pretty simple affair.  Cash outlay about half that of a full-on Powabyke.

- zaiquiri

May 17, 2008 at 3:08am

Nay on the motor powered bike in the city. Not out of "purism", but pragmatism. An electrically powered bike taking up the same narrow space as a human powered bike is a danger to the normal bicyclist.

Add to that the fact that the electronically powered bikes are most likely to be ridden by inexperienced riders and you have a mess on your hands.

Scooters and motorcycles wind up being as dangerous to cyclists than trucks and SUVs in some urban biking scenarios.

Same as Segways on the sidewalk--these gizmos are crap.

- solomail

May 17, 2008 at 12:59pm

Well as cycling purist who commutes 16 miles R/T to work by bike unless it's monsoon rain or bitter-below-40 cold outside, I'd be all the happier if folks rode their bikes to work. If it's motor-assisted to a certain degree well I don't mind that so much as I do retarded folks on mopeds or scooters riding in bike lanes. What they DO need to do is increase the number of bike lanes in cities and suburbs so that the average person can feel more comfortable riding their bikes on the roads.

Riding in traffic in the city can stress any cyclist, mores so if they're new to doing so. The thing is Dayo is that once that person buys one of those heavy Powabykes they'll be looking for the next upgrade to something lighter and healthier (meaning they have to pedal the damn thing).

Now if we can just get cities and property owners to commit as much real estate to bicycle parking as they do car parks, we'd be set. I'm in a building where the rare instance has occurred that the bike racks for office commuters is full. Now if we could just get them to put in a few more showers for us sweaty folks.

- singlespeed

May 18, 2008 at 11:39pm

Hey, vespas and motorcycles are a big improvement over cars when you're just transporting one person, so a bicycle with a small 'assist' motor has gotta be better. The concern about additional showers overwhelming the benefit doesn't hold up - most bicycle commuters that I know who shower after the ride (if they're lucky enough to have shower facilities available at work) don't also shower before the ride at home. It's still one shower per day. In terms of putting more inexperienced cyclists on the road, that's going to happen with ANY efforts to increase ridership. Experienced riders are going ot have to learn to deal with this one way or another and help the new riders to learn the rules and etiquette of the road. A small motor is just going to help some of these folks get up the hills before they're in good enough shape to do it on their own. Having a lot of new cyclists on the road isn't going to be a lot of fun for the experienced and skilled cyclists who are out there now, but its a price we're going to have to pay to save the planet (or at least our ability to inhabit it).

- ramboorider

May 19, 2008 at 7:37am

solomail, I was a happy bike commuter in Amsterdam when I lived there for a few years. I had a few close calls, and witnessed a few crashes. Not one involved a scooter or motor-assisted bike (which are pretty common in Amsterdam).

If putting motor-assisted bikes on the road were going to maim or kill lots of people, the Netherlands would already be awash in moto-bike casualties. It's not.

(However, Holland also has consistently good bike lanes, on pretty much all city streets and even some highways. Safetywise, that makes a huge difference.)

- rhubarbs

May 19, 2008 at 10:45am

"Ask one of these purists to demonstrate how long he can hold his breath while riding a bicycle, and then when he exhales casually observe that he just spewed a bunch of CO2 into the atmosphere.  (For shame!!)

The primary contributors to a bike's efficiency are the low speed, and those two skinny wheels mounted on almost frictionless bearings.  Whether it's being propelled by a human or electric motor is secondary.  For what it's worth, though, the electric motor is the more efficient of the two, and will effectively emit less CO2 per bicycle mile traveled."

----

Presumably, however, the CO2 coming out of the cyclists lungs is not "new" CO2, the way burning a fossil fuel in the bike is - unless you want to argue that his or her breakfast required destruction of Amazonion rain forest.  I at least know no cyclists who eat petroleum or coal directly for breakfast.

- sdemuth

May 19, 2008 at 12:22pm

Now that we use oil to make food, and food to make fuel, I think that cyclist do eat oil for breakfast.

- Andrew Davis

May 19, 2008 at 1:02pm

sdemuth,

>Presumably, however, the CO2 coming out of the cyclists lungs is not "new" CO2

Try this thought experiment:

A plant is growing in the sun, and it absorbs a molecule of CO2 from the atmosphere and converts into something else, removing some greenhouse gas from circulation.  Does it matter whether that CO2 molecule is, as you put it, an "old" one or a "new" one?

And if you say yes, then how would anyone ever going about arriving at a proper accounting for net greenhouse gas increase or decrease, given that all those CO2 molecules in the atmosphere are chemically and physically identical... utterly indistinguishable.

Think of this analogy with monetary accounting.  If somebody hands you a pile of cash in the course of making a purchase, do you need to know the provenance and history of each of the bills he hands you, in order to make a proper balance sheet entry?

-Z

- zaiquiri

May 19, 2008 at 11:35pm

zaiquiri: I am aware that all CO2 molecules are identical, and one can certainly argue that the word "new" was inadequately explained, or even poorly chosen.  But there is an important distinction here, that needs to be made.

Up until the late eighteenth century, nearly all energy for locomotion, or anything else, was derived directly (by burning wood, e.g.) or indirectly (by using animals that eat plants) from the plant biosphere, or was wind or gravity powered.  As long as the biosphere is reasonably stable, none of these provide a net increase in CO2 in the atmosphere.  The plant-derived sources do indeed put CO2 into the atmosphere, but the process of creating the plants removes the same amount from the biosphere.

The human econcomy has changed this in two ways: our expanding population has replaced prairies and forests with farm fields or cities, leading to a net decline in the carbon stored in those ecosystems.  The carbon thus released primarily ends up in CO2 in the atmosphere, and represents a net increase in the atmospheric carbon burden, because it is not subsequently removed by the ecosystem that released it.

And secondly, we've burned lots of carbon rich fuels that were outside the stable biosphere.

I loosely called both these sources "new" carbon.

To a first approximation, the cyclists carbon is not "new."  It came from "burning" carbohydrates fixed out of the atmosphere in farm fields, and delivered to him directly in the form of cereals, fruits or vegetables, or indirectly as animal products.  The fields that fixed that carbon will in general fix an equal amount in the next growing cycle.  No "new" carbon.

- sdemuth

May 20, 2008 at 10:52am

sdemuth wrote,

> I am aware that all CO2 molecules are identical

You say you're aware they're identical, and yet in the very next sentence you proceed to "make distinction", which is precisely what you cannot do if the things are identical.  

> and one can certainly argue that the word "new" was inadequately explained, or even

> poorly chosen.

Poor choice of adjective or inadequate explanation has nothing to do with it.  You've falling victim to flawed logic.

- zaiquiri

May 20, 2008 at 5:12pm

Poor choice of adjective or inadequate explanation has nothing to do with it.  You've falling victim to flawed logic.

Not by a long shot.

I have a hut tub in my yard that is hooked via a hose to an external pump and wood fired heat exchanger.  Flip the switch, and the pump withdraws water, runs it through the heat exchanger, and dumps it back in the tub.  You can run it all day on a full tub, and the tub remains the same degree of full.

There is also a hose bib to the tub connected to my well.  Turn this one on, and the pump in my well mines fossil water and dumps it into the tub.  Running it consistently increases the water level in the tub, until it is full.

Every water molecule added by either of the hoses is identical to every other one.  Nevertheless, one of the sources causes the tubs level of water to increase and one doesn't.  Why - because one withdraws in equal amounts from the pool what it adds, and one doesn't.

Now replace my hot tub with the atmosphere - the level in the tub is analogous to theCO2 concentration.  The motor on the bicycle is comparable to the hose bib connected to my well - it dumps fossil carbon into the atmosphere.  The bicyclist , combined with the plants he eats, is comparable to the closed loop of the heat exchanger.  Like the hose that removes water from the tank, the plants remove CO2 from the atmosphere.  Like the hose that returns the heated  water, the bicyclist returns that CO2 to the atmospheric pool.

In other words, it is the SOURCE of the CO2 that matters.

- sdemuth

May 20, 2008 at 5:42pm

sdemuth,

It's an interesting analogy, but I don't think it works because putting your cyclist on the bike and telling him to ride awhile, is not equivalent to turning on pump #1.  If it were true that the carbon emitted by the cyclist as he pedals was not removed from the atmosphere if he didn't ride his bike, there would indeed be perfect equivalence in your logic, but removal of CO2 from the atmosphere by plants is not contingent on human powered bicycle riding.  

Again the fact is a cyclist pedaling under his own power a given distance at a given speed, will typically emit more CO2 into the atmosphere then an electrically powered bicycle (assuming the bike ultimately gets its power from some carbon-combustion source, but more on that later), and a molecule of CO2 is a molecule of CO2 as far as the atmosphere is concerend.  The ultimate source of the carbon is irrelevant for purposes of the comparison of those 2 transactions.

Imagine comparing the CO2 emitted per mile driven at a certain speed, between a Jetta TDI and a Toyota Prius.  What you are saying in your post, is equivalent to saying that I can't  make that comparison without first knowing whether the TDI is burning biodiesel or fossil diesel, and without first knowing whether the Prius is running on straight gas versus an ethanol blend.

Just as with the cyclist scenario, I'm continue to maintain that's simply not true.  One can (and should) make a comparison between the Jetta and the Prius without reference to the source of the carbon being burned.  

You are ASSUMING that the ultimate power source for the electrically powered bicycle is combustion of fossil fuel.  But generally speaking that assumption is not a valid one.

If a final nail is necessary, then here it is: in my case, I'm putting together a hub-motor assisted bicycle whose battery is going to be recharged via solar cell during the day, as the bike sits parked at the top level of the parking garage where I work...

But back to the original starting point of the "purist" thing, I disagree with the notion put forth by another poster that only inexperienced or 2nd rate cyclists would consider or use electric assist.

My work commute is 13 miles each way.  I do century charity rides and bike races regularly, and also participate in tri-athlons.  It's no problem for me to get from anywhere to anywhere on a bicycle under my own power, and I'd venture to say I could probably ride a fair number of "purists" into the ground if it came to a contest.

But there is this fact to consider, those 13 miles involve traversing very hilly terrain with ascending and descending grades in excess of 5%.  With electric assist I can travel the uphills faster, and descend the downhills more slowly (with regenerative battery charging).  My interest in electric assist stems from that fact that for a given amount of total energy expended, the fastest way to get from point A to point B is to travel the distance at constant velocity.  Or conversely, the most efficient way to get from point A to point B traveling at a given average velocity, is to travel that distance at constant velocity.  Having a battery onboard as an energy reservoir makes this possible in a wide range of conditions, whereas with human power only, this is only possible on flat terrain.

It also makes the trip safer.  On the uphills, the assist lessens the speed differential between me and the vehicular traffic flowing next to me.  And on the downhills...  well... careening down a hill at 45+ mph on a bicycle is just an inherently dangerous thing to do, even if you're an experienced cyclist.  

-Z

- zaiquiri

May 21, 2008 at 4:54pm

Z --

Agreed that if the source of energy for the hub motor is an electric outlet that is charged by wind, solar, nuclear, hydroelectric, or biomass, then the net carbon emissions for the motor is zero.  In the United States, that's circa 30% of electric energy.  The rest comes from coal, natural gas, or oil,

and releases fossil carbon as CO2.  Note that by making your argument here you've essentially conceded my main point - that it's the SOURCE of the energy that matters.  The only thing left to argue is the relative sourcing between the hub motor and the cyclist.  The hub motor at best in the US, as just argued, is circa 70% net carbon increasing.

And, to a first order approximation, the cyclists CO2 is not fossil carbon.  No amount of breathing by humans or animals will result in a net increase over the long term in atmospheric CO2, except to the degree that fossil fuel was burned to produce the food they eat, or carbon stably stored in the biosphere (as forests or soil carbon) was net destroyed to produce the food.  These two are surely non-trivial - making perhaps 30% max (analysis varies) of the respiratory carbon non-recycled.  But, even then, only the net additional respiration of a bike rider over a non-exercising human counts in the comparison.

- sdemuth

May 21, 2008 at 7:25pm