The Real Frankenbikes

 These things are freaks.

That is Ian Bogost's verdict on eBikes.  He based it on several months of "trying to live with one," an experience on which he based his Atlantic article.  In essence, he says that eBikes occupy a no-rider's land between motorcycles and bicycles, offering little of the health benefit of the latter and none of the "cool" factor (in the eyes of some, anyway) the former lend their passengers.  

But he points to an even more important way in which eBikes are not really a compromise (unless, of course, you define a compromise as something that pleases neither side) between bicycles and motorcycles.  Rather, as he explains, the eBike's motor propels the rider further and faster than his or her own pedal power alone would have.  That leads inexperienced and unskilled riders--as the author confesses to having been--to veer off course and crash.  Or, that speed can tempt them into riding in traffic with SUVs and other bigger, more powerful vehicles.

Photo by Christopher Sadowski, for the New York Post.

That relative speed--and, too often, riders' lack of control--makes an eBike on a trail or bike lane "a greater risk to its rider, to fellow cyclists and to pedestrians."  Moreover, he says, "Walking the streets of New York City, it now feels just as likely that you might get mowed down by an eBike as a taxicab."  

I have never ridden an eBike, so take my endorsement of what he says for what it's worth.  I know cyclists who believe eBikes should be banned in New York.  I don't know whether I would go that far, as delivery workers (almost all of whom are immigrants) use them. I certainly think, however, that anything with a motor--whether an eBike or a razor scooter--should not be allowed on a lane or path designated for cyclists or pedestrians, especially ones as narrow as the one on the Queensborough-59th Street Bridge.  

Whatever develops, Ian Bogost's article doesn't give me any incentive to try an eBike.