Suitable Transport is a simple project to demonstrate the benefits of electric bicycles by exaggeration. While we love conventional bicycles and all of the fantastic benefits they offer, we want to show that electric bicycles might be the way to bring these great benefits to the rest of us - the non athletes, people who get hangovers, and people that just want to get to work.
Stephen Gale, a practical guy (who last rode a bike the day before he gained his drivers licence), will ride from Melbourne to Sydney over eight days while wearing a business suit. He doesn’t plan to break any records, in fact he wants to show just how easy it is.
To make it more fun he has convinced a large number of people to join him - scientists, salesmen, machanics, a lawyer - in fact just about someone from every walk of life - there is even a hair extension facilitator! All will be riding their electric bikes, in their work outfits, from Melbourne to Sydney!
As a proud Chicagoan I’m thrilled with today’s announcement that we’re the U.S. contender for the 2016 Olympics (yes, summer). With Chicago’s new reputation as a green city, complete with its own Chicago Standard for green building, I’m very curious about what the environmental issues will be. It would be wonderful if Chicago used this platform to do everything as eco-friendly as possible, much like London is doing for 2012. The new building construction should practice recycling and reuse. Carbon offsets should be purchased for energy consumption. The city’s public transportation system is fairly comprehensive, but is lacking in one of the neighborhoods where a key stadium is to be built so they need to figure that out, etc. I know that an environmental impact study was part of the bid, and I’m sure the City is working on these details already. I’m looking forward to their being made public. Go Chicago!
I’ve done some posting about my electric bike research over the past few weeks. I thought I’d go ahead and offer some more personal detail on the why and how of all that to cap off this week.
Okay. The situation so far. I decided to take a look at electrifying a bike. Initially, I was looking at electric scooters, but they are really expensive and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I really want to bike. I’ve tried commuting from my home in Oak Park to my job in the South Loop many times. Before Maxie was born, I was regularly commuting on my bike, until I heard that someone got knocked off their bike by some of the nice young men that have nothing better to do at 9AM on a weekday morning. That kinda freaked me out.
The neighborhoods between my home and work aren’t totally horrible. There is actually a lot of development happening between Oak Park and downtown Chicago. There are some sketchy stretches though, and there is rampant double parking in the bike lanes, clueless drivers and aggressive drivers, glass pretty much everywhere (but hey that’s what teflon tires are for right?), etc, etc. In short, all the little annoyances that can make urban cycling unpleasant are very well represented in West Chicago.
So, my thought was, “what if I can zip through the bad stuff at 25 mph and take the more scenic areas at my leisure?” I think having an electric bike would go along way toward mitigating some of these factors and give me a little more confidence in commuting in. (more…)
This seems like a good kit. Still feels a little expensive at $575 for 19mph. The cool thing is, I’d be able to pick up a cheap bike and add the kit pretty easily. So, at worst I’m looking at < $700 for the electric bike piece of the puzzle for a grand total of approximately $1400 for the whole solar/electric bike set up. Pretty good.
Now that, I’m learning a bit more, I’m going to see if I can figure out what the bare minimum solar set up is that I’ll need in order to charge the bike batteries. I suppose it would also make sense, just to get two sets of bike batteries and rotate to the bike. Going solar panel to storage battery to bike battery seems like it might lose something along the way. I’m guessing this will save some dough.
[tags]urbaneco, transportation, bicycle, commuting, solar bike[/tags]
Another electric bike I found. This site is interesting, because they also have tricycles and sell electric hub kits which can be added to any bike. So now, this has me wondering about outfitting my Raleigh with a hub kit, or what the heck, maybe a visit to Working Bikes is in order. Maybe I should build my own electric bike. Now that’s me getting excited and overambitious!
The Belize E-Rider 26 Electric Bike is now available to riders in the USA. The Belize E-Rider 26 pedals like a regular bike and is light enough to place on a bike rack. It has a twist throttle, but also has an electric assist sensor. The best performance is obtained by pedaling gently in the right gear. The Belize E-Rider 26 makes it easy to maintain a good steady speed and helps to climb hills. This electric bike meets standards for power assist bicycle.
[tags]urbaneco, electric bicycle, transportation, commuting[/tags]
This would seem to be a good starting place for my solar powered electric scooter. Combining a cheap garage mounted solar system with the eGo bike would be a totally sweet way for me to commute. This article has been all over, but as near as I can tell this is the original source.
But what components do you need to buy, and how much are they going to set you back? Fifteen minutes of surfing on the Internet turned up the following items. I’m sure a more thorough search would produce even more favorable results:* One Uni-Solar 32-watt amorphous-silicon PV module, 12 volts: $180.00
* One Morningstar 6-amp charge controller, 12 volts: $40.00
* Two Deka 92 amp-hour sealed batteries, 12 volts: ($130.00 each) $260.00
* One Aims 800-watt modified sine wave inverter, 12 volts: $65.00
TOTAL: $545.00
I guess the question one might have when reading these posts is why I don’t just ride a bike. Truth is, I’d love to cycle commute. I have two problems though. The first is time. During the week, the time I get to spend with Maxie each day is limited to the time between her wake up and the time I have to leave for work. Now, taking the train that’s about an hour. If I were to bike, that hour would be eaten up by commuting and the requisite prep (unlock bike, check brakes and tires, put on helmet, pack work clothes, shower at work etc, etc.).
The second problem is West Chicago. Coming from Oak Park, I have limited options for safe routes to work, all of which require that I ride a fair distance out of my way. If I ride direct from my house down Roosevelt to work, which is a straight shot, I have the joy of riding through Chicago’s Lawndale neighborhood, an scary obstacle course of double parked cars, broken glass, roving gangs of teenage hoodlums and DWIs. This part of town, I want to move through as quickly as possible.
Some day Roosevelt will have gentrified enough that I’ll feel safe riding that way, but for now, I’ve got to find an safe eco-friendly alternative to the horrible Chicago Transit Authority.
I came across the eGO while searching for electric scooters. I’m researching the potential for putting solar/wind on the roof of my garage to charge an electric scooter. For my commuting and errand needs, this seems perfect, if a little expensive. If you are looking for an electric commuting option, check this out.
eGO Cycle 2 LX Electric @ Scooterworks
The eGO LX is designed for daily commuters and errand runners who will be driving in moderate to heavy traffic. The LX is fully equipped for registration in any state and includes front and rear turn signals, left grip lighting, turn signal and horn controls, backlit speedometer/odometer. The LX provides the same range and speed as the eGO Classic.
Ran across this Guardian article while looking for info on the new Paris program. Pretty cool that JC Decaux (the second largest outdoor advertising company in the world) is seeing profit in bikes and leading the way on this. JCD is all over Chicago, maybe we’ll be next? Doubtful, given the rampant bike thievery in Chicago.
Matt Seaton: Two wheels | The Guardian | Guardian Unlimited
Two years ago, in his home town of Lyon, JC Decaux teamed up with the city authorities to launch a radical new bike-rental scheme. Dubbing the system Velo’V (now more catchily rebranded as Cyclocity), JC Decaux was essentially updating earlier efforts at bike pools with improved technology to overcome the problem of theft and ensure a return on investment. Thus, what began with the 60s, anarchist-inspired White Bike Plan in Amsterdam, where bicycles were provided by the city, unlocked and free for public use, was reinvented as an electronic swipe-card subscription service with a less utopian motive.But if it gets people on bikes, then all well and good. In May 2005, JC Decaux installed 2,000 bikes, deposited at 175 drop-off points in France’s second-largest city. Within weeks, 20,000 people had signed up for the scheme, which makes the first half-hour of use free. The number of subscribers has since risen to 60,000. Up to 16,000 rentals occur daily, equivalent to each bike being used by 15 people, who, on average, travel 1.7 miles in 17 minutes. Or a total distance of 25,000 miles every day. A good result, you would think.
As, Seaton states, this whole notion does seem pretty exciting initially. The question will be whether other municipalities can sustain the program beyon the initial excitement. He also points out that public bike programs can effect retailers. In the case of Chicago, I don’t think this would be an issue. With the lakefront and all of our local trails, there are lots of uses for a bike that a clunky public bike might not be fit for.
[tags]urbaneco, eco-friendly, green, bicycle, bike, transportation[/tags]
