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It was a beautiful morning today out on the bike taking my daughter to catch the k-garten bus!

Biking Stimulates the Soul

Today I had to go into the doctor's office for a diagnostic visit. No food, no drink, and all that. The appointment was mid-morning, located on the other side of town from my home. The car was really, really tempting - it is a cold and cloudy day in Chapel Hill. Last night I stayed up way too late doing some research. And I've caught some kind of cold from my kids. Overall, this combination doesn't exactly lead to an optimistic outlook on life. I don't know about you, but with me, when I don't get enough sleep, everything seems more dramatic, and this morning I was feeling dramatic about things. The alarm rang, and I just lay there wishing I could go back to sleep. But, nope, the world called, and I had to drag my rear end out of bed, get showered, and get on my way.

All through getting ready, I debated about whether to take the car. The problem with taking the car is that I have no parking permit at work. One of those would cost me over $1,000 per year (seriously!). So I would have had to drive across town to the doctor and back, then park in a remote, expensive hourly parking lot far from my office.

I intentionally decided not to buy the parking permit, to force myself to ride the bike more. It is just too easy to get in the car some mornings if everything is so convenient. On mornings like today, I sometimes wonder about that decision.

But anyway, I decided the hassles of driving would have equaled the hassles of hopping on the bike when it was all added up, so I took the bike - my electric assist "Big Dummy" (who comes up with those names?).

The first 5 minutes or so on the bike I continued to be in a bit of a sour mood, and feeling a bit chilly. But then the blood started flowing. Pedaling was therapy. As I pedaled on I forgot about my woes, and started enjoying the sights and smells of the morning. It helped a lot to have my eZee electric assist this morning - that made all the difference, because I was able to fly across town in time to make my appointment. And I wasn't in the mood for major exertion today. I did pedal, I always do, because I like to. But just the light pedaling was enough to warm up my body and my mood.

I got to the doctors office, and am sitting here writing this in the waiting room. I'm in a far better mood now, and very glad I biked. I wouldn't have been so cheery if I'd driven. Driving almost never lifts my mood. It makes me wonder about the whole concept of convenience. Does comfort and convenience equal happiness? I think there's a fine line. Certainly some comfort and convenience is good. But for me personally, if I have too much comfort and convenience in my life, it just ends up leading to a sort of numbness. Maybe that's what Roger Waters was writing about in the song "Comfortably Numb" by Pink Floyd. I thrive on challenges - at least small ones - and I think many people do.

This reminds me of a Cycle 9 customer named Rick. He's a really fun guy. He's a professor and doctor whose hobbies are sailing, flying and building airplanes, and now, electric bikes. Rick got interested in e-bikes back when Cycle 9 was operating out of a small rented warehouse space with dirt floors. We built him up a customized e-bike with a hub motor that can do some incredible speeds (I'm not going to mention them here, because I don't want to get Rick in trouble with the local authorities). He really needs those speeds for his situation. He lives in a place with no good bike route to work. Around his neighborhood the biking is good. And around his university the biking is reasonable. But there's a section in between where the only connector road is an almost 1-mile stretch of very busy highway, with a 45mph speed limit (meaning cars travel 55mph). Some bike advocates would say - well, just ride like a vehicle and occupy that lane. I'd say to them that one would be crazy to do that. Rick does it this way. At the one traffic light before this stretch of bad road, he waits for all the traffic to go through. Then he guns the throttle and flies down the road as fast as he can, to get past "the gauntlet" before the light cycles and lets the next group of cars through. It works, most of the time (I saw him alive and well last week!).

Rick clearly likes challenges. It might be the easier thing for him to drive everyday given the location of his home and work. But he chooses to bike. So do many other folks I know, an ever increasing number. I'm glad that I'm not the only one these days out there riding. And I'm glad for days like this that riding the bike puts me in a much better mood.

And by the way, the doctor's test was fine.

Interbike wrap-up

The last week of September I had the pleasure to attend the yearly industry show for bike people. It's held, in all places, in Las Vegas, Nevada. I'm not sure why an industry that sells products that can be used for sustainable living has its trade show in the most unsustainable city in the US. But then again, a lot of the bike industry is not actually about sustainability. Las Vegas is one of those cities that exemplifies America's extremes in so many ways. Founded at the site of a spring, on the dry dusty road from all parts East to California, it became a true Oasis in the desert and outpost for weary travelers looking for liquor, women, and an overall good time. It grew from there into a sprawling city, dependent on ever diminishing water supplies from the Colorado river and the underground water stores of the southern half of Nevada, in a location with so little rainfall that cactus hardly grow there. Of course, tourists can spend a pleasant vacation on the lavish Strip, enjoying shows, nightlife, shopping, etc., all without hardly even leaving the overly air conditioned confines of the massive and convoluted casinos and hotels. It is actually difficult to find your way outside at times (and for me it was refreshing to finally break out into the heat and light of the street). They never have any idea of how precarious the city is, perched on the edge of the environment like that.

The first couple days of the show are the "outdoor demo". They bus you out to Bootleg Canyon, which is a mountain biking destination, where the bike vendors bring bikes for you to try out. I tried some mountain bikes from one of our suppliers, Marin Bikes. We carry primarily their city line, but they're well known for mountain bikes.

I checked out a bike and rode it around the trail with about a hundred other bikers. The trail had some challenging whoop-de-whoops that I've gotten too wimpy to ride. (I find that as I get older and have more responsibilities, my level of comfort with physical risk has gone down somewhat. ) But the ride was fun and it was good to try out a few different bikes that I probably would never own (full carbon mountain bike anyone?), and try samples of energy bites, bars, and drinks. The energy bites are good, but I wonder about classifying them as food? One particular free drink sample was neon orange colored and had a list of ingredients about 40 long, including amino acids, vitamins, various protein supplements, energy boosters, and not sure what else. Talk about highly engineered! It tasted ok, but I couldn't bring myself to drink too much of it - call me old fashioned, but I like to be able to identify what I put in my body.

In addition to the mountain bikes, I also rode some new Xtracycle Radishes (completely loaded down with watermelons for the true cargo biking experience), a smattering of electric-assist bikes from iZip and some newer companies, touring bikes by Masi (one of our new lines), some commuting bikes by Civia, an electric-assisted Day 6 bicycle, and (my favorite) a prototype Auto-shift from Nuvinci. Nuvinci makes an internal rear shifting hub that uses roller balls and spline plates instead of gears, giving you a continuous range of shifting. This is the hub Morgan used on the Firefly big dummy. Their new auto-shift prototype uses a pedal sensor that detects how much torque you are applying and changes the "gears" for you (using an electronic interface) to try to keep your pedal cadence the same - just like automatic transmission in a car! It worked better than I expected and you never had to think about shifting, which was great. I'm not an early adopter of new things, tending to be somewhat skeptical, but I was pleasantly surprised by this bike and liked it much more than I thought I would. Currently, the product is available on a limited basis, as it's still a beta product, but I think there is some potential there for the future.

I also was quite impressed with the Civia Hyland commuter bike. This bike is designed with commuters in mind, with full coverage fenders, comfortable riding, internal gearing, hidden cable routing, rack, etc. The bike rode really well and I was quite impressed with it's nimbleness and how easy it was to climb up the hills. It's price tag is quite high, but for serious commuters, I think worth it. The line is also coming out with some scaled back versions this spring, which we may decide to pick up.

After the dusty outdoor demo, the show moves inside to the conference center. My hotel was about a mile from the conference center, but I brought a Downtube folding bike to get around. Most of the streets in Las Vegas are wide boulevards and many of them have a reasonably wide outside lane and even a bike lane, which makes getting around by bike quite reasonable if you are comfortable with traffic. The first day of the outdoor demo, the show-related bike lock up was not open, so I wandered around the outside of the building until I found employee entrance, with about 15 bike racks set up to the side of the parking garage. The racks were jam packed with assorted bikes, but mostly BMX bikes and Huffys. Apparently, biking is quite a popular mode of transportation among the working class of Las Vegas. I saw a number of people riding around wearing the white and black uniforms of food service workers.

The indoor show is just aisles and aisles of vendor booths, large and small, some fancy and some simple. There are a lot of booths that I could bypass, catering to high end road and mountain bikes, components, etc - recreation and racing oriented bikes. But there is a growing number of vendors looking for the commuter, utilitarian, electric, and city bikes. All of the major bike vendors have their city bike lines, and this year we are seeing a lot more classic and european styling in these designs.

Our own Marin bikes have introduced a very nicely styled and inexpensive city bike in their Bridgeway line. Starting at under $500, these bikes are your basic commuters, now with good looks!

There is also growing interest in actual European designed bikes, and I saw some interesting offerings in that area. We are considering picking up some dutch bikes by Batavus. This is one of the oldest bike companies in the world and has been offering solid, low maintenance, stylish bikes that c

an be ridden in dresses and suits or jeans and t-shirts all without worry. No fancy biking clothes or equipment needed. Just get on and ride, and do it in style. They are introducing some very inexpensive BUB bikes that can be stylized to your own taste, but still have the solid and stylish design of a dutch made bike. These looked pretty interesting, with 2 frame types.

I also saw some very classic bikes offered by Pashley of England. The Sonnet Bliss was on display at the booth and simply looked fabulous with clean lines, white with red accents. These bikes are still hand made in England and sell for just over $1,000 - hard to believe.

Outside of the european world, the fixed gear bikes continue to gain ground. Our new line of bikes by Masi, has a number of fixed gear options and styling from low key to flashy. Look for these in the store soon.

One of the fun things I did while at the show was attend the Urban Bike Fashion Show, sponsored by Momentum Magazine and Giant bikes. Momentum Magazine is a pretty cool new publication out of Vancouver, BC, that is dedicated to people who use their bikes - definately worth checking out. The fashion show had a circular runway laid out, and the riders would ride around, stopping the bikes 3 times to get off and showcase their outfits and the bikes. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was pretty fun and there were lots of interesting bikes (and they served free beer, so how can you go wrong!). I'm sure there were interesting clothes as well, but I didn't look at those as closely! The Nutcase helmets we carry were prominently showcased in the show, given their unique and interesting designs. The bikes ranged from classic to modern and even included a Madsen bike and an electric-assist bike. It was nice to see biking at a level beyond just the performance/recreation market and also beyond just the utilitarian market. Biking as a real lifestyle choice.

The fashion show was about the last thing I did before heading back to North Carolina. It was a fun time and I saw some interesting bikes and things. Look for some of these things to be showing up in the shop soon.

-Elise

Helmet laws are not the answer

It is campaign season again, and there are a number of candidates running for the Board of Aldermen in our sleepy little town of Carrboro, NC (right next to Chapel Hill, NC).

Just a few days ago, Sierra Club held a candidates forum. One question they asked the candidates was how they might improve safety for cyclists and pedestrians. While we found all of the responses to be lacking (perhaps in part due to the reporting in the newspaper), one particularly stood out. Randee Haven-O'Donnel is claimed to have said we should pass an adult helmet law, mandating that we all wear helmets.

NO WE SHOULD NOT PASS A MANDATORY HELMET LAW! I rarely if ever yell in this blog, but this one warrants a big yell.

Many places have tried mandatory helmet laws, and it has been a miserable failure wherever and whenever tried. Australia is the biggest case in point. Seven years after the mandatory helmet law was passed, the cycling population dropped by 22%. At the same time, the total number of bicycle injuries increased.

Some may be scratching their heads. How could that be? Why didn't this law instantly make people safer?

Because one-size-fits all laws like this usually have unintended consequences. One consequence is discouraging people from riding at all. And study after study has shown that cyclists have safety in numbers. The numbers go down because of helmet laws, and safety goes down. There may also be a factor of risk compensation - people riding faster and more aggressively when wearing a helmet. But the reasons really do not matter. Because the facts are the facts - and those facts aren't unique to Australia.

The same experiment was born out in New Zealand, which also passed a mandatory helmet law, and also saw a reduction in cycling by 51%, and saw only a 51% drop in fatal accidents. In other words, less people are biking, and less accidents are occurring, by the same amount. The helmet law is making people no safer, while it is preventing many people from biking.

We're not anti-helmet, we're anti-helmet law. In fact, all the owners and employees of Cycle 9 regularly wear their helmets. We help many of our customers get fitted out with a helmet.

But helmet laws just don't work. And worse, they promote a nanny-state mentality that every risk we might take must be proscribed by legal decree. We believe bikes are about freedom, not laws. Maybe that's why less people cycle when helmet laws are passed - the association of riding a bike with a sense of freedom becomes diminished.

Biking should be a free activity. An adult should be able to choose how she regards his or her own risks and rewards from either wearing or not wearing a helmet. This would be true even if helmet laws did work. But it is especially true since mandatory helmet laws don't work.

I hope that Ms Haven-O'Donnel and the other Aldermen/women don't go down that route. It may benefit certain helmet manufacturers, but it won't benefit anyone else.

Cory and his Surly 1X1

Here is a brief profile of a recent, happy customer who took delivery of a custom-assembled bike by Cycle 9. One reason for profiling Cory is to get the word out that Cycle 9 is not just an "electric bike" store. Some people have come to see us that way. It really hit home recently, when one of our friends went out and purchased a new commuting bike, without even having a look at what we had to offer in our store. Seeing that we have a full inventory of non-electric commuting bikes by Marin, Breezer, Surly, and Downtube, I was a bit offended. But since I talk about electric bikes and electric conversion kits so often, it is understandable that some people think Cycle 9 = electric. We are actually about getting people to ride their bikes more, whether electrified or not. Bikes are the ultimate local transportation solution, and we're here to help people realize that.

Cory with his brand new Surly 1X1, with Nuvinci continuous variable hub (not an electric bike).

Cory wanted a better way to commute that was virtually maintenance-free, like a singlespeed would be. However, his commute involves traversing hills with over 20% grades, often carrying a loaded backpack. He didn't feel that this would be practical on an every day basis with a singlespeed bike. With Cory's input, we came up with a great solution for him. We started with Surly's great singlespeed platform, the 1x1. We added to it an internally geared, continuously variable hub by Nuvinci, with a custom wheel built by Cycle 9. On top of that there are nice touches like the Surly Mr Whirly crankset and Soma Noah's arc handlebars, and Cory has a bike that is rock solid, will require very minimal maintenance, and gives him an extensive gear range for hill climbing. This is a bike that will still be running in 20 years. It was not inexpensive, but it will far outlast many of the less expensive bikes, being a much better bargain in the long run.

This is the kind of solution we're here to help people with.

To Maine on the train

Jim Kunstler is famous, or perhaps infamous is a better word, in the "peak oil" community for his prophecies of gloom and doom to be set upon the USA due to our profligacy and oil dependency.

Kuntstler is a controversial figure, in part because he constantly predicts doom to beset us, and in part because of his rather loudmouth style that includes lots of swear words to make his point. While some of what Kunstler says may hit some underlying truths about whether our lifestyles are sustainable (or not), his message is weakened by a few problems. First, the constant prophecies of doom don't come true. And second, he is a hypocrite.

In his most recent blog post, titled "The First Die-Off" he talks about driving his car back from a vacation on Cape Cod, and being stuck in traffic. He claims there is "no train service" and uses that as his excuse for having driven the car.

Please.

I just came back from a trip to Maine on the train, with 3 small kids in tow. We stayed on the beach in a town not all that far north of Cape Cod (south of Portland, Maine). The train was comfortable, relatively convenient, and relatively cost effective. We rented a bike once we were there, and used it for most of our errands.

Kid on the beach in Maine

It annoys me to no end to have someone like Kunstler constantly harping on "the end of the world as we know it," and then in the very same essay, to be so blatantly participating in the very activities he laments as leading us to The End.

In fact, from the comments section by user "signalfire" after his blog post:

Isn't the problem that EVERYone thinks THEY are the ones who are 'special'?? THEY deserve a holiday at the beach. THEY deserve cheap energy. THEY deserve big houses. THEY deserve their Escalades, Hummers and Jet Skiis..

This hits the nail on the head. Why does Kunstler preach that we're going to have a massive die-off on the one hand, and yet so blithely participate in the very same activities, such as driving to and from the beach? People pay attention to him. If he had taken the bus, or ridden his bike, or taken the train, then his diatribes might not have seemed quite so silly.

I noticed something in the small town of Biddeford Pool that we stayed in. It was an excellent place for getting around by bike or foot - except that there was so much tourist-related automobile traffic, that it wasn't that great. One of my friends there, who likes to bike, remarked that it would be great if there were less traffic. The very same person was the one out driving the car nearly every day to run this errand or that, such as to pick up morning newspapers.

Biddeford Pool, ME

The main difference between my friend and Kunstler is that one might expect Kunstler to know better, given that talking about Peak Oil is the main focus of his life. His efforts to educate people on the topic are greatly diluted by such obvious hypocrisy.

I don't claim to be perfect - I consume some oil, too. But I make efforts to minimize it, and set an example as to how life can be enjoyed with a minimum of oil. Aside from taking the train as frequently as possible for trips - which I've come to really enjoy - I like to show that bikes can be used for tasks that people often think of as requiring a car. The most recent example is the move of several heavy server systems from my Lab from an old location in an out of date server room to a much more modern facility. The computers are 8-core Apple Xserves, each weighing about 40 lbs. I readily carried two of them together, totaling about 80 lbs, on my bike, and the errand was far quicker than it would have been by car, because parking on campus is a nightmare. With the bike, I rode right up to the door at both the starting point and the destination. Later, when we have to move 40 of them, I'll enlist the Yuba Mundo, a bike that can carry up to 400lbs or so of cargo. By moving 8 of them at a time, with each trip taking only 5 minutes, we can have the moving part done in under an hour.

Moving 2 Apple Xserve servers on the electrified Surly Big Dummy bicycle

So I challenge James Kunstler: if you're serious about all this gloom and doom, then go out and set an example of how to avoid it. Show us the alternative. Don't just whine about how bad it is going to get. Help provide an alternative.

That's what I'm doing in my "spare time" - helping customers of Cycle 9 find oil-free alternatives for every day errands and tasks. Really, I don't have any spare time - with small kids at home and a more than full time faculty job, my life is often seen by others as "insane". People ask me how I do it. How I do it is by being inspired to help people. The thing that keeps me going is seeing the joy of people whom we help discover there is a better way than dependency on the oil companies. A way that is healthy and brings regular joy in the way that being stuck in a car in traffic does not. The latest example is Cory, who is profiled in the next blog post.

Kunstler, it is your turn to help people find a better way, rather than just being seen as a whiner.

electric bikes don't give no exercise!

On Wednesday evening I dusted off my poor road bike, a Lemond Buenos Aires, to take her out for a ride. I hadn't been on her for 6 months or so. The tires were flat, and the chain needed a serious lube. I got her going, and went out in the popular Dairyland area North of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, NC, for a pleasant ride in the rolling hills (some would say these hills are more than rolling).

Starting out, I thought that I was going to suck wind on this ride, since it was my first ride in so many months on the road bike (which does not have electric assist!). In fact, aside from my electric assist Big Dummy, the only other bike I've been on in the past six months is my 29er mountain bike - exactly 3 times. My life is way too busy right now for regular recreational rides on the road bike or the mountain bike. The only bike I have time to ride is the one I get to and from work on and do errands on - which has an electric motor that some folks tell me they consider "cheating".

I have a cycle computer, and being somewhat of a geek, I like to keep track of my stats when I'm on my bikes. But, for my road bike ride, I didn't want to look at my average speed during the ride, because I figured it would be so slow. Instead I just kept the distance displayed. I noticed many times that my instantaneous speed was hovering around 20 mph, and a few times that it dropped down to 14-15 mph on a big hill, but I thought I was doing ok. Well, except for the time that a pack of hard-core racer types - all guys - whizzed past me going 23-25 mph. I held them off on a hill, but once we got to the flat stretch, they were gone.

Anyway, after my 21.4 mile loop with 1,043 ft of climbing (plus 7 miles to/from home), I stopped and checked the average speed: 18.91 mph - very close to 19 mph. This is not Olympic level riding - but neither is it slouch riding. Even back when I was training on the road bike regularly, I rarely would average much over 19 mph when riding by myself (and often 22-23 mph or so in a group for this hilly area).

There goes another nail in the coffin of the myth that "electric bikes don't give you exercise" or "electric bikes are cheating". I couldn't have pulled off that kind of speed if I hadn't been riding almost every single day on my electric cargo bike. Some days on my electric bike I don't pedal very hard, if I'm feeling tired. Other days I pedal a lot to get the exercise. But I do pedal, every day - because I feel goofy riding the bike without pedaling.

It reminds me of a customer whom we're going to profile soon on video. She bought an electric eZee hub motor kit from us last year. She put it on her commuting bike, and logged over 2,000 miles on it in the past year. In the process, she lost 90 pounds! She recently brought her bike in to have us take the motor off, and to put that on a cargo bike with an Xtracycle for her. She is in such good shape now, she no longer needs the electric assist for her regular commute on the regular bike. I don't think her 90 lbs lost and all those car trips saved are "cheating" - exactly the opposite.

Fear

Fear pervades our culture. That's because fear sells. And marketers figured this out long ago, so we all get a healthy dose of fear, every day. We've become a society that fears far too much, and usually the wrong things.

That's because fear sells news. It sells all sorts of products to keep you "safe". And it makes people crazy.

Fear is one of the basest of human emotions. It drives all sorts of negative behaviors - from violence to anger to greed. Why is someone greedy? Often because they fear going "without" so they hoard.

Fear is often misplaced. We fear the "unknown" more than the "known". For example, many people fear biking because of the "unknown" factor of car drivers on the road who might hit us. Yet the number one killer, heart disease, does not raise the same specter of fear. Why not? Every time a cyclist gets killed in my area (about once or twice a year), that news gets rapidly spread all around amongst the cycling community. What if the same propagation of news happened every time someone had a heart attack, or cancer? There would certainly be far, far more news reports of it than the cyclist deaths. And so it becomes familiar. And because it is familiar, it is not feared. Yet many fear the very thing (biking) that would drastically help reduce the chance of heart attack. People fear a minor killer that would avoid a major killer. Fear is not rational.

But there is a more insidious difference. Why do we fear biking? For one thing, bike helmet campaigns. (I wear a bike helmet, so please don't consider me anti-helmet). There are many people who benefit from promoting helmets through fear. If you are afraid of getting hit by a car and splitting your head open, you're much more likely to buy a helmet than if you're not afraid. And so marketing campaigns for helmets are often fear based - it sells more helmets. This is true not only of helmet sellers, but a small group of people who believe their will should be imposed on everyone because they are sure that helmets would save lives (contrary to the facts).

The thing all this fear does is very insidious. So many people that come into our shop have fear as the number one reason for not biking. Yet it is that very fear that makes biking less safe. It has been very strongly proved that the more people are out biking, the safer it is for everyone (helmeted or not). If many people are afraid of biking, there will be (and are) less cyclists on the road, so it is more dangerous for all of us who do cycle. Fear is self-fullfilling. Even though helmets may be good for the individual, their fear-based promotion is not good for society. That's because so many people end up just driving their cars rather than biking, which leads to all manner of ills like hear disease, cancer, pollution, oil dependency, etc.

Perhaps an even more egregious case is another product that I see advertised in all the bike magazines, an identification device to wear in case something happens while biking and one needs to be taken to the hospital. Every one of those ads has a story about some cyclist who got hit by a car and wound up in the hospital, with the ID helping "save their lives." Talk about promoting fear of cycling. The last time I read one of those ads, my active imagination took over, and I had repeated visions of waking up in a hospital after being hit (and no, I've not had similar visions of waking up in the hospital after a heart attack, though the latter is more likely). This does nobody any good whatsoever, except for the seller of the device. I'm sure they will sell more IDs through the fear they generate. But they will also convince people that biking is unsafe. In general, it might be a good idea of having an ID for any activity where one isn't carrying another form of ID. But targeting it specifically at cycling in this fear-based way will only turn people away from cycling, which, again, makes cycling less safe for everyone.

It reminds me of something that happened last year. I was in a bike race where a fellow died, after loosing control on a steep and fast descent (he was going at least 50 mph down the hill, and the accident didn't involve a car). Everyone in the race was shocked. I was quite amazed to see his daughter state after the fact that he died doing the thing that he loved, and she sounded very sad but not overwrought. After having lost a family member to cancer, which was a slow and painful process for everyone, it makes me wonder - is that really a better way to go (hooked up to a machine and slowly degenerating), than doing something one loves to do?

It is not that cycling is without any dangers. It is that everything else we do in life is dangerous - living itself is dangerous. Fear often misplaces that perspective. And fear causes anxiety, a form of stress that is not at all healthy. We all are going to die, and only a few of us will be lucky enough to have that death be peacefully in our sleep when we are in our late 90's. I can't find statistics for it, but it is probably only 1 in 10 or less that will survive that long and in good health.

It is not only in cycling that fear has run amok. There are many other examples:

1. Peak oil. Peak oil is a real and important phenomenon, where once we pass the production peak in world oil, it will become more expensive and more scarce. Since our economy is quite dependent on cheap oil, this will be a major hiccup for us. I don't debate the basis for peak oil, nor do I debate that we are likely past the world's oil production peak (Summer 2008). But for many people who inhabit places like the Oil Drum and other peak oil sites, one may notice that a sense of fear (i.e. "gloom and doom") pervades. There are many folks who follow the views of James Kunstler that society will degenerate and fall apart. Every blog post by Kunstler indicates that the degeneration is just about to begin.
These are fear based responses. People like Kunstler gain a great amount of traction, because fear sells. And there is actually a chance that peak oil could lead to a worldwide collapse of human societies, if a lot of things go wrong. But, these folks underestimate the human penchant for muddling through. While they may point to past societies that have collapsed -- the most famous case being Easter Island -- there are many more societies that have survived drastic calamity and not collapsed. For example, Europe suffered the Black Death, killing more than 1/2 of the population. Yet with 1/2 of the people gone, society did not collapse. Nor did it collapse after the Irish potato famine. Nor did Germany collapse after its hyperinflation in the 20's, the rise to power by Hitler, and its defeat in World War II. Economies have often collapsed without a societal collapse.
Economic collapse - a quite common occurrence throughout history -- happens when societies and governments overspend and overreach. It is just like a household that overspends and has to declare bankruptcy. It is not fun or pleasant. But it is not the end of life, either. Collapsed economies lead to some years of hardship and pain for many, they are also opportunities - for new businesses, and for forging closer ties with ones community. And so the world keeps turning. Economic collapse has happened many times, and in only a very few of those has society itself collapsed.
My point is that the fear revolving around peak oil is useless, and worse, often incapacitating. If one pictures total collapse of society, then what is the point in doing anything to prepare? One cannot prepare for utter collapse of society. There would be nowhere to hide (unless you have access to a mighty nice spaceship). But it is possible to prepare for lesser forms of hardship, such as oil price spikes due to a US dollar devaluation. Bikes are one way to prepare, and there are many others. Those include moving closer to town, growing a garden, raising chickens, etc. Preparation shouldn't be about fear, it should be calm and rational preparation for the unexpected disruption of things we rely on for daily survival (food, shelter, transportation). This preparation will be useful regardless of the cause of disruption - whether due to hurricane, earthquake, economic collapse, or one of many other things that could happen.

2. Fat. Seriously, people fear fat. Somehow, marketers have convinced folks that everything they eat must not have fat, or they will collapse right away due to a heart attack. But the funny thing is that the link between fat and heart attack is still not that clear. What's more, there are many fats that are absolutely essential to body function. In fact, the Omega-3 and monounsaturated fats look like they prevent heart disease. And there's even accumulating evidence that butter is good for you. The only true "bad" fats that consistently are linked to heart disease are - get this - trans fats that were sold as an "alternative" to butter because they were supposedly "healthier". Talk about fear leading us up a blind alley.

3. Child abduction/etc (parental fears). When I was a kid, I started walking to school 4 blocks each way, every day, when I was in 2nd grade. Parents would never do that now. It would be considered crazy to let a child walk on their own. Yet fears of things like abduction are far overblown, it is an extremely rare occurrence. What is not so rare are cases of childhood obesity (an epidemic), childhood ADD, and many other ailments associated with kids being kept indoors and not getting enough exercise. Yes, an abduction of a child is horrific. But isn't a child developing arteriosclerosis by age 10 similarly horrific, especially if it is 100 times more common? A lifetime of health problems and medical costs for all of us? And fear of going outside? That seems plenty horrific.

I could go on and on - the examples of fear being used to sell are all around us, and as a result, so many people I know live in fear. I have been trapped in it myself at times. When I learned of Peak Oil, I became trapped in a cycle of fear about it for quite a while. But when I'm in that mode, I can't live life happily. A while ago, I began practicing a martial art. The initial reason was fear - wanting to be better prepared in self defense. But I soon realized that fear was not the best reason to do it. What I figured out was that I enjoyed the exercise, focus, release of aggression, and that those benefits far outweigh the whole fear thing. And doing it for those reasons, I find myself more relaxed about it, which leads to faster progress.

Fear of the future prevents enjoyment of the present. And then, what's the point of living?

I have recently started a campaign: "say no to fear". Except in rare instances, fear is a waste of human energy.

For more reading on the subject, check out the book "The Culture of Fear" by Barry Glassner, or "False Alarm: The Truth about the Epidemic of Fear" by Marc Siegel. Also, there's a great podcast on Fear by Gil Fronsdal courtesy of Audio Dharma.

Paperhand puppet show bike shuttle report

Earlier this month, we got a call from Tami Schwerin of the Abundance Foundation, about a local event they were hosting. Would we be willing to shuttle local celebrities using our cargo bikes, built for hauling people? We're always happy to participate in these events, so the answer was SURE - What's the event?


Turns out this was a great local confluence of people working to make a change in our community. The event was the World Premier of a documentary film about the Paperhand Puppet Intervention. This is not the puppet show you remember from Sesame Street. The Paperhand people are a bunch of social advocates who make giant puppets that are controlled by several people with long poles, and it is amazing how lifelike they can seem. At one of their shows that I attended, my then 3-year old daughter thought one of them WAS real (and kind of scary as it was 20 feet high) and wouldn't go within 100 yards of it, even when it was propped in the corner and unmoving. The mission of Paperhand is to advocate for social change and inspire people through art. Every year (among other events), the group puts on a show at the Forest Theater, a very cool outdoor amphitheater in Chapel Hill, NC made with stone steps and towers. (I actually first found out about the group because I wanted to see some kind of show at the Forest Theater.)  The show is set around a theme and includes giant puppets, masks, stilt walkers, great music and TONS of community. Every show I've been to has been packed with people. 

Delivering a Happy Customer

In 2007, the Southern Documentary Fund sponsored Fork in the Road Films to p
roduce "A Puppet Intervention", a documentary about the group. The film follows them through the production of show "A Shoe for Your Foot" which was about simplicity and finding the beauty in everyday. July 11 was the world premier of the film and was to be attended by many supporters of Paperhand. The premier was located outdoors at the Piedmont Biofuels complex in Pittsboro, NC. 



After getting a bit of a late start on the evening and rushing off, we arrived to find Abundance Foundation founders Tami and Lyle in a happy mood, sipping beer, and preparing for the guests. A large sheet hung on the side of the barn w
here the movie would be shown, a tent was set up for popcorn, beer, local homemade italian ice and other delicacies,  and a Hollywood style Green Carpet was laid out on the grass, complete with side ropes to hold back the paparazzi. When guests arrived, they would be shuttled to the Green Carpet using our bikes, a bio-diesal car, or a lawn cart, and then an announcer would welcome them as they walked down the carpet and joined the event. 



Soon, guests started arriving, and this was no ordinary event. People were decked out in their finest: full length gowns, ties and suits, and wild and crazy wigs and costumes. We went to work offering people celebrity shuttles. 
At first, there was some reluctance to take us up. Ride on a bike? People had never heard of it. Some thought it would be too hard for us or it was just too strange for them. One or two really wanted to ride in the convertible. But soon, the walk from the parking lot got longer and we got better at convincing people to try it. (When have you ever had this opportunity before?).

 Many people were very happy to have a ride and try something new. This was a fun group after all. Morgan even gave both Tami and Lyle ride in the bucket bike (the Madsen) and delivered them safely. In the end there were many smiles and laughs as people figured out it was actually comfortable AND FUN to ride on the back of a bike. 

After about an hour of shuttling guests, most people had arrived and it was time for the movie. We had neglected to bring chairs to sit on, so we just rolled the 
bikes over and sat on them - perfect solution. The filmaker, Mark Barroso, took the mic and started to make a few remarks just as it started raining. Fortunately the rain was light, and everyone sat through a 10 minute shower in their fancy clothes and lawn chairs - says something about the dedication of the group. The rain stopped and the film was on. About an hour long, the movie followed the 2007 paperhand show from the idea stage through the final production. I thought it was really well done and it left me with a great feeling about this group and what they do for our community.  I was really happy to be part of this and to meet some more of the great people who make up our little corner of the world.

Paperhand leaders Donovan Zimmerman and Jan Burger

If you want to see the film, it will be shown again at the Carrboro Century Center on July 31st. 

Read more about the Paperhand Puppet Intervention or the Abundance Foundation.

-Elise

The state of things

It's been a while since I posted to the Cycle 9 blog. The hiatus was in part due to a lot of grant writing that I had to do for my day job. There's this thing called the "stimulus" that congress passed, and they are trying to stimulate scientific research. And so government agencies like the National Institutes of Health are accepting grant proposals to spend the stimulus money. Well, since I work at a major research university (the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), I was obliged to write some grant proposals. With all the grant writing, the blog was left a bit lonely.

But in the background, a lot has been going on at Cycle 9, in terms of bike stuff. Let's see what I can dig up from the recesses of my memory:

• We got a few of the Marin hardtail mountain bikes in stock. Some folks had asked for a more aggressive looking bike for their everyday riding, and the Marin bikes fit the bill. They make a great platform for an everyday commuter bike, or for an electric conversion. We're not about to switch over to carrying a whole shopful of full suspension mountain bikes. I love mountain biking, but that's not what the store is about. We're here to promote transportation and utility biking. And we have the mountain bikes for people who prefer the look and feel of that to a more road oriented bike.
• We have lots of kids bikes in stock from Marin. They make a nice lineup. We also have the "running bikes". These are bikes without pedals, that the kids use by "running" along while seated on the bike - kind of like Flinstones. My daughter learned how to bike this way, and it was a lot faster that learning how to deal with pedals. Once she was balancing on the running bike, then moving over to a regular pedal bike without training wheels was easy.
• We're getting some of the new "electric mountain drive" assist kits in from Ecospeed. It is a chain-drive electric assist, that has the advantage of using the bike's existing gear set. So they are claimed to be better for steep hill climbing, and to have better efficiency than hub motors. We'll be testing one out extensively, and we'll also have a demo in the shop.
• Speaking of demo bikes, we are also a Stokemonkey dealer (the only one on the East Coast!), and now have a Surly Big Dummy utility bike (great for kid and grocery hauling), with the Stokemonkey installed. The Stokemonkey is like the Ecospeed, but it is designed specifically for cargo bikes like the Xtracycle, Big Dummy, and Yuba Mundo. It is a very high efficiency, quiet motor setup that has power for big loads and very steep hills. Come try it out!
• If you want to charge your electric bike battery faster, we now have a new line of chargers in for the long-life LiFePO4 (lithium ion) battery type. One of them is a dual-voltage dual-amperage charger that puts out 9 amps in "fast charge" mode, fast enough to recharge a 10 amp-hour pack in just over an hour. But since charging batteries fast too often may shorten their life, this charger also has a 4 amp slower-charging mode, that will take 2-3 hours for a full charge. Not only that, it has dual voltage, so it can charge either a 36 volt or a 48 volt pack, at either current rate! We have a few 20A/48V chargers for large electric vehicle batteries. And we have some 6 amp dual-voltage chargers (36 and 48V). In this first run, we only have a few of each kind. Once they're gone, they're gone for a while.
• We now have the small Day 6 frames in stock, available for a test ride. The Day 6 is an extremely comfortable ride like a recumbent bike, but it is more upright. Several folks have come in to try the Day 6 before or after testing a Townie at another bike shop in town, and a lot of them prefer the comfort of the Day 6. The new small frames are designed for people 5'3" and under.

I'm sure there is a lot more to talk about, but let's save that for another post. I want to talk about the economy for a few moments.

Lots of people seem to think we've got green shoots. It would probably be best for our shop to just pretend that is the case and act as if everything is going to be hunky dory tomorrow. But sorry folks, it isn't. I'm a bit of an economics junkie. I do a lot of reading. And there's an elephant in the room. That elephant is:

DEBT

If I could have used a larger font for that word, I would have. The reason why is I want to emphasize the scale of the problem. Our country is in hawk. Under water. We've sold off our children's future to the pawnbrokers.

This has all happened before... during the 20's. See, back then a similar thing happened. There got to be a very few rich industrialists at the top of the pyramid, and a lot of other folks who were quite poor. The disparity between rich and poor got more and more extreme. But most people didn't know it - because there was a debt bubble. So, while people were getting poorer, they kept feeling richer - because they got more and more in debt. That was the roaring 20's, until it came to a screeching halt in the crash of '29. But ironically, in 1930 there were newspaper reports very much like our "green shoots" reports now. Everything was going to go back to normal. Things would start roaring again. And what happened next? It was three more years until the economy would bottom out in 1933. The middle class was eviscerated. So were the poor folks. A few rich folks were just fine, but everyone else was not. There was a debt hangover that had to be cured.

Well, our debt as a country is bigger now than it was at the height of the great depression, when FDR was doing all-out government spending to try to dig this country out of the mess. Obama is trying to spend our way out of it - but the problem is, the spending is all in the form of ever more debt (not that the alternative of outright printing is any better). But our country can't handle more debt. Our creditors like the Chinese are getting sick of lending us money - because they don't see how we'll pay it back. And they're the only ones lending these days.

To bring it back to bikes, here's the thing: we import well over $500 billion per year in foreign oil. What do we trade this for? Debt, debt, and more debt. Not anything real - the US doesn't produce all that much anymore, except debt, and dollars (which represent debt).

I frequently have conversations with folks about oil. People seem to think there is a "glut" of oil, and that oil prices should come back down. Well, aside from the fact that the "glut" consists of only 20-30 days worth of US oil consumption, there is a much bigger fact being ignored: the price we pay at the pump is a direct correlation to the strength or weakness of the dollar. If the dollar gets stronger, that means oil and gas get cheaper for us. If the dollar gets weaker, that means oil and gas are more expensive for us. The dollar got a lot stronger last winter, which is a major reason why gas prices dropped. Now the dollar is weakening again. While it could do anything over the next 6-12 months (go up or down), the long-term prognosis is absolutely clear: there are too many dollars in the system, and our creditors are getting tired of taking those dollars in return for real, tangible things like oil and manufactured goods. This will not be dollar positive. What that means is that, even if we ignore the major geological constraints on oil supplies (i.e. peak oil), that it is very likely to get much more expensive for us at the pump in the future. We can "drill baby, drill" all we want, and it will be a drop in the bucket compared to what we import.

So, folks, be prepared for increasing costs in the future. Unless our government and the Federal Reserve bank manage to pull off a miracle of getting an economic recovery while holding the dollar's value, we will be paying more and more at the pump.

And cap-n-trade isn't going to help, either. I'm anti pollution and anti-CO2 being released, but this cap and trade thing has me mad. It is just another scheme for some very rich folks to get even richer trading in carbon credits. It would have been far better to just be honest about it and charge a direct carbon tax. And then to use that tax to build things like bike paths, rail lines, and etc. But, no, we'll just let some rich folks get richer, and we will all pay more money at the pump.

So, anyway, why would you want to buy a bike in this economy? Because bikes are one of the very cheapest ways to get around for short and medium-distance trips. Far cheaper than a car. For anyone who is struggling financially and asking "can I afford a bike" - if you can't afford a bike (at least a used one), then you definitely cannot afford a car. Each month of owning a car costs as much as buying a typical low-end transportation bike. Think about gas, insurance, repairs, and parking. Just the other day, someone I know had to pay over $300 to fix the electric window opener on her car. She had a sudden insight - all it takes is a few such repairs, and an electric bike would be paid for.

It's funny that occasionally when I'm riding along on the road, some guy in a big pickup will honk or something, trying to tell me to get off the road. I'm sure that most of these folks consider themselves US patriots. But how can they be patriots when they are dependent on foreign oil? When they are contributing to our large US debt, that will weaken our currency?

There was an interesting discussion on the RootsRadicals about the effect that having a US flag on the bike has with folks who might otherwise treat cyclists with disdain.

In that vein, we're going to do a t-shirt. Here's a mock-up/draft version:

This t-shirt points out that it is patriotic to ride your bike and free our country from foreign oil. Maybe it will help some drivers who "don't get it" to start figuring it out. We hope to have this shirt ready in August. Drop us a line if you want one. They'll be printed right here in North Carolina using organic cotton and chemical free dyes.

Happy 4th, I hope everyone had a great celebration of our country's independence - and I hope we have many more to come.

The Electric Madsen

Family life around our house has entered a new era with our newly electrified Madsen cargo bike! With 3 kids under 6 we've been searching for the solution to transport them, and the Madsen with it's bench seats and social atmosphere is the new favorite. Only problem, house to town is a good 5-7 miles with hills up and down, and some days the old legs just aren't up for that (see previous post ).

But the solution to this problem came with the installation of an eZee electric motor kit. The motor wheel replaces the 26" front wheel, and controller and battery conveniently mount in the frame between the downtube and the bucket. A little creative engineering with some velcro straps and zipties and the lithium battery was mounted. The battery weight is suspended from the upper frame tube and the straps wrap around the lower tube to keep it from swinging. The little piece that keeps the super long Madsen chain aligned also doubles to keep the chain and battery separated. The eZee battery itself is in a nice plastic case with a switch, so is protected from the elements somewhat. Removal of the battery for charging involves undoing the straps, but once I got this system down, that became pretty trivial. I like the way the battery is low on the bike and not too obtrusive or taking up any of my bucket space. The wiring is also all conveniently kept together.

Mounting the motor wheel in the front fork was not too difficult until we got to setting up the disc brake. The eZee kit is disc brake compatible and comes with a rotor, however, the brake that is supplied with the Madsen was not compatible with the wider hub. No problem, a new brake (Avid BB7) was ordered up and installed. The 180mm rotor that came with the eZee kit paired with the new brake and only a few additional spacer washers were needed. Once the brake issues were worked out, it was just a matter of making sure the bolts were properly tightened. A tire change wasn't even necessary because the kit comes with the Schwalbe Marathon Plus tire already installed (and puncture resistance is a good thing on these motor wheels!)

The eZee kit operates with a handlebar mounted throttle. This replaces the right grip, and since the Madsen has trigger shifters there were no compatibility issues there. An LED battery gage also goes on the handlebar to keep track of battery useage. 

Once the kit was on the bike, we 

flipped the switch on the battery and that baby came to life! The ride home was a breeze as those hills melted away under steady pedaling and electric assistance. 

Last weekend, we tried out the new electric Madsen with not one, but TWO trips into town with everyone. First on Saturday morning, everyone loaded up for a trip to the Farmers Market, where we loaded up on greens, strawberries, and yummy treats from our awesome local growers. Then after a break at home for naptime and lunch, it was back downtown again for a kids festival put on by the local La Leche group. Music, hula hooping, and fire truck tours later, we took shelter at the shop from a sudden afternoon downpour, and then picked up tacos at the mobile taco truck on the way home. Kiddos were all tired and one even lay down for a nap on the way home! Overall a great day, no cars involved, and it wouldn't have been very possible without electric asisst. I think the new Madsen is going to be seeing some light in the weeks to come.

-Elise

Morgan on HomePower Hour discussing Lithium batteries

Morgan was recently interviewed on the Home Power Hour, explaining a bit about how the batteries work and are kept happy by the Battery Management System. Listen in here.

Expanded weekday hours

We're moving into a summer schedule at the store now and have expanded our weekday hours. We'll now be open:

Tues 10-6

Wed 10-7

Thur 10-7

Fri 10-7

Sat 9-6

Sun 12-5

Mon closed

Also, you will be seeing a new face around the store. Please welcome Erica to our team of helpful staff!

Solar at Shakori Hills: does it make sense?

We had the pleasure of making it out to the Shakori Hill Festival today to let the kids participate in various events such as the Paperhand Puppet Intervention, and to listen to a bit of good music.

The organizers had a booth there, asking for contributions towards a solar electic system that would power the event in the future. The card indicates that 10,000 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity are used to put on the event. I applaud their goal to get off the grid. But the sea of cars I saw in the parking lot left me wondering: how much energy was used in just getting people to/from the event, in comparison to the 10,000 kWh goal?

Here's my attempt to figure it out. When we were there on Sunday, there were perhaps 700-900 cars around. We can estimate from that a total of about 5,000 cars were driven to/from the event during the course of the four days (that's an average of 1,125 cars/day, or 2,250 people per day if it averaged 2 people per car, probably a low estimate). The location is 17 miles from Carrboro, 40 mi from Raleigh, 35 mi from Durham, and 10 mi from Pittsboro. So we'll average all of those at 25 mi (each way), for an average round trip of 50 miles. The fleet average for the US automobiles as of 2003 was 25 miles per gallon, so on average, 2 gallons of gasoline were burned per car trip to/from the festival. If our estimate of 5,000 car trips is accurate (maybe an underestimate?), that's 10,000 gallons of gasoline burned up (526 barrels of oil).

Now, hold onto your seats. Each gallon of gasoline contains about 37 kilowatt hours (kWh) of energy. So, we have 10,000 * 37 = 370,000 kWh of energy burnt up to get people to/from the festival in their cars/SUV's/trucks/motor homes.

That is, 37 times more energy were used to transport people to/from Shakori Hills, than would be saved if the festival organizers reach their goal of going all solar.

Here's another way to look at it. An efficient generator will extract about 7 kWh of energy out of a gallon of gas (no, they are not very efficient, they only recover a small part of the 37 kWh contained in a gallon). So, to generate the 10,000 kWh of energy that the festival needs to run, that is about 1,429 gallons of gas, if they were to use local generators. Compare that 1,429 to our estimate of 10,000 gallons burned up getting people to and from. I.e., even using inefficient gas generators, generating all that power to run the festival would only take 1/7th the power that is consumed to get all those people to/from the event. 1/7th. That is sobering. (and note: even if everyone drove a super efficient hybrid like the Prius out there, and averaged 50mpg, it would still consume more than 3x more energy to transport people there).

And this is why all the peak oil people are so concerned about our future. They realize how much energy we are just burning up driving around in our gasoline burning cars. But most people don't think about that. Even very "green" people just don't realize how much energy is contained in each and every gallon of gas put into their cars. And, while I applaud the goal of Biodiesel, I had a look at the Piedmont biofuels website to see how much they produce. They produce "thousands of gallons per day" - so, basically, if every person going to the festival used biodiesel instead of fossil fuel, there would be none left in this area for any other purpose (such as powering tractors that help grow our food).

I don't want to come off as overly critical of these efforts. Every small bit helps. But if people think these are solutions to fossil fuel dependency, they are clearly not. They are drops-in-the-bucket.

Anyway, I think if the Shakori Hills organizers can get the solar panels, it will save energy and have a positive effect - not only by the direct power saved, but by the example set. At the same time, they could have a vastly greater effect on energy usage for the festival (and also local pollution/noise/danger created by the cars) by implementing a bus system to/from the event. Or getting people to go out there on their electric bikes :)

Why some days just need an electric bike

Some may accuse me of being heavy handed in promotion of electric-assist for bikes. To me, this is not a marketing schtick. It is an education schtick. Ever since I got my first electric motor kit for my bike in '94, I've shown it around, and many people - especially avid cyclists and bike shops - have been dismissive. I think this stems from an attitude that bikes are a recreational tool rather than a transportation tool. After hearing that attitude for all these years, perhaps I've grown a bit defensive about it over time. But, really what I want to accomplish is education - letting people know that electric bikes exist, and can help many people with the goal of biking more often (i.e. from none at all to at least once or twice a week would be a big step!).

So, to do that, I like to tell little stories about my experiences, and here is the latest. We recently became a Madsen Bicycles dealer, and got some of them in stock. One of the things that is exciting about this bike is the ability to haul up to four kids at a time, all sitting nicely seat-belted on benches in the rear bucket.


This is a Good Thing for those of us with families that exceed the carrying capacity of the Xtracycle, Yuba Mundo, or Big Dummy (all of which carry only two kids, max).

So, I have been using the Madsen for short trips hauling kids around the local area, and it is great. But our area is hilly enough, that hauling 120 pounds of kids up the hills is a slow endeavor. The first hill starts right at my driveway, with a 50 ft climb. And there are many more hills riding around Carrboro and Chapel Hill (this is the Piedmont, after all). So we have been planning on putting an eZee electric hub kit on the bike, but presently they are out of stock at our store, so the bike is currently un-assisted.

Anyway, on the Saturday of Easter Weekend, I was taking the kids for an Easter Egg Hunt activity put on by a local organization. I really wanted to bike over there with them, rather than use the car, because it was a beautiful, sunny, 70-degree day. By the time we got the stuff together, we only had 45 minutes to get there. If I knew exactly where I was going, and if it was on the closer side of town, that would have been enough time to ride. But I didn't know that area of town well, and I recall that part being quite hilly. Well, anyway, we loaded up into the bike and started up the first hill out our driveway, and I quickly realized that I just didn't have the energy to haul these kids over all those hills for about 20 miles round trip, while being in a hurry to get there on time (and possibly getting lost in a hilly area of town). So we turned around, back down the hill we went, and we got in the car and drove instead.

Now, if we had already had the electric assist installed on this bike, I would not have hesitated to go by bike. The hills would have been much less of an issue, and I also would have felt less time pressure, since I would have saved 10-20 minutes of riding time.

So here is a case where if I had electric assist, I would have gotten well over an hour of moderate exercise pedaling the assisted bike to and from the activity, whereas instead I got none (and didn't have time for another bike ride that weekend). And, I burned up well over 37 kWh (kilowatt hours) of energy by driving the car over, when the e-bike would have burnt up much less than 1 kWh.

Someone who lives in a flat place (e.g. Davis, California or much of Texas) reading this might not be able to relate. One thing I've noticed with my Big Dummy cargo bike is that when it is fully loaded, pedaling it on the flat lands is only a tiny bit more energy than pedaling it unloaded. But once it gets to a hill, all that extra load weight becomes very noticeable. So, anyway, if I lived in a flat place, pedaling the Madsen with the kids 10 miles each way wouldn't have been such a big deal. But with these hills, it is a big deal - enough so that it makes me much less likely to use the bike, and instead, just take the car. I'm looking forward to having that assist on there! (Aside: These bikes are now available for rent for trying out).

Bike ride to Triad Electric Vehicles Association meeting

Today I just got back from a nice bike trip with my daughter, to the Triad Electric Vehicles Association meeting, in Burlington, NC. I was invited to their monthly meeting to give a presentation about Lithium batteries and battery management systems, since some of the members are starting to contemplate moving away from lead acid batteries. In fact, two of the members have recently commissioned us to build custom packs for their EV's.

We rode over there on my electrified Surly Big Dummy, with an eZee electric kit on front. We had 3 different LiFePo4 battery packs (48V x 10 amp hour (Ah), 2 x 36V x 10 amp hour, totaling about 1200 watt hours, which equals a 100 watt lightb

ulb running for 12 hours). I didn't really expect to use that much battery power on the 33-mile each way ride, but I brought them for show and tell (and glad I did). I also brought some BMS boards (designed by the folks on Endless Sphere), PSI cells, and more. We also had all our overnight gear. So the bike was well loaded with us and all our stuff. I estimate that the gross vehicle weight was close to 400 lbs with us included.

While a round-trip 65 mile bike ride may not sound like a big deal to some folks who ride their road bikes 60+ miles in a day, this was a ride with precious cargo on the back, and a fully loaded bike, on some sections of busy road. I planned the route using Bikely.com, which allows mapping out a route using Google maps. I tried to choose a lower-traffic route most of the way, but some high-traffic stretches were unavoidable (why don't they put shoulders on the roads in this part of the USA????)

We started out mid Friday afternoon, hoping to make it there before the main rush hour traffic hit. As soon as we got on the road, there were some serious headwinds. The national weather service reports winds averaging 15mph, with gusts up to 43 mph - coming straight from the direction we were going. I was sooooo glad to have electric assist. That would have been a miserable ride without. At one point, I was going full throttle (using about 1,200 watts) and pedaling full tilt, on flat ground into the wind, and only going about 15 miles per hour. Without electric, that would have been about 6 miles per hour. There were also some nice hills, too (totaling about 1,200 feet of up and down). Without electric, and with that headwind, the trip would have easily taken at least 4 hours. Despite the winds, we made it there in 1hr 45 min, at an average speed of just under 18 mph. But we burned up way more energy than I planned - about 24 watt hours per mil

e. (i.e., four miles riding would equal a 100 watt light bulb running for an hour). I had planned on 20 watt hours per mile. Glad I had those extra batteries!

Jack, one of TEVA's leaders, graciously hosted us for the evening and let us crash at his place. We had a nice dinner and after-dinner discussion about quantum mechanics, consciousness, God, and evolution (I am making slow progress on a book about these subjects). We also had the obligatory discussion of the current financial "crisis". Anyway, to bed very late, and up somewhat early next morning to head out for the meeting.

So I'm not someone to get shy in front of groups of people, since I give scientific lectures fairly regularly (just gave one last Thursday to an audience of 40-50 people). But this group was a bit intimidating, because there was only one other woman present, and it was about 20 guys, who were obviously quite tech savvy. Well, after some introductions and whatnot, we got down to business and I started describing the ins and outs of Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4) batteries for electric vehicles. I talked about keeping cells healthy, the benefits and drawbacks of these batteries, and discussed some basic design elements for battery management systems (BMSs), the electronic systems that keep cells healthy. There was some good discussion and questions. Afterwards, we went out to the parking lot to check out the various EV's there.

Here's an interesting observation that one of my hosts made: I was one of only 2-3 people who actually used an electric vehicle to get there, and mine was a bicycle.

This was a very interesting observation, so I'm going to sidetrack for a second on that. Why didn't more people drive their EV's over there? I can only guess: I think the biggest reason is that of the various people I talked to, many people had lead-acid battery packs that weren't performing too well anymore, or didn't have sufficient range, or... etc. One guy mentioned a story about being out in his EV one day and getting stranded when the batteries ran out, and having to walk 3 miles. So here's the interesting thing. If a bike battery runs out, you can still pedal the bike. Even my nearly 400 pound cargo bike, if I had to, I could pedal it that whole distance. But I think the bigger take-home message is this - the main impediment to people using their EV's more often is the batteries. For a bike, the battery is relatively small, and hence (though not cheap), not nearly as expensive as for a car or truck-sized vehicle. So nowadays, many people use lithium or at least nickel batteries on bikes, whereas most electric cars of the hobbyist variety are still lead acid. One older gentleman even prodded me a bit because he said he had access to very cheap lead acids, so he didn't see why it was worth buying lithium batteries. I understand that point of view, that in an ideal world lead acids can run for a very long time, so why pay (lots) extra for LiFePo4? But, being in the e-bike repair business, I have seen so many "dead" e-bikes simply because the batteries died, and people hate having to replace them every few years. And it gets worse when you put them in a series string to produce higher voltage. Aside from the longer life and lighter weight of lithium, there is the lower hassle factor. If you get a working system with a good BMS (very important), it should give many years of service without issues. I used lead acids for many years before I switched. But now that I've "seen the light," it is hard to fathom ever switching back to the heavy, bulky (though cheap up front) lead acids.

But anyway, some people tried out my Big Dummy and had lots of fun. Then a bunch of the members headed off to the Earth Day fair in Greensboro, and we got headed back to Chapel Hill/Carrboro.

This time, the wind was at our backs, and still pretty strong. Sweeeeet! There were a bunch of times we were cruising along with just pedaling, no electric power at > 20 miles per hour, a good clip for a 400 lb cargo bike. We made the return trip in just under 1:30 hrs, averaging almost 19 miles per hour, and using about 16 watt hours per mile. After a nice stop at a friends' house along the way, we got back home. And after just having biked 68 miles on a fully loaded cargo bike in 1.5 days, I wasn't totally wiped out (I definitely got some exercise, but not to the point of being wiped).

Total stats for the trip:

-Average 18.4 miles per hour

- 67.85 miles

- 3:40 minutes riding time

- 19.9 watt hours per mile

- total energy used by bike, 1,350 watt hours (for perspective, a typical gasoline powered car would use this much energy to go about 4-7 miles). I probably burnt another 400-600 watt hours from leg power.

I was nicely surprised by how well most drivers treated us. There was only one situation that made me nervous, a stupid dude in an ancient camper truck passed us at the same time there was oncoming traffic, and only gave 6" to spare. I don't know what his deal was, but maybe his engine couldn't handle slowing down on the somewhat steep uphill we were on, without stalling. Anyway, here's a plug for rear-view mirrors: I knew the guy was cutting it close, and I was prepared to bail out onto the grass if he got any closer, long before he was upon us. I don't know how any cyclist can stand riding without a rear-view mirror. I use mine constantly.

But anyway, most drivers gave us wide berth, and we had a really nice ride through the countryside of the piedmont.

3 cheers for human-electric hybrid vehicles!