Comment 46976

By Undustrial (registered) - website | Posted September 01, 2010 at 11:18:40

For a simple electric assist bike, all ya need is a bike with a cog on each side of the back wheel. Thanks to the booming popularity of fixed-gears (with many hubs threaded on both sides). Then a back rack and a motor chained to the left side - even a cordless drill will do, and some way to route the power switch to the handlebars.

Simple, easy, effective. My neighbourhood is already covered with gas and electric hybrid bikes.

I will probably never use one, or advocate them much, though. It's a lot of trouble to accomplish something your legs would do on their own if you let them build up to it. And while I recognize not everyone has the physical ability to run an un-assisted bike, I have to wonder about the number of people who are un-able simply because they choose not to. Muscle atrophies very quickly - ya use it or lose it. And physical inactivity is crippling and killing a lot more people than any disability you can name. I'm not a cyclist because I'm healthy - I'm healthy because I'm a cyclist.

"Today, the notion of progress in a single line without goal or limit seems perhaps the most parochial notion of a very parochial century." — Lewis Mumford

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