Here’s a question for you. When you see the growing number of people riding an electric bike in and around Brisbane do you think...
A. That’s cheating!
Or
B. That looks fun I want one!!
We’re a bit biased (OK a lot biased) so we’re definitely in the “B” category. We also know that 90% of people that ride our electric bikes at our demo days and at our Shop here in Brisbane are also in the “B” camp.
However, there are still some cynics out there (you may be one of them?) that still believe that riding an electric bike is cheating.
We believe there are at least 2 good reasons why riding an electric bike shouldn’t be considered cheating.
1. Driving your car burns money and makes you fat
An electric bike burns fat and saves you money!
We understand that there are times when you can’t do without a car, however studies show that most journeys are less than 10Kms. And, the last time we looked the T2 lanes on Waterworks Road were still pretty empty during peak hours.
If like many of our customers you decided to ride an electric bike to work for a round trip of 20, 30 or sometimes 60Kms per day instead of taking the car, how is this cheating? Or if you just fancy a ride out to Nudgee Beach, Redcliffe, Woody Point or your local cafe or market. If you leave the car behind isn't this better for everyone?
2. Unless you’re racing your electric bike whom exactly are you cheating?
Here’s how Wikipedia defines cheating:
"Cheating refers to an immoral way of achieving a goal. It is generally used for the breaking of rules to gain unfair advantage in a competitive situation. Cheating is the getting of reward for ability by dishonest means.”
We’re not sure that saving money, improving your health and being kinder to the environment by riding your electric bike counts as being immoral?
Yes, your electric bike does give you an advantage by making it easier to ride up hills, but as it's not a competition how is this unfair? This is what makes electric bikes so much fun to ride :-)
On the other hand if you want to “cheat”...
The taxman
Duty on the fuel for your car is almost $0.40/litre and don’t forget the 10% GST (yes you do pay GST on your electricity bill as well, but 10% of $0.10 to charge your electric bike is a lot less than 10% of $1.40 per litre or $75 to fill the average car!)
Time
With peak hour traffic average speeds struggling to make it over 20KPH in Brisbane these days, more and more of our customers who ride their electric bikes to work love that fact that it actually saves them time.
Not only that but they’re also getting at least an hour's worth of a fun, fat burning work out each day for no extra time in their already busy diary.
We can’t promise that buying an electric bike will turn back time, but if you tried riding one for a month think about how much fitter and healthier you’d feel.
© 2014 Electric Bikes Brisbane. We encourage originality and respect for the ideas and work of others. This article or any derivative is not to be copied or reproduced without express permission from Electric Bikes Brisbane.
