The Finch Formerly Known As Gold

24 September 2006

Hybrid bicycle

Bicycles, of course, are, um, "people-powered." But some people provide more power than others. This Urban Terrain bike has electric-motor assist, just like a Honda Civic hybrid, to kick in when it sees a demand for its services: going uphill, for instance. (Downhill, the motor takes itself out of the loop entirely.)

The drawback, of course, is the extra 9 lb of battery pack, which takes about five hours to recharge and which brings the total weight of the bicycle up to almost 50 lb, on the high side for industrial-strength bikes. Still, if you're wanting a bicycle more for a commuting device — it folds up nicely — than for a workout machine, you might find this little darb endearing, and the $1199 price is not too daunting.

Posted at 9:22 AM to Entirely Too Cool


Santa and I would actually try an ebike, especially for a trip we are considering from Austin to Tulsa. There is a very affordable ebike, less than $700USD RETAIL, out of Austin. Santa wants to roll a Kinky 4 Guv sign straight up I-35.

Posted by: Paul Tay at 9:31 AM on 24 September 2006

My wife has sometimes talked of wanting something like an ebike, despite my teasing her about mopeds.

Even the $1199 price would be cheaper than a motor scooter, but I don't know how she'd feel about the battery-charge thing. She bought a big battery to run a new ham radio off of, and it died outright within days. Then there's the rechargeable weed whacker, the rechargeable leaf blower, and several rechargeable power drills.

And just as we were getting her '96 Rodeo ready to be put on the market, the battery in that just keeled right over like Nancy Pelosi's dreams of becoming Speaker.

Posted by: McGehee at 10:44 AM on 24 September 2006

I have relatively good luck with batteries larger than household-appliance size, though I don't push it: when I test-drove Gwendolyn, she wouldn't start — someone had left the automatic light control in a position it ought not to have been left in — and when I agreed to buy, I insisted that they bestow a new battery on her as part of the deal.

Which they did.

Posted by: CGHill at 10:51 AM on 24 September 2006

"Downhill" the battery should be on auto-recharge, but I guess they don't do that. Another option would be a methane-powered bike made specifically for Peter Griffin. I leave it to the imagination how the bike would be reconfigured to tap DIRECTLY into that power source.

Posted by: Mister Snitch! at 3:19 PM on 24 September 2006