The Real Reason You Should Get an E-bike

Today&#;s happiness and personal-finance gurus have no shortage of advice for living a good life. Meditate daily. Sleep for eight hours a night. Don&#;t forget to save for retirement. They&#;re not wrong, but few of these experts will tell you one of the best ways to improve your life: Ditch your car.

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A year ago, my wife and I sold one of our cars and replaced it with an e-bike. As someone who writes about climate change, I knew that I was doing something good for the planet. I knew that passenger vehicles are responsible for much of our greenhouse-gas emissions&#;16 percent in the U.S., to be exact&#;and that the pollution spewing from gas-powered cars doesn&#;t just heat up the planet; it could increase the risk of premature death. I also knew that electric cars were an imperfect fix: Though they&#;re responsible for less carbon pollution than gas cars, even when powered by today&#;s dirty electric grid, their supply chain is carbon intensive, and many of the materials needed to produce their batteries are, in some cases, mined via a process that brutally exploits workers and harms ecosystems and sacred Indigenous lands. An e-bike&#;s comparatively tiny battery means less electricity, fewer emissions, fewer resources. They are clearly better for the planet than cars of any kind.

Read: America is missing out on the biggest EV boom of all

I knew all of this. But I also viewed getting rid of my car as a sacrifice&#;something for the militant and reckless, something that Greenpeace volunteers did to make the world better. I live in Colorado; e-biking would mean freezing in the winter and sweating in the summer. It was the right thing to do, I thought, but it was not going to be fun.

I was very wrong. The first thing I noticed was the savings. Between car payments, insurance, maintenance, and gas, a car-centered lifestyle is expensive. According to AAA, after fuel, maintenance, insurance, taxes, and the like, owning and driving a new car in America costs $10,728 a year. My e-bike, by comparison, cost $2,000 off the rack and has near-negligible recurring charges. After factoring in maintenance and a few bucks a month in electricity costs, I estimate that we&#;ll save about $50,000 over the next five years by ditching our car.

The actual experience of riding to work each day over the past year has been equally surprising. Before selling our car, I worried most about riding in the cold winter months. But I quickly learned that, as the saying goes, there is no bad weather, only bad gear. I wear gloves, warm socks, a balaclava, and a ski jacket when I ride, and am almost never too cold.

Sara Hastings-Simon is a professor at the University of Calgary, where she studies low-carbon transportation systems. She&#;s also a native Californian who now bikes to work in a city where temperatures tend to hover around freezing from December through March. She told me that with the right equipment, she&#;s able to do it on all but the snowiest days&#;days when she wouldn&#;t want to be in a car, either. &#;Those days are honestly a mess even on the roads,&#; she said.

And though I, like many would-be cyclists, was worried about arriving at the office sweaty in hotter months, the e-bike solved my problem. Even when it was 90 degrees outside, I didn&#;t break a sweat, thanks to my bike&#;s pedal-assist mode. If I&#;m honest, sometimes I didn&#;t even pedal; I just used the throttle, sat back, and enjoyed my ride.

Indeed, a big part of the appeal here is in the e part of the bike: &#;E-bikes aren&#;t just a traditional bike with a motor. They are an entirely new technology,&#; Hastings-Simon told me. Riding them is a radically different experience from riding a normal bike, at least when it comes to the hard parts of cycling. &#;It&#;s so much easier to take a bike over a bridge or in a hilly neighborhood,&#; Laura Fox, the former general manager of New York City&#;s bike-share program, told me. &#;I&#;ve had countless people come up to me and say, &#;I never thought that I could bike to work before, and now that I have an option where you don&#;t have to show up sweaty, it&#;s possible.&#;&#; (When New York introduced e-bikes to its fleet, ridership tripled, she told me, from 500,000 to 1.5 million people.)

Read: How to get fewer people to commute in cars

But biking to work wasn&#;t just not unpleasant&#;it was downright enjoyable. It made me feel happier and healthier; I arrived to work a little more buoyant for having spent the morning in fresh air rather than traffic. Study after study shows that people with longer car commutes are more likely to experience poor health outcomes and lower personal well-being&#;and that cyclists are the happiest commuters. One day, shortly after selling our car, I hopped on my bike after a stressful day at work and rode home down a street edged with changing fall leaves. I felt more connected to the physical environment around me than I had when I&#;d traveled the same route surrounded by metal and glass. I breathed in the air, my muscles relaxed, and I grinned like a giddy schoolchild.

&#;E-bikes are like a miracle drug,&#; David Zipper, a transportation expert and Visiting Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, told me. &#;They provide so much upside, not just for the riders, but for the people who are living around them too.&#;

Of course, e-bikes aren&#;t going to replace every car on every trip. In a country where sprawling suburbs and strip malls, not protected bike lanes, are the norm, it&#;s unrealistic to expect e-bikes to replace cars in the way that the Model T replaced horses. But we don&#;t need everyone to ride an e-bike to work to make a big dent in our carbon-pollution problem. A recent study found that if 5 percent of commuters were to switch to e-bikes as their mode of transportation, emissions would fall by 4 percent. As an individual, you don&#;t even need to sell your car to reduce your carbon footprint significantly. In , half of all trips in the United States were less than three miles, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Making those short trips on an e-bike instead of in a car would likely save people money, cut their emissions, and improve their health and happiness.

E-bikes are such a no-brainer for individuals, and for the collective, that state and local governments are now subsidizing them. In May, I asked Will Toor, the executive director of the Colorado Energy Office, to explain the state&#;s rationale for a newly passed incentive that offers residents $450 to get an e-bike. He dutifully ticked through the environmental benefits and potential cost savings for low-income people. Then he surprised me: The legislation, he added, was also about &#;putting more joy into the world.&#;

This story is part of the Atlantic Planet series supported by HHMI&#;s Science and Educational Media Group.

I usually roll into my work building early in the morning with a large bright yellow backpack over my shoulder, an empty water bottle in one hand, and my old helmet in the other. I walk in energized, refreshed, and excited to begin my day. I stroll down the corridor past my colleagues hunched over at their desks. And every day without fail I have a big cheesy grin pasted to my face. It is a subconscious reflex to the sight of my colleagues looking and acting as if they were in character prepping for zombie roles in The Walking Dead Series.

My zombie-colleagues move slowly. They have extra-large containers of caffeine on their desks. Their bloodshot eyeballs are sunk deep into their faces. Few of them are smiling. They are trying to recover from their congested commute. They appear defeated and doomed for the day and it has only begun.

On the other hand, I have just logged an hour on my bike. I am refreshed having sped through traffic with the wind in my face, my heart beat is up, I&#;m hydrated because I&#;ve already had a quart of water, and I&#;m definitely awake ready to take on the day. I&#;m also smiling because I feel as if I have discovered something &#; SOMETHING HUGE &#; it seems no one else at work has figured it out yet.

My secret is bicycle commuting. Somehow it is still a mystery how we bicycle commuters are so happy, energetic, and full of life. It also appears to be some sort mystery waiting to be discovered by the masses. But we bike commuters don&#;t want it to be a secret! We want everyone to know what we know and feel how we feel. So I&#;ll tell you why I ride my bike to work and I&#;ll just try to convince you to do the same.

1. Health and Exercise

I won&#;t get into obesity statistics or present the gloomy supporting facts that most of us will die much younger than expected because of heart disease most likely due to a sedentary lifestyle and a severe lack of exercise throughout our lives. Instead, I&#;ll simply say that riding to and from work on my bicycle is great exercise; it makes me happy.

There are a few hills on my commute and my 250 Watt motorized bike kit makes it possible to conquer them without getting my heart rate up into the red zone of 165 beats per minute. I save that heart rate for the ride home. I can keep my heart rate at a steady 110-120 right around my target heart rate on and off the hills on my way to work. This is a perfect cardio workout for me the entire route. This means that I can get a long cardio workout each day without actually getting soaked on my way to work and it does not matter the time of year.

This is a big reason why I created the Five Minute E-Bike Kit. I layer in the Fall and Winter and ride with cycling clothes in the Spring and Summer. I may push a little harder on the ride home and hit the red zone for a while because I know I have a shower awaiting me, but I can take it easier on my way to work.

My bike was converted to electric with a 250 Watt electric bike wheel. It gets me to and from work faster than a regular bicycle. In fact, I fly past ALL cyclists I encounter on the road.

You see, my electric bike conversion kit turned my old bicycle into an electric bike. There is no difference except for the fact that it cost me about 1/4 of what an average-priced electric bike would have cost me. And knowing that I will not be an early death statistic merely because I commute by bicycle is liberating. Perhaps my genes may make me an unfortunate statistic, but at least it won&#;t be for a lack of effort. My bike is like my &#;gym on wheels&#; only it is much more exhilarating than being inside a gym [1].

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2. Commuter Traffic

I live in the D.C. Metro area. The average commuter in D.C. spends 67 hours a year stuck in traffic [2]. We are number one in the nation for the worse traffic [3]. Congratulations to us! Sometimes I drive to work and contribute to the chaos. I&#;m not 100% on my bike commuting because &#;life happens.&#; So when I am in my car listening to the traffic report on the radio and I hear the traffic report of heavy traffic on the 95 and the 66 at 5:30 in the morning I just shake my head in dismay and laugh amusingly. It is crazy! Getting ahead of the traffic is a challenge even in the early morning hours. It seems to be a losing battle when I drive.

Bicycle commuting is a different story. When I commute to work by bike, I can leave a little later. It took some time learning the quicker routes and scenic trails, but once I had my route down using a great website called Map My Ride, it became a thrill to race my coworkers to and from work. I love flying down the bike lane at 20+ MPH while cars are gridlocked bumper to bumper. My coworkers may say, &#;Hey, I saw you fly by me yesterday afternoon!&#; They ask what time I got home and can&#;t believe the answer &#; I beat them home. I feel like the traffic victor when I bike and a gold medal is for the taking when I arrive. And yet, many people still don&#;t get it&#;

@bmossop Hilly cities. Electric assist helps u cheat on climb. Also nice for commuters who bike to work, but are tired in afternoon.

&#; Maggie Koerth (@maggiekb1) March 24,

So, let&#;s take a look at this statistic for a minute from the Federal Highway Administration&#;s Annual Congestion Report of and consider the biking alternative. The average commuter spends 38 hours each year stuck in traffic. That is nearly an entire week lost, completely wasted. The cost in fuel on a national level for this wasted time is more than 60 countries&#; GDP. It comes out to $121 billion annually [4]. One may say that is a waste in spending, better spent on our seniors, veterans, and the homeless, or it may be spent better in a myriad other ways. I would emphatically agree.

Since I began commuting by bike a few years ago, I&#;ve come to realize it is not as rare as I thought. Perhaps I might feel like a loner riding solo every day, but the statistics show that we are a growing community. In fact, according to the most recent U.S. Census, over 786,000 of us commute by bike to work every day. That is one percent of the population in the 50 largest U.S. cities. We&#;re the new one percenters!

Even better, 6.1% of the population in Portland bike to work. When I see other bike commuters I feel like we should have some special handshake or secret wave. We know the secret. We took the leap, began the adventure, and continue to grow in numbers. We&#;re part of a society of healthy-happy people. How does your city compare to the growth in bicycle commuting below?

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3. Audiobooks

Some may say that biking, despite the great exercise that it is, may be a waste of time. I beg to differ. While I&#;m commuting, I&#;m virtually multi-tasking. Sometimes I may be listening to the Smiths, U2, The Bee Gees, or even Taylor Swift (let&#;s keep that a secret), but I&#;m usually listening to a great audiobook. Usually it is one of the many Tom Clancy spy novels, a New York Time&#;s fiction or non-fiction best seller, or sometimes I try to take on the challenge of James Fenimore Cooper&#;s English prose. But that doesn&#;t always go so well.

I have a subscription to audible.com which allows me one free book a month and discounted rates on all other books in the library with my subscription. It is exciting to get lost in another world while enjoying the thrill of my commute. When I&#;m deep into a great novel I find myself itching to rise early or leave work quickly so I can get back to my story and find out what happens next. It is true that I can listen to audiobooks while driving, but why not do it and get exercise enjoying the ride at the same time?

4. $aving$

We all love to save money. At least I assume we all do. You do too, right? The statistics for money savings commuting by bike are in our favor here. According to the Federal Transportation Administration and bicycling.com, the average cost per year of a sedan is $8,946 and that goes up with a SUV to $11,360. But it is the cost per mile where I see greater savings. The cost to bike to work is 10 cents per mile as opposed to 59 and 76 cents for vehicular commuting. For us in D.C. the difference is much greater when you add in the two &#;troll booths&#; we pass each day.

I ride an electric bike so one might say that my cost is much higher, but the truth is that it&#;s not much higher. My Electric Bike Kit cost $699 and lasts many years of riding and charging the battery every single day. The only thing I&#;ll ever need to replace is the battery after around + charges as it loses its lithium power. A new electric bike battery system costs $199 and up if I need another eventually. That breaks down to about $200-$300 per year in purchase cost for an electric bike and about 2 cents each charge. So my commute cost is only a few cents more per mile than a regular bicycle.

Another positive is that I can ride my old bike because my motorized bike kit adapts to any bicycle. It was a quick install and boom! My favorite bike is a cargo bike, now an electric cargo bike that let&#;s me take the kids everywhere. It even requires less maintenance because the wear and tear is not as significant &#; I&#;m not punishing my bike as much with heavy pedaling riding for longer times. My commute time is shortened and the hills are not as hard on the chain as well as my knees.

The fact is, I save thousands of dollars each year by riding my electric bike to work and that is money that will end up contributing to my kids&#; college educations and invested for retirement. Added up, the combined savings during a working career can be more than $300,000. That is motivating, right?

So let&#;s use a retirement calculator. Considering that the annual savings &#; let&#;s say $10k/year &#; is going straight into the 401k and real estate, it is going to continue growing even when not working on weekends and while sleeping at night. According to CNN&#;s retirement calculator, that $300,000+ in savings will likely turn into $1,200,000 over a thirty year career. Bicycle commuting is the retirement solution.

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5. Parking

I know that parking is not a challenge for everyone, but parking is a beast for me when I drive. The lot is abnormally large and it takes more than five minutes to walk from the back of the parking lot to get into my office, which is full by 7:00 AM. However, my building just so happens to have bike racks right next to every single entrance. I love that!

I can arrive, park, and be inside saving time not having to look for a parking spot and walk all the way through the lot weaving the maze of metal. Again, I realize this is not significant for most people, but for me it is huge!

Where to begin?

Now I realize it may seem like a big step to start commuting by bike or electric bike . I get it. I&#;ve been there. I&#;m there every single morning I wake up and start getting dressed for my long bike ride. I&#;m definitely there the mornings it is cold and rainy and I have the option of either driving in my warm car or facing the cold demons on my bike. Like I said, &#;life happens&#; and we don&#;t have to be 100% at it every day. But what do you have to lose riding a few days a week? &#;once a week?

I am a huge bike advocate after riding to work for a few years now and I believe it is the key to having a great day at work. It is the one thing I do that I feel gives me the ability to function 100% on the job. I know that if it can push me to achieve at work then it will do the same for you. And now you know the secret. So let&#;s share it!

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