Droning on about E-bikes

Yes, I've espoused opinions about bicycles with battery boost, like, I suspect, most people who frequently pedal bikes. I believe people on bikes are a good thing, and if the addition of technology brings a few more into the fold, all the better. Sure, I do question the logic of wanting a recreational rail trail ride to end sooner with the speed assist of a motor because if one's goal is to ride away from a parked car with the one purpose of turning around some amount of time later and riding back, does it really matter where the u-turn happens?

I especially wonder about this in the context of the Massachusetts Clean Energy e-bike incentive program. Yay, the state is actively encouraging the use of bikes, but I question how many of the vouchers will purchase bikes that are transported to multiuse path parking lots in the back of pickup trucks and serve only to increase total fossil fuel consumption. Still, it's apparently a popular program. In the first four rounds of randomly selecting recipients from the applications, the system has never picked me.

Yes, I applied. And yes again, it was the possibility of a free bike, if I opted for a closeout model available from Hampshire Bicycle Exchange, that I couldn't resist, but programs like that are intended to influence people's behavior, and it did nudge me into realizing there are times when a little extra speed without a lot of extra sweat could be nice. Then a couple weeks ago, as my body was steadily losing it's independent mobility with a degrading right leg, I was connecting two bus rides on either side of an errand by riding up the railtrail, quite slowly to avoid pushing hard on my bum leg. Hmm, if I had electric assist, I could still cruise along at my normal amble without pushing too hard on my injury. Good perspective, while usually I can fair fine on just my own input of power, that isn't true for everyone. A bit of electrical push might just make the bicycle more accessible for people who aren't lucky enough to include a career racing bikes in their past. I can endorse that.

Those thoughts have been bouncing about inside my bean, but it was a brief news story on the BBC that convinced me there was anothet post's worth of e-bike thoughts. When years ago I woke to hear the Brexit vote had been "yes", my first thought was to wonder if future historians will credit that result as the first step toward the next world war. I'm a proponent of less individual nationalism in favor of a much more general sense of humanity, and I think the European Union was a step in than direct. Great Britain never truly integrated, keeping the Pound for their currency and still driving on the not-right side of the road, but their exit was still a big blow to the show of unity.

Bullies look for weakness, and while I thought my world war conjecture wouldn't be confirmed in my lifetime, Putin's invasion of Ukraine might push forward that timetable. It's a mess, and given a dictator's need for absolute control, I don't see a clean exit strategy for Russia's leadership, so the killing continues. Sigh, but in a glimmer of light in the storm, I was happy to hear of the bicycle coming to the rescue. Living with an e-bike sure beats not living without one!