CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
Well done to ALL posters
It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
It's an interesting video. But watching it as a resident of Edinburgh it comes across as a parody. Any one of those bridges would be far better than pretty much anything in the city at the moment.
I can't help comparing him to Miles Briggs recording a hypothetical video about the ring road.
If you look at what people are paying for car finance, modest ebikes are extremely affordable.
We also need to find a way to pull down the price of e-bikes, which are, for their size and tech, incredibly expensive compared with the smallest electric cars.
When did car finance become the thing? I was brought up in a world when you only bought something if you could pay for it outright, houses excepted I suppose. But if people are inured to finance, then we have to popularise that approach for e-bike ownership. The EST loans are the starting point.
“If you look at what people are paying for car finance, modest ebikes are extremely affordable”
Yeah, what individuals think is ‘expensive’ can be odd.
£3 coffees, £10 pints, designer bags indistinguishable from counterfeits(?)
Plenty £2k (non-motorised) bikes in the shops - and on the roads.
It’s complicated.
But Govs that don’t believe that only drivers vote AND want more roads would help.
Likewise that traffic flow and economic development are interlinked, inevitably and beneficial.
@gembo - However MCA acknowledges the e-bike allows for an extended commute. You can live better further away from the city cente.
House prices are so high in centre of gentrified Copenhagen that many workers are probably biking further. This e-powered influx will annoy MCA. His pure pedal powered elite like to cycle from inner city wine bar to Nyhavn beer kellers on good Danish steel cykels!
Many good points made about how people have got into whatever they use to cycle and why.
Using logic to get people out of their cars doesn't always work. Time for many spent stationery in a comfortable car means time to listen to music, browse your phone etc. You also have the 'comfort' of knowing that everyone else does it too - so you get group re-enforcement. Know we do our best here to get some of that vibe for people on bikes. When I used to tell people I could tandem across town in less time than driving, people didn't care as they concluded it was sweaty, dangerous and a risk for our child.
Now with e-bikes they just think it's dangerous and too expensive! 'Safe routes' is the question I'm asked most after sorting out funding from EST etc. Also bike security.
Then on recumbent trikes & tandem models the 'how will it fit in a car?' question. (Helios has been banned on some Fife trains according to someone).
The bike subscription schemes are quite interesting as a way of controlling costs (in the short term) or allowing try before you buy. Options seem to be limited unless you are in a big city.
Rather similar to car leasing which is pretty tame stuff compared to the mad financialisation of car sales these days.
“The EST loans are the starting point.“
But do enough people know about them?
On a ‘more of the same but different’ future, perhaps it’s time a major car manufacture produced a range of ebikes.
They have facilities, technologies, skilled workforce, advertising and distribution sorted.
AND can imagine a future where fewer people want to buy/own cars.
Must be too busy lobbying for more of the same (subsidies and roads).
@chdot: perhaps it’s time a major car manufacture produced a range of ebikes
If you Google around a bit, it seems that a fair number of car manufacturers have, at various times in the not so distant past (mostly I think after 250kW EAPCs became legal), dabbled in e-bikes* to a greater or lesser extent. Even Vauxhall, which seems to specialise in manufacturing cars for (for want of a better description) Daily Express readers, appears to have dipped a very tentative toe in that water once upon a time. But it doesn't look like any of them did so with any great enthusiasm or energy - at least in the UK.
I wonder also whether, if someone is genuinely considering getting a bike as well as or instead of a car, they are at all likely to head to their nearest car dealership. I'd hazard a guess that it's Halfords that picks up the biggest chunk of that "bike curious motorist" market. And there are probably too many folks who don't look upon their car as just a means of transport but regard it as a status symbol, the absence of which would significantly undermine their self-esteem (harking back perhaps to what Mrs Thatcher probably didn't actually say about a man taking the bus at the age of 30 being a failure).
* And even ordinary bikes. I'm pretty sure that when I bought my Skoda back in 2010 the brochure included bikes - but more as 'leisure accessories' for the car, rather than as vehicular transport in their own right. No idea how many they sold - and I certainly didn't need another one! In fact, it seems that there's a Skoda dealer in Lincoln that does actually sell a Skoda ebike.
For some reason, I have been "invited" to comment on this thread, so here goes:
The comments made in the video on Copenhagen bridges are unique to Colville-Andersen, others have made similar criticises, he is just showing the nowhere is perfect.
Yes, Colville-Andersen does have a weird blind spot on e-bikes, although I know for a fact that he is perfectly happy to ride in the front of an e-assisted cargo bike.
There seems to be a confusion between standard pedelecs (limited to 25 Km/h) s-pedelecs (limited to 45 Km/h) and North American pedelecs (which are legal up to 35 mph, depending on state). Mixing standard pedelecs and ordinary bikes isn't really a problem, the problem come when mixing s-pedelecs with other cycles in busy areas due to the potential speed differentials. The e-bikes are cheating is just bunkum (unless you are in an official race, in which case it is definitely cheating). There are perfectly valid reasons to use an e-bike over a conventional cycle for transport.
Mr fimm's comment about 20% of the population of Austria owns an e-bike, while I haven't been to Austria since early January 2020 (for obvious reason), this doesn't come as any surprise to me. Having observed the changes in cycle use in Austria over the last 20 years, there has been a massive rise in the number of e-bikes there within the last five to six years.
Really, don't get why we would want "a major car manufacture produced a range of ebikes". The existing e-bike producers are doing a great job of producing ebikes, which in Europe, are easily out selling e-cars. All the bike/trikes I have seen car manufacture brand as their own are pretty much rubbish. That includes the new VW cargo bike, which they are showing off at this year's IAA in Munch. The future of e-moblity isn't car shaped, so just let the automotive dinosaurs die...
If we want to encourage further uptake of e-bikes, all that is needed is to divert the subsidies away from >£30k e-cars into more affordable e-bikes and cargo bikes (or load cycles in the new jargon). Of course, this will hasten the end of the automotive dinosaurs, but that is no bad thing.
Oh, and the biggest e-bike retailer in the UK is Pure, which is owned by Halfords. Also, of note is that the Halfords Group, earns over half of its annual profits from the cycling side of the business, even if six months worth of stock did get stuck on the Evergiven... ;-)
Was debate at Eurobike about the danger of car manufacturers setting e-bike 'EU type standards' that would limit the variety of designs possible from smaller makes. So end result a badge engineered range from VW Group etc.
If they had the chainguard, mudguards and lighting features of (say) Gazelle then that might be OK for some - especially if it substituted car sales for bikes. Car branded bikes tend to be in sports territory though - a good way to get their logo on something else. In fact most UK bikes are sold with way to few extras to make them usable for those not wanting clothes chewed up and oily. Yes I know dealers can add those but people like the idea of a certain amount of stuff as standard, not just reflectors and a bell.
Was a post about the industry not using the concept of 'car replacement' in promotions. Car industry already has influence on some brands behind the scenes.
In NL e-bikes are a threat to car sales. Here I still notice new e-bikes in private use. I don't count delivery riders as an e-bike is just tool for job.
Bike Works gets around 70 bikes in a week and usually around 5 are e-bikes so far.
@Morningsider thanks for the article. Interesting looking, now just have to lay my hands on the full text...
I think there's a significant section of society who aren't looking for exercise (for better or worse) but they are looking for environmental creds, and this is where the ebike can make deep inroads, for example on the nursery & primary school run. You wear normal clothes, clearly high status vs many of the other parents, who may have high status cars but they are sort of in a "pity tier" now, one under the fashionable electric family bike.
This is far from universal (many parents would fail to recognise the idea that they are in a status tier with a glass ceiling, under the parents whisking past with their kids on ebikes) but I think it's at least on a similar order of magnitude to the modal share for traditional commuting, if not higher - so there's a large potential market. Then ideally we start to make inroads on e.g. trip chaining.
@Laidback,
"When I used to tell people I could tandem across town in less time than driving, people didn't care as they concluded it was sweaty, dangerous and a risk for our child.
Now with e-bikes they just think it's dangerous and too expensive! "
Drivers (people) will do pretty much anything to defend the choice they have made, so I'm not surprised by these "arguments". Basically cycling is too weird and non-normative for the majority of people. Of course we know that wasn't always the case. Changing the mindset though is going to be hard, especially with the (electric) car industry bulldozing everything before it...
Was in Dundee today. After being reminded of the "bracing" fumes and noise from speeding vehicles tearing down the urban dual carriageway I was walking alongside, a short distance away outside the Dundee Science Centre I was pleased to note a row of shiny looking e-bikes available for hire.
I didn't try one (you have to scan a QR code, download an app to your phone etc. and I don't have a contract phone, my smartphone is rather old, and so on) but reading the instructions it looks pretty straightforward for those with a recent phone and mobile data (which is most people except me). I presume the docking station is also the charging port, at least it looked like it from examining a station where no e-bike was present.
“Really, don't get why we would want "a major car manufacture produced a range of ebikes".”
To repeat -
They have facilities, technologies, skilled workforce, advertising and distribution sorted.AND can imagine a future where fewer people want to buy/own cars.
I’m not saying it’s what I want to happen, but short of an ideal world where governments do sensible things and major capital intense industries think ‘planet and people’ before profits for shareholders, perhaps it’s a worthwhile option.
So far the car industry’s involvement in electric bikes has been largely inept - possible even a deliberate sabotage attempt!
‘People won’t want rubbish ebikes so we can just carry on as usual.’
This is from a two year old article -
“
The industry has a poor track record with electric cars. General Motors’ EV1 appeared on American roads in 1996, the same year the auto industry successfully lobbied against a mandate from the California Air Resources Board to make more electric vehicles.
“
https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2019/08/business/electric-cars-audi-volkswagen-tesla/
As I also said -
Must be too busy lobbying for more of the same (subsidies and roads).
From the same article -
“
By the end of 2030, it wants four of every 10 cars it sells to be electric
“
Things change.
YES, a lot depends on Gov policies and rules and subsidies.
Can niche bike companies in Europe, expand to meet future demands?
Do they want to?
Quite likely that EU will help in ways that UK Govs are unlikely to.
Will Pure/Halfords become a major manufacturer (not just importer)? Possible.
Will it become UK manufacturer (again)? Seems unlikely, they used to make bikes in South Wales, but then Raleigh used to have a big factory in Nottingham.
SO
The future
More of the same?
A minority wanting an electric bike while normal people buy bigger and heavier cars.
Or?
Car manufacturers certainly do not imagine a future where fewer people want to own* cars.
*Including pseudo-ownership, like PCP schemes, where you never actually own the car.
The reason they create branded e-bikes is to get people in the door, a kind of loss-leader, like the supermarkets do. It's also partly advertising, "look we are inclusive on transport" and the e-bike is seen as a motoring accessory. All they really want to do is sell cars.
It was the same with car-radios, when they were first introduced as standard. No one ever wanted or needed a car radio because cars were too noisy. Manufacturers didn't make any money out of them. But they put them in as standard, because they knew that creating a living room inside your car would drive dependency... And so it continues today, with people driving about with entire living rooms attached a.k.a Range Rovers, XC90s, X7s, etc.
"You've got the car, now you've got all the bells and whistles too. Look how rich and high status you are. Living the dream..."
“Car manufacturers certainly do not imagine a future where fewer people want to own* cars”
Hard to know what car manufacturers are actually anticipating. Don’t suppose many were ‘prepared’ for the rapid (in manufacturing cycle terms) phasing out of petrol/diesel.
Question is how much they are lobbying/fighting for more of the same - ie urban areas dominated by ever larger and more expensive 4 wheelers.
Any ‘alternative’ can’t be expected to rely on a few people dedicated/affluent enough to opt for simpler e-transport.
Will an existing car manufacture (having spent a lot of money ‘understanding’ electric) produce something ’good’ at a price enabled by economies of scale?
Will an existing bike manufacturer/distributor scale up to enable something reliable and ‘affordable’?
Will Govs significantly alter the incentive/subsidy balance away from cars?
Are we stuck ‘post’ Covid with more car use, LESS cycle infrastructure, etc??
Tesla have made electric cars work according to journalist Peter Curran driving e car LEJOG
You must log in to post.
Cycling in Edinburgh Flickr group
Video embedded using Easy Video Embed plugin
posts