Getting Started
Everyone's journey will be different, but here are some resources and intermediate steps I've found useful on the way to relying on (e)cycling more.
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Everyone's journey will be different, but here are some resources and intermediate steps I've found useful on the way to relying on (e)cycling more.
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I in NYC and JC for years. I loved it and still love it. Electric-citibike inventory is hitting critical mass, and the system is expanding all the time. I will always keep on auto-renew ($179, or less than 2x a monthly MetroCard; still a great value).
There's also an explosion of scooter-shares, moped-shares, on-demand e-bike leasing services, etc. In my experience, most such things are worth signing up for and trying to use a few times, or for a few months, to see how they can fit in to your life.
I "graduated" to owning a bike somewhat accidentally; my local ferry shut down during COVID and I needed to get to a ferry stop in Hoboken (outside the Citibike JC area at the time… ). I'd also started to want to do longer rides, and felt constrained by the Citibike network limits.
When I started researching buying bikes, I rented a few bikes from my local . One afternoon on convinced me that, though I love Citibike, I'd outgrown it more than I realized, and a whole new class of mobility and freedom awaited from owning (vs. renting ≤45mins at a time) a nicer/lighter/faster bike.
I definitely recommend seeing if you can rent a few different kinds of bikes – including e-bikes! – as a way of learning about the options in a way that is more visceral than anything you can get reading reviews.
This is a big topic and I am not an expert. .
A few specific safety sub-topics:
Here are :
Bicyclists killed or seriously injured (KSI) is roughly flat since 2000 (around 350/yr)
The rate (per 10MM trips) dropped from ≈80 in 2000 to ≈10 in 2018
Cities are often the safest places to cycle, because cars aren't going as fast:
As I've ridden longer, and as cycling infra has improved around me, I less frequently run into situations that scare me or spike my blood pressure. I've become more deferential to pedestrians and the letter of the prevailing traffic laws. The whole cycling experience has become de-adrenalized a bit.
That's allowed me to notice that fear is consistently the reason that I make mistakes, break traffic laws, etc. A driver will do something scary, or I will find myself extremely vulnerable on a road designed for cars, and my priorities shift. I generally don't fault vulnerable road users prioritizing their safety.
Cyclists would rather be on roads than on sidewalks, but will always use sidewalks where roads are not safe.
The solution to sidewalk-riding nuisances is to make roads safe for cycling. Pedestrian/Cyclist conflicts are a distraction from cars' being allocated most public space.
Cyclists should stop at stop signs and wait at red lights, but a 250lb cyclist+bike running a stop is very different than a driver doing so (in a 4000lb car with its own climate and sound system, and a 100mph top speed):
A cyclist slowing (e.g. to yield to any pedestrians present) before rolling through a stop sign at 5mph has similar kinetic energy as a car rolling through a stop at 1mph.
Cyclist also generally have better situational awareness than a driver, and more at stake (being more vulnerable in the event of a crash).
I always ride with a helmet, but a lot of discourse around helmet-wearing involves blaming cyclists who are victims of bad infrastructure and negligent drivers; this distracts from discussion and action around the root issues.
Lights are definitely useful for safety; "more" is "merrier" as far as I'm concerned.
Something I like about ebikes is that most of them have integrated lights. Not having to fuss with charging separate lights makes the whole process of riding safely at night much simpler.
Drivers seem to mess with me less when I'm wearing hi-viz.
Google Maps Street View has been indispensable for checking out roads before riding them.
Here is a route I made (and hope to ride soon) that includes 23 NYC bridges (all Manhattan bridges and a few in Brooklyn and Roosevelt/Randall's Islands) and 1 boat:
Both Strava and RideWithGPS make it easy to export and import things in GPX or other formats, so data portability is easy, which is refreshing.
This is mostly a non-starter as ebike batteries are generally larger than the FAA and commercial airlines' allowable limits.
Lithium batteries with more than 100 watt hours
Carry On Bags: ❗️ Yes (Special Instructions)
Checked Bags: ❌ No
❗️ The final decision rests with the TSA officer on whether an item is allowed through the checkpoint.
Other modes are generally friendly to multi-modal travel that includes e-bikes:
Electric bicycles under 50 lbs. are allowed in checked baggage and on trains with walk-on bicycle service. Gas-powered motorized bicycles are prohibited.
I frequently bring ebikes on the NY Waterway ferry (between NYC and NJ)
I've run in to a couple of grey areas:
In general, some e-bike prohibitions seem aimed at heavier-duty (esp. throttle) e-bikes; my pedal-assist bikes generally look/weigh/fit similarly to regular bicycles, and get a pass.
It starts at $2300, but I added:
VanMoof's 3yr theft+maintenance plan ($590);
Still waiting on delivery, have not needed it that badly
Excited to be able to go on longer rides (it should extend my range, using liberal boost, from ≈30mi to ≈50mi)
This was consistently one of the highest-quality review sites I saw. I learned to seek them out on a Google results page, or go there directly to search for a specific bike.
They did the best job of showing critical stats about bikes in an easy-to-scan format, especially including stats that the industry is sheepish and user-hostile about (*ahem* bike weight *ahem*).
Nice forum with encouraging/inspirational stories and examples
:
In a 2014 analysis, incidence of cycling death took place at a mean rate of 4.7 deaths per 100 million kilometers cycled in the U.S., compared to 1.3 deaths per 100 million kilometers in Germany, 1.0 in the Netherlands, and 1.1 in Denmark. In the United Kingdom, cyclists have half of the rate (killed and serious injury per km) of motorcyclists but eight times the rate for motorists.
Biking is often safer if you can match the speed of traffic, .
Several states have laws, which allow cyclists to treat stops as yields and lights as stops. These are great, not least of all because they emphasize yielding to pedestrians in a way that gets lost when cyclists have been overlooked (and asked to follow rules made for cars, by default).
is a good read; beginners are taught to be careful with the front brake (left hand), to avoid potentially going over the handlebars. As you get more comfortable riding, you should reincorporate the front brake for maximum stopping power.
; they are a symptom of dangerous roads that should be addressed directly.
Helmets are not designed to protect against collisions with cars, and there is evidence (, ) that drivers pass helmet-wearing cyclists more dangerously.
.
; arguably better policy is to require helmet for car occupants:
See also: .
See also: .
I usually wear :
also lets you print custom images on it:
Ironically, it can even help identify when Google Maps directions are sending you somewhere unsafe, like :
:
I also used Street View extensively when making (); after a while you can get pretty fast at warping ahead by many increments, zooming in to scan for speed limit signs, and using the map detail in the lower-left to teleport longer distances, but it gets a bit tedious after a while. An interface better tailored to this use case would help.
I've also been surprised not to find any decent map apps that make it easy to see roads' speed-limits at a glance. I suspect the required data may exist in , but haven't had a chance to explore it much yet.
is one of the best tools for planning/sharing/discovering bike routes.
For example, :
also has route-planning features that seem decent; on Strava.
Inspired by , I made a while staying up there for a few weeks and trying to plan rides (for myself and others less experienced, where it was extra important not to accidentally end up on no-shoulder 45mph roads):
:
Lithium batteries with more than 100 watt hours may be allowed in carry-on bags with airline approval. One spare battery, not exceeding 300 watt hours, or two spare batteries, not exceeding 160 watt hours each, are permitted in carry-on bags. For more information, see the .
I think is within the limit here, as its battery is 300Wh, and the bike itself (and can also be checked).
A folded can fit into a large checked bag, in principle, but I don't know of a way to fly with the 400Wh battery.
The and don't fold, and would basically have to be taken apart to be shipped, and their 504Wh and 320Wh internal batteries are too large to fly commercially.
says:
That means all my e-bikes should be allowed (the weighs in at 49lbs, without anything on it; , but since it folds up I am optimistic it would be allowed)
, though there's been a lot of pushback and that they are not planning to enforce it (at least not very strictly).
, though we've taken the and on them without a problem:
The is the cheapest of my 4 ebikes, but is the best all-around and my go-to e-bike for trips around greater NYC.
($89), ($69)
($250)
($47) for toasty hands in below-freezing temps (I've only had it during winter months, so far)
($14) for securing items in the front basket
($350)
This $3k-$4k package should let you replace/improve a wide class of trips that you'd otherwise use other modes for. . Also, the bike + plan can be financed for $83/mo.
RadPower are a popular brand that . ; they seem to be easy to order online and shipping reasonably quickly.
Here's are their reviews of and my . Their brand pages are great too: was very useful in sorting through .
Vendor-specific subreddits are often, e.g. or .
