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Header image for Electric Bike, Stupid Love of My Life
 

Electric Bike, Stupid Love of My Life

Reflections on eighteen months of electric bike ownership

 

My electric bike sings, emits a nearly imperceptible hum from its tiny motor. I
love its song. A song of peace and magic. Has money ever bought as much delight
as the delight of an electric bike?

The first time I rode one was nearly a decade ago, in Kyoto. The electric bike
I rented was huge and unwieldy, but that tug of its motor never left my mind. I
went to climb a hill and it felt as if a giant had gently placed his hand on my
back and pushed me forward. That stupid smile has been on my face ever since.

Two years ago I rented another one. This one smaller, lighter, the motor more
powerful. I was convinced. This is the way. Eighteen months ago, in the heart
of the pandemic, I committed and bought my first electric bike and have never
looked back.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Indulge me — a summer afternoon: Soaring down the coast, the ocean to one side
and a strand of old pines to the other. The afternoon sun beats down but it
feels cool and there’s something irrationally stirring — downright emotional —
about the efficiency of this dumb machine beneath my body. The motor looks too
small — just a black cylinder on the hub of the wheel. And yet it moves. It
sings that song. A subtle hum. A beautiful hum. It makes me want to ride and
ride, ridiculous distances, nonsensical distances. I don’t want to get to where
I’m going because I want the ride to last longer. I want to linger in this
space as long as possible, this space of smooth and efficient movement through
the world, gliding in near total mechanical silence, just the sound of rubber
on the pavement, wind in my ears, breaking waves, salt, the smell of pine. This
is what electric bikes do: They drive you insane with the poetry of the world.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
A strange trio A few of my old bikes: A mamachari, carbon fiber road bike, and
Kalavinka

[16]#So Many Bikes

All my standing life, I’ve biked. As a kid I rode a K-Mart Huffy to a rusted
nub and then managed to nab a Haro Group 1. As an adult, bikes have been one of
my few material indulgences (unwittingly, organically). In the past twenty
years alone I’ve owned some fifteen bikes. I’ve had aluminum and carbon Bianchi
road bikes. I’ve had steel Kalavinka keirin bikes with gorgeous head badges.
I’ve had folding Dahon and Birdy BD-1s. I’ve had a handful of beloved brandless
throwaway mamacharis — shopping bikes — that have proven hearty and fun in
their own ways, and have each died uniquely. I’ve gone out of my way to get a
handmade Arrow cruiser from a builder in Ogikubo. I still have a custom orange
Moulton that I’ve modified into a single-speed city bomber that goes remarkably
fast while floating atop its simple suspension.

And on and on — bikes. Why? Because as any bike lover will tell you, to be
ensorcelled by the bike is to crave one and only one thing: More bike. Each new
bike is like riding once again for the first time. Exploring a city on a
mamachari is different than a BD-1 is different than a Moulton. All thrilling.
The bikes change, and so, too does your relationship to the pavement. My love
for bikes has no categorical allegiances; if it has two wheels, and pedals, I’m
interested. I want to ride them all.

A Moulton Tiny, but fast, nearly flawless as a city machine — a Moulton with
converted stem, Sugino cranks, coaster brake
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Summers in most of Japan have never been easy. The temperatures England flirted
with in 2022 are temperatures Tokyoites have contended with for centuries (and
now contend with ones even higher). Crushing heat coupled with suffocating
humidity. A three-shower-a-day kinda summer. Watch an Ozu film and observe the
languid and supine impulse of its inhabitants during summertime scenes — that’s
not affect, it’s survival. In Japan’s August, you simply can’t walk a block
without losing most of your moisture.

Bikes have always helped. A bicycle generates a microclimate with minimal
effort. Standing on a street corner you may be soaked, but on a bike, the wind
whooshing past, you are crisp(er) and dry(er). An electric bike only amplifies
the effect.

When I was a child I dreamt of having a personal helicopter. Powered by my feet
and a bit of magic (certainly not gasoline, oddly, thinking back on it now). I
imagined quietly gliding over the city in this tiny contraption, floating from
home to video rental shop to diner, stopping by a friend’s house along the way.
An electric bike gets me most of the way to this feeling.

In the past eighteen months I’ve put several thousand kilometers on my electric
bikes. It feels like cheating in every best possible way. I live in a seaside
town south of Tokyo and traffic can get ridiculous, its ancient roads sized for
horses, not cars. The electric bike swoops between and alongside these stale
processions of heat and burning fuel. Drifting behind a gas-powered scooter or
moped feels like observing some Victorian contraption — inefficient and loud
and clunky and burdensome and pollutant. And not much faster (often much
slower) or more useful than an electric bike.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
A Vanmoof and a BESV My friend's S3 and my BESV (the X3 looks like a slightly
smaller version of the S3)

[17]#Electrics

I own two electric bikes. My first purchase was the strangely named BESV PSA1 —
which is a smaller wheeled (20"), rear-wheel drive machine, with mostly
off-the-shelf components allowing you to customize it to your liking. ^[18]1
And then, because I was so enamored by the BESV — so seduced by its small motor
of umph, so wanting more and different electric bike experiences — I went and
picked up a front-wheel drive Vanmoof X3 — the smaller-wheeled brother (24") to
Vanmoof’s (quite frankly) giant S3 — just a few months later.

I love them both like damaged brothers, because both of these bikes are flawed
in frustrating ways.

The electronic brain on the BESV is as dumb as they come.^[19]2 The settings
reset each time you turn the bike on. The acceleration curves feel unrefined —
herky-jerky, you might say. Its app is the worst app I have on my phone — badly
designed, nearly functionally useless, clearly engineered without love. And
yet. Despite these flaws I put hundreds of kilometers on this thing in the
first month. The front and rear suspension turn every road to glass, and are
even fine for dirt trails; I find myself hunting down paths through parks I’d
never otherwise think about. Suddenly every hilly road is a thing demanding to
be explored. Up up up the little machine yells, and you follow its command.

Guests who stay at my studio are given the BESV to ride. We take it down the
coast. It never fails to amaze. One friend felt compelled to pet it upon
dismount, saying, Good job, buddy, so quick and deep was the affection for the
thing.

The Vanmoof is much smarter — the brain and software within it are refined, the
app good, the acceleration curves smooth — but the bike is all custom
components, and they aren’t the highest quality at that. The automatic shifting
mechanism on mine failed twice in the first two months, requiring shipping the
bike to the Vanmoof store.^[20]3 The seat post bolt broke off in the post. The
original plastic pedals felt cheap and flimsy (pedals are one of the few things
you can swap for your own). The aluminum frame is too stiff for the speed the
bike generates — it can feel like you’ve been rattled to death after a bumpy
road. (And stiffness mitigation by lowering tire pressure seems to only
increase possibility of puncture.) But, more than all that, the design of the
bike has a dangerous fundamental flaw: The bottom bracket is simply too low.

Of all my many, many bikes, I’ve never had a pedal bottom out. On this Vanmoof
X3? Dozens of times. Most critically during a turn at speed — the pedal hit the
pavement, jumped the bike sideways, and sent me flying. It’s the only bad crash
I’ve had in decades. So I’ve had to modify the way I ride — no pedaling into or
out of turns, hyper awareness of deviations in lateral road slope — because,
despite all this, I can’t stop riding this stupid thing. It sings — that hum.
It is joy. I reach for it daily and it takes me around the peninsula and makes
me happy to be alive.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
BESV @ Lee's Bread, Oiso I've written about three electric bike rides for
Papersky Magazine: Misaki, Oiso, and Yokosuka.

Allow me to share a dirty secret: More often than not, at midnight I can’t
repress the impulse — I have to take a bike out. Out the bike comes and
together we head into the empty streets of my town and hum our way all over,
visiting temples in total silence. There are no cars. Often no people. It feels
illicit — this slipping around town, this sliding into temple parking lots in
the shroud of the night, looking at their old beams, feeling ten years old and
grateful for both the ability and awareness to be doing just this very thing at
this very moment.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

I’ve long since posited world peace could be achieved if you bought everyone in
the world a bike, but now I want those bikes to be electric. I want everyone to
feel this silliness, this punch-drunk stupidity of pure love, this sense of
cheating the rules, the norms, this sense of ever-present delight. At our
worst, humans mindlessly consume, sear the earth and each other, fill our
bodies with poisons. At our best we invent electric bikes. Batteries have
gotten more efficient, motors smaller and more powerful. The last decade has
brought great efficiency to these machines, and the next ten years will only
double down on these gains. Electric bike numbers are up, year over year over
year. Tremendously so. Those who know, proselytize. We can’t help it. The charm
is too great. The game non- zero sum. The more people who know, the better the
world. It’s a wild notion, this sense of goodness to be had if you just reach
out for it. Goodness with no real downside. Like solar panels or wind turbines,
electric bikes are machines that buoy the spirit and the earth.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Buy the best electric bike you can within your budget. Stretch if possible.
Usually, the more you spend the lighter the machine, the more powerful the
motor, the longer-lasting the battery. Depending on which country you live in
top speeds will differ. In Japan the bike’s are capped at 24km/h. In America,
32km/h. Some places only allow for pedal-assist — meaning the motor only works
when pedaling. Others allow throttles, blurring the line between bike and
scooter. Laws will change in the coming years as more people adopt the machines
and cities themselves adapt. This is just the start. Ten years ago it was
fairly rare to see an electric bike around Tokyo. Today, it seems as if every
parent hauling their kids is doing so electrically.

A good strategy: Find a local bike shop that will let you try out several
electric bikes. Some have front-hub motors, others rear-hub motors. Others, the
motor sits in the center, between the cranks. Each has a subtly different feel.
Going up a hill, a front-motor’d machine may skip or slip as you pull back on
the handlebars, but on flat land will feel more like being tugged through the
world.

Sure, electric bikes aren’t cheap. But I believe they’re a rare object to be
well worth the cost. This in spite of their annoying flaws, their often bad
software, their defective geometries. Because they open the world. Whatever
world may have been nearby, an electric bike brings it nearer. This is worth
more than you might estimate. These bikes sing their little songs and the smile
on your face makes you look like a village idiot, but what a wonderful idiot to
be.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

A summer night: Biking home alongside a river. The air is thick with humidity
and cicadas vibrate wildly in the distance. The moon is out. My choices:
straight home along the shimmering moonlit river, or take a detour, up into the
dark mountains, doubling the distance. To my surprise, I choose the mountains
almost every time. More! That tiny child who fantasized about helicopters
yells. More of this, whatever this is. More more more. And so I feed that
impulse, an impulse generated and nurtured by the electric bike. Into the
shadow mountains we go, up, pushed by the hand of that giant, always present,
always ready to help. It is a ridiculous thing. A thing of peace and magic. An
owl hoots. The smile has never left my face.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[21]#Noted:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

 1. I upgraded my BESV to an SRAM drivetrain and Paul brake levers and Klamper
    disc calipers, some MKS pedals, and a set of Brooks grips and saddle and it
    feels wonderful through and through. These Paul Klampers are mechanical.
    The Vanmoof uses (generic?) hydraulic brakes. After thousands of
    kilometers, my conclusion is: hydraulics feel nice, but they are fussy (and
    perhaps Vanmoof’s chosen components are sub-optimal) and difficult (?) to
    tune on your own. In the end, I just don’t think they’re worth it. Too
    “delicate.” The Pauls feel as fresh today as the day I put them on, whereas
    the hydraulics have required much bikeshop tuning over the course of the
    last eighteen months. Were the Vanmoof more flexible, I’d happily swap out
    for mechanicals. This lack of flexibility is a bummer because, unlike an
    Apple iPhone, for example, where the components tend to be best of class
    (think: modem, CPU, camera unit, etc), the physical components on a Vanmoof
    most definitely aren’t — nor do they offer the option to pay more to get
    better components. [22]↩︎

 2. Oh, how I wish this thing was open source, hackable — because it’s so close
    to great. Sadly — and I don’t know how else to frame this — it feels like
    the engineers behind the software don’t ride bikes. At least not this one.
    The software flaws are so fundamentally obvious, that anyone who had a)
    access to the code, and b) rode the bike, couldn’t NOT fix these obvious
    issues. What I really wish, though, is that I could slap the Vanmoof brain
    onto the BESV body and, well, then we’d be in Electric Bike Elysium. [23]↩︎

 3. I’ve since learned — the drive train of the Vanmoof is not to be “ridden”
    like a “bike” but rather, “feathered” like a delicate sand castle — assume
    the gears could explode at any moment and apply the least amount of
    pressure you can; the motor is strong enough to take care of most of the
    rest. In this way, the Vanmoof feels more like a moped that uses “pedal
    assist” as a suggestion than a pure electric-assist bike — a smart way to
    get around motorcycle laws in most countries, which I assume is the main
    point. Not to say you don’t get a workout on the Vanmoof, you do, but not
    nearly as much as the more classically committed BESV — which really does
    require you to pedal.

    Maybe this is a good place to bring up the question: Why not just get an
    electric scooter? I think it mainly comes down to flexibility and
    philosophy. With a pedal assist bike (even if the pedaling required is
    minimal) you simply have more flexibility in parking, in riding, in
    “lightness” of transportation, than with an electric scooter. Also:
    Insurance costs, maintenance, and higher base cost. And philosophically,
    being able to still use the bike as a “bike” without power feels like an
    aspect of these machines we shouldn’t be so quick to toss aside. [24]↩︎

[25] [26]

This essay, published September 2022. Thoughts? Email [27]me@craigmod.com.

[28]Craig Mod, his head, floating at the bottom of the article

[29]Craig Mod is a writer and photographer based in Japan. He's the author of
the books [30]Things Become Other Things and [31]Kissa by Kissa and is a
MacDowell, Ragdale, and VCCA writing fellow. His essays and articles have
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, Wired, Aeon, New Scientist, Virginia Quarterly Review, The New Yorker, The
Morning News, Codex: Journal of Typography, and elsewhere.

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