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#[1]Craig Mod — Writer + Photographer
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[2]About Craig
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[3]Books & [4]Essays
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[5]Talks
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Header image for Electric Bike, Stupid Love of My Life
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Electric Bike, Stupid Love of My Life
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Reflections on eighteen months of electric bike ownership
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My electric bike sings, emits a nearly imperceptible hum from its tiny
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motor. I love its song. A song of peace and magic. Has money ever
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bought as much delight as the delight of an electric bike?
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The first time I rode one was nearly a decade ago, in Kyoto. The
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electric bike I rented was huge and unwieldy, but that tug of its motor
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never left my mind. I went to climb a hill and it felt as if a giant
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had gently placed his hand on my back and pushed me forward. That
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stupid smile has been on my face ever since.
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Two years ago I rented another one. This one smaller, lighter, the
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motor more powerful. I was convinced. This is the way. Eighteen months
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ago, in the heart of the pandemic, I committed and bought my first
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electric bike and have never looked back.
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__________________________________________________________________
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Indulge me — a summer afternoon: Soaring down the coast, the ocean to
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one side and a strand of old pines to the other. The afternoon sun
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beats down but it feels cool and there’s something irrationally
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stirring — downright emotional — about the efficiency of this dumb
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machine beneath my body. The motor looks too small — just a black
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cylinder on the hub of the wheel. And yet it moves. It sings that song.
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A subtle hum. A beautiful hum. It makes me want to ride and ride,
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ridiculous distances, nonsensical distances. I don’t want to get to
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where I’m going because I want the ride to last longer. I want to
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linger in this space as long as possible, this space of smooth and
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efficient movement through the world, gliding in near total mechanical
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silence, just the sound of rubber on the pavement, wind in my ears,
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breaking waves, salt, the smell of pine. This is what electric bikes
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do: They drive you insane with the poetry of the world.
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__________________________________________________________________
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A strange trio A few of my old bikes: A mamachari, carbon fiber road
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bike, and Kalavinka
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[13]#So Many Bikes
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All my standing life, I’ve biked. As a kid I rode a K-Mart Huffy to a
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rusted nub and then managed to nab a Haro Group 1. As an adult, bikes
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have been one of my few material indulgences (unwittingly,
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organically). In the past twenty years alone I’ve owned some fifteen
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bikes. I’ve had aluminum and carbon Bianchi road bikes. I’ve had steel
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Kalavinka keirin bikes with gorgeous head badges. I’ve had folding
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Dahon and Birdy BD-1s. I’ve had a handful of beloved brandless
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throwaway mamacharis — shopping bikes — that have proven hearty and fun
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in their own ways, and have each died uniquely. I’ve gone out of my way
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to get a handmade Arrow cruiser from a builder in Ogikubo. I still have
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a custom orange Moulton that I’ve modified into a single-speed city
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bomber that goes remarkably fast while floating atop its simple
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suspension.
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And on and on — bikes. Why? Because as any bike lover will tell you, to
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be ensorcelled by the bike is to crave one and only one thing: More
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bike. Each new bike is like riding once again for the first time.
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Exploring a city on a mamachari is different than a BD-1 is different
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than a Moulton. All thrilling. The bikes change, and so, too does your
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relationship to the pavement. My love for bikes has no categorical
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allegiances; if it has two wheels, and pedals, I’m interested. I want
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to ride them all.
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A Moulton Tiny, but fast, nearly flawless as a city machine — a Moulton
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with converted stem, Sugino cranks, coaster brake
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__________________________________________________________________
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Summers in most of Japan have never been easy. The temperatures England
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flirted with in 2022 are temperatures Tokyoites have contended with for
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centuries (and now contend with ones even higher). Crushing heat
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coupled with suffocating humidity. A three-shower-a-day kinda summer.
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Watch an Ozu film and observe the languid and supine impulse of its
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inhabitants during summertime scenes — that’s not affect, it’s
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survival. In Japan’s August, you simply can’t walk a block without
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losing most of your moisture.
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Bikes have always helped. A bicycle generates a microclimate with
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minimal effort. Standing on a street corner you may be soaked, but on a
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bike, the wind whooshing past, you are crisp(er) and dry(er). An
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electric bike only amplifies the effect.
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When I was a child I dreamt of having a personal helicopter. Powered by
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my feet and a bit of magic (certainly not gasoline, oddly, thinking
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back on it now). I imagined quietly gliding over the city in this tiny
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contraption, floating from home to video rental shop to diner, stopping
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by a friend’s house along the way. An electric bike gets me most of the
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way to this feeling.
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In the past eighteen months I’ve put several thousand kilometers on my
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electric bikes. It feels like cheating in every best possible way. I
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live in a seaside town south of Tokyo and traffic can get ridiculous,
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its ancient roads sized for horses, not cars. The electric bike swoops
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between and alongside these stale processions of heat and burning fuel.
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Drifting behind a gas-powered scooter or moped feels like observing
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some Victorian contraption — inefficient and loud and clunky and
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burdensome and pollutant. And not much faster (often much slower) or
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more useful than an electric bike.
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__________________________________________________________________
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A Vanmoof and a BESV My friend's S3 and my BESV (the X3 looks like a
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slightly smaller version of the S3)
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[14]#Electrics
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I own two electric bikes. My first purchase was the strangely named
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BESV PSA1 — which is a smaller wheeled (20"), rear-wheel drive machine,
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with mostly off-the-shelf components allowing you to customize it to
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your liking. ^[15]1 And then, because I was so enamored by the BESV —
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so seduced by its small motor of umph, so wanting more and different
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electric bike experiences — I went and picked up a front-wheel drive
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Vanmoof X3 — the smaller-wheeled brother (24") to Vanmoof’s (quite
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frankly) giant S3 — just a few months later.
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I love them both like damaged brothers, because both of these bikes are
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flawed in frustrating ways.
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The electronic brain on the BESV is as dumb as they come.^[16]2 The
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settings reset each time you turn the bike on. The acceleration curves
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feel unrefined — herky-jerky, you might say. Its app is the worst app I
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have on my phone — badly designed, nearly functionally useless, clearly
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engineered without love. And yet. Despite these flaws I put hundreds of
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kilometers on this thing in the first month. The front and rear
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suspension turn every road to glass, and are even fine for dirt trails;
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I find myself hunting down paths through parks I’d never otherwise
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think about. Suddenly every hilly road is a thing demanding to be
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explored. Up up up the little machine yells, and you follow its
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command.
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Guests who stay at my studio are given the BESV to ride. We take it
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down the coast. It never fails to amaze. One friend felt compelled to
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pet it upon dismount, saying, Good job, buddy, so quick and deep was
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the affection for the thing.
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The Vanmoof is much smarter — the brain and software within it are
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refined, the app good, the acceleration curves smooth — but the bike is
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all custom components, and they aren’t the highest quality at that. The
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automatic shifting mechanism on mine failed twice in the first two
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months, requiring shipping the bike to the Vanmoof store.^[17]3 The
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seat post bolt broke off in the post. The original plastic pedals felt
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cheap and flimsy (pedals are one of the few things you can swap for
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your own). The aluminum frame is too stiff for the speed the bike
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generates — it can feel like you’ve been rattled to death after a bumpy
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road. (And stiffness mitigation by lowering tire pressure seems to only
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increase possibility of puncture.) But, more than all that, the design
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of the bike has a dangerous fundamental flaw: The bottom bracket is
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simply too low.
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Of all my many, many bikes, I’ve never had a pedal bottom out. On this
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Vanmoof X3? Dozens of times. Most critically during a turn at speed —
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the pedal hit the pavement, jumped the bike sideways, and sent me
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flying. It’s the only bad crash I’ve had in decades. So I’ve had to
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modify the way I ride — no pedaling into or out of turns, hyper
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awareness of deviations in lateral road slope — because, despite all
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this, I can’t stop riding this stupid thing. It sings — that hum. It is
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joy. I reach for it daily and it takes me around the peninsula and
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makes me happy to be alive.
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__________________________________________________________________
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BESV @ Lee's Bread, Oiso I've written about three electric bike rides
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for Papersky Magazine: Misaki, Oiso, and Yokosuka.
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Allow me to share a dirty secret: More often than not, at midnight I
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can’t repress the impulse — I have to take a bike out. Out the bike
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comes and together we head into the empty streets of my town and hum
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our way all over, visiting temples in total silence. There are no cars.
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Often no people. It feels illicit — this slipping around town, this
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sliding into temple parking lots in the shroud of the night, looking at
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their old beams, feeling ten years old and grateful for both the
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ability and awareness to be doing just this very thing at this very
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moment.
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__________________________________________________________________
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I’ve long since posited world peace could be achieved if you bought
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everyone in the world a bike, but now I want those bikes to be
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electric. I want everyone to feel this silliness, this punch-drunk
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stupidity of pure love, this sense of cheating the rules, the norms,
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this sense of ever-present delight. At our worst, humans mindlessly
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consume, sear the earth and each other, fill our bodies with poisons.
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At our best we invent electric bikes. Batteries have gotten more
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efficient, motors smaller and more powerful. The last decade has
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brought great efficiency to these machines, and the next ten years will
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only double down on these gains. Electric bike numbers are up, year
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over year over year. Tremendously so. Those who know, proselytize. We
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can’t help it. The charm is too great. The game non- zero sum. The more
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people who know, the better the world. It’s a wild notion, this sense
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of goodness to be had if you just reach out for it. Goodness with no
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real downside. Like solar panels or wind turbines, electric bikes are
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machines that buoy the spirit and the earth.
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__________________________________________________________________
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Buy the best electric bike you can within your budget. Stretch if
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possible. Usually, the more you spend the lighter the machine, the more
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powerful the motor, the longer-lasting the battery. Depending on which
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country you live in top speeds will differ. In Japan the bike’s are
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capped at 24km/h. In America, 32km/h. Some places only allow for
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pedal-assist — meaning the motor only works when pedaling. Others allow
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throttles, blurring the line between bike and scooter. Laws will change
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in the coming years as more people adopt the machines and cities
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themselves adapt. This is just the start. Ten years ago it was fairly
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rare to see an electric bike around Tokyo. Today, it seems as if every
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parent hauling their kids is doing so electrically.
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A good strategy: Find a local bike shop that will let you try out
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several electric bikes. Some have front-hub motors, others rear-hub
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motors. Others, the motor sits in the center, between the cranks. Each
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has a subtly different feel. Going up a hill, a front-motor’d machine
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may skip or slip as you pull back on the handlebars, but on flat land
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will feel more like being tugged through the world.
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Sure, electric bikes aren’t cheap. But I believe they’re a rare object
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to be well worth the cost. This in spite of their annoying flaws, their
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often bad software, their defective geometries. Because they open the
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world. Whatever world may have been nearby, an electric bike brings it
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nearer. This is worth more than you might estimate. These bikes sing
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their little songs and the smile on your face makes you look like a
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village idiot, but what a wonderful idiot to be.
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__________________________________________________________________
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A summer night: Biking home alongside a river. The air is thick with
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humidity and cicadas vibrate wildly in the distance. The moon is out.
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My choices: straight home along the shimmering moonlit river, or take a
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detour, up into the dark mountains, doubling the distance. To my
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surprise, I choose the mountains almost every time. More! That tiny
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child who fantasized about helicopters yells. More of this, whatever
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this is. More more more. And so I feed that impulse, an impulse
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generated and nurtured by the electric bike. Into the shadow mountains
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we go, up, pushed by the hand of that giant, always present, always
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ready to help. It is a ridiculous thing. A thing of peace and magic. An
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owl hoots. The smile has never left my face.
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__________________________________________________________________
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[18]#Noted:
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__________________________________________________________________
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1. I upgraded my BESV to an SRAM drivetrain and Paul brake levers and
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Klamper disc calipers, some MKS pedals, and a set of Brooks grips
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and saddle and it feels wonderful through and through. These Paul
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Klampers are mechanical. The Vanmoof uses (generic?) hydraulic
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brakes. After thousands of kilometers, my conclusion is: hydraulics
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feel nice, but they are fussy (and perhaps Vanmoof’s chosen
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components are sub-optimal) and difficult (?) to tune on your own.
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In the end, I just don’t think they’re worth it. Too “delicate.”
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The Pauls feel as fresh today as the day I put them on, whereas the
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hydraulics have required much bikeshop tuning over the course of
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the last eighteen months. Were the Vanmoof more flexible, I’d
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happily swap out for mechanicals. This lack of flexibility is a
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bummer because, unlike an Apple iPhone, for example, where the
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components tend to be best of class (think: modem, CPU, camera
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unit, etc), the physical components on a Vanmoof most definitely
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aren’t — nor do they offer the option to pay more to get better
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components. [19]↩︎
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2. Oh, how I wish this thing was open source, hackable — because it’s
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so close to great. Sadly — and I don’t know how else to frame this
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— it feels like the engineers behind the software don’t ride bikes.
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At least not this one. The software flaws are so fundamentally
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obvious, that anyone who had a) access to the code, and b) rode the
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bike, couldn’t NOT fix these obvious issues. What I really wish,
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though, is that I could slap the Vanmoof brain onto the BESV body
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and, well, then we’d be in Electric Bike Elysium. [20]↩︎
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3. I’ve since learned — the drive train of the Vanmoof is not to be
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“ridden” like a “bike” but rather, “feathered” like a delicate sand
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castle — assume the gears could explode at any moment and apply the
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least amount of pressure you can; the motor is strong enough to
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take care of most of the rest. In this way, the Vanmoof feels more
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like a moped that uses “pedal assist” as a suggestion than a pure
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electric-assist bike — a smart way to get around motorcycle laws in
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most countries, which I assume is the main point. Not to say you
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don’t get a workout on the Vanmoof, you do, but not nearly as much
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as the more classically committed BESV — which really does require
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you to pedal.
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Maybe this is a good place to bring up the question: Why not just
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get an electric scooter? I think it mainly comes down to
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flexibility and philosophy. With a pedal assist bike (even if the
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pedaling required is minimal) you simply have more flexibility in
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parking, in riding, in “lightness” of transportation, than with an
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electric scooter. Also: Insurance costs, maintenance, and higher
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base cost. And philosophically, being able to still use the bike as
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a “bike” without power feels like an aspect of these machines we
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shouldn’t be so quick to toss aside. [21]↩︎
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This essay, published September 2022. Thoughts? Email
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[22]me@craigmod.com.
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[23]Craig Mod, his head, floating at the bottom of the article
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[24]Craig Mod is a writer and photographer based in Japan. He's the
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author of [25]Kissa by Kissa and a MacDowell, Ragdale, and VCCA writing
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fellow. His essays and articles have appeared in Eater, The Atlantic,
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California Sunday Magazine, Wired, Aeon, New Scientist, Virginia
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Quarterly Review, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Morning News,
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Codex: Journal of Typography, and elsewhere. He writes newsletters, oh
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yes, [26]newsletters: [27]Roden & [28]Ridgeline.
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The work on this site is supported in part by [29]paid memberships.
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____________________
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