The ebike revolution is a myth. Maybe it should stay that way.

The story about an abrupt closure of a local ebike dealer has sparked yet another discussion about how much sense ebikes make, and how the ebike revolution would be asesome if only more people would buy in, or something like that.

The problem is that ebikes are simply not as sustainable as ordinary, human-powered bikes. In our current manufacturing, recycling and fiscal landscape, they can't be.

When you can buy a cheap ordinary bike and fix it up for a fraction of the cost of buying an ebike, and the ebike market is fraught with uncertainty, why buy an ebike? 

People want ebikes because they want to be able to live carfree and travel without breaking a sweat. You can't have it both ways.
Ebikes do allow you to transport more cargo, and they do allow you to travel farther and up steeper hills, but that doesn't necessarily make them a better alternative.

They cost a lot more than a regular bicycle. They cost more to maintain. Transit systems don't allow them on the bike racks of their buses because they're too heavy, and some don't allow them on trains because of the danger of a battery meltdown in close proximity to passengers.

And while you see lots of them zipping around Portland, they are mostly seen in nicer neighborhoods, closer in to town, where there are more people living who can afford to own, maintain and store them. Go east of 122nd Avenue and watch the number of ebikes on the road fall. East Multnomah County is where all the poor people got pushed when the rents went up close in 15-20 years ago. If they're working, they can barely afford the cheap, decaying apartments they live in. They sure as hell can't afford an ebike, and if they somehow manage to obtain one they can't store it securely. Few apartments have secure storage, and some ap[artments won't allow you to keep a regular bike in your apartment. Even if you get past all of these barriers, an ebike is just too damned heavy to sneak up the stairs. 

Hell, you can buy a cheap used car and get it running again for less than the price of some ebikes. 

People in the comments section of the article linked above are complaining about the sudden closure of an ebike shop, and some are lamenting that they'd expected to see an ebike "revolution" by now.

I don't think such a revolution is coming. Certainly not here in the US. 

Most urban areas of US cities are too big and spread out for even the most efficient ebikes to make sense. Public transit has never been as popular or well-supported here as it is in smaller, more dense European cities. Bicycle infrastructure barely exists at all in many big US cities, and if the current regime has its way that won't change. 

How do we live with an unfavorable reality? We adapt.

We adjust our expectations and find ways to live within the limitations set by other forces.
That is what I have done for over fifty years, living as I have in a city with steep hills (dead volcanoes, mostly) and limitations on where public transit goes.
I still ride an "analog" bike. I don't ride it as often, as fast or as fast as I used to, and I've had to adjust accordingly with age. But when I become too old and infirm to ride it anymore, I will not switch to an ebike. In the US, trying to build a life around ebiking is a Faustian bargain. Even if you can afford all of the costs of purchase and maintenance (and let's be honest -- for most people, that means paying someone else to fix it), there's still the longer-term question of supply of ebikes and batteries, and the sustainability of the entire enterprise.
At least I live in a city with better public transit than most (though with the present round of budget cuts and fiscal re-prioritizing, that could change).

Maybe things will improve enough that ebikes become ubiquitous one day, but I don't we'll see that anytime soon, at least here in the US. 

Ebikes are cool and interesting and they can even be fun, but they won't revolutionize transportation in this country.

(Photo: me, in my younger, more heroic days. I rode this Surly Big Dummy eleven miles round trip twice a week with my guitar, battling bad bike infrstructure and entitled motorists the whole way. After a few years, I decided my rattled nerves and excessive fatigue simply weren't worth the risk, especially during Portland's rainy season. I sold the Big Dummy and took my guitar on transit. I got over my sadness, and carried on.)

The “warmth of collectivism” is still a lie.

Zohran Mamdani was sworn in this week as New York City’s next mayor.

While many applauded his vision and his goals of making life more affordable, I hung back.

Why?

I wasn’t quite sure at first. On paper, his goals of free child care and free public transit, stronger rent controls and renters’ protections, ticked a lot of boxes on my personal checklist of Making The World More Fair. His history of antisemitic statements and postures, easy to spot if you knew where to look, was made murkier by a spin machine designed to get him elected. Pure politics, nothing to see here, blah blah blah.

Even some of my Jewish friends — mostly leaning farther to the left than I do — thought he’d be a breath of fresh air for NYC. I remained silent, because I didn’t know enough and because I live three thousand miles away, well beyond his reach.

And then, in his inauguration speech, he said the thing that brought it all back, that made me feel the betrayal all over again: “We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.”

The warmth of collectivism.

It was the promise held out to me when I signed on to join the staff of a collectively run bicycle business back in 1995. A promise of transparency, mutual support, honesty and equality. A promise that everyone’s contribution would be equally important and equally valued. A promise of a workplace that would not be hostile to difference, but open to learning, personal and collective growth, and respect.

I believed in that promise, and stayed on for nearly twenty years.

I stayed on through endless committee and board meetings, worker reviews and shop floor dynamics that showed me again and again that I could not possibly work hard enough or well enough to feel fully embraced by the mutual support, respect or acceptance of difference that had been held out to me as a carrot. I was too different from too many other co-workers, who were uncomfortable with my Jewishness, my direct communication style and my avoidance of alcohol and recreational drugs. My articulate, thoughtful demeanor was no match for the bullying tactics of the women who thought I somehow betrayed their very selective form of feminism, and the bullying tactics of men who simply brandished their force of personality like a bludgeon to get their way in questions of policy and functional operations.

I stayed because I loved my work. I stayed because I loved bicycles, and I loved getting customers excited about riding them. I stayed because I liked not having to cower in front of a boss — indeed, the length of time it took for most decisions to be reached by consensus assured everyone’s job security well past any reasonable point and allowed everyone (including me) to find their own ways to game an overly permissive and dismissive system.

In the end, though, when I most needed the mutual support promised by the cooperative structure, I was effectively shut out from that support in favor of the biggest bully on the board. Because his bone of contention reeked of antiZionism, which is often a slippery slope to antisemitism, it was simply easier for my coworkers to refuse to censor his shop floor speech and off-schedule actions and wait for me to get up and leave. I read the room, instantly knew that it could not be any other way, turned in my keys and quit on the spot. While I was downstairs cashing out my parts credit page, one of my coworkers came to me in tears and begged me to stay.

“Why?” I asked her. “You didn’t beg me in the meeting, in front of everyone else. I don’t need that kind of support.” And I left.

Although I have moved on and even healed from my personal experience of that time and place, Mamdani brought back the memory of it all in an instant with his statement.

The ugly truth is that the “warmth of collectivism” is still a lie. Beneath the facade of pure socialism, some people are still more valuable than others, and some people will never be welcome for one reason or another. Beneath the protests and chants and the performative poverty of a few charismatic, photogenic leaders, socialism is a costume hanging on the backs of human beings who are just as flawed and self-interested as you and I are.

You want to protest in the streets, fine.
But how far will you go?

Are you willing to chain yourself to a government building, or break windows, and demand the the government restore mental health services and drug treatment for everyone who needs it?

Would you hijack a Safeway truck, or a fleet of them, and divert the contents to feed those in greatest need?

Are you willing to bring a homeless person in off the street, house and clothe and feed them and help them get on their feet? Are you willing to personally help them get clean and sober?

Are you just as willing to take in an illegal immigrant to protect them from ICE, even if it means getting arrested yourself for aiding and abetting?

..::cue crickets::..

My Jewish tradition teaches me that human beings contain within them a combination of good and bad inclinations. We have both, we need both, and we need to figure out how to navigate a balance between them that will allow us to be decent human beings. No collectivist — or me-first — movement will honor that striving for balance. Maybe that’s part of the reason why Jews remain suspect in the larger society. I don’t know.

Sooner or later, people who speak out against Mamdani and his favorites will find themselves shut out of his warm collective. And no matter our values and intentions, some of us will never belong. In fact, some of us won’t belong in any identifiable group a great deal of the time. So we practice moderated, shifting levels of self-reliance -- and when necessary, societal camouflage -- and learn how to balance those with some degree of thoughtful socialization. In the messy middle, there is only a messy balance to be struggled for.

Meet me in the middle. Let’s talk over a cup of coffee and see what we can learn together. But let’s not be blinded by promises of things which aren’t humanly possible. Let’s be real.