The parent's citation is the one making the distinction
> It's important to note that not all e-bikes are created equal when it comes to exercise benefits. The study found that class 1 e-bikes, which provide pedal assistance up to 20 mph, were the most effective at promoting physical activity. This is because riders still have to pedal and put in some effort to maintain a consistent speed. In contrast, class 2 e-bikes, which have a throttle that allows riders to cruise without pedaling, were found to be less effective at promoting exercise.
Yeah I just read the parent citation for that bit.
I agree with the "common sense" thing, which is why I read the citation.
TL;DR: class 1 electric bikes assist you with peddling, unlike class 2, meaning you can go longer and farther and therefore do more exercise than on a traditional bike.
Electric assist makes you use the same amount of effort, but takes you further so you are getting the same amount of exercise albeit over a longer distance. That's not "more exercise", but more sightseeing.
I'm not making the statement, I'm summarising what the cited article says. If you're after a debate you'll have to contact the people who carried out the study that cited article is based on.
People can only buy what the industry produces, and they tend to desire whatever the industry markets most heavily.
The real culprit, or danger, as the article mentions, is not so much the change in materials and so on, but weaker standardization.
Bikes are still pretty good in this regard, but manufacturers seem to be increasingly producing proprietary parts and part sets, under the guise of innovation. They are not mutually exclusive - it's entirely possible to innovate while being modular and standardized, and in cases where not, create a new standard that everyone can work with.
I think electric bikes are a good example - all the mid-engine motors seem to have entirely different mounts, therefore requiring custom frames. And they seem to be bundled with proprietary electronics up to and including the UI. If this was all modular and standardized, you could pick and choose, and in fact a basic steel bike with electrics could be very sustainable - you may not even need gears, with the electric assist making up the effort as necessary.
Considering the lifetime emissions of a product makes an interesting point. Seeing that an electric cargo bike only has more than 10x the emissions per kilometer than a steel bike was unexpected for me.
It's easy to forget how expensive the manufacturing of the electric engine and the battery is.
I think we're playing a game of trade-offs and the article was speaking more in absolutes. If electric cargo bikes replace cars for a substantial number of trips that's unequivocally a win. The article is asking "how can we make this better".
The emissions created from producing one bike (55kg CO2) is ~6 gallons of gasoline. That’s 120 miles at 20mpg. Or the distance of 3 days worth of commuting for the average American.
I feel like there are bigger fish to fry.
Like the fact that you can’t even safely bike in many American cities. Or that there are people working desk jobs driving to work in a Ford F-350.
I've commuted about 3000 miles on my bike so far over the past year or so. I'll happily sell the excess I offset by biking instead of driving as a carbon credit to anyone that feels really bad about the horrible environmental impact that their very inefficiently manufactured bike has, same way companies do when they want to pretend they have a much lower environmental impact than they actually have.
Putting a price on carbon gets rid of the need for all of these complicated analyses. Things that emit less carbon will be cheaper, and people will only buy things that emit more carbon to whatever extent it is worth it to them. And if you have set the price on carbon correctly, then that price includes all the externalities that they are creating by making that choice.
But you would have to add that price world wide. And so far that's not possible.
Without having that tax worldwide you need a very complicated and impractical scheme of calculating CO2 from imports, and giving a tax credit on exports.
Manufacturing emissions are just nuts. There must be so many low hanging fruits in emissions reductions there -- there's just almost zero incentive to implement them.
Manufacturing efficiencies are implemented all the time. Because that reduces cost (= manufacturer more competitive and/or increased profit).
Emissions are high because manufacturing involves so many process steps. Tubing is more expensive than its raw material. More so when welded into a bike frame. Yet more when painted, etc. Same goes for the parts. Drilling holes in a rim produces waste material that must be collected & recycled. It wears out a drill bit that also needs replacement. All those parts & materials are sourced from many suppliers. And so on. Those little costs add up.
Did I mention assembly, packaging, shipping & retail already?
Of course manufacturing is pretty much as efficient as possible at any given moment. But efficient in terms of cost, which sometimes does, but often does not correspond to emissions. At every step of the value chain, when a decision is made that involves a trade-off between cost and emissions, it is made to minimize cost.
> The main reason why I have opted for old bicycles is that they are much better than new bicycles.
Uh no. New bicycles weigh less, are more aerodynamic, have safer disc brakes, and can have electric assist. The parts are engineered with better tolerances and use more appropriate dimensions for bottom brackets and handlebars. They use materials that don't rust or fatigue, like carbon fiber and titanium. Disc brakes alone are such a game-changer for bad weather riding that it's not worth owning a bike without them unless it's a novelty or antique. E-bikes are a big deal for getting people to switch to bikes for everyday trips.
> The most detailed life cycle analysis sets the carbon footprint for an 18.4 kg aluminum bicycle at 200 kg CO2, including its spare parts, for a lifetime of 15,000 km.
200 kg CO2 is equivalent to burning about 23 gallons of gas, something like 500 miles (800 km) for a typical car. My bike commute is 60 miles per week, so in terms of carbon my bike pays for itself every two months.
> Disc brakes, which are now on almost every new bicycle, all have different axle designs, meaning that every vehicle now requires proprietary spare parts.
I don't know what they're talking about regarding axle designs. The brake standard is independent of the axle design. It's true that different brake manufacturers have incompatible parts, but the parts being proprietary doesn't have anything to do with sustainability. They still cost the same to manufacture, and the spare parts are used eventually so it doesn't even matter if everyone has to keep some extras around.
> The rise of proprietary parts makes it increasingly hard to keep a bike on the road through maintenance, reuse, and refurbishment. As the number of incompatible components grows, it becomes impossible for bike shops to have a complete stock of spare parts.
Again, I don't know what they're on about. Bike shops carry the common manufacturers like Shimano and SRAM. Aside from Covid supply-chain problems I've always been able to get parts for all my bikes online.
To the extent that individual choices are effective for reducing carbon emissions, switching from a car trip to a bike trip is way more effective than switching from a less-sustainable bike trip to a more-sustainable bike trip. Advocating for bikes that are attractive to regular people is going to be much more effective than scraping meager wins in bike manufacturing.
> Disc brakes alone are such a game-changer for bad weather riding that it's not worth owning a bike without them unless it's a novelty or antique.
This is true if you’re going fast or perhaps off-road but discs are overkill for basic utility cycling around town. In fact many Dutch bikes only have a coaster brake!
Even this claim is dubious to me. My bike has a coaster brake, and I've never been in any weather condition where the brake wasn't able to apply sufficient braking power to skid the rear wheel. I ride that bike in rain and negative 10 degrees weather. At the point where my rear wheel loses traction, the brake has more than done its job.
I don't understand disc brakes. I've never felt the need for more brake.
The disc brakes start to be necessary on very fast ebikes and on downhill bikes going 50+ kph with need for quick thinking and pathing on the fly.
Everyone else uses them because they're fancy and can be made hydraulic more easily. Mechanical disc brakes are mostly worthless and essentially on par. Hydraulic brakes, now, make for comfier braking with less lever force and better modulation. Unless they aren't bled properly, which can be a pain to do.
The alleged benefit of not having to replace a wheel rim instead replacing the disc is way overstated for most riders, even daily.
There's technically no reason not to make a hydraulic caliper or V-brake... Other than it still being expensive. Magura made one of these, they probably still do.
Not that oiling a brake wire every now and then or adjusting the tension on it is hard in any way, but it does take a bit of work someone might rather not do.
Fair enough, I get it if you're doing 50 on a heavy bike (like an e-bike). I also agree that it provider easier activation, I've just never felt the need for that. Not in all of my years riding rim or coaster brakes have I ever felt it was too difficult to activate the brake. I've also only rarely (in my 20 years of bike riding) lubricated the wire. Most people get their bikes serviced, and they'll oil your wire too.
I think disc brakes are technophilia in almost all cases.
> This is true if you’re going fast or perhaps off-road
Or, if like me, you live on a hill. Disc brakes made a huge difference in my case - no more worn out rim brake shoes every three-four weeks and worn out rims every couple of years. Add how rain affects all of that on top of that.
And about the feasibility of a coaster brake bicycle: not even enough gearing to get home.
I crashed into a car while doing basic cycling around town because I was cycling behind it, it braked and my old bicycle was unable to brake as hard. There are times when it's handy to have good brakes.
Disc brakes are not particularly safer, not even in bad weather.
What is safer is having the right or multicompound or high end compound brake pad. Which is actually harder to pull off in a small uncovered disc brake.
The proprietary parts are getting worse, with variant derailleurs and shifters mostly. Then the aforementioned brake pads are almost always proprietary and often specific for the brake caliper, unlike in usual V-brake or caliper brake.
That means more kinds get made to sit on the shelves.
The latest proprietary addition is funny kinds of bottom brackets and interesting mounting systems for brakes.
Shimano has a lot of systems for each of these on their own, and that's just one manufacturer doing planned obsolescence. A lot of the changes do nothing for even advanced usages of the performance bikes.
For athletes and co., sustainability isn't even an idea thought about. Like, I've built quite a few bikes and I've rode with some of the world's best MTBers/cyclists: not once has someone proposed, "How can we make this bike more environmentally friendly?" It's a concept that exists squarely within the minds of some commuters and environmentalist nerds. I'm not making a counterargument: I'm saying, don't expect to win over the enthusiast market if your suggestion is "Buy a heavier (i.e. non-carbon) bike."
> In addition, many carbon-intensive bicycles are bought for recreation and are not meant to replace cars at all – they may even involve more car use as cyclists drive out of town for a trip in nature. In all those cases, emissions go up, not down.
I'm impressed: In discussions about cycling, cyclists always get lumped together, and the default assumption is cyclist = commuter, and cycling = less emissions = good. Except that in reality, Dave is transporting 1-2 $10k+ bikes on his 8-15 MPG modified Jeep Wrangler, 3-7 times per week, for drives that he otherwise wouldn't perform.
That means said Dave has the wrong bike and is not riding.
The bike is foremost made to not be a wall hanger. Neither is it supposed to cost more than a few hundred bucks.
Recreation does not require a $10k bicycle either. Just a different bike design. Neither does it require a damn battery.
The battery is useful for commuting. If you cannot finish or go to a recreational drive without one, train up to it or change the path. It's that easy.
Manicuired bike parks are kinda fun in the same sense a rollercoaster is. That is, once or twice. Someone should run a bike rental at one of these to fix the issue of bikes getting carried.
In terms of carbon and pollution, people's hobbies are generally way, way, way down the scale and not worth discussing unless you actively want to annoy people for no benefit to the climate.
Thank you whoever wrote this piece to remind me how trash the old steel frames have been. I managed to break a few in my time.
These days, we do still get badly made frames. The cheap poorly made composite being the key failures.
Of course, every now and then someone makes a void in an aluminum frame so it won't live 20+ years.
Stainless always was a joke, titanium almost nobody makes because it's pain to weld.
I will also kick the "researchers" for using lifetime mileage of people who do not use their bikes to do everything.
It's not particularly easy to put a car on a train, for instance.
20000 km seems almost funnily short for someone doing a daily commute on a bicycle. What, replace a bike every 2 years?
20000km is a joke, I've put that distance on a bike without even replacing the chain (although I should have). I have new bikes and old, my average frame age is probably 40 years old, and I seek out old steel frames with particular tube sets and construction methods because they're often just as good as today's steel frames.
I enjoy pointless nitpicking about details as much as the next person, but low tech magazine seems to always combine that enjoyment with some wrongheaded but feel-good opinions that spoil it for me.
> The globalization and automation of the bicycle industry make bikes less sustainable.
He doesn't really support this claim.
Later:
> Reverting to local and less automated bike manufacturing is a requirement for sustainable bicycles. The main reason is not the extra energy use generated by transportation and machinery, which is relatively small. For example, shipping from China adds around 0.7 to 1.2 gCO2/km for shared bicycles. 8 More importantly, domestic and manual bike manufacturing is essential to make repair and refurbishment the more economically attractive option. By definition, repairing is local and manual, so it quickly becomes more expensive than producing a new vehicle in a large-scale, automated factory.
This seems a bit of a broken window fallacy. We need to stop importing automated bicycles so that bikes are more expensive and expensive manual repairs are price competitive.
Personally, I'd like to see more automated manufacture of e-bikes.
Sure, make the parts standard and interchangeable but frankly absolutely nothing brought up here rises to the level of an actual problem. More bikes is basically an unalloyed good regardless.
One flaw in this reasoning is much of the emissions seems to be from making aluminium with the assumption it is scrapped after a while and more made, but most aluminium gets recycled. You can actually get paid for it unlike most recycling.
43 comments
[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 96.9 ms ] threadI ask because “common sense” would be invalidated by the parents submitted data already, so I don't think applying “common sense” is wise.
> It's important to note that not all e-bikes are created equal when it comes to exercise benefits. The study found that class 1 e-bikes, which provide pedal assistance up to 20 mph, were the most effective at promoting physical activity. This is because riders still have to pedal and put in some effort to maintain a consistent speed. In contrast, class 2 e-bikes, which have a throttle that allows riders to cruise without pedaling, were found to be less effective at promoting exercise.
I agree with the "common sense" thing, which is why I read the citation.
TL;DR: class 1 electric bikes assist you with peddling, unlike class 2, meaning you can go longer and farther and therefore do more exercise than on a traditional bike.
The real culprit, or danger, as the article mentions, is not so much the change in materials and so on, but weaker standardization.
Bikes are still pretty good in this regard, but manufacturers seem to be increasingly producing proprietary parts and part sets, under the guise of innovation. They are not mutually exclusive - it's entirely possible to innovate while being modular and standardized, and in cases where not, create a new standard that everyone can work with.
I think electric bikes are a good example - all the mid-engine motors seem to have entirely different mounts, therefore requiring custom frames. And they seem to be bundled with proprietary electronics up to and including the UI. If this was all modular and standardized, you could pick and choose, and in fact a basic steel bike with electrics could be very sustainable - you may not even need gears, with the electric assist making up the effort as necessary.
It's easy to forget how expensive the manufacturing of the electric engine and the battery is.
I feel like there are bigger fish to fry.
Like the fact that you can’t even safely bike in many American cities. Or that there are people working desk jobs driving to work in a Ford F-350.
Without having that tax worldwide you need a very complicated and impractical scheme of calculating CO2 from imports, and giving a tax credit on exports.
Emissions are high because manufacturing involves so many process steps. Tubing is more expensive than its raw material. More so when welded into a bike frame. Yet more when painted, etc. Same goes for the parts. Drilling holes in a rim produces waste material that must be collected & recycled. It wears out a drill bit that also needs replacement. All those parts & materials are sourced from many suppliers. And so on. Those little costs add up.
Did I mention assembly, packaging, shipping & retail already?
Uh no. New bicycles weigh less, are more aerodynamic, have safer disc brakes, and can have electric assist. The parts are engineered with better tolerances and use more appropriate dimensions for bottom brackets and handlebars. They use materials that don't rust or fatigue, like carbon fiber and titanium. Disc brakes alone are such a game-changer for bad weather riding that it's not worth owning a bike without them unless it's a novelty or antique. E-bikes are a big deal for getting people to switch to bikes for everyday trips.
> The most detailed life cycle analysis sets the carbon footprint for an 18.4 kg aluminum bicycle at 200 kg CO2, including its spare parts, for a lifetime of 15,000 km.
200 kg CO2 is equivalent to burning about 23 gallons of gas, something like 500 miles (800 km) for a typical car. My bike commute is 60 miles per week, so in terms of carbon my bike pays for itself every two months.
> Disc brakes, which are now on almost every new bicycle, all have different axle designs, meaning that every vehicle now requires proprietary spare parts.
I don't know what they're talking about regarding axle designs. The brake standard is independent of the axle design. It's true that different brake manufacturers have incompatible parts, but the parts being proprietary doesn't have anything to do with sustainability. They still cost the same to manufacture, and the spare parts are used eventually so it doesn't even matter if everyone has to keep some extras around.
> The rise of proprietary parts makes it increasingly hard to keep a bike on the road through maintenance, reuse, and refurbishment. As the number of incompatible components grows, it becomes impossible for bike shops to have a complete stock of spare parts.
Again, I don't know what they're on about. Bike shops carry the common manufacturers like Shimano and SRAM. Aside from Covid supply-chain problems I've always been able to get parts for all my bikes online.
To the extent that individual choices are effective for reducing carbon emissions, switching from a car trip to a bike trip is way more effective than switching from a less-sustainable bike trip to a more-sustainable bike trip. Advocating for bikes that are attractive to regular people is going to be much more effective than scraping meager wins in bike manufacturing.
This is true if you’re going fast or perhaps off-road but discs are overkill for basic utility cycling around town. In fact many Dutch bikes only have a coaster brake!
Even this claim is dubious to me. My bike has a coaster brake, and I've never been in any weather condition where the brake wasn't able to apply sufficient braking power to skid the rear wheel. I ride that bike in rain and negative 10 degrees weather. At the point where my rear wheel loses traction, the brake has more than done its job.
I don't understand disc brakes. I've never felt the need for more brake.
Everyone else uses them because they're fancy and can be made hydraulic more easily. Mechanical disc brakes are mostly worthless and essentially on par. Hydraulic brakes, now, make for comfier braking with less lever force and better modulation. Unless they aren't bled properly, which can be a pain to do. The alleged benefit of not having to replace a wheel rim instead replacing the disc is way overstated for most riders, even daily.
There's technically no reason not to make a hydraulic caliper or V-brake... Other than it still being expensive. Magura made one of these, they probably still do.
Not that oiling a brake wire every now and then or adjusting the tension on it is hard in any way, but it does take a bit of work someone might rather not do.
I think disc brakes are technophilia in almost all cases.
Or, if like me, you live on a hill. Disc brakes made a huge difference in my case - no more worn out rim brake shoes every three-four weeks and worn out rims every couple of years. Add how rain affects all of that on top of that.
And about the feasibility of a coaster brake bicycle: not even enough gearing to get home.
The proprietary parts are getting worse, with variant derailleurs and shifters mostly. Then the aforementioned brake pads are almost always proprietary and often specific for the brake caliper, unlike in usual V-brake or caliper brake. That means more kinds get made to sit on the shelves.
The latest proprietary addition is funny kinds of bottom brackets and interesting mounting systems for brakes. Shimano has a lot of systems for each of these on their own, and that's just one manufacturer doing planned obsolescence. A lot of the changes do nothing for even advanced usages of the performance bikes.
> In addition, many carbon-intensive bicycles are bought for recreation and are not meant to replace cars at all – they may even involve more car use as cyclists drive out of town for a trip in nature. In all those cases, emissions go up, not down.
I'm impressed: In discussions about cycling, cyclists always get lumped together, and the default assumption is cyclist = commuter, and cycling = less emissions = good. Except that in reality, Dave is transporting 1-2 $10k+ bikes on his 8-15 MPG modified Jeep Wrangler, 3-7 times per week, for drives that he otherwise wouldn't perform.
The bike is foremost made to not be a wall hanger. Neither is it supposed to cost more than a few hundred bucks.
Recreation does not require a $10k bicycle either. Just a different bike design. Neither does it require a damn battery. The battery is useful for commuting. If you cannot finish or go to a recreational drive without one, train up to it or change the path. It's that easy.
Manicuired bike parks are kinda fun in the same sense a rollercoaster is. That is, once or twice. Someone should run a bike rental at one of these to fix the issue of bikes getting carried.
These days, we do still get badly made frames. The cheap poorly made composite being the key failures. Of course, every now and then someone makes a void in an aluminum frame so it won't live 20+ years.
Stainless always was a joke, titanium almost nobody makes because it's pain to weld.
I will also kick the "researchers" for using lifetime mileage of people who do not use their bikes to do everything. It's not particularly easy to put a car on a train, for instance. 20000 km seems almost funnily short for someone doing a daily commute on a bicycle. What, replace a bike every 2 years?
> The globalization and automation of the bicycle industry make bikes less sustainable.
He doesn't really support this claim.
Later:
> Reverting to local and less automated bike manufacturing is a requirement for sustainable bicycles. The main reason is not the extra energy use generated by transportation and machinery, which is relatively small. For example, shipping from China adds around 0.7 to 1.2 gCO2/km for shared bicycles. 8 More importantly, domestic and manual bike manufacturing is essential to make repair and refurbishment the more economically attractive option. By definition, repairing is local and manual, so it quickly becomes more expensive than producing a new vehicle in a large-scale, automated factory.
This seems a bit of a broken window fallacy. We need to stop importing automated bicycles so that bikes are more expensive and expensive manual repairs are price competitive.
Personally, I'd like to see more automated manufacture of e-bikes.
Sure, make the parts standard and interchangeable but frankly absolutely nothing brought up here rises to the level of an actual problem. More bikes is basically an unalloyed good regardless.