brendan halpin

In April 2024, I bought an ebike—a discontinued Bird bike (you know, the people who litter the sidewalk with scooters!) that was deeply discounted and, because I got it at Ocean State Job Lot, it came with a large store coupon that they call Crazy Bucks, which meant I got to torment my family for the better part of a year by going, “I’ll pick up some seltzer! I still have 250 Crazy Bucks!”

Though I bought it because it was cheap, it turned out (once I added a bigass basket with waterproof bag onto the back—25 bucks on Temu!) to be just about ideal for my needs, which are commuting in Boston and doing errands.

Things I love:

No gears! Different levels of pedal assist mean that I don’t really need gears. Which means no fussy derailleurs, no slipping chains…you get the idea.

The carbon belt drive! I have ridden in rain and snow and gotten no rust! No bike grease threatens my pants! No Saturday mornings spent cleaning and lubing the chain! I no longer fear the calipers at the bike shop! (Seriously, though: has anyone ever not been told they need a new chain after the calipers come out?).

And speaking of the bike shop: 1000 miles in, I have not set foot in the bike shop yet. I’ll need new brakes sometime soon, but because the bike is sturdy and has top-notch tires, I haven’t had to get my wheels trued, I haven’t had to change a flat, and I haven’t had to get annoying derailleurs adjusted. Now, once the battery on this baby dies, I’m probably going to have to spend a boatload of cash to get a replacement (they’re currently going for 350 bucks), but in the meantime, I’m saving money and, just as importantly, annoyance by not needing to make as many trips to the bike shop.

Things I don’t love:

This one aint too heavy, but it’s still heavier than I’d like to have to haul up 23 stairs from the street to my house.

Also the riding position isn’t as upright as I would prefer.

The range is…not great. It’s about 25 miles, which is fine for the most part, because my commute is about 3 miles, so I need to charge it every few days. The problem is if I’m at 50 percent and I want to go somewhere 5 to 7 miles away, all the sudden I have to think about whether I’m going to make it there and back.

An important caveat is that this is simply not as good fitness-wise as a non-electric bike. This means, of course, that I ride it more often—we’ve had some over-90-degree days when I haven’t hesitated to commute via bike because I know that if I crank up the pedal assist, I barely have to pedal at all. Some people will assert that the increased use makes up for the decrease in effort, but I haven’t found that to be the case.

Takeaways:

I will never buy a commuter bike with a chain again. Especially if I’ve got pedal assist.

About half my commute is on the Southwest Corridor bike path, but for the other half, I’m on the extremely jouncy streets of Boston. Riding on mountain bike-style tires (I think they’re like 2 inches wide) helps with this. Also when I was commuting on a hybrid style bike I kept needing to get my wheels trued because one big bump and you’re out of true. My point here is that for Boston streets, wide tires make your life easier. I like the look of the Tenways C models, but I just don’t think thin tires are great for the streets I have to ride on.

Finally, and I think it’s important to note this: it’s still fun. It’s like, really fun to ride. Not many folks can say that their daily commute is fun, so commuting by ebike has been a huge win in that respect.