And I propose the e-bicycle conversion kits, generally for the price of a commuter class cheap bike the cost per watt of motor and cost per KWh lithium battery has been dropping by half every couple years. Today in 2016 you're looking at about two watts of motor power per dollar (so $500 kit would get you more than a horsepower, and riding on horseback seems adequately fast) and about $30 per mile of battery range so $500 of lithium ion should get me around 15 miles on a charge (depends a lot on speed, hills, how much you pedal, etc)
Of course the government is getting in the way with all kinds of regulation and outright banning in some more backwards cities (NYC, etc). But I don't live in a backwards city so no problemo.
Until 2016 I'm not going to ride a bike to work because I'll be all sweaty during the roughly two months per year the weather is good enough to ride a bike. However my son is very interested in the mechanical work of assembling an ebike conversion, and it sounds like a fun teen boy and dad project to work on together, so in 2017 I could slowly ride an ebike to work mostly sweatless. Its an interesting technological development. I have not gone beyond a couple hours of online research on this project, but I'm figuring for a couple grand, which isn't much, we can build matching ebikes.
> However my son is very interested in the mechanical work of assembling an ebike conversion, and it sounds like a fun teen boy and dad project to work on together
Sounds cool! Let me suggest (if you haven't thought about this already) to document all steps and publish it on a blog or something. Other interested dads, curious kids and DIYs in general will love it and might give a shot.
I actually don't have one, though, but that's only because everything I do on a regular basis is within 2 miles. My ride to work on a normal pedal bike is 6 minutes.
I agree that cities are absurd for banning small 2 wheeled vehicles with little momentum while permitting large 4 wheeled vehicles with massive momentum (and with it, massive ability to mangle and destroy human bodies).
And I propose the e-bicycle conversion kits, generally for the price of a commuter class cheap bike the cost per watt of motor and cost per KWh lithium battery has been dropping by half every couple years. Today in 2016 you're looking at about two watts of motor power per dollar (so $500 kit would get you more than a horsepower, and riding on horseback seems adequately fast) and about $30 per mile of battery range so $500 of lithium ion should get me around 15 miles on a charge (depends a lot on speed, hills, how much you pedal, etc)
Of course the government is getting in the way with all kinds of regulation and outright banning in some more backwards cities (NYC, etc). But I don't live in a backwards city so no problemo.
Until 2016 I'm not going to ride a bike to work because I'll be all sweaty during the roughly two months per year the weather is good enough to ride a bike. However my son is very interested in the mechanical work of assembling an ebike conversion, and it sounds like a fun teen boy and dad project to work on together, so in 2017 I could slowly ride an ebike to work mostly sweatless. Its an interesting technological development. I have not gone beyond a couple hours of online research on this project, but I'm figuring for a couple grand, which isn't much, we can build matching ebikes.