[hannasanarion]

>health disservice

The point of transportation is to take you places, not to make you healthy.

>increased electricity consumption

The biggest ebike battery you're likely to find is 500 Watt-hours. That's about 6¢ for the average American to fill from zero to full, and that'll carry you 50 miles.

[effie]

I agree with the cheap energy part, electric bike is a very efficient mode of transportation, better than car. However, when you compare impacts to health of the rider and the environment, the ordinary bike wins as the better choice.

[hannasanarion]

No, it doesn't, see the article you're commenting on. Regular bikes are more expensive and produce more carbon because of the extra calories the rider has to eat.

The purpose of vehicles is transportation, not exercise.

[effie]

The purpose of ordinary bicycle is both transportation and exercise. You can't just dismiss benefits of the other choice because your choice does not have them. We are comparing ordinary vs. electrical bike, with all benefits and drawbacks.

The analysis in the paper is flawed right from the start. For regular overweight people, which is the majority of people in U.S. and some other countries, unless getting to high speeds and high heart bpms, a little increase in energy expenditure in moving the bicycle does not increase food consumption in the linear way the paper assumes. The food is gonna be consumed anyway.

And even disregarding that, there are more important considerations here than alleged increase CO2 production, which is laughably negligible in comparison to car, plane and ship transportation. Ordinary bicycle has lower price, better health effects, lower environmental cost of manufacturing/disposing of batteries.

[hannasanarion]

People don't buy ebikes for exercise.

[effie]

They shouldn't buy them because of bogus CO2 efficiency reasons either.