We hear lots about our carbon footprint, how big it is and the ramifications

of our petrochemical lifestyle on future generations. How easy is it to reduce

your greenhouse gas emission in any real way; one that does not have you

living in a tent? The answer may surprise you. The electric bike is a giant

stride towards your carbon footprint becoming a carbon toeprint, a phrase I

have coined to describe a new type of lifestyle..

The biggest hurdle with our personal carbon emissions is our cars and trans-

port. The internal combustion engine really is wasteful, always has been and

will be no matter what gizmos they affix to the engine. It’s inherently

wasteful. The technology of cars is industrial revolution stuff that we have

just learned to manufacture really well, but not cleanly.

We are on the cusp of changing our transportation to non-fossil fuel alterna-

tives, primarily electric. Electric motors are very powerful. What runs the

locomotives? What runs the new largest ships in the world? The answer is

electric motors; torque abundant, efficient electric motors. What runs the

most efficient vehicles in the world? The answer once again is electric mo-

tors. The source of the electricity varies, and new technologies are coming

along to produce it from all manner of sources, but the product of infinite

adaptability, electricity, is always the same.

One choice that can take you to the head of the class with your carbon toe-

print is an electric bike. The fuel, electricity, is so cheap as to make it incon-

sequential in the cost of operation. Electric bikes are so reliable that cross

continent voyages are routinely being done by pioneers in a new type of

travel. I’m not saying we should cross continents on our electic bikes, though

we could. My point is we can, now, today, with great reliability and a modi-

cum of comfort, commute on the ultra-efficient, responsible to future genera-

tions, transportation option of today: the electric bike.

Electric bikes are nothing new, quite the contrary, but the battery technology

that makes them a practical alternative to our gas guzzling cars is new. The

lithium batteries on the best bikes today are nothing less than a revelation.

They are light, durable, energy dense and charge for thousands of charges.

The carbon toeprint lifestyle can entirely embrace the electric bike. They are

almost certainly the most efficient motor vehicle on the road. Perhaps they

are the right fit for your lifestyle.

VOLUME 1 ISSUE 11

Your ‘Carbon Toeprint’©; What it Could Look Like.

3/2014

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

Aussie e-bike ride 3

E-bike value considerations 2

NZ ebike news 3

Battery position thoughts 4

EZoomers a zine for NZ ebike enthusiasts

BUSINESS NAME

Did you know?

New Zealand is building

bike infrastructure at an

astounding rate and will

become a mecca of off-

road bike routes in the

next several years. Those

of us who live here will

benefit from all these free

bike routes.

Did you know?

E-bike study results

John MacArthur, Sustainable

Transportation Program Man-

ager at the Oregon Transpor-

tation Research and Educa-

tion Consortium did a sur-

vey of new e-bikers and 55%

of those surveyed had ridden

a traditional bike weekly or

daily. That jumped to 93%

after they bought an e-bike!

Importantly, 6% of those

surveyed had not ridden a

bike as an adult. With an

electric bike, 89% of those

now ride daily or weekly!

There were other increases in

distances and hills climbed

that you can dig into with the

study.

I find it a bit humorous the notion that riding any zero-emission vehicle could be cheating. I think it goes back

to the long held Kiwi idea that riding bikes is a sport. We don’t prefer ride bikes to get to work and if we do,

there is a suspicion that we have lost our license or cant afford the car. It’s time to wake up and smell the cof-

fee, New Zealand. Around the world, there is a commuter bike revolution going on and electric bikes are inte-

grally part of that mix. I will present some reasons that this is the case and you will see that it all applies to us

common folk.

“I ride my bike for exercise, so the e-bike would be cheating” Doctors now universally tell us to get off

our duffs and make exercise a part of daily life. Unfortunately, most people don’t find the terrain or

distances to the shops conducive to push-biking. The Kiwi solution is to take the car but it doesn’t have

to be that way. You can take an e-bike about 3 times further than you would a pushbike for the same

puff and carry loads up and over hills and terrain that would be daunting to pedal only. With e-bikes

you get the exercise you need, the lifestyle doctors tell us to have and the groceries in the fridge, no

worries.

“Electric bikes don’t pay for the roads they use” While road taxes do pay for the roads, it’s the fact that we

have so many cars that makes the new expensive roads necessary. The western world is transforming

itself with bikeways and reducing the traffic as a result. Bike riders save money to taxpayers by avoid-

ing road expansions and allowing adults kids to get to school/work without stressing the roading sys-

tem. Many can commute faster by electric bike than by car, while for many others its about even time-

wise. Electric bike use saves the average person heaps. Every expansion of the bikeways proves this

point, with much greater local resilience and economy for the residents.

“We already have roads and bikes are too slow for them” Electric bikes can be significantly faster averag-

ing than push-bikes. This makes them easier in road-sharing situations and easier to pass on the uphill

sections. E-bikes going uphill track much better and car drivers can pass with great safety. Also with

greater speed, electric bikes are passed less often, so there are just fewer close encounters. When the

attitude in New Zealand about bike users sharing the road improves, that will be better for the vast mil-

lions of dollars to be reaped from bike tourism.

“Bikes use electricity and I use gas, both are using power, so what’s the big deal” Electric bikes are about

100 times more efficient to move a person than driving a car. While not going into that calculation

here, the renewable electricity used in these ultra-efficient vehicles is making our air better, our lungs

better, our cities nicer, our lifestyles better, and our pocket books fatter. We should remember that the

lions share of petrol in NZ is shipped from halfway around the world and we extend our foreign debt

each time we pay for it. Keeping the money circulating at home means using energy sources produced

here. Practically there is only one, electricity, and it just so happens that it is a great motive source for

our transport.

“Our cars produce jobs, bikes will cause unemployment.” This is sad logic. A vibrant economy is a thrifty

one. Using resources that are renewable will save us money individually and make it easier to put that

money into investments. Money that goes around comes around, but not the money we send to the

Middle East for oil. That money is gone and won’t come back. Bikes and the infrastructure they need

are a great investment. It saves in health costs, roading costs, auto costs and attracts people that want

the lifestyle of a bike friendly community. It’s money well spent.

For all the reasons above, please consider how we make our communities with the small lifestyle choices . We

can build in a better future for our children with planning and foresight and nowhere does that come into play

better that giving them all the benefits of alternatives to cars. For many, electric bikes make that alternative

real and practical.

Electric Bikes; Why they aren’t cheating. Reprint from the New Wheel

EBH owner rides Queensland routes.

I did a heap of riding around the far north Table-lands and up to Cooktown via the Bloomfield track.

My Forsa was loaded with full panniers and I

camped much of the trip. Here are some of my ob-servations for those interested in bike touring on

electric assist bikes. 1. The bike wheels have to

be very strong. The Forsa I was on did not have

any problems, but the load was brutal. If you really take tents, food, clothing and other supplies that

you will need, you will need the strongest rear car-

rier and the strongest wheels. I did not so much as have a puncture, but the puncture resistant tyres on

the Forsa are rather bombproof. 2. Camping is a

hard way to maintain a bike touring energy pace. I needed a good mattress about every other night,

and I suspect most other 60 year olds would need

the same. Without some quality sleep time its hard

to make a big pedal day. 3.Make a flexible route plan. Weather and circumstance will have its way

with your plans, and that is the core of adventure.

Go with the flow. 4. Know your bike well and love your saddle. You will want to work out any mainte-

nance and comfort issues long before your big trip.

5. Take the biggest battery you can afford. Riding pedal assist Ebikes is a great pleasure and the

pleasure largely stops when the battery is flat. I

rode on the 28 amp hour (over 1000watt hours!)

and it was a revelation to go so far, a full days ride, on the one charge. This big capacity takes alonger

to charge, so count on getting it to the charger in

your off time. When you unload the panniers off the bike, you have the best sport machine you

could want, another e-bike benefit.

New Warehouse completed for Electric Bike Hub

A new 200 sq. meter warehouse and tech centre has just been completed, specifically designed for the ser-vicing of electric bikes. We stock well over 100 e-bikes at any one time and are shipping to the regional sales centres every day. We also have full parts inventory for next day shipping. It’s a lovely light infused work area with a green tinted slab and full workshop space. When you are conversing with us or expecting a bike shipped

to you, it’s happening out of our Nelson facility.

Nelson has proven a great place to base our bike busi-ness, because container shipping comes right into this port from the eZee factory, and TNL has been great in facilitating the importing paperwork. Mainfreight has of-fered shipping rates that keep our domestic distribution

within budget and the whole arrangement just flies. .

The Raptor full suspension off-road powerhouse e-bike is in but it is just in and we haven't ridden it on the trails yet. Murray Hendren

of Motueke has a special interest in how this bike pans out and we

will offer a full report after the full testing period. The controller

can be detuned by programming the monitor on the handlebars to limit that amperage to a legal

road power function so this

bike can be run on the road too.. Off-road, you can open it

up to over 1000 climbing

watts, but it is wasteful of battery charge if you run this

at full power all the time.

EBH bikes in NZ page

We encourage submissions about e-

bikes and issues surrounding e-bikes

for publication in subsequent issues

of EZoomers. Simply drop an email

to Jace Hobbs and your ideas or

article may well find its way to the

NZ e-bike community.

Electric Bike Hub

76 Main Rd. Wakapuaka

Where to put the E-bike Battery

Typically, batteries on e-bikes are in one of two places: on the rear rack area, or low in the centre of the frame. The difference is dramatic for the rider. Top-heavy riding

is one of the least attractive aspects of e-bike usage and the more you add to this with

your cargo and your own body weight, the worse it gets. Quite a number of manufac-turers do put the battery on the rear rack because it allows the use of a standard bike

frame to be converted for their product but it is a poor placement for centre of gravity

and distribution of weight between the wheels. Manufacturing a standard bike frame

and strapping the battery into a carrier mount is quite a bit cheaper than making a

special e-bike frame with the mounts or tracks for the battery.

Batteries are heavy and the bigger the capacity of the battery, even lithium batteries,

the heavier they are. Batteries also need to be protected from accidents, so the frame

should offer the battery a cage to ride in. All this adds weight and that will be impor-

tant to you, the rider.

You will pay a bit more for e-bikes that have well formed supports for the battery, and you should be willing to pay the extra, as this is the most important aspect to en-

sure a long life for an e-bike battery.

eZee pioneered the behind the seat post location for the battery back in 2003, and

that has been widely copied. When WW Ching came out with his Torq with the low

mounted battery behind the seat post, it was a sensation in the industry. It allowed control at higher speeds and was a determining factor in winning of the three Tour de

Prestiegne races riding the eZee Torq.

Special consideration should be given to bikes meant to ride off-road or bikes in-

tended to be heavily loaded. The low centre of gravity of the bike is especially cru-

cial here and should be a primary consideration. Navigating hairpin turns on moun-tain tracks will immediately convince you of the importance of battery placement

issues. The centre of gravity of the bike really comes into play at those times and it

can be the difference between control and being out of control. You no doubt care

about riding your bike in control - always a good look!

In summary, your e-bike battery should be located in or around the centre of the bike, as low as possible. This puts weight on the front wheel as well as the back wheel and

will make for better steering, better feel, and ultimately, better safety.

Balance is needed when going up steep streets, like this pic of going up Baldwin Street in Dunedin, and balance is gained by having the weight low and to the centre

as shown in this photo. BTW, 50 year old Mac Robertson climbed the street four

times for the press that day.

Phone: 64 3 5451122

Mob: 64(0)21 05 1666

E-mail: jace@electricbikehub.co.nz.

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who would like to get it.

Your next bike could be an e-bike

EZOOMERS -NZ

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