Electric bicycles – also known as e-bikes – may be winning the popularity race against their non-powered counterparts, according to a local bike store.
Like standard “analog” bikes, but with battery-powered motors to assist with pedalling, e-bikes have become the top-selling bike category at Cranky’s Bike Shop, located downtown on Perron Street.
“I think it ramped up over the last few years,” said Mark Reynolds, Cranky’s St. Albert store manager. “The technology has been advancing a lot, the cost has been coming down a lot, motors have been getting quieter and more efficient … They don’t have the clunky feeling in the pedals. Now they’re smooth. It’s crazy. It just feels like you have legs of steel.”
E-bike sales at Cranky’s started surpassing other bike categories in the spring of 2023, and they’ve remained high in the fall and early winter, according to Reynolds.
“It’s a huge change in the industry, honestly,” he said. “We went many years with different flavours of ordinary bikes … the sales staff have to keep up with all of the new trends, and models and motors.”
Reynolds has seen people of all ages buy e-bikes, from seniors looking for exercise support to riders in their 20s and 30s who use the bikes for commuting and even mountain biking.
“They let you go farther with less energy, and so people are having more fun, and they’re going longer and more often,” he said.
The bikes, which are governed at 32 kilometres per hour in Alberta, make going uphill easier. And they have become a popular choice for commuters, Reynolds said. One Cranky’s regular uses his e-bike to ride to his job near downtown Edmonton.
The Gazette also reached out to St. Albert’s Vicious Cycle and Snow. They confirmed that since the early days of COVID, when bike sales saw a massive surge, more customers have been choosing e-bikes. E-bikes are not yet the top-selling bike category at Vicious Cycle and Snow, but they have almost reached parity with standard bicycles and seem to be picking up steam.
Since getting his e-bike two years ago, Bill Stinson has been cruising St. Albert’s streets and trails more frequently than he ever did with a standard bike.
“I used to ride for maybe for some exercise or just some outdoor time,” he said. “But now we only have one car and we're retired, and I ride my bike to any meetings, or I ride my bike to go get groceries. I have saddlebags on it, and I have studded tires on it for wintertime, and I’ve adapted my clothing so I can wear face protection under my bike helmet.”
Stinson and his three cyclist friends ride their bikes together once a week. Two members of the group use standard mountain bikes, while Stinson and his fellow e-bike rider glide ahead of the pack.
“We teach them about keeping up with us,” he said.
Stinson likes that he can coast along St. Albert’s trails more easily with the e-bike. “I can go back in the fields that are behind the park, around the lake area,” he said.
He’s also found e-bikes useful for hunting. Although he mostly joins younger hunters for the experience of being outdoors and to teach skills he’s picked up over the years, he’s noticed that e-bikes have an advantage over ATV’s: they’re quiet, making them less likely to alarm nearby animals, and they also don’t disturb the forest soil as much as a quad or side-by-side.
But he does think e-bikes are a bit expensive. They cost between $1,000 for a more entry-level bike and $6,000 for a top-of-the-line rig. And he thinks finding replacement parts may be a concern for some bikes.
However, they’re much cheaper than an electric car. And research is showing that, at least in some parts of the world, they are becoming a competitive alternative to vehicles.
A study by Deloitte surveyed Germans about their most frequently used modes of electric transportation, and e-bikes came out on top, ahead of electric cars and scooters.
E-bikes can travel 24 to 80 kilometres on a single charge, depending on battery size, rider weight, speed and terrain.
Alberta’s winter climate and the car-centred design approach of most cities in the province may make e-bikes as a primary mode of transportation a fantasy at the moment.
But Stinson said although much work needs to be done in St. Albert to make the city more accommodating to bikes, he remains optimistic.
"I think we're just in the stage, we're going around the corner, in recognizing that bicycles as a method of transportation are just more environmentally sound.”
