I am surprised by the positive reception. I thought I was writing for dyed in the wool petrol heads. You give me hope.
Thanks for the kind words Jeff. I should explain that by guilt free hooliganism, I was alluding more to the moment than the infrastructure overview. I doubt anyone nearby even knew we were having a jolly scratch past their rural gardens or their bicycles and foot paths. Probably the only emission we left was the smell of hot rubber and whiff of brake dust. I think there would be about ten bearings in the whole bike and the Petro-chemicals would account for the fork oil and bearing grease, although I daresay that most of the plastic and more is derived from those? Except that we don't usually throw those away every year or burn them!
As for the generation of the electricity in the first place, well I think we are getting there. I believe the UK uses a higher percentage of renewable energy than most Counties. I'm not saying the issue is solved or guilt free in that sense, but the trend is going in the right direction at a promising pace. I'm not sure about Atom power at all, probably not for me, or less so for my children!
The battery packs are said to be good for so many cycles of charge/discharge. Nathan and Co have calculated this to equate to about 200,000 miles of use. I think that is a nice big number, especially if you compare it to what is expected of conventional propulsion components? Time will come when the metals can be recovered from the cells, we're only at the beginning of this technology.
The range will improve with better cells and even better motors. The infrastructure does not yet exist for prolific charging points, so the current crop of bikes carry their own chargers to make use of ordinary mains supply, as Nathan did when he called round.
The infra structure will grow and so the charger packs on the bikes will become redundant, the space will be filled with more cells which will eventually facilitate faster charging (The C rating) The range will improve and the charging times will decrease.
My test ride was merely to find out for myself if an electric experience could be as good as a conventional or traditional one and the answer is a resounding YES!
It is a far superior method of propulsion and a wonderful experience. I could surrender my L twin tomorrow and be better for it. (Obviously that is not going to happen tomorrow...Maybe the day after?) As it stands the electric bike would suit my current usage of shortish local hops. Nipping over to Wales for a Weekender might be a different matter? Or going Coast to Coast in a day?
This is definitely a road that we should be going down, and yes these are still such very early days for the technology and infra-structure, perhaps not so for the demise of the atmosphere?