this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2023
50 points (100.0% liked)

Environment

3906 readers
1 users here now

Environmental and ecological discussion, particularly of things like weather and other natural phenomena (especially if they're not breaking news).

See also our Nature and Gardening community for discussion centered around things like hiking, animals in their natural habitat, and gardening (urban or rural).


This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
50
Can We Make Bicycles Sustainable Again? (solar.lowtechmagazine.com)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 

A great read+great magazine.

TL;DR: Old bikes last way longer than new bikes. From a production standpoint, steel bikes have a smaller carbon footprint than aluminum or carbon frame bikes. Conventional bikes use fewer consumables over their usable life than electric bikes. Among electric bikes, cargo bikes use the most resources to run and maintain.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Interesting read.

I've always wondered about the environmental footprint of regular vs ebikes after switching to the latter a couple of years ago.

I think in my case, one point in favour of the ebike is that it has replaced more car trips? Outside of the winter months, around 80% of my trips around the city are now by ebike compared to perhaps 60% before with the traditional?