BOULDER, Colorado — Inside Freedom Folding Bikes and Electric Bikes in Boulder, Chuck Ankeny spends his days working on the many e-bikes that he services. He said he knows it's been a long journey to success.
"We were one of the first pioneers of e-bikes in Boulder or maybe even in Colorado," he said. "Yeah, back in 2007, we were selling electric bikes, and nobody else was doing it. ... Everyone was laughing at us, and they are not laughing today."
Business at Ankeny's Boulder shop has never been better.
"Through the pandemic it was insane," he said. "People were getting into biking that had never biked before."
Recent statistics show e-bikes are now outselling car-sized EVs.
"The last couple of years, e-bikes have been ... outselling maybe cars by a 10% to 20% margin," said Andrew Duvall, a transportation analyst at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden.
NREL recently teamed up with the Colorado Energy Office on a two-year e-bike pilot program.
"The overall purpose of the study was just to see how people use e-bikes," Duvall said.
For example, they wanted to find out how often participants rode the bikes and how far. They found that about 30% of the participants' e-bike trips replaced a car trip, he said.
The study found participants preferred to use e-bikes when travelling between one and four miles. Considering 50% of all trips in the U.S. are shorter than three miles and more than 60% of all trips are shorter than five miles, a car, which is often used for those short trips, could easily be replaced by an e-bike.
Not only would it help when it comes to parking, but trading in that gas guzzler for an e-bike, even on short trips, could also help the environment.
"It's definitely to help reduce emissions, but maintain the mobility needs that people have," Duvall said.
It's also a way to get outside, take in the fresh air and get a little exercise.
"I think about the 70,000-plus miles that I've put on my bike, and I'm kind of proud of that because that's a lot of miles in a car that I haven't done," Ankeny said. "I feel good about it."
Most people can find a good utility commuter e-bike for about $1,200.
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