Tuesday, 6/27

So, I guess, the question is this—am I a dinosaur or not?

(I'll pause here for a second while you make the first smart-alecky comment that comes into your head).

Now that that's out of the way, here's what prompted the question—last week was the “nice” week on our new weather pattern of “nice week/crappy week”, and as such I spent a lot of time outdoors soaking up the sun. Part of the time spent soaking up the sun was on the South Beach bike path in Marquette, where over the course of an hour or so you can see around 100 bicyclists zoom past you. I started to notice a pattern while watching said cyclists zoom by, and started counting.

And that's when I realized there are now more e-bikes than regular bikes out on the path.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about e-bikes. After all, I've spent my entire life getting around by regular bike and on occasion have been known to look at someone riding an e-bike and say (at least in my head) “get a real bike”. But at the same time, I also realize that at least people are out riding e-bikes; without them, they'd probably be stuck inside doing whatever they'd be doing if they weren't riding. So at least e-bikes get people outside and “active”, as opposed to the alternative.

And I guess that's a good thing.

That's how I got to wondering if I'm a dinosaur or not. I'm well aware that as technology and time change the way people do things changes, as well. I'm not not one of those people who start a sentence by saying “back in my day”. So should I really look askew at the people using e-bikes? Just because I ride a pedal bike doesn't make me any better than anyone on an e-bike. And since I'm not taking advantage of the latest technology maybe I AM becoming, in a way, a bicycle dinosaur.

After all, if the real dinosaurs had e-bikes 66 million years ago, maybe they could have outrun the asteroid that hit the planet and killed them.

(That's a joke, by the way. E-bikes may be fast but they're not THAT fast. Or magical).

So I hope everyone using an e-bike enjoys it, and enjoys being out in the fresh air at the same time. And who knows—maybe you'll even see a dinosaur out there soon, huffing & puffing as they put their foot to the pedal. One of those dinosaurs, in fact, might even be me.

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com)