We’re sure you’re already familiar with some of the benefits e-bikes have over other vehicles. If you think you know it all, we can assure you; you know nothing, Jon Snow!
If you’re not entirely convinced or second-guessing whether you should buy an e-bike, you’re at the right place. By the end of this article, you’ll likely be convinced—or at least better informed.
1. It’s Good For the Environment
E-bikes produce about 15 grams of carbon dioxide per mile. This is even lower than the carbon footprint of walking, transit, and riding a normal bike. For perspective, cars produce an average of 411 grams of CO2 per mile, more than 27 times that of an e-bike.
E-bikes also take fewer resources to manufacture than cars. The materials used in e-bikes are also more biodegradable than cars. The metal used in e-bikes can be recycled from other products, and an e-bike can be made into something else after its lifetime. In comparison, cars use large amounts of polymers which can take thousands of years to degrade.
2. It’s The Best Workout Out There (allow us to justify)
Health gurus often say, “the best workout is the one you can stick to.” How often have you made a new year’s resolution to walk every day and failed to follow it? The more chore-like an exercise is, the more difficult it is to follow.
But, if you make exercise a necessity, you have no choice but to do it. This is called libertarian paternalism: you manipulate your future options to ensure you follow your resolutions. Your biggest foe is yourself.
3. Your Cardiovascular System “Hearts” It
Heart disease is the number 1 cause of death in the US. Many factors contribute to heart disease, and a sedentary lifestyle is a major one. Our bodies are designed to run in the wild, run after mammoths, and run from saber-tooth tigers. Modern lifestyle makes up an insignificant portion of our evolutionary history.
Our bodies are still designed to be active. The regular exercise you get from riding an e-bike improves your cardiovascular system, along with all other benefits you’ve probably heard about exercise.
4. Gets Your Juices Flowing (literally)
E-bikes increase your heart rate and improve blood flow. When your body has to produce more energy than the oxygen you breathe allows, it signals your blood vessels to grow and make more capillaries. This allows blood and oxygen to reach your cells better and keep you healthy. An acute (temporary) increase in blood pressure also keeps your blood vessels more elastic, which can stiffen up as you age and lead to complications.
5. It’s Good For Your Lungs
Proper breathing affects every part of your body. Every cell in your body needs oxygen to function—and they can die even if the oxygen supply stops for a few minutes. E-biking is equivalent to aerobic exercise. Your lungs have to function at high capacity for a limited time, and your breathing improves as a result. Better oxygen supply can also prevent neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s.
6. It’s Better For Heath than Both Bicycles and Cars
“Better than cars, sure! But bicycles?” Bicycles require a very variable output of energy. You have to apply a lot of force to accelerate but very little to keep the speed. This may be good for HIIT (high-intensity interval training) but can be very tiring if you have to do it twice a day for an extended period. This can also make it difficult to switch from a car to a bike.
E-bikes use your energy alongwith the energy stored in the battery. The battery contributes more at slow speeds and less at higher speeds, and as a result, you have to output more or less the same energy throughout. If you get one of those e-bikes that charge as you paddle, it’ll use no energy from an external source.
7. Potential To Help Against Growing Insulin Resistance
Insulin resistance is almost inevitable for most of the US population. It progresses and grows, and when it reaches an arbitrary point, we call it Type 2 Diabetes. Research is now showing that aerobic exercise after a meal has a significant effect on preventing and even reversing insulin resistance.
The problem is that no one has time to go on a walk after breakfast. The solution? You guessed it… e-bikes! Riding an e-bike is the perfect aerobic exercise you need to keep your insulin levels low after a meal.
8. It Increases Your Healthspan
The way we think of aging has been heavily challenged in the last few years. One of the hallmarks of aging was thought to be the shortening of telomeres: neat ends of our chromosomes that keep our DNA tightly packed. Regular exercise has been shown to lengthen telomeres–reversing your age.
Riding an e-bike regularly has the potential to prevent individual diseases and slow down the aging process itself. This protects you against not some but all the diseases that come with getting old.
9. E-Bikes are The Future
Judging from where we’re currently headed, it doesn’t seem our current way of life is sustainable. If we continue to pump greenhouse gasses into the environment, it won’t be long before the planet is no longer inhabitable. Electric cars are a promising solution, but they too use electricity made from fossil fuels and are not completely carbon neutral.
E-bikes are a promising means of transport for the future in one form or another. They’re also more likely to grow in popularity as people become more health-conscious. Also, as the population grows, cars might prove too big for everyone in the city to own. E-bikes are at the junction of all three of these future trends.
If you’re still not convinced, we can make it easier. At SWFL Golf Carts, we offer Rental E-bikes in Bonita Springs and Naples, FL. You can rent an e-bike for some time, see if you like it, and decide after a month or two. If you decide to buy one, we also have e-bikes for sale in Bonita Springs and Naples. Visit our website now and choose your e-bike.