I drive too much. Not as much as many, but too much by my own tolerance with an annual mileage of 20,000. Like many people, I have concerns over the price of gas and the wear and tear on my car, but I also care about the earth and our future. I'd prefer to travel with less impact and more connection to the world around me. In an effort to spend less time in the car over several years, I have explored the options of using a conventional bike, an electric bike, and an electric scooter to reduce my driving. If you are considering any of these possibilities, I offer my real life experience as a guideline.

Electric Bike

I started my exploration with an electric bike obtained on a whim, specifically a Currie model purchased 6 years ago from a local bike shop going out of business. Nowadays, Currie is making the IZip electric bike series, so my bike is well outdated. It was a deal at the time for $500 and still has great life in it on the original battery. This sturdy mountain bike style vehicle with hybrid tires was a perfect way to try out an emerging form of alternative transportation in the rural region where I live. I already had a mountain bike hybrid that was still working well after 15 years. This was a step towards shortening travel time and arriving at destinations without sweat.

My electric bike, with its dual 12V lead battery and motor, is quite heavy - something I noticed but didn't take fully into account when I purchased it. The positive here is that the bike is incredibly solid while riding and handles broken pavement, dirt roads and all weather conditions really well. The negative is that you really do need the electric boost at times, especially on those long uphill grades. While equiped with 24 speeds, I found it tiring to ride the bike without the electric boost. The mountain bike style also does not have the best ergonomics for longer road rides in which the well advertised benefit of "no sweat" actually falls apart. In the end, this bike is best for around town use - quick jaunts of a few miles and back to the store or to visit a friend. If I lived in the town I worked, I might well have never continued to explore alternative transportation options.

Key Considerations Before You Buy

Where you live is an essential factor in determining the best form of alterative transportation. How long is your commute to the places you want to go? Will you use your alternative vehicle year round or only in the best season for comfortable riding? Other key elements are how much time and energy you have to transport yourself. It is easy to assume we will ride more than is actually feasible, especially if we live outside of town. Our lives tend to be busy and overscheduled. We are used to travel by car and our lives are built around the time it takes to drive. To ride a bike or a scooter requires realistic planning and dedicated commitment.

Bike v.s. Scooter

I soon realized that loading my heavy electric bike on and off my car was tiresome, and the weight of the bike on my car's hatch damaged the rear wiper motor. When I switched to my old mountain bike, it felt like a breeze to lift and ride! My old bike wasn't truly a long distance road bike, so I replaced it with a new KHS Urban Express and outfitted it with fenders and panniers for a committed commute, even in inclement weather. I highly recommend choosing a favorite bike shop - mine is Trailside Bicycles of Hadley, Massachusetts - and cultivating an ongoing relationship with the staff as part of knowing and maintaining your bike and staying current with products and techniques. This is a great way to talk shop with other bike commuters too.

At the same time, I realized I wanted to be able to ride from my home to my job without draining my physical energy. The new bike I would use to continue my park-and-ride strategy for commuting to work, in which I park 8 miles from my job and ride in to the office, then back to my car at the end of the day, This takes an hour each way on hilly roads and satisfies my need to get exercise and power my own tranport without overdoing it. It doesn't satisfy my desire to be able to commute all the way to work.

So in the same month I upgraded my bicycle, I also purchased an electric scooter. A gasoline powered scooter was not an option for me even though they are less expensive than electric scooters. I wanted something quiet with no emissions. I couldn't afford an electric car and was hesitant about stretching my finances for a hybrid vehilce, but I was willing to make an investment in the greener choice that I could afford, which turned out to be $3000. I was now officially in a Bike v.s. Scooter comparison.

Electric scooters were not yet available where I live. I researched them online and arranged a special order through a local business, the Greenfield Solar Store. A motorcycle shop owner had warned me away from being a pioneer with emerging technology. The owner of the Solar Store happens to also be a motorcyclist and was intrigued with the possibility of testing out this mode of transportation. This offered me more security in making the purchase than ordering directly. The Solar Store already had a business relationship with the company I sought to buy from and they were willing to help me learn about the bike so they could consider it in our local market.

The model I bought is the Zapino, from ZapWorld, a company based in California. Manufactured in China, with a sporty Italian design, it seemed to be everything I was looking for, with the battery capacity and speed to handle the distance and the terrain to transport me to my job. Though I fantasized about using solar panels to recharge my scooter, that was a step that would have to come later, once I determined if and when I was ready to take it to that level.

Bike Commuting

Bicycle commuting is a real joy, there is no doubt about it. Riding even partway to work provides a positive boost to my day. Safe road riding techniques are a must and I've gotten by without a shower at work by using personal wet wipes and spending a few minutes transforming myself in the rest room before heading to my desk. While I have found it challenging to find the time and logistical patience to park-and-ride to work as often as I would like, I have discovered the immense satisfaction of commuting to other places without the pressure of arriving on schedule. This summer I had the best little eco-vacation cycling 25 miles to a favorite cabin in the woods where I stayed 3 days and 4 nights before cycling back home. It was my cycling highlight of the year and the lowest carbon output for a travel stayover I've done short of backpacking. This exploratory venture has inspired me to get serious about bike touring as a new vacation style.

Electric Scooter

Riding the Zap, as I came to call it, is a real thrill. It is a perfect joy ride and wonderful mind clearing therapy just to get on it and go. Motorcyclists acknowledge me with a wave despite the fact that I ride on the side of the busier roads where I am most likely to see them. Each time I ride it to work, it is exhilarating to arrive and depart without my car. I can carry less on the Zap though than on my bicycle with its panniers, since my options are a daypack and a grocery bag-sized space between my feet on the running board.

The scooter as it originally arrived was in moped mode, reaching speeds of up to 25mph with it's five 60V batteries. This restriction can be removed, making it more of a true motorcycle, though the speed you obtain is dependent upon your body weight and the terrain. Hills can slow you down, but the Zap can handle grades of 25% with ease for most people. At 155 pounds, I can reach 38mph on flat roads. I have to plot my routes with the terrain in mind, as there are many roads with grades too steep for any of my three alternative modes of transportation. Those five lead batteries contribute significantly to the weight of the 300 pound Zap, making it easy to balance and a solid ride, but you wouldn't want to have to push it uphill. Lithium batteries, still under development at the time I made my purchase, tend to increase the price of electric vehicles dramatically.

Legal Requirements

Bicycles are a breeze, requiring only an awareness of local laws about riding. Electric bicycles may have a few limitations - in Massachusetts where I live, they are not allowed on rail trails - but this is seldom enforced. Electric scooters are where legal aspects start to cost money and get complicated.

When I first purchased the Zap, it fell through all the bureaucratic cracks. Since it didn't have a gasoline engine it couldn't be registered as a moped, let alone a motorcycle. I simply learned how to ride it with minimal instruction, put on a motorcycle helmet and off I went! No registration, insurance, title or inspection. No restrictions on where I went, just common sense choices. No permit or license to operate. It was a frontier, and I was pioneering something new and unusual, which landed me on the front cover of the local paper the day I picked up the scooter and rode it home.

Those days of lawlessness are over now, at least in Massachusetts - and it is important that anyone considering such a purchase know the laws regarding electric scooter use where you live. Effective August 1, 2009, I'm legally required to register my motorized cycle as a "limited use vehicle", insure it, obtain a title and get an inspection. I have to at least pass a written test to get a motorcycle permit, good for 2 years, to drive it. If I want to ride at night or carry a passenger (which the Zap can accommodate with a weight capacity of 280 pounds), I must pass a road test to get a motorcycle license. Needless to say, this deflated my sense of freedom at the best time of the riding season in New England. On top of that, I was specifically told at the Registry of Motor Vehicles that I could only ride on roads posted with a 40mph speed limit or less. Now, ironically, I could legally ride my bicycle on the two-lane country highways posted at 50mph to work, but not my scooter!

I can re-route my commute to minimize my time in the 50pmh zone, adding a few miles to my ride. I'd still be lawless for a few miles but who is really going to enforce that? Even the RMV staff acknowledged it was unlikely the police would know that my driver's license was no longer sufficient for driving the Zap. The passage of the new law was inspired by the increased use of alternatively powered vehicles in Boston, where parking on the sidewalk was creating problems. We still have a ways to go before the law really cares about what I'm doing on the back roads of the Pioneer Valley. Even though I had been riding already for a year and a half without a plate on my vehicle, I started the legal process, bolted a new license plate on the Zap, and continued with my summer riding as usual.

Costs of Operating

To really understand how much electricity I use with my electric transporation, as well as household appliances, I bought a Kill-A-Watt from the Greenfield Solar Store. This is a handy meter you plug into an outlet before plugging in an electrical device to measure kilowatts per hour of use. My Currie electric bike costs pennies to charge and can take me 12-18 miles on a charge, depending upon terrain and how much I pedal while using the power boost to stretch out the charge. The Zap requires about 30 cents of electricity (based on the local rate) to fully charge for 8 hours and can travel at least 30 miles in moped mode. In motorcycle mode more energy is typically used to travel the same distance.

My scooter had a problem with the electrical system in its first year under warranty and the controller was replaced with one new and much improved. When that happened the bike was switched to motorcycle mode only and still seems to be able to handle 30 miles on a charge. The year and model of the bike or scooter are important considerations with regard to how far they will travel on a charge as electric vehicle technology is improving all the time.

The Big Picture

Alternative transportation, whether human or electric powered, is certainly worth exploring in the effort to lessen our personal impact on the planet. How well any choice works or how often you are able to use alternative modes may vary from person to person, depending on many lifestyle variables. Challenges for me that I did not anticipate were increased seasonal allergies and the physical and logistical demands of my summer work days, both of which significantly reduced the amount of riding v.s. driving I have been able to accomplish.

At first I was disappointed but luckily I kept track of how many days in a year I left my car parked, choosing to stay at home and/or using any alternative including carpooling and telecommuting. At the end of my first year of using alternative personal transportation in as committed a fashion as I could, I discovered I had not driven 126 days (up from 118 the year before) and decreased my annual driving by 4000 miles! These two figures leave me with a sense of true accomplishment and broader self challenge - to see if I can do better each year. It is this kind of thinking - using every available resource and making new and effective choices moment by moment to our best advantage - that makes a real difference.

Using more than one alternative transportation option offers greater success in reducing car driving. Different types of bikes and scooters represent different types of rides. Definitely test ride a few models if you can to determine your best choice. No one vehicle will usually work for all the transportation needs we have. Cars might seem universal in that we can drive a mile to the store and a thousand miles across country. The reality is that first mile to the store is the most polluting. If you can ride a bike or walk instead you've made a vital choice for personal as well as planetary health. An electric bike will get you there quicker. An electric scooter will take you farther and faster with a bigger grin on your face.