Electric bikes might just be the healthiest thing to ever happen to teenagers

> For the teenagers of which country, exactly?

United States, obviously. Article makes zero pretence being about anything other than that and it's stated right there in the opening paragraph: "among America’s youth".

Before the "fat bike" phenomena the same demographic used to ride around in "snorfiets" scooters which were theoretically limited to 25 km/h, but pretty much everyone modified for speeds of up to 50 km/h.

But somehow the Dutch have this collective amnesia on the topic, and today nobody remembers how the "snorfiets" problem of 10-15 years ago has pretty much disappeared, to be replaced by a quieter and safer mode of transport (even ilegally modified E-Bikes usually fall far short of modified "snorfiets" speeds).

    > [...]appear to be designed without pedaling in mind,
    > as exerting effort without proper ergonomics would
    > quickly become uncomfortable and painful.

The "fat bike" design is something that wouldn't work well unassisted, because it trades a severe increase in rolling resistance for better ride comfort.

But as a clean sheet design it makes more sense than the alternative. Why incorporate a complex suspension design (which, to be fair, some of them also have), when you can just have the tire absorb the bumps in the road? The marginal cost in electricity is trivial.

> These are also designed to meet regulations, while also being able to easily be modified to circumvent them, such as removing speed restrictions, and removing the need to pedal itself.

This is the trend near me: Kids buy hackable e-bike, immediately unlock it, and then ride their new electric scooter (motorcycle) around pretending it’s an e-bike.

There’s a separated mixed use bike path parallel to a road on my commute. It’s typical to see e-bike kids driving up it faster than the road traffic on the road, while pedestrians and families jump to the side.

Yeah, those fatbikes are just the latest iteration of the old little scooters (bromfiets) with the small win of being more quiet. I feel like the size of them and the seating arrangement should enable them to legislate fat bikes as scooters while only catching a small number of modified pushbikes that the police would likely ignore when the cyclist isn't being a nuisance.

They'll definitely gain weight, it is quite easy to tell that they aren't exerting much effort during pedal assist.

Here in Marin it’s not allowed to use an e-bike or scooter with a throttle if you’re under 16. Nicely catches all the edge cases.

I also live here, and while i agree Dutch teens should be riding regular bikes, we here are in the extremest of minorities around the world in terms of what teens would be doing without e bikes

> This type of group riding brings back real-world socialization, which is especially crucial right now.

> many teens haven’t yet learned the road rules,

There are few nations in the world that respect cycling as a mode of transportation enough to legislate that cyclists are permitted to ride two abreast (I am only aware of the Netherlands). Instead, in most nations two cyclists out for a "convivial" trip together are forced to ride single file while two seat wide vehicles operated typically by a single driver in a vehicle wider than two bicycles riding abreast speed merrily by.

Let the teens ride side by side.

> The article is about "touching on independence, mental health, social behavior, and even environmental awareness" just as much as not sitting on your butt inside.

Teenagers in the rest of the developed world are also spending increasing amounts of time in front of screens despite not have the constraints imposed by American car culture. E-bikes might have removed one barrier, but that does solve the problem.

Kids where I live often, maybe usually, walk or take busses to school. If they pay monthly through the app they get unlimited bus travel in the county. Its not atypical in the UK, and its even easier (albeit more expensive) in big cities. We still have kids spending all their time doom scrolling.

I think it is a combination of over-protective parents and addictive stuff on their phones that is the real problem.

Ebikes are a definite menace here, and e-scooters are worse.

> It recommends class 1 e-bikes so you still have to pedal (no throttle).

Where I live, the trend is either to buy an electric motorcycle and ride it around as if it was a bike (on sidewalks, bike trails, crosswalks) or to buy a hackable e-bike and unlock the power limit and add a throttle.

The interest in real class 1 e-bikes seems minimal. The hacked e-bike and electric motorcycle people are making bike paths and trails much more dangerous for everyone.

Even the normal e-bike people have seemingly forgotten that there are rules. I had to jump out of the way of a middle aged woman who blew through a stop sign on her e-bike and turned right straight into us pedestrians. It’s common to see e-bike riders jumping between the sidewalk, road, and crosswalks as convenient and blowing through the four way stop by my house.

Agreed. E-bikes have gotten my elderly relatives moving too. From essentially sedentary to active on a daily basis.

Teens + other able bodied people are inactive for reasons unrelated to ease of pedaling.

That never stopped this 70's kid who grew up riding a bike in the suburbs. (There was a brief moped craze though. I couldn't afford one.)

In Houston, my girlfriend and I share a car since I work from home and she doesn't which is sufficient for 95% of our needs.

Yesterday I went to a meetup.com board game night by myself while she was at work and the only option was to take a $17 Uber there even though I live as central as you can get (central means very little in a place like Houston).

It's especially ridiculous after living in Mexico City which has world class mass transit and the liberation to go where you want with nothing but 5 pesos. Houston's mayor calls cyclists "activists" and routinely rips out or rejects bus and bike lanes. Huge lifestyle downgrade, but I love her and this is where she got a job.

From what I can tell looking at teenagers in the Netherlands: healthy kids have normal bicycles; kids who actually have to cycle 20km from some village to get to school often get e-bikes (somewhat sensible); those with upper middle class parents living in the suburbs get regular e-bikes too (pointless); lower socio-economic classes get their kid a Chinese fatbike.

Mopeds are becoming increasingly rare.

I moved to the black forest, germany. Rather hilly - but you see as many e-bikes as bio-bikes when being in the woods. Teens use their bikes to drive to school and e-bikes are definitely slowly taking over. When kids live 20-30km away from school I can relate, but not for a short commute. On the other side, they want to use their e-bike as a sport utility in their free time, so they don’t have 2 separate bikes.

The Netherlands is a rather dense, flat country. Generally not too hot, either. All of which reduce the downsides of pedal-pumping on a regular bike.

People who don't care about cycling or appealing to the morals of any demographic go out and buy fat tire throttle controlled e-bikes. What that tells me is that those are the best experience for someone who doesn't care about the details. Without personal experience in the details of a subject I would err toward not deviating too far from that. Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.

Get one with a Bosch CX motor (at least Gen4 or newer with the smart system). They are market leaders here in Europe and they usually ride really well.

Canyon (German brand) sells bikes in the US with this system: https://www.canyon.com/en-us/electric-bikes/electric-touring...