Hi Ira,
Nice work…lots of ideas come to mind and I think you would be the perfect ranter for motorized scooters and bicycles that have me chewing my nails everytime one flies by, often with helmetless kids. Rant for me, please.

I received this missive in response to my plea for topics my readers wanted me to rant about. Thank you, Annie, for your suggestion. What a superb suggestion, and you certainly chose the correct place to have it ranted.

I’m going to start this rant with a little personal story. Don’t worry, it will all tie in at the end.

One day, I was walking down the beach at a local lake when I spotted a little boy struggling as he tried to take his bicycle up a set of stairs. He was about 7 years old, and his bike was one of the smaller ones made for a kid his size. He would get the bike up a step or two, then it would fall and slide back down to the bottom of the stairs.

I couldn’t bear to see the little guy having so much trouble, so I walked over to him and said, “Here, I’ll help you,” as I picked up the bike and carried it to the top of the stairs. I set his bike down and he looked up at me through these thick glasses with heavy black rims that made him look like a little lizard.

“Thanks, mister,” he said, “That was super.”

“You’re welcome, young man,” I returned and flew off with my cape flapping in the wind.

If you would like to feel like a superhero, do something nice for someone today. It usually doesn’t take much and the feeling is great. I can attest to that. Now back to our original story.

When I was a kid, like Little Lizard Boy, bikes were simple. You had one speed and what was called coaster brakes that worked on the back wheel. It cost us next to nothing to operate one of these machines. Why, you could go ten or fifteen miles on a penny. They were also very good for the environment. No fumes were emitted; no special metals were needed. They ran on leg power and only took a little steel and some rubber to make.

Well, it wasn’t long before they started adding things like more speeds, caliper brakes fitted to each wheel, and lights and reflectors so you could be seen at night, that is, iffin’ yer ma let you stay out that late! With all these improvements, the cost of operating a bicycle was still miniscule in comparison to other modes of travel, and its environmental impact was low as well.

Fast forward several decades, and now they have fitted bicycles with motors. I’ve seen some with gas powered motors, but the electric ones seem to have taken over the market. They call them E-bikes.

The electric ones take a battery. Many are powered by a lithium-ion battery. These batteries are an ecological disaster because of the land that is being poisoned during mining and the amount of water needed for extraction of the ore.

Riding a bike used to make one fit. One used to be able to say, “I’m going for a bike ride,” and it would be known that you were getting some exercise. You were using your own power to make the thing go. Exercise. Not the case in this modern life. With E-bikes, yes, you can still use your own power, but who will do that when it’s so much easier to just turn on the motor? Aren’t we all prisoners of convenience?

Now there’s another problem with these E-bikes. They go without much effort. The kids, we’ll call them Baby Zoomers, tend to effortlessly buzz in and out of traffic dangerously and zip down sidewalks at speeds that are greater than if they had to pedal to make them go. It’s enough to make the driver of a car or a pedestrian crazy. Why, my dogs and I were out for a walk the other day and were nearly wiped off the map by one of these E-bikes driven by a Baby Zoomer with no helmet.

Now, we never used helmets when I was a kid, and I think they are maybe a little overprotective. These days there are some folks who only let their kids out to ride a tricycle with a helmet, knee pads and elbow pads. That seems a little over the top to me. However, with the speeds that electric bikes travel, it might be a good idea to have kids wear a helmet especially since Baby Zoomer’s heads tend to be so soft these days.

With an E-bike, if you have traveled a long distance and the battery runs out, you have to pedal your butt home. The battery and motor add weight to the bike. This makes it more difficult to make it go. The energy needed is greater and if you’ve been just using the motor most of the time, your muscles are not up to powering your way home without causing some pain. Be sure to have some salve on hand for those sore muscles! And if you’re a Baby Zoomer with weak little legs from not pedaling, you may have to call Mom to come pick you up.

Here in Oregon, we have special circumstances. Both the governor and the legislature love new taxes. They never get enough to spend. Recently, they tried to slap a registration fee on all watercraft including row boats, paddle boards, inflatable rafts and inner tubes. That went over like a lead balloon, but I’m sure it won’t take long for them to set their sites on motorized bicycles. You can expect that once they get E-bikes registered and paying a yearly fee, the next item down the list is regular bikes and after that, you guessed it, little kid’s tricycles and their little red wagons, too. I certainly hope the voters don’t let them get away with that!

Now at the beginning of this piece, I related a story about helping a little kid and how wonderful it feels to help someone. I’m going to modify the context of that statement a little bit. I would always help anyone who needed a hand getting a regular bike up some stairs. However, if you are trying to boost an E-bike up some stairs, I’m walkin’ on without noticing. They are heavier than regular bikes, and I don’t need another hernia.