Once again I commuted by bicycle. A colleague came to a meeting at the Ministry by bicycle, and we discussed commuting issues. Her commute distance is 20 km, and she seemed to be very satisfied with her three-year old electric bicycle. My commute distance is 16 km (32 km daily). Usually I have commuted by bicycle on three days, and on two days I have used bus or car.
E-bikes are getting better (and somewhat cheaper) all the time, and I think my next bicycle will be an electrically assisted one (a pedelec). Then I could commute by bicycle each workday without it becoming too taxing. Also, an e-bike would be somewhat faster, cutting the commute time to something like 35-40 minutes, which would be great.
The gear hub (Shimano Nexus 8 Premium) in my current bicycle is now past the expected durability of 10,000 km. I have had it serviced once, and then some tear was visible, and the fifth gear was causing occasional problems. At that point the bicycle had 12,000 km of use, now it is at 15,000 km.
When the gear hub becomes unusable should I have it repaired? The cost could be something like 300-400 euro if I would get a similar gear hub. Or should I invest in an e-bike?
There is also the alternative of retrofitting the bicycle with an electronic motor, and one shop here in Helsinki is in fact selling BionX e-Bike Systems for bicycles similar to mine. Questions, questions...
I took the photographs above half an hour after sunset in the garden outside the house. Blue feeling...
(Posting title is from the poem Merry-go-round by Miroslav Holub.)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment