Bergy is Electric!



Bergy’s Article on E-biking the pass

For the longest time I’ve wrestled with the fact that I live in Victor, but work in Jackson. I love Victor and I love my job, but hate spending time commuting in my car. Sure I sometimes carpool, which is nice, or take the bus which is great, and I have even biked, which, while totally awesome, is not sustainable every day.

For the last year I’ve been researching electric biking as a car/bus/traditional bike alternative. Electric biking , referred to as E-biking, or pedal assist biking, is where an electric motor is attached to your bike giving you a boost while making you feel like superman.

At the shop they brought in a test kit to demo. Looking at the specs I thought it might be powerful enough for the pass and have a large enough battery for the distance. The model I tried was the bionx 350 which was mounted on a cycle cross bike.

First, if you haven’t tried one out yet, do it. I got on the bike and started laughing. The ease of starting from a dead stop was incredible. I test rode the bike over the hill on a very cold rainy dark afternoon. A few cars actually pulled over asking if I needed a ride. My response, “heck no, this is fun!” I was flying. I clocked from PSB in Wilson to the top of Teton Pass in under 27 min! I was breathing, but not seeing stars, and not feeling crushed. On the assent I never saw my speed drop below 10mph and at some points I got up to 15. On the backside I charged the battery in regeneration mode, which is like down shifting, and I had more than enough battery to make it back to Victor.

I rode back Tuesday morning, only instead of rain, there was snow. With two days of riding in numb limb inducing weather conditions I should have been cursing, instead I was singing.   Simply put this is a game changer for commuting.   I hope to have one soon. I’ve starting to not only look under my sofa cushions, but my friends as well.