How An e-bike Changed My Outlook On Life

You might not think a little technology on wheels could do such a thing, but it did

Here’s good old me with matching dress and bike (and awesome gold shoes!) while staying in Scotland for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Credit: Alex Todd

I clearly remember learning to ride a bike out front of my grandmother’s house, my mother holding onto the back as I pedaled. The she let go, and I went coasting forward, balancing on my own. She clapped and howled with excitement. I discovered I could fly.

Riding a bike is an ultimate form of freedom.

Bikes changed the world in a huge way. They moved commerce forward, making everything we have today possible. They increased the distance people could travel in a day, or even in an hour, and made it so that women could be more mobile and safer (a woman walking alone is more likely to get attacked than one trucking along at a 7 m.p.h. clip).

I’ve had many bikes over the years. I distinctly remember having a bike with a banana seat in the 80s, and those rainbow-colored streamer things bursting out of the ends of the u-shaped handlebars.

I recall riding it along Church Street in my hometown, over to the cemetery and up and around the sprawling hill. You could see a huge swath of the town from the top of it.

I’ve had big wheels and 10-speeds and mountain bikes and all kinds of two and three wheeled thingamajigs.