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Bicycles

The ebikes that did things differently in 2020

By Loz Blain
December 17, 2020
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A hubless cycle rolling down the street will certainly grab all kinds of attention; it looks surreal
Beno
A hubless cycle rolling down the street will certainly grab all kinds of attention; it looks surreal
Beno

This year has been a huge coming-out party for electric bikes, with sales going through the roof. Why? COVID-19 has been a huge factor – people just don't want to be smooshing themselves up against unknown disease bags on public transport any more. Also, wild weather events have made people more conscious of climate change, endowing EVs with a bit of a mass-market halo, and a lot of people have had a chance to test-ride an ebike now as well; test rides can very quickly create fans and evangelists. Either way, the segment has exploded.

As we look back over the year, we've covered a lot of bikes. But rather than focusing on the most practical and affordable, or putting together some sort of buyer's guide, we thought it'd be interesting to highlight the fresh and left-field design ideas that broke new ground in 2020.

With all that COVID cash rushing into the market and buyers showing more enthusiasm than ever to explore ebikes as a clean commuting option with as much or as little exercise as you like, the stage is set for an even more interesting 2021.

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BicyclesBest of 2020ebikes
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Loz Blain
Loz leads the New Atlas team as Editorial Director, after nearly two decades as one of our most versatile writers. He's also proven himself as a photographer, videographer, presenter, producer and podcast engineer. A graduate in Psychology, former business analyst and touring musician, he's covered just about everything for New Atlas, concentrating lately on clean energy, AI, humanoid robotics, next-gen aircraft, and the odd bit of music, motorcycles and automotive.
1 comment
Techrex
Many years, the local San Francisco politicians were looking into making special bike-powered rickshaws, so that tourists could be transported about, without the automobile exhaust emissions, that was making this city's smog problem worse. But, pedaling a rickshaw around is physically EXHAUSTING! So, to reduce the biker's fatigue, they experimented with a kind of pneumatic kinetic battery, a downhill and braking energy recycling device for the rickshaws, a special order gearworks and air pump, which compressed outside air inside of the steel tube framework of both bike and rickshaw, and then released it to help propel this green vehicle whenever it had to go fast or go uphill. Something like that, should be looked into for many models of modern E-Bikes and the like, since there is a lot of potential push in braking and downhill rolling energy. Also, when they manufacture these little flying drone, they found that they could reduce the weight of their tubular landing frames, by stuffing the inside of these tubes with tiny, hollow, glass microspheres, a physics trick, that enabled them to make it as lightweight as possible, without losing the required structure strength. Something like that might work with bikes with steel tube frameworks, only they would have to stuff the insides of these bicycle frame tubes, with small, hollow steel bubbles, which would also give the bike some additional crash impact resistance as well!
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