as effective as medicine
as beneficial as popping a daily pill
Professor Tegtbur describes the health effect as “almost as good as a medicine.”
Sorry, what “medicine” are we talking about here? I don’t deny that electric bikes could be good for health but what in the world is this being compared too?
Booze?
I’m of the opinion that editors writing headlines generally commit the most frequent journalistic malpractice. But in this case, it’s hard to blame the editor when the article itself is extremely scant on details. Here, the article does not actually link or cite the study in question, but merely quotes one of the study’s principals, writing:
According to Professor Uwe Tegtbur, the effect on your heart and blood vessels is almost identical. You’re burning calories, your heart is pumping, and your fitness improves. The notion that “you do nothing on an electric bike” can go straight into the trash.
I mean, at least they included the name of the person they’re indirectly quoting. But this leads to two possibilities: the article author has misquoted the professor by negligently ignoring the nuances of science, or the professor has negligently misstated the results of his study. I tend to assume that journalists get it wrong, since science is hard.
And from 5 minutes on Google, I found this (much better) article about an ebike study that Professor Tegtbur worked on; not sure if it’s the same study, but the conclusions do seem similar:
Through an interview in the German news magazine “Spiegel”, the research project “Pedelec and Health” gained nationwide attention last week. However, the results of the study have already been available for several months. They were first published in October 2022 in the journal “BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine”. Here is a brief summary of everything you need to know about this study.
Excellent! Actual context and citations to a well-known publication and to a scientific journal. I wonder if I can find the DOI for the study in that journal.
Yes, yes I can. And here it is: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjsem-2021-001275 . Here is the salient conclusion:
Conclusion: E-bikes are associated with a lower probability of reaching WHO targets for MVPA due to reduced duration and a reduced cardiovascular effort during riding. However, e-bikes might facilitate active transportation, particularly in older individuals or those with pre-existing conditions.
There’s a lot of nuance here: they conclude that ebikes reduce physical exertion, since the motor does some of the work that otherwise would be done to move an acoustic bicycle. So people switching from an acoustic to electric bike might miss their physical activity targets. But on the flip side, ebikes enable people who can’t do an acoustic bike trip to instead do it using an ebike, which adds physical exertion, getting closer to their physical activity target.
TL;DR: the initial article is bunk, but the underlying study did reach a correlation about ebikes and physical exertion, for a studied population in Germany
Thank you for the comprehensive reseay, but now I want an acoustic bike 🙃
I have an ebike and a regular one: I ride the e-bike when I’m all beat up from the regular one or need to get somewhere faster. Would recommend! You can pick up a good used bike off Craigslist or similar probably for $100-200. I’d recommend a decent steel frame bike from a well known manufacturer like Trek, Specialized, etc.
Much like the varieties of guitars, I’m of the opinion that acoustic and electric bikes can easily coexist[1], within reason. That’s why I have one of both. As for how I determine which one to use, I have the following system:
Use the acoustic bike for trips that are wholly within city limits. Use the acoustic bike for trips where yhe bike needs to be brought onboard a bus or train. Use the acoustic bike if there are (or will be) wet roads. Use the electric bike for all other trips. Exception: use the electric bike if time is of the essence.
Using this criteria, I end up spending roughly equal time on both bikes, although obviously the ebike sees a lot more kilometers due to higher speed. This lets me continue to hit my daily activity goals, unchanged from before I got the ebike. It also means I don’t have to haul a heavier ebike onto public transport. And while hydroplaning on any bicycle is exceedingly unlikely, the fact is that wet roads have reduced traction and so speed+torque would get me into more trouble if I rode the ebike. Finally, my life is not scheduled to the minute, so if I’m going to be late for a dentist appointment on the acoustic bike, I can make up time by selecting the ebike instead.
[1]: coexistence means that I expect that even in an advanced future where ebikes are trivially affordable, it will still be reasonable to ride an acoustic bike. For comparison, horse carriages simply did not coexist with automobiles after the 1920s.
But as a matter of public policy, just because two modes can coexist does not mean their differences can be ignored. Acoustic and electric bikes are both fine on pavement, but the latter can cause larger dust clouds on dirt roads. Recreational trails with weird curves are fine for strolling around, but are definitely not a high-volume commuter corridor to alleviate urban traffic woes. If a municipality wants to encourage commuting by ebike, they should not assume that a trail that’s miles out-of-the-way, with blind corners everywhere, can somehow be used as-is. No surprise, but bike commuters like direct paths, and ebike commuters want paths where their ebikes will prove useful. So if building from scratch, a city could build an arrow-straight, off-street ebike path with steady 6-10% grades, because ebikes can overcome that. Can the same be used by acoustic bikes? Yes, but not by most people. That’s the nuance: different bikes may need different facilities. At the same time, all bikes share common needs: safety from automobiles, air/repair stations, wayside water fountains, bathrooms.
I’m sorry, I made a joke and you answered sincerely, thank you very much.
I thought your writing of acoustic bikes was a typo because I know of electric and acoustic guitars and have never heard of acoustic bikes before, I so found it funny. Your response however makes me think that I need to educate myself in this matter a bit more before trying to make stupid jokes.
I’m sure whoever coined the term acoustic bike was also making a joke. But the thing with neologisms is that if it’s easy to understand without referencing a dictionary, and it catches on, then that’s as good as any other word.
It’s just a playful retronym, at the end of the day, but is perfect when distinguishing from ebikes.
I’m still going to pop an aspirin the next time I got a headache even though I do have an ebike too.
That’s a stupid headline indeed but I can conclusively say that for me, the e-bike quickly became my preferred vehicle, over the car. Basket big enough to hold groceries, not so much effort that I’m unwilling to go a few miles on it (before it was walk or drive, I’m not carrying groceries more than a mile, I did walk to work but in summer would arrive sweaty, and it was annoying carrying purse and lunch and coffee).
So I walk less but drive much less, overall more exercise I think.
