Our New Set Of Wheels

No….We didn’t get a new MH.  We bought bikes!  Aahhh…But what’s so interesting about new bikes you say?  Well, for one thing they fold.  Our thought is that when we are towing our vehicle behind our MH, which we always do, we can have our two folding bikes in the back.  So they stay out of the weather and we don’t have a huge bike rack on the back of our SUV.

So folding is interesting, but it still sounds like too much work you say?  Well, how about if they were electric!  Yup…we bought folding electric bikes.  Pretty cool I know.  We discovered on our various journeys that we wished, quite a few times, that we had bikes with us.  There are just some places that are better explored on a bike than through a car window.  So after lots of research, David found these.

They are the EG Vienna Folding Electric Bike.  There are not too many places around that sell folding electric bikes.  Shocking I know.  Online seems to be your best bet to get them.  David found a bike shop, ECO Wheelz, in Plymouth, Michigan (near Detroit) that sold them, plus they had free shipping when you ordered online.  So we headed towards Plymouth to take a test drive, plus it was a different way to get home.

So what does it feel like riding a folding electric bike?  Well, David has attached a short video below to give you an idea.  It’s really interesting and you get used to it pretty quickly.  The speed feels like you are going down hill all the time.  It has 4 modes to the bike.  One is regular peddling, no electric functions.  So yes, you still have to work at peddling.  The next two functions are economy and standard mode.  Those are a peddle assist mode.  So when you peddle, the motor kicks in and helps you along.  You can get up hills a lot easier and go a lot farther because you are not working as hard.  But yes, you still have to peddle.  The last mode is full electric.  You don’t have to peddle for this one.  You just hit the green button and turn your handle to work the throttle.  You can speed up and slow down depending on how far you turn the throttle.  The brakes work the same as any bike, in any mode.  The battery, they say, will allow you to go up to 30 miles in the economy mode.  The more power you use, the less mileage you can get.

Today David & I went down the Erie Canal which has a great bike path.  We are lucky enough to live only a couple miles from the Erie Canal, which runs through quite a bit of New York.  You can see the locks in action (if you time it just right), various boats and kayaks and some beautiful houses .  There’s shopping in the various villages that border the canal and many festivals that go on during the summer.  It’s quite fun to see and experience.  You can not do it all in one day though.  The canal itself is 500 miles long with 57 locks throughout the entire canal system.  Some people will rent house boats and travel along the canal for their vacations, just for a different point of view.  So we parked our car at our local town park, got our bikes out and took off.  We went down to the next village, had some Abbott’s Frozen Custard (a Rochester tradition), visited a museum that we never knew was there and headed back.  Round trip was 9 miles.  Not bad for our first trip.  We were proud of ourselves for getting outside our bubble in our home town.  I grabbed a trail map at the museum so we can plan our next outing.  Maybe this will become a weekly event.

Here’s the video showing our bike in action. Note how fast I am going with how little I have to peddle.  This was video was shot after about 4 miles and I am not even tired at this speed.  When we got back home, about 9 miles of riding, the batteries were still showing full.