Demand has rocketed as people consider how to get into work after lockdown. They enable riders to avoid car use and the close contact of public transport – but just how safe, affordable and healthy are they?
When Ben Longdon’s son got too heavy for him and his wife, Laura, to manage on the back of their bikes on their hilly Cornish commute, it looked as if they might have to start using their car. Instead, they hit on another solution – an e-bike. In non-lockdown times, Ben and Laura work at the University of Exeter campus about three-and-a-half miles from their home in Falmouth, and their children – they now have another son – attend the on-site nursery.
Most days, the family commute together. Ben rides a conventional bike, with Laura on the e-bike, pulling a trailer in which the two boys sit. “I can just about keep up on the flat if there’s not a headwind,” he says. “But she beats me up the hills. She can beat people wearing Lycra up the hills, even with the kids on the back. She normally waits by the entrance to the campus so I can have a drink of water and catch my breath.”
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