I have seen the future — make that my future — and it is pedal-assisted.
You're going to be reading a lot of positive reviews of Citi Bike's new pedal-assist e-bikes in the next few days. Believe me, they're not positive enough.
The new battery pack on the frame turns your everyday Citi Bike into a rocket ship. Stop at a red light? You'll be back up to top speed in seconds. Need a quick jolt to get around an inevitably double-parked taxi in your bike lane? Just pedal a tiny bit harder and you race into safety. Riding up the aptly named Battle Hill in Prospect Park? You'll conquer it faster than the Hessians sent George Washington into full retreat.
My normal DUMBO-to-Windsor Terrace commute home takes me about 35 minutes on a normal Citi Bike, thanks to the hills in Fort Greene and Prospect Heights. On a supercharged Citi Bike, it's half that. In fact, you don't even realize you're on a heavy old Citi Bike because this thing moves so quickly.
(Full disclosure: I have long been a skeptic of Citi Bike and its parent company, Motivate. Its expansion of Citi Bike has been far too slow and too limited to create the city-wide constituency for cycling that would force the de Blasio administration to build more protected bike lanes and force the NYPD to crack down on motorists who kill and injure cyclists.
But, fuller disclosure: I'm getting up in years and as virile and muscular as my girlfriend considers me, she is also openly discussing our future as 70-year-olds who are still just as dedicated to cycling, but don't have the muscle mass to get to the top of the Fresh Kills landfill during the Tour de Staten Island.)
At Monday's unveiling, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams joined me in thinking that electric Citi Bikes will be a game-changer for seniors (not that he was calling me old).
"I'm going to go to the senior centers and tell people about this bike," he said. "Many seniors believe that biking has left them behind, but this bike shows that it's no longer the case."
Adams described the e-Citi Bike as one would describe an airplane on auto-pilot.
"I felt like the bike was riding itself," he said after coming off the Brooklyn Bridge.
On the road, the electric assist really kicks in at the lowest speeds, like when you're starting up from a red light or pedaling extra hard on a big hill and need that extra torque. In both instances, the battery provides so much power that cycling is in no way a form of exertion. Yes, I was still pedaling, but I never lost momentum, even when I had to slow down going up a hill because of a construction crew.
There are only 200 e-Citi Bikes on the roads, with another 1,000 coming for the L-train shutdown. That's not enough. But someday, when there are thousands of these on the roads, they will create a new generation of cyclists — all of whom will be a constituency for safer roadways, better NYPD enforcement and an ever-expanding bike-share network.
So, it's a start.
