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VIDEO. Should you buy a mechanical bicycle or an electric bicycle? Not that easy...

2021-01-17T09:52:50.247Z


BICLOU, the series on the “Parisian” bike. You want to buy a bike, but you hesitate between classic bikes, mechanical, and


BICLOU, EPISODE 33 - Getting to work by bike is good for your health and the environment, and sometimes it even saves time.

Corinne, a higher education teacher, crossed on the rue de Rivoli cycle path, takes stock: “I have been riding an electric bicycle for 6 years.

Result: I am not exhausted arriving at my classes.

"

Find all the episodes of Biclou, the series on the bike of the "Parisian"

"Vélotaffer" (that is to say the fact of going by bike to work) can be part of your good resolutions at the start of the year.

But once you've made that decision, there's the less obvious part: finding the bike that's right for you.

Today there are thousands of different models, whether they are more suited for the city, the road, the mountain or the paths, whether they are foldable, with disc brakes or not ... And quickly the question arises of the moment: should you opt for an electrically assisted bicycle (VAE) or a classic bicycle, called "mechanical"?

The mechanical bicycle, cheaper and more durable

The commitment of the Île-de-France region to finance the purchase of an electrically assisted bicycle up to € 500 may encourage the purchase of an electric bicycle, despite an average purchase price of 5 times more higher than a conventional bike.

The mayor of Paris also offers a reimbursement capped at 400 euros, for the inhabitants of the capital.

Although the average purchase price of a "mechanical" bicycle is 349 €, the first prices of traditional bikes in the big brands are around 200 €.

On the VAE side, even with a discount of 500 euros, you will still have around 1,200 euros to pay to get your bike, since its average purchase price is 1,749 €.

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François, one of the salesmen of L'Échappée Belle, a bicycle shop located in Asnières-sur-Seine, explains to us that the maintenance of electrically assisted bicycles is also a little more expensive: “When we do an annual service of an electrically assisted bicycle, we have to check the motor and do the updates, which we don't do on a conventional bicycle ”.

Count around 50 to 60 euros more per year for a VAE compared to a classic bike.

In addition, the battery of an eBike does not last forever: they work between 7 and 8 years and must then be changed.

And that also has a cost: around 550 euros.

François confirms: "A classic bicycle, if it is well maintained, can last almost a lifetime".

No real time saving by electric bike

In 2017, a study conducted by the University of Adger, Norway, showed that you gain an average of 6 minutes out of a 30-minute journey, if you use an electric bicycle rather than a conventional bicycle. .

On the other hand, the more elevation the journey has, the faster you will be on electric.

We did the test, in the 15th arrondissement of Paris on a rather flat journey of about 5 km: only 30 seconds of difference between the VAE and a perfectly normal bicycle.

In fact, in the city, unless you have large cycling sections without traffic lights or interruptions, the average speed of a bicycle is 15 km / h.

As a reminder, the average speed of car travel in Paris is around 13 km / h.

The electrically assisted bicycle is also sport!

One of the clichés widespread on the electric-assisted bicycle is that it is enough to let yourself be carried and that "it is for the elderly", as Quentin suggests, a young "mechanical" cyclist, stopped on the edge of the cycle path of the rue de Sébastopol.

"Be careful, the VAE is not a scooter: you have to pedal to move forward," says Dr Colette Nordmann, sports doctor and responsible for "healthy cycling" at the French Cycling Federation.

“The intensity of effort is certainly 30 to 50% less than a conventional bicycle, but the effects on health are exactly the same: reduction of cardiovascular and osteoarticular risks, increased immunity, neurological benefits and well- be ".

Cycling, whether electric or mechanical, reduces the risk of stroke by about 30%.

“The VAE is a potentiator of the classic bicycle,” continues Dr Nordmann, “it allows people who have never ridden a bicycle to get started.

It is no worse than the classic bicycle, it is just different.

"

And it can even be used by the greatest athletes, to recover after an intense competition for example, as Thomas Voeckler reminds us in the book he published a few months ago.

The impact of the manufacture of eBike batteries

If you decide to go “cycle-friendly” for ecological reasons, it is also necessary to remember the impact of battery production. Lithium, which is used in the majority of electric batteries today, is especially mined in South America, especially in Argentina and Bolivia.And while industrialists pride themselves on a “clean” exploitation, the extraction of this metal requires drastic quantities of water in often desert environments.

Cobalt, another metal essential for the manufacture of batteries, is extracted almost exclusively in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

It is not just environmental impacts.

Amnesty International has for years denounced the exploitation of many children in these mines.

Find a new episode of Biclou every Sunday on the “Parisien” Facebook page

Source: leparis

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