My ebike was basically a mobility aid for me and I didn’t even realise fully at the time.
I have a congenial hip deformity that made walking as a kid challenging, it was worsened by an autoimmune condition and in my late teens I slowly lost the ability to walk. By 22 I was a full time forearm crutches user, and at 23 a part time wheelchair user.
I was 100% reliant on accessible public transport to do anything. I could occasionally afford a taxi, but it was a rare occasion. It made finding work really difficult. When I was 24 I had surgery to remove a bunch of adhesions and scar tissue among some other things, and afterwards started an intensive two year physical therapy rehab program.
It got to the point where I could walk about 500m without any aid, and I could cycle about 1km on a standard bike. It was a huge increase to me previous range of zero, and it included the local shops and a second bus stop with additional routes so I was wrapped.
But then I got an ebike, and suddenly my range went from 1.5km to 21.5km, I could lazily pedal 20km and let the motor take me, though in reality I can turn the motor down and lazily ride 30-40km.
Over time, this lazy riding in addition to my PT meant I was working harder without feeling like I was, my walking range was growing too because my leg strength and my endurance was growing from lazily cycling so much. Suddenly I was doing 20,000 steps a day in addition to a casual 15km ride to work. Last year I set a goal to jog for 10 minutes, and nailed it before June, setting myself the goal of a 5km by Christmas, I went over, but ran my first ever 5km on January 4th. Having never ran before, not even as a child.
All thanks to my ebike.
Which I could only use because I have semi decent bike infrastructure in my area, and ebikes are legal.
To add to this, one time when I visited a German town, the tour guide, a somewhat elderly guy, chose to walk his bike everywhere he went - odd choice, but he said it was useful for him to have something to lean on when he’s not riding.
![[meme] There is no one-size-fits-all solution to transportation](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/0bfe1df9-1b6b-414f-88b3-4e7d57514682.webp){kind=link}
My ebike was basically a mobility aid for me and I didn’t even realise fully at the time.
I have a congenial hip deformity that made walking as a kid challenging, it was worsened by an autoimmune condition and in my late teens I slowly lost the ability to walk. By 22 I was a full time forearm crutches user, and at 23 a part time wheelchair user.
I was 100% reliant on accessible public transport to do anything. I could occasionally afford a taxi, but it was a rare occasion. It made finding work really difficult. When I was 24 I had surgery to remove a bunch of adhesions and scar tissue among some other things, and afterwards started an intensive two year physical therapy rehab program.
It got to the point where I could walk about 500m without any aid, and I could cycle about 1km on a standard bike. It was a huge increase to me previous range of zero, and it included the local shops and a second bus stop with additional routes so I was wrapped.
But then I got an ebike, and suddenly my range went from 1.5km to 21.5km, I could lazily pedal 20km and let the motor take me, though in reality I can turn the motor down and lazily ride 30-40km.
Over time, this lazy riding in addition to my PT meant I was working harder without feeling like I was, my walking range was growing too because my leg strength and my endurance was growing from lazily cycling so much. Suddenly I was doing 20,000 steps a day in addition to a casual 15km ride to work. Last year I set a goal to jog for 10 minutes, and nailed it before June, setting myself the goal of a 5km by Christmas, I went over, but ran my first ever 5km on January 4th. Having never ran before, not even as a child.
All thanks to my ebike.
Which I could only use because I have semi decent bike infrastructure in my area, and ebikes are legal.
To add to this, one time when I visited a German town, the tour guide, a somewhat elderly guy, chose to walk his bike everywhere he went - odd choice, but he said it was useful for him to have something to lean on when he’s not riding.