A highlight from my summer: seeing my 4.5 year old paddling and standing on their own on the paddle board. (Parent there for safety)
That kid has been on a paddle board for most of their life now. It's great seeing them paddling for themself now!
What are the best, cheap bike lights you can buy in bulk?
I'm looking to buy as many lights as I can to give away to any riders who need them. Ideally, they'd be water-resistant and rechargable.
I'm making a playlist to play with a wireless speaker during our bike bus. What are your (school appropriate) song recommendations?or better yet, share your playlist?
Hey r/BikeBuses
Our little sub is about to break a modest little milestone: We currently have 99 members, and will soon cross over into 100!
I say, that's a great occasion to make a new icon for ourselves. We aren't here to talk about actual buses, after all...
If any of you here are artistically and graphically inclined, please try your hand and make an Icon that better fits the sub and post it in the comments. Upvote your favorite to be the new r/bikebuses icon!
Hey everyone, I wanted to pass on some things I'm learning as I try to get a bike bus rolling for my school.
October 7th is Walk and Roll to School Day. I'm planning to use it as a test-run of my bike bus route. After registering my school, I got an email where I could choose free gifts for the kids who participate; things like stickers, comics, and reflective shoe laces. You have until the end of September to sign up and place the order for swag.
Anybody else planning to participate? Or are you an expert and have some tips for a newcomer like me?
I'm in the planning stages of starting a bike bus for a school. I want the kids to have fun and feel welcome, but I'm also obviously there to keep them safe. I'm trying to figure out a few simple rules that will keep everyone safe on the road and having fun.
What rules would you recommend? Or what rules have worked best in your buses?
Why do you like them, or think they are a good thing to have?
For me, I remember biking all over town as a kid. These days I very rarely see kids riding bikes. I want to run a bike bus to show kids they can do it themselves, and hopefully inspire them to ride other places too.
How did y'all hear about bike buses?
I first started seeing videos online from Coach Balto who leads the one in Portland, Oregon
What would you tell others about having a bike bus? If you don't have one, is there a reason why not?
If you want to start a bike bus, or if you can share your experience with bike buses with others, please join r/BikeBuses to encourage others to start one too!
**EDIT** for anyone who doesn't know, a bike bus (sometimes a 'Bike Train' is a group of adults and kids who ride in a group for safety and fun. In this case, the "Bike Bus" is meant to get kids to school on bikes.
Have you ever run a bike bus for your school or community? Or would you like to? I'm trying to gather people together to help one another form and run bike buses. If you're interested, please join r/BikeBuses.
I'm trying to start a Bike Bus for school kids in my community. I'm starting this group for others who have done this, or want to do this, for their their communities too. Share successes, frustrations, and tips, ask for help, share bike buses in the news.
Hop on the bus! r/BikeBuses
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Just wanted to see if this is normal.
We've had our EV9 for right around 1 year, driven about 17,000 miles. Our battery health consistently reads at 98%.
That is not a very meaningful impact considering how fast it charges, but I'm just curious if it's normal, and what others are seeing for their EV9's age and milage.
I've had an E-cargo bike (Riese and Muller Multicharger) for a few years now. I'm not a 'power user'; I myself have put around 1200 miles on this bike, and it had 1100 miles from its first owner. We use it to drop the kids at daycare, run errands in town, and for recreation. I love it.
While the weather is fair, this bike totally replaced our second car. That car has gone for months without filling up the tank.
Out of curiosity, I wanted to know how much gas this ebike was saving us.
In its lifetime, the batter has delivered 45.9 kWH over 2399 miles. That means it has averaged 52.27 mile/kWH over its lifetime.
As a comparison, some of the best EV cars are getting 4 mi/kWH, and bigger vehicles are getting less.
The EPA has a MPGe for comparing Electric and Gas cars. In MPGe, my bike is getting 1,761 MPGe.
Now, can it replace a car?
For us, no. Our family frequently needs to drive 40 miles from one town to the next using our second car. While I have done the trip by bike, it took several hours, vs 25 minutes on the highway.
We also live in a place where we get ice and snow, but the street conditions are too hazardous to take the bike.
But for most trips in town, and for most of the year, my ebike is my vehicle of choice. Its a bit cold in the winter, hot in the summer. It takes a little longer to get around. But it's FUN! Picking up and dropping kids off at daycare feels like an adventure. While it is an ebike, I'm getting a lot more exercise than if I drove. I take different routes and see parts of my town I'd never have seen before. Parking is easy, and I can often chain up the bike closer than if I had to park a car.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
Edit: fixed units
Second Edit: Cost comparison:
The car is an old Prius. It has a current Kelly Bluebook rating of between $5200 to $5800 if I sold it to an individual. Lets call it $5500 value. CarEdge estimates that the 10 year cost of maintenance is $4359, so I'll say $435 per year average, $870 in the two years I've had the bike. And it gets about 40mpg. Since I rode the bike 2399 miles, that would be 60 gallons of gas, times the cost per gallon. In my area, gas is $3.50 right now, and was $2.50 when I bought the bike. For simplicity, I'll call that $3 a gallon times 60 gallons is $180 of fuel to go the distance the bike has gone. Insurance costs about $2000 per year, so $4000 in two years. About $200 for registration.
So, total cost of car ownership over two years is $10,750.
The bike cost us $4,000 as second owners. I bought accessories that probably cost around $200. We've had it maintained twice, for probably $300 total. And we get electricity for $0.06 per kW, so $2.75 for power.
Total cost of ebike ownership over two years is $4502.75.
I still own and drive the prius, so I can't say that the bike has really saved me anything except for fuel costs. That would mean I've saved $177.25 in gas money. But, if our family ripped the band-aid off and sold the prius, we could be saving $6247.25 per year.
I have one audible credit to use. I cannot find either of these on audiobook through my library or Spotify.
If you had to pick, which would you recommend, and why? (Please, no spoilers)
I made a post last week about my guess that Garral is another Swarm spy. Well, as I continued reading I have more corroborating evidence.
Garral, tells Jessyn about Corvall's Plan to get a Corvall's distress beacon and get them and the kids evacuated. Garral mentiones that Corval has all sorts of great intel that his command would want.
But, I don't think this is what they planned at all. I think this is Garral's plan, and since Jessyn can't speak the language she can't know the difference.
One reason why I think that is Jessyn saw Garral, Corval and Omco talking. She described how Garral and Omco were like two birds tweeting away at each other, while Corval only occasionally interjected something that got the others talking again. That does not sound like Corval was instructing the other two.
The other reason why is because what Garral tells Jessyn is not what happens.
Corvall, who was supposed to be delivering important intel, sacrifices himself. It's Garral who leaves with the "great enemy" ship. After all, he had far more intelligence having been on Anjin, the Carryx world-palace, and now World.
I'm re-reading (ok, re-listening) to The Faith of Beasts. I just came to the introduction of Garral Pär, and two things jumped out at me right away.
This sounds exactly like what Clae was doing when she was trying to integrate herself into the human moiety. She was using pheromones that made it easier to convince people they knew her and that she belonged. And after all that happens on World, Garral leaves with the human rescue mission. He manipulates Jessyn into helping him, in the same way that the Swarm does with the human moiety.