How much does sustainability drive your e-bike use?

How important is environmental sustainability in your decision to ride an e-bike?

  • It's my main motivation — I ride specifically to reduce my carbon footprint and car dependency

  • It's a major factor — not the only reason, but sustainability strongly influences my choice to ride

  • It's a nice bonus — I ride mostly for fun/fitness/commuting, but I appreciate the environmental bene

  • I've never really thought about it — I ride for other reasons entirely

  • Not at all — I ride purely for fun/performance/convenience

Results are only viewable after voting.
pagheca

pagheca

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Quick poll out of genuine curiosity: no right or wrong answers here!

We all ride for different reasons: fun, fitness, commuting, exploring, or simply because it beats sitting in traffic. I'm curious to know how much environmental sustainability plays into your personal decision to ride an e-bike.

Please be honest, this isn't about judging anyone or starting a debate on sustainability, EV, or climate change. Every answer is equally valid. Someone who rides purely for the thrill is just as welcome here as someone who sold their car to reduce emissions. I'm just interested in getting a real picture of what motivates this community.
 
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Zero. Nada. Zilch.
I ride a mountain bike on mountain bike trails.
When I'm commuting, I drive a 10 mile per gallon, CO2 spewing behemoth.

If I'm driving to the trailhead, my mountain bike is in the back of my 10 mile per gallon CO2 spewing behemoth.

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"Environmental Sustainability" is a concept propagated by the great and mighty making profit from it, and neatly sidesteps the real issue.

Which is global population growth.

In 1900 about 1.6 billion and in 2000 over 6 billion which is about 6/1.6 = 375% increase.

That is the real problem but hey, let's look the other way and get jiggy about CO2 emissions.
 
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Fangs2k said:
You tried buddy, you really did, but red rag to a bull for some on here I’m afraid. 😂
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On the contrary, I find these comments really interesting: please, keep them coming, folks... and VOTE! As long as it doesn't turn into a brawl, the more perspectives the better.
 
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irie said:
"Environmental Sustainability" is a concept propagated by the great and mighty making profit from it, and neatly sidesteps the real issue.

Which is population growth.

In 1900 about 1.6 billion and in 2000 over 6 billion which is about 6/1.6 = 375% increase.

That is the real problem but hey, let's look the other way and get jiggy about CO2 emissions.
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Humans are less than 0.01% of the Earth's biomass. Looking at how much floor space an average person takes up, every human being on the face of the Earth could fit in London.

Climates always change, with or without us hairless apes.
 
pagheca said:
actually

On the contrary, I find these comments really interesting: please, keep them coming, folks... and VOTE! As long as it doesn't turn into a brawl, the more perspectives the better.
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Well, your thread, and I voted, and best of luck! ✌️
 
With all the gratuitous drive train brake pad, and tire wear on e bikes im filling up the landfill so much faster than my mtb....

Not to mention every 5 minutes when a new motor is released I need to discard my now worthless and entirely unacceptable to ride e bike to right away for a new updated one.

SO no, im in it for fun reasons.

But I am aiding to the employment of those 6 year old working in the cobalt Mines. So at least someone is benefiting from my excessive decadence.
 
Amber Valley Guy said:
Oh yes I only use the finest unrefined natural oils (like whale) and waxes (from rare tropical trees) on my bike and ensure to charge it with a portable wind turbine made of recycled wood and a Victorian cast iron mangle that I carry with me on every ride. 🤣
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Whale blubber chain wax can be a bitch to source tho.
 
Trek-Rail-eBike said:
Yep.
Lithium is mined and shipped once, and is recyclable :)

Have you seen the mining process for oil which gets refined into fuel : petrol & diesel. Mine and ship continually with zero recycling possible.

One is an improvement over the other 💡
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I work in the oil industry so I'm well aware of how it's extracted and refined. It's what allows me to buy nice bikes ;)

Oil is used for more than just fuel though. Many of the products we take for granted in every day life are oil based, and many of them are also recyclable. I'm sure you know that though.

I always find it funny that people hate on oil but are happy to use products derived from it, along with other products containing non-renewable resources that have to be mined/extracted in less than environmentally friendly or sustainable manner.
 
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Just to put things in perspective here:
MeatBike said:
Oil is used for more that just fuel though. Many of the products we take for granted in every day life are oil based, and many of them are also recyclable. I'm sure you know that though.
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If we want to talk seriously about this, the petrochemical sector, e.g. plastics, fertilizers, synthetic textiles, adhesives, paints, lubricants, detergents, pesticides, and other materials currently accounts for only 12% of global oil demand, according to the IEA. That figure is projected to rise to 55% of crude oil demand by 2050, as transport fuel use will decline but petrochemical consumption is expected to grow.

As for recycling: in 2022, just 9% of the 437 million tonnes of new plastic produced globally came from recycled materials, a figure that remained stagnant for years, according to a peer-reviewed study (Tsinghua University, 2025). The remainder is landfilled (40%), incinerated (34%), or mismanaged. The United States, the world's largest per-capita plastic consumer, recycles only 5%.

The complexity of these problem is well understood by anyone who has studied it seriously (and I did, as part of my current job).

But complexity is not an alibi to do nothing. A recycling rate that has not meaningfully moved in decades, set against production volumes that have doubled, is not evidence of an intractable technical problem. It is evidence of structural and political choices that have consistently prioritised production over circularity. The breadth of oil's non-fuel applications, that is precisely the point you raise, makes the scale of that failure more significant, not less. These are not marginal uses of a surplus resource but foundational dependencies, and they are growing.
 
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Sustainability doesn’t enter my mind until the politicians come out with their drivel and use that drivel to justify tax increases

However, I will always respect the environment I ride in and make sure I minimise my footprint

Watch Landman and the brilliant (now viral) speech by Billy Bob Thornton about the wind turbines - that certainly adds a new dimension to the political rhetoric.
 
Sustainability doesn’t enter my mind until the politicians come out with their drivel and use that drivel to justify tax increases

However, I will always respect the environment I ride in and make sure I minimise my footprint

Watch Landman and the brilliant (now viral) speech by Billy Bob Thornton about the wind turbines - that certainly adds a new dimension to the political rhetoric.
 
irie said:
"Environmental Sustainability" is a concept propagated by the great and mighty making profit from it, and neatly sidesteps the real issue.

Which is global population growth.

In 1900 about 1.6 billion and in 2000 over 6 billion which is about 6/1.6 = 375% increase.

That is the real problem but hey, let's look the other way and get jiggy about CO2 emissions.
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It's interesting that many people are still quoting "over population" as one of the worlds largest problems. When in reality, population collapse will cause the biggest issues to society over the next 50-150 years. As Elon says, whenever your county begins to sell more adult diapers than baby diapers, your county is in real trouble. Japan is an amazing country, which once had an amazing economy. Spend some time researching it. Almost every first world country is heading towards Japans population collapse, Japan just got there 1-2 generations faster than EU, US, South Korea, China, etc.
 
MeatBike said:
I work in the oil industry so I'm well aware of how it's extracted and refined. It's what allows me to buy nice bikes ;)

Oil is used for more that just fuel though. Many of the products we take for granted in every day life are oil based, and many of them are also recyclable. I'm sure you know that though.

I always find it funny that people hate on oil but are happy to use products derived from it, along with other products containing non-renewable resources that have no be mined/extracted in less than environmentally friendly or sustainable manner.
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For sure.
Remember, it doesnt NEED to be 100% avoid oil in everything, or don't bother. There is an in-between :)
 
Sustainably and environmental policies have been corrupted by money and politics. But mostly money. We spend hundreds of billions fighting climate change. That amount of money has caused corruption even sadly at science and research level. Thr more doomsday evidence paid researchers provide, the more grants they get, the more governments can tax and spend to fight climate and the sun. I’m a science guy but have doubts in our study of climate change. I’m not saying it’s not real, im
Saying climate science study is corrupted by money and used to back ever increasing fees and taxes. Carbon credits, carbon offsets, just another way to generate revenue. I recycle, conserve, drive EV, have solar and ride emtb purely for fun.
 
AgileMike said:
It's interesting that many people are still quoting "over population" as one of the worlds largest problems. When in reality, population collapse will cause the biggest issues to society over the next 50-150 years. As Elon says, whenever your county begins to sell more adult diapers than baby diapers, your county is in real trouble. Japan is an amazing country, which once had an amazing economy. Spend some time researching it. Almost every first world country is heading towards Japans population collapse, Japan just got there 1-2 generations faster than EU, US, South Korea, China, etc.
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Agreed. Our population will shrink and cause major problems. Chinas idiotic one child policy has caused population collapse and they are desperately trying to reverse it now. They are manufacturing society that will run out of workforce. Hardly any country in the west is having enough children. Japan has been on population decline for a while now but has been able to use technology and modernize to continue the economy running. But that is an amazing culture and few countries can pull that off. For anyone applauding shrinking population as some kind of win for the planet and sustainability has no idea what they are talking about. 25% reduction in population could drive society’s to collapse and bring real pain onto everyone. This is not something that will be good for anyone
 
AirKuhl said:
Humans are less than 0.01% of the Earth's biomass. Looking at how much floor space an average person takes up, every human being on the face of the Earth could fit in London.

Climates always change, with or without us hairless apes.
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You are not wrong but along with the growth in human biomass comes all the supporting infrastructures, industries, and expanded food chains.
 
My favorite part about ebikes becoming mainstream has been the reduction in stinky diesel shuttle trucks. It used to be a constant train of FU50 and RAM diesels, along with badly tuned beater gas trucks driving up the fire roads where I ride (creating huge clouds of dust and exhaust), and now it's just ebikes in the woods instead. I ride primarily analog, and I get a lot less lung butter when I do those climbs without the constant fumes.
 
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