E-bikes help regular people do amazing things.
(Photo by J. Maus/BikePortland)

E-bikes are everywhere in Portland. Dealers report strong sales, they scored great press in the Willamette Week’s latest bike issue, and I have a feeling that in a few years we won’t remember what our bikeways looked like without them.

Like many trends in the U.S. bike scene, Portland is leading the way. We have a cottage industry of sellers, makers, and tinkerers who are pushing e-bikes into the mainstream. We also have an academic brain trust at Portland State University that has become one of the nations leading places for e-bike research. Portland State University has been researching e-bikes since at least 2011.

Now they’ve inked a partnership with national nonprofits People for Bikes (an advocacy group funded by the bicycle industry) and the Bicycle Product Suppliers Association to learn even more about the e-bike market and push it further along into the American mainstream.
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Keola Munos with A2B’s heavy-duty lineup.
(Photos: M.Andersen/BikePortland)

As Jonathan wrote on Friday, this weekend’s Electric Bike Expo has been a milestone for Portland, a metro area that offers a rich bike-friendly culture but also has enough hills that many people are effectively shut out of it.

Enter e-bikes. And enter the expo, a free event outside the Lloyd Center movie theater that brought in vendors from around the country. As an e-bike newbie — I’ve written about them plenty but only ridden one before — I spent a few hours there on Saturday to see some of the products and talk to the customers and sellers. Here’s a quick tour of what I found.

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All the test rides and information you want, all in one place.
(Photos: J. Maus/BikePortland)

The electric bike revolution has landed in Portland.

All weekend long at the Electric Bike Expo the world’s top e-bike brands are offering free test rides of over 100 different models. I swung by on Friday afternoon to get a closer look.
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Electron-powered.
(Photo: J.Maus/BikePortland)

As electric-assist bikes take over more and more of the global bicycle market, they’re growing in the United States and Portland too.

Last year, Portland snagged its third and fourth e-bike specialty stores. Next month, we’ll host the Electric Bike Expo for the first time. And this week, Portland State University is sharing some of the only modern academic research on the domestic e-bike market.

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Test riding bikes is the big attraction.
(Photo: Electric Bike Expo)

Despite big advances in battery technology and ever-increasing availability, electric bike sales still lag in the United States compared to other countries. Organizers of the Electric Bike Expo — which is coming to Portland for the first time ever in May — think the reason many Americans aren’t enthused about e-bikes is simply because they haven’t spent enough quality time with them.

The focus of the two-day show is an e-bike test track. Attendees will be able to try bikes from many different brands and talk to e-bike experts. “The best way for people to truly understand what an electric bike is all about is to provide them with the ride experience. That is why we are taking electric bikes to the people,” is how Ray Verhelst, President of the Electric Bike Expo, puts it.
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Crank’s new storefront on Southeast Ankeny.
(Photos: J. Maus/BikePortland)

The only constant in Portland’s bike shop scene is change. On that note, I bring you updates on two southeast Portland shops that have opened up new doors in the past few weeks.

Crank Bike Shop moves to Southeast Ankeny

When Crank opened in 2010 I rolled over to look for it and, given what I knew about its general location near Southeast 28th Avenue, I just assumed it would be on Ankeny. But it wasn’t. It was one block over on Ash. That was a bummer because Ankeny is the very busy bike boulevard in that part of town. So imagine my delight when I found out the other day they’ve moved to… Ankeny! Yes, after many months of hard work, the folks at Crank are enjoying twice the space in a wonderfully remodeled retail store on Ankeny just before 28th.
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A Nomad Cycles e-assist system on a Soma mixte.
(Photo: Nomad Cycles)

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Yuba Bikes Founder and CEO Benjamin Sarrazin on his new Spicy Curry e-bike.
(Photos by J. Maus/BikePortland)

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A few employers own bicycles that they can loan to their workers as an introduction to bike commuting, but a Kaiser Permanente Northwest pilot program this year is taking that to the next level.

The health company is loaning folding e-bikes to 180 of its employees.

The goal is, in part, to increase active commutes by introducing more commuters to the transit-friendly vehicles that can address one of the biggest reasons workers neither bike or bus to work: they live too far away to bike, and too far from a bus stop to take transit.

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(Infographic by Portland State Transportation Research and Education Center)

A new poster summarizing research from a Portland State University scholar has some interesting factoids about electric bike users, but it doesn’t answer what’s becoming one of the biggest mysteries in American biking: why haven’t e-bikes taken off yet in the United States?

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