Electric bikes to ease travel pain

By SIMON COLLINS

An Australian engineer and 30-year sufferer of arthritis wants New Zealand to change its rules to help disabled people get around on electrically assisted bikes.

Alan Parker, who has had three hip replacements and walks with a stick, told a conference on sustainable engineering and science in Auckland yesterday that electrically assisted bikes were used by several million people in China and Japan.

But in New Zealand and Australia they were stymied by rules classifying them as mopeds that required warrants of fitness, vehicle registration and number plates, making them uneconomic.

A Land Transport Amendment Bill now before Parliament would reclassify them as bicycles if they have motors of less than 200 watts.

But Mr Parker said 200 watts was "underpowered for New Zealand elderly males, who are much heavier than the elderly females who make up the majority of Japanese users". He urged MPs to allow electric bikes with up to 500-watt motors.

If anyone disagreed, he challenged them to run tests "riding up hills in an urban environment [using] elderly male and female test riders - one of whom should have osteoarthritis of the hip that restricts walking".

Electrically assisted bikes differ from motorbikes because they still require pedalling. A small motor gives the cyclist an extra push up hills or against the wind.

The Japanese models are designed to halve the pedalling effort required, and the latest versions have computer chips which fade out power assistance at 25km/h - about the maximum speed a fit cyclist could reach without assistance.

Europe changed its rules two years ago to define bikes as having power assistance of less than 250 watts and the US introduced legislation last year to set a limit of 750 watts.

Mr Parker said that, despite his artificial hips and arthritis in his knees and ankles, he could still bike easily around Melbourne on a power-assisted bike.

"You get to the time when the doctor says you have to stop driving. This bridges the gap," he said.

"Riding a bicycle can be less painful than walking for people with osteoarthritis in the hips, knees or ankles. This is because the saddle and not the legs carry the body weight."

He said a motor would also encourage younger people to cycle in hilly cities, and would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by tempting people out of their cars.

The battery-powered bikes need to be recharged after 30 hours' biking.

Waiheke Island Bike Hire manager Maurice Ormsby, who has lobbied the Government on the issue, said he was eager to offer electrically assisted bikes for tours of the island.

"There are a lot of older people who want to hire cycles but find it a bit daunting because, Waiheke being an island, you do have to go up hill and down dale a bit," he said.

The Land Transport Amendment Bill is open for submissions to Parliament's transport and industrial relations committee until August 11.

Land Transport Amendment Bill 2004