Watts uses his to take his child to school, and has begun seeing many more parents doing the same. The batteries are recharged by plugging into a household outlet, and typically last dozens of miles per charge. Most of the e-bikes at the store are similar in design to traditional bikes, which Watts calls "acoustic bikes," but they have an electric motor that assists the rider's pedal stroke, adding a boost of energy. Even the naysayers, that are hardcore bike people, like I originally was, ‘Oh, it’s cheating.’ Well, sometimes, if you want to call it cheating, it can be fun.” “You ride an e-bike and you come back, you’re smiling, inevitably, everyone is. "We call it the e-bike smile," Watts says. He says many cyclists return from test rides with an "e-bike smile." Maine Public Doug Watts is the co-founder and operations manager of Lincoln and Main, a South Portland e-bike store and cafe. Transportation planners see e-bikes as part of the state's effort to achieve its climate goals over the next three decades.ĭoug Watts, who sells e-bikes at Lincoln and Main Electric Bike Café and Winery in South Portland, says e-bikes make people happy. While many Mainers are using them for recreation, others rely on them for functional transportation, or in place of a car. Morin is far from alone - e-bikes have become wildly popular. It’s silly, but it’s true.”Īnd with that, Morin rolls out into the morning, her taillight shining bright in the dawn, with a smile on her face. "And it’s beautiful, the ride is beautiful. “With gas prices that went sky high, the two of us, our commute is very short, there's no reason we should be driving a car five or six miles in to work," Morin says.
Since she and her husband bought e-bikes in May, she says the commute has been a breeze, and she now rides to work almost every day, unless it rains. She says she used to ride a conventional bike to work one day a week, but would often arrive in a full sweat. Morin lives about six miles from Maine Medical Center in Portland, where she’s a nurse practitioner. It’s 5:15 a.m., and the sky is just starting to lighten in the east as Becki Morin rolls her electric bicycle out of her garage in Falmouth.
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