Bad traffic and a new e-bike. The changing face of traffic in Brisbane

[Jash Rider]

I work in Brisbane as a piano technician for a living. Been at it now for just over 27 years, 22 of which have been as an independent contractor. When I first started out I could drive from my home in Petrie, on Brisbane's north side, to Springwood on Brisbane's south side in an easy 45-50 minutes during the peak hour of traffic, minus any delays due to accidents or breakdowns.

Today it's a very different story as the same trip now requires a time allowance of at least 1.5 hours in peak hour, not allowing for accidents of breakdowns, either of which can add several minutes to a few hours to a trip depending on how bad it is. I have simply cancelled work some days if the Gateway has been blocked by a significant accident. Coming home on any given day is a guaranteed 1.5+ hours to travel a mere 40 odd kilometres in what is pretty much stop/start traffic. It's becoming increasingly rare to get home from the south side in anything close to an hour after 2:30pm due to the sheer number of cars now using the roads.

Considering approximately 80% of my work is located in maybe half a dozen suburbs around Sunnybank, and growing increasingly sick and tired of spending as much time in the car some days as I do actually working, I decided to purchase an e-bike. The reason for this is because in cooler weather I've used a bicycle for work transport before but often end up a little too sweaty by the time I arrive at a clients home. Summer is absolutely prohibitive due to the intense humidity and temps on your average summer day.

Having done a bit of research it would seem an e-bike is a solid solution to the sweat issues as the bike's motor can do enough of the work that you aren't heating your body up so much that you end up looking like you've just been in a water fight. With this in mind I let google do a lot of the work and having looked at my needs and budget, and ended up purchasing a Trek Verve+2 on sale last week from Trek at the Gabba. I may purchase the 500wh battery if I find my range needs are not met by the standard 400wh battery pack and with both batteries I will be able to travel a long way when needed. Time isn't an issue because I book my jobs at my leisure and can easily allow a little more time between jobs if it's even needed. A few months ago it took 32 minutes by car to travel 11km in the late morning.

On Thursday arvo last week I took the new e-bike for a proper test run along the entirety of the Petrie to Kappa-Ring shared path, which from my house gave me a total distance of around 36km using approkimately 2/5 of the battery's capacity and leaving me with an indicated remaining distance of around 50km before the battery was empty. This was achieved using a combination of all the modes, as it was a test. From that test I think I don't need Turbo mode at and would only use Sport mode on the occasional steeper hill.

At the end of the trip I was only slightly damp around your typical moisture areas, which is quite a good result considering I wasn't really going easy. I averaged around 20kph for the entire trip, which while slower than on my regular bike, it was so much easier to pedal. I hardly ever got a puff in my breath, even up the hills.

Suffice to say I think this bike will be a good place to start with this transition to using a combination of transport by train closer to the city and then going about my work day before riding home. I will be able to remove the battery and charge it at each client's home while I work ensuring I will be riding with a full, or near full battery each time I use my bike. Getting sweaty on the way home won't matter for obvious reasons.

With roughly 3,000 people a week moving into SEQ, and an utter lack of infrastructure upgrades to cope with the increasing traffic, I plan to make using the e-bike a long term as road traffic is only going to increase and become worse as time goes by. Sure there will be days when I will have to use the car due to weather or the 20% of jobs not within those suburbs, but at least half my driving will be able to be eliminated almost immediately. And as I learn the quickest and best routes around the city and suburbs, I hope to increase my e-bike usage to hopefully 3/4 of my transport needs.

[brumby33]

I made the move from Sydney to Brisbane (Wynnum) back in 2006/07 working arvo shift at the Port of Brisbane on Container trucks, I enjoyed it actually but the wife didn't despite coming from one of the most humid and hot Countries in Asia and yeah what a difference it was.
In Summer, walking out of a shopping centre with groceries was like walking into an outdoor sauna, the Mozzies having you do the Mexican hat dance at all hours, them buggers would not even go to bed after 2am, the flies actually ate parts of our dog's ear, they were relentless and midgees....you just can't protect yourself from them.....so we lasted up there for 9 Months then moved back to Sydney.
On Xmas day morning 2006, I thought I'd take my MTB for a ride from Wynnum to Cleveland and get the train back to Wynnum, it was a nice ride, started off overcast but was comfy enough, I wanted to smell all the nice Xmas food cooking through the suburbs I rode, then down through the wetlands around Wellington Point and on to Cleveland. Took me a couple of hours but wasn't pushing it too hard but when I got back home I was as red as a lobster and I really knew if when getting in the shower....so my advice to you and as we're approaching the warmer Months of the year, I advise you to invest in some long sleeve Summer riding jerseys as well as some Lycra shorts or under shorts if you don't wanna look like a lycra lad. The long sleeve jerseys will be cool, protect your arms from UV rays and stop the sunburn. Start with 2 and see how ya go, easy to wash and dry.

regards

brumby33

[Mububban]

Ebikes are brilliant things. Happy riding!

[trailgumby]

I think we'll see a lot more of this. Roads for cars already account for something like 40% of our urban land space - it's just not practical to dedicate more space to the private motor vehicle when we have an urgent need for more housing space and urban green space in the areas where people actually want to live - that is, close to work, recreation and education.

The only practical option, therefore, is to use what limited road space we presently have far more efficiently.

E-bikes are the obvious solution. And they have 1/40th of the carbon footprint of electric cars.

[blizzard]

It's been a few weeks now, how are you finding the Ebike for your job?