Portland's Eneloop: The Mayor's Perspective

I recently had an opportunity to talk to Mayor Sam Adams about his office's new ebike. As you may recall, Sanyo recently donated one of their Eneloop ebike models to the Mayor's office (they also donated one to the Mayor of Salem). Since hearing that, I've been curious as to whether the bike is getting much use and what his staffers think of the bike.

Mayor Adams reports that his staff really likes the bike, and that it enables him to regularly ride his commute in work clothes (suit and tie, in his case) without the necessity of a shower at the end. It's difficult to see in the photo, but he was also wearing a helmet from Nutcase, which is based in Portland.

Additionally, the Mayor pointed out that if more people were aware of electric bikes, bikes "would easily pick up 10% in mode share". As Portland looks to expand bike share into the "interested but concerned", ebikes can help address a lot of those concerns.

All city employees also have access to the A2B ebikes in the city motor pool as well.

Metro also recently added an electric bike to their motor pool. In several brief conversations with test riders during the recent Bike There! map launch, riders reported that they found the ebike to be a viable alternative to checking out a car to go to a meeting downtown.

It will be interesting to hear more long-term feedback on fleet electric bikes.