TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — At City Bike Shop, electric bicycle sales more than tripled this year.
Not only are more customers choosing an e-bike over a non-electric bike for transportation and recreation, but e-bikes have expanded their customer base to people who wouldn’t be in the market for a regular bike, service manager Earl Whitney said.
According to Whitney, about one in four bikes they sold this year were e-bikes, in comparison to 6 percent of the bike units they sold last year.
E-bikes look similar to typical bicycles, but they have a rechargeable electric motor that assists with pedaling, which allows riders to go faster with less physical exertion.
They make biking more attainable for a wider variety of people, Whitney said. They fill a need for people with health conditions as well as commuters pulling kids or groceries in a trailer.
“It’s the same folks that might have bought a hybrid cruiser-style bike before, but now maybe they’re a little older or maybe they just have a really big hill in their neighborhood,” he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if, in five years, it’s not more like 50 percent of (our) sales are e-bikes.”
What’s being noticed locally is happening nationwide as well: E-bike usage is on the rise.
In 2023, 19.4 percent of bike users in the U.S. reported using an e-bike, an increase from 7.8 percent in 2021, according to peopleforbikes.org.
Traverse City Light & Power announced an instant rebate offer of $300 for its customers purchasing e-bikes at stores like City Bike Shop. Whitney said that also helped increase their sales of e-bikes, which range in price from the cheapest at $1,000 to the most expensive at $7,400.
According to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, there are three legally defined classes of e-bikes.
On Class 1 and 3 bikes, the motor engages while pedaling, and speed is automatically limited to 20 mph for Class 1 and 28 mph for Class 3. Class 2 bikes are still capped at 20 mph, but also include a hand-controlled throttle so that users can increase their speed without pedaling.
Pedego Electric Bikes in Traverse City sells only Class 2 e-bikes, with a throttle.
Dan and Pam Marsh, owners of Pedego Electric Bikes, said their sales, awareness and business has continued to grow since they opened in 2020.
“Our clients are typically a little bit older and, for a lot of them, it’s been years or, in some cases, decades since they’ve been on a bike, and now that they’re interested in e-bikes,” Dan Marsh said. “If we didn’t have e-bikes, these folks would not be out using the trail and, quite frankly, trails like TART and others wouldn’t be nearly as popular.”
That increased usage of Traverse Area Recreation and Transportation (TART) trails by e-bikes has prompted safety concerns for some residents.
“I don’t want to be in a bike lane and have somebody just whizzing by me because they’re on an e-bike and they’re going really fast,” said Laura Otwell, Traverse City resident and longtime bike advocate.
However, with the view that increasing e-bike use is inevitable, Otwell said she’s hopeful.
“Maybe it will have a positive effect in that there will be more of a drive for bike lanes and infrastructure if there’s more people on two wheels,” she said. “I think the key is just that people need to be respectful of whoever is around them.”
Currently, all three classes of e-bike are allowed on TART trails.
TART Director Julie Clark said that rather than using TART resources to restrict trail usage, the organization has decided to focus on an etiquette campaign for all bike users.
And they have partnered with local bike shops to provide a training video for customers new to riding in Traverse City.
“(TART is) really trying to work on that culture of kindness, because enforcement isn’t … how most people want TART to spend their time and money,” Clark said. “It is a layered issue that we recognize is an issue.
“But where TART landed was (that) more people are outside and active. More people are on bikes using them to get to these desired destinations.”
Rick Venner, vice president of Cherry Capital Cycling Club and an e-bike user himself, agreed with TART’s strategy.
“I love the way that TART is approaching that so-called problem and that is: It isn’t the e-bikes. It isn’t the category of bikes. It’s the person driving the bike,” Venner said.
“People will complain about an e-bike on the sidewalk going too fast. Well, then let’s give them a place to go. Let’s not just say, ‘You can’t do that,’ because they’re not going away.”