Speaker 1: Episode four ninety four, Commuting with an e bike in
Speaker 1: any Weather with Kevin ha.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to
Speaker 2: save money, embrace simplicity, and live your life. Here your hosts,
Speaker 2: Jen and Jill.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen,
Speaker 1: my name is Jill, and I am so, so so
Speaker 1: excited for this conversation because you know, we always talk
Speaker 1: about the three biggest expenses you have every month are housing, transportation,
Speaker 1: and food. And when we talk about transportation, it's always,
Speaker 1: you know, don't get an auto alone, get a cheap car,
Speaker 1: save on auto insurance. And the most radical idea could
Speaker 1: for anyone is usually go down to a one car family.
Speaker 1: But there is a radical middle in transportation, and I
Speaker 1: I truly believe that it's e bikes, but there are
Speaker 1: so many barriers to entry on it, and our friend
Speaker 1: Kevin smashing them all. So if you want to save
Speaker 1: money on transportation and you're looking for that radical middle,
Speaker 1: this is it.
Speaker 3: This was I just said to you, Jen, a conversation
Speaker 3: that I just loved being in.
Speaker 4: I honestly forgot we were recording.
Speaker 3: I just wanted to know all of the things who
Speaker 3: knew we could talk for forty five minutes about e biking,
Speaker 3: but we did, And I really think it's going to
Speaker 3: at least challenge us on the way that we approach transportation.
Speaker 3: Even if it doesn't mean you're immediately going and getting
Speaker 3: an e bike, there are still other things we can
Speaker 3: think about related to this topic. Yeah, but first, this
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Speaker 3: is about the destination, whether you rode your bike, walked, ran, scootered, drove,
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Speaker 1: Getting there. Okay. So Kevin is the creator of financialpanther
Speaker 1: dot com. I met him in twenty sixteen. We were
Speaker 1: both baby bloggers at fin Con and he's written about
Speaker 1: personal finance and financial independence. But what I have found
Speaker 1: most fascinating about Kevin is he is a like primary
Speaker 1: transportation mode is e bike. He has two young children,
Speaker 1: He lives in Minnesota, where it is obviously cold and
Speaker 1: snowy in the winter, and still primary form of transportation
Speaker 1: is e bike year round, even with his children. And
Speaker 1: so I wanted to talk to him because we often
Speaker 1: think in things like this that it is a total
Speaker 1: all or nothing and maybe I, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: get a car and I get bike instead, and that's
Speaker 1: a really hard and not always feasible transition. So where
Speaker 1: do we find the radical middle on transportation? You are
Speaker 1: most likely not going to be all in like Kevin,
Speaker 1: but we want him to inspire you to find your
Speaker 1: radical middle and just kind of expand what you think
Speaker 1: is possible when it comes to saving on transportation.
Speaker 4: M let's get into it. Ask you from Kevin.
Speaker 1: Kevin, welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. I am so
Speaker 1: excited to have you here.
Speaker 5: Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 4: This is such a fun topic.
Speaker 3: We say that one of our biggest categories of expenses
Speaker 3: is transportation, and yet we've never really done an episode
Speaker 3: on alternative forms of transportation. We've done alternative housing solutions,
Speaker 3: and of course a ton of episodes on how to
Speaker 3: save on food. So this one I get into the
Speaker 3: nitty gritty on transportation. I am here for it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay, So Kevin, take us on the journey. How did
Speaker 1: you find yourself getting into e bikes and using that
Speaker 1: as a primary form of transportation.
Speaker 5: Yeah. So I have always been a bike commuter and
Speaker 5: I used like a regular bike for most of my life,
Speaker 5: mainly using like bike share bikes, those big heavy ones.
Speaker 5: And that's how I got to work and back like
Speaker 5: all year round, even in the winter in Minnesota. And
Speaker 5: in twenty nineteen I went on like a trip to
Speaker 5: Dallas and they had these like bike share like e
Speaker 5: bike bike shares, like these free floating ones, and I
Speaker 5: use that and I was like, oh my gosh, I
Speaker 5: can never go back to a regular bike now. And
Speaker 5: I remember me and my wife were just like biking
Speaker 5: around all of the city on these like bike share
Speaker 5: e bikes, and you know, twenty nineteen was still kind
Speaker 5: of like new for like e bikes, and so I students,
Speaker 5: I got back home, I was like, I'm definitely getting
Speaker 5: a bike, an e bike. So I buy an e
Speaker 5: bike for fifteen hundred bucks, like a rad power bike,
Speaker 5: which I still have, And that was like my primary
Speaker 5: mode of transport for a long long time, just using
Speaker 5: that bike to get around, and the fifteen hundred bucks
Speaker 5: I spent on it definitely saved me. I definitely made
Speaker 5: my money back for sure, because not only was I
Speaker 5: using that to transport myself get around, but I also
Speaker 5: used it to do like food deliveries with door Dash
Speaker 5: and Uber Eats and stuff, which is kind of like
Speaker 5: my thing I do. And so I easily paid for
Speaker 5: the bike just like doing deliveries and biking around.
Speaker 3: Oh man, so so many questions, but I'm going to
Speaker 3: start here.
Speaker 4: Did you ever own a vehicle?
Speaker 3: Do you still also have a vehicle or are you
Speaker 3: all in on the e bike?
Speaker 5: Yeah, so our household is a one car household. We
Speaker 5: have an electric car that we use as the primary car,
Speaker 5: but I myself drive that car like once a year maybe,
Speaker 5: Like I very rarely drive. My wife uses the car
Speaker 5: to get herself to work because she works pretty far
Speaker 5: out in the suburbs. Although in the summer she will
Speaker 5: bike to work too. It's like an eighteen mile bike
Speaker 5: ride and she'll do it on an e bike in
Speaker 5: like an hour. Wow, So it is possible even for
Speaker 5: long rides. But for my yeah so, But for myself,
Speaker 5: I mainly get around with the bike. And we also
Speaker 5: have two kids, four year old and two year old,
Speaker 5: and that is our primary motive of transport to and
Speaker 5: from daycare and just getting around everywhere.
Speaker 1: There is a there's a mom at our elementary school
Speaker 1: who also e bikes her two kids to school every morning.
Speaker 1: She says it's about a thirty minute ride, and there
Speaker 1: are a lot of parents doing this with kids.
Speaker 3: What Okay, that was going to be a question a
Speaker 3: little bit later on, but since we're here, I am
Speaker 3: so curious to talk about that.
Speaker 4: How are you putting? Where do the kids go?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 1: So let's yeah, let's talk about some of those barriers.
Speaker 1: Like first, the kids, how do they from infancy all
Speaker 1: the way to like your four year old. How does that?
Speaker 1: How do you transport them?
Speaker 5: Yeah, so this is a good kind of topic to
Speaker 5: talk about because you know, when I started in the
Speaker 5: e bike world, I didn't have kids when I first
Speaker 5: got my first bike, and so you know, when you're
Speaker 5: riding just like yourself around, it's very easy, right, you
Speaker 5: just hop on a bike and go. Once I had
Speaker 5: my first kid, then I had to like figure out
Speaker 5: what I was going to do. And so when I
Speaker 5: had one kid, I just had a It was just
Speaker 5: like a regular e bike, and it had a on
Speaker 5: the back that I would put a like a seat,
Speaker 5: like a bike seat on it, and my son would
Speaker 5: just go on the back there. We started taking him
Speaker 5: around on that when he was about one year old
Speaker 5: because at that time we lived really close to our daycare,
Speaker 5: so I could just walk him there. But then we
Speaker 5: moved and then I had to start biking him on
Speaker 5: the back of the bike. So one kid, very easy,
Speaker 5: stick him on the back of the bike. Once you
Speaker 5: had two kids, it adds another challenge for that one.
Speaker 5: I ended up getting this cargo bike, and we can
Speaker 5: talk about cargo bikes because these are like the big
Speaker 5: game changers. But I got one cargo bike that's called
Speaker 5: an urban arrow. It's like a front loading bike. It's
Speaker 5: kind of like a big buck in the front, and
Speaker 5: both my kids just go in that.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 5: My youngest kids started going in that bike when he
Speaker 5: was about five months old because it has like an
Speaker 5: adapter that you could put like a car seat into it,
Speaker 5: so attach it in, and so it was like great
Speaker 5: having that, and now that they're both a little older,
Speaker 5: I also got a long tail cargo bike, which is
Speaker 5: like it's basically just a bike, but it's like twice
Speaker 5: as long, and two kids can fit on the back
Speaker 5: of it really easily. And that one kind of is
Speaker 5: good to ride around in because it rides more like
Speaker 5: a regular bike, whereas like the front loader bike kind
Speaker 5: of takes a little bit of a learning curve to ride.
Speaker 5: It's a little bit different of a look of a bike.
Speaker 5: But both bikes, once you're like start riding them, it's
Speaker 5: really you like pick it up real quick.
Speaker 4: And probably so fun for the kids.
Speaker 3: Talk about a much better way of commuting to and
Speaker 3: from a school or take care. But so speaking of
Speaker 3: barriers with that, one of the things that comes to
Speaker 3: mind for me and I haven't done any research on this,
Speaker 3: but I've always been curious about safety laws around this.
Speaker 3: I mean, I know that this is not unusual for
Speaker 3: many other countries to you know, pile a bunch of
Speaker 3: people on a bike or a scooter or a motorcycle.
Speaker 3: It's just not super common in the States. And also
Speaker 3: I think we've got a little bit more regulations, especially
Speaker 3: around carting kids around.
Speaker 4: What have you run into with that?
Speaker 5: Yeah, as far as I know, I don't know of
Speaker 5: any like rules about how you ride your kids around. Like,
Speaker 5: you know, I do have like general safety things I
Speaker 5: do with the kids, like they put helmets on, and
Speaker 5: I am very careful when I'm riding. And I'm fortunate
Speaker 5: that I live in a city that has pretty good
Speaker 5: bike infrastructure for an American city. But you know, in general,
Speaker 5: it's just like, you know, riding a bike, you're not
Speaker 5: like going like crazy fast or anything. And as long
Speaker 5: as you're just like kind of an aware rider and
Speaker 5: you kind of are comfortable, you will it's like not
Speaker 5: anymore dangerous. I don't think then drive around a car
Speaker 5: where you know you can get a crash also.
Speaker 3: Right, well, that's been one of my biggest barriers. My
Speaker 3: husband and I we have a car. We are also
Speaker 3: a one vehicle household, although it's just the two of us.
Speaker 3: We don't have any kids. But we also have two scooters,
Speaker 3: like two Metro Honda Metropolitan scooters, so somewhat similar to
Speaker 3: the e bike, but there are you know, of course,
Speaker 3: some differences as far as like where we can park it,
Speaker 3: but that's been even on the scooter. One of my
Speaker 3: barriers is just like the safety of the roads. There
Speaker 3: are certain roads around us that to get from where
Speaker 3: we live to downtown, you've got like one option and
Speaker 3: it is a pretty dangerous stretch for about a mile
Speaker 3: or two. But yeah, I'm curious for you, like what
Speaker 3: you found. I'm sure of that not every road feels
Speaker 3: super safe. How you've navigated kind of that safety aspect.
Speaker 5: Right, and you know, this is something that kind of
Speaker 5: makes a little bit of experience to like understand the
Speaker 5: safest routes to take because you're you're absolutely right, And
Speaker 5: that is a barrier is people are nervous riding a bike,
Speaker 5: especially riding bike with their kids, and a lot of
Speaker 5: it has to do with our cities being kind of,
Speaker 5: you know, poorly designed so that they force you to
Speaker 5: drive around, and you know, that is a failure of
Speaker 5: a city when they make it so that you can't
Speaker 5: get around safely on a bike or walking or whatever.
Speaker 5: I do think that most cities, even like even really
Speaker 5: car centric cities, do have ways to get around. You
Speaker 5: just have to kind of look and figure out the
Speaker 5: best routing for you. I use a lot of Google
Speaker 5: Maps if I'm like doing a route I'm unfamiliar with,
Speaker 5: and you know, I would like look at the satellite
Speaker 5: view and try to see like, is there something, you know,
Speaker 5: some sort of separate path or something here that's makes
Speaker 5: it as a little safer because you're right, I'm not
Speaker 5: going on like a huge street with my kids. I
Speaker 5: don't like to go on a huge street by myself even,
Speaker 5: And so it does take a look practice to figure
Speaker 5: out your routes that you want to take.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is. It's a barrier to getting into biking
Speaker 1: or e biking, but it's it's a barrier. I think
Speaker 1: we build up bigger in our heads because I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, like I feel unsafe. I'm personally I
Speaker 1: don't have great balance on anything. I even I got
Speaker 1: on Travis's e bike and he was like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: put it on three for you, or I put it
Speaker 1: down to three for you, and I was like, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope,
Speaker 1: And I put it like down to one cause I
Speaker 1: just don't have great balance. But I'm like, we have
Speaker 1: a trail, we have a bike trail, and an e
Speaker 1: bike is a bike, so you could just go on
Speaker 1: the trail and there are no cars on that. So like,
Speaker 1: I think, it's just we're in the car mindset, so
Speaker 1: you don't have to pay attention to less direct routes
Speaker 1: or biking lanes and trails. But when you put yourself
Speaker 1: in the biking mindset, it's like that seat when you
Speaker 1: see a red jeep once and then now everybody has
Speaker 1: a red geep, you know, when you see when you
Speaker 1: ride the bike, Now every road you know opens up
Speaker 1: to the bike.
Speaker 4: Every road can be ridden.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well no, you know, And you're right about that
Speaker 5: because I whenever I'm even like going anywhere, I look
Speaker 5: for the bike infrastructure, right I look and see like
Speaker 5: and so I'll be like in the Burbs and driving
Speaker 5: somewhere and I'll be like, hey, look there's like a
Speaker 5: multi use path right there, you know, it's like something
Speaker 5: you wouldn't notice if you're not really paying attention of
Speaker 5: what's around you.
Speaker 1: So true, other like barriers are weather. And I know
Speaker 1: you live in Minnesota and you bike year round, so
Speaker 1: what do you do?
Speaker 4: How you how do you do?
Speaker 1: How do you do that?
Speaker 5: Yeah, and this is the weather is a fair thing.
Speaker 5: So obviously spring, summerfall, I think Emily can ride. Rain
Speaker 5: is the worst weather to ride in in my opinion,
Speaker 5: because it's just really hard to keep yourself dry no
Speaker 5: matter what you wear. So if I had to pick
Speaker 5: any weather, I think rain is worse than like super
Speaker 5: cold for really cold weather here in Minnesota. You know,
Speaker 5: right now this morning it was minus fifteen, so yeah,
Speaker 5: that's really cold.
Speaker 3: The wheels don't even turn, they're just frozen.
Speaker 1: You just glide along the ice.
Speaker 5: So yeah, wellso in really cold weather, it's all about
Speaker 5: like the clothing you wear, and especially it's not so
Speaker 5: much keeping your like body warm as it is keeping
Speaker 5: like your hands and your neck and your face warm.
Speaker 5: And so the things that I have, like I have
Speaker 5: these things called bar mits, they're called pogies also that
Speaker 5: you put on the handlebars of your bike and then
Speaker 5: your hands kind of just just go in them basically,
Speaker 5: so it kind of like makes like a like a yeah,
Speaker 5: it makes like a glove around the handlebars. And I
Speaker 5: don't understand how. Yeah, these are like a total game
Speaker 5: changer because I used to just wear like gloves, and
Speaker 5: you know, when you're wearing gloves, it's like hard to maneuver,
Speaker 5: and even your hands will still get cold. But with
Speaker 5: the pogies or the bar mits, your hands are like
Speaker 5: just totally warm. I don't really understand how, but I
Speaker 5: can ride in zero degree weather with no gloves, just
Speaker 5: my hands in there, and I'm totally fine. So that yeah,
Speaker 5: And so that's a huge game changer. And you'll see
Speaker 5: a lot of people who ride in the cold have
Speaker 5: those and then having like like buff it's called or
Speaker 5: like a baklab clava or something. It's like a face.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but that is.
Speaker 5: A big one too, because it covers like your face
Speaker 5: and your ears and everything, and your neck. And if
Speaker 5: you cover like your hands and your neck and ears,
Speaker 5: you are not as cold as you like you would
Speaker 5: think you would be, because like your body itself, you know,
Speaker 5: can stay warm and obviously, you know you put on
Speaker 5: layers and that kind of stuff. You know, snow pants
Speaker 5: and stuff like that, but you know, that's how I
Speaker 5: do it. And I mean, you know, the way I
Speaker 5: look at it, like my kids are riding also in
Speaker 5: ten degree weather and Minnesota winter and they're doing fine,
Speaker 5: And so I think these little kids can do it.
Speaker 5: I think a lot of people can probably ride in
Speaker 5: the winter even if it's really cold.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's crazy. Any like advice for riding in the rain,
Speaker 1: because maybe you are riding and it's not raining, but
Speaker 1: you get somewhere and it starts raining and you have
Speaker 1: to ride back, Like what do you do?
Speaker 5: Yeah, So riding in the rain if it's if I'm
Speaker 5: going somewhere, I have to bring a change of clothes.
Speaker 5: It's just just because I put on the raincoat and everything.
Speaker 5: And there's like these ponchos. I don't have one, but
Speaker 5: maybe I'll get one, but there are these like ponchos
Speaker 5: you can wear too. But right now my thing is
Speaker 5: I put on a rain jacket and I still get wet,
Speaker 5: and I just have a change of clothes with me
Speaker 5: for when I get to wherever I'm going.
Speaker 3: For one other barrier, I'm curious your thoughts for someone
Speaker 3: who'd be like okay, but I'm in the suburbs or
Speaker 3: even a little bit more of a remote area. Is
Speaker 3: this even something that I should consider? You know, when
Speaker 3: everything is ten maybe plus miles away, what would you
Speaker 3: say to that person?
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I think that people in the suburbs under
Speaker 5: overestimate how far away things are from them, and they
Speaker 5: underestimate how like how what kind of infrastructure the actually
Speaker 5: have out there. One of the big advantages with e
Speaker 5: bikes is you can cover these big distances much faster.
Speaker 5: Like a mile on an e bike is like five minutes,
Speaker 5: you know, if you're if you're biking at like regular
Speaker 5: e bike speed, and so a three mile ride like
Speaker 5: fifteen minutes. And if you look at where the things
Speaker 5: you're going to, like grocery store and whatever, I bet
Speaker 5: you most of those things are within five miles or
Speaker 5: you know, five or three miles. And you know, there's
Speaker 5: like data from like the government that shows like the
Speaker 5: car trips people take, and like more than half car
Speaker 5: trips he'll take are three miles or less, and like
Speaker 5: almost two thirds of them are five miles or less.
Speaker 5: And these are all like perfect e bike distances. And
Speaker 5: in the burbs, like one of the things that always
Speaker 5: kind of talked about manual biking in the Burbs is
Speaker 5: that you're kind of riding sometimes on like really boring stretches,
Speaker 5: you know, like maybe it's like a sidewalk along like
Speaker 5: a huge street. But with the e bike, you just
Speaker 5: get through that quickly and so you don't really have
Speaker 5: to like worry about like being slow moving there. You
Speaker 5: just fly down the street as fast as you can.
Speaker 5: So that's what I would think is that most things
Speaker 5: are probably closer than you think. And even ten miles,
Speaker 5: like ten miles is kind of pushing the distances of
Speaker 5: like how far you wanna e bike, But if you
Speaker 5: think about it, even ten miles if you're biking like
Speaker 5: twenty miles per hour and an e bike, ten miles
Speaker 5: is like a half hour bike ride, which isn't like
Speaker 5: a crazy time to bike.
Speaker 3: Yeah, on an e bike, are you keeping up with
Speaker 3: traffic or you more so following like bike rules where
Speaker 3: you're riding on the side people are passing you.
Speaker 4: What does that generally look like for you?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I always stick to like whatever bike infrastructure can
Speaker 5: find that's ideally separated, not just like a pain in line.
Speaker 5: So most of the time I'm just going like on
Speaker 5: bike infrastructure that's separate from traffic. Very rarely am I
Speaker 5: going to be like on the street with like fast
Speaker 5: moving traffic. You know, if it's like a side street,
Speaker 5: I'll be on the street and then I'm just going
Speaker 5: with any traffic that's going. But if it's like a
Speaker 5: fifty mile per hour street, I'm not going to ride
Speaker 5: on that street. I'm going to like find a side street,
Speaker 5: or I'm going to go on the sidewalk or hopefully
Speaker 5: maybe they have like a path or something.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so we've covered then a lot of barriers.
Speaker 3: What I'm hearing you say is, yeah, there's an issue
Speaker 3: or a problem, and there's some sort of solution that
Speaker 3: we could find if we want to, so out of
Speaker 3: that now that I I'm a little bit like more
Speaker 3: convinced to give this a look a little look see,
Speaker 3: can you talk about some of the savings that you've
Speaker 3: seen kind of how this impacts finances.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sure you've done some math. I'd love yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear that.
Speaker 5: Absolutely. So this is one of the things that you know,
Speaker 5: if you look at like what we spend the most on,
Speaker 5: it's typically housing, transportation, and food. Right, So transportation for
Speaker 5: most household is the second highest expense. And you can
Speaker 5: guys see why you know, if you have a house
Speaker 5: to cars, right, and you look at how much the
Speaker 5: average car costs these days, it's like an average new
Speaker 5: cars like forty five thousand dollars or something crazy now, right,
Speaker 5: And if you look at like the data on how
Speaker 5: much a car costs to operate for like a year,
Speaker 5: it's typically like ten and twelve thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 5: You know, if you put in like insurance, gas, maintenance, depreciation,
Speaker 5: all that stuff, right, And that's just our cost not
Speaker 5: like external costs like pollution and all that stuff. So
Speaker 5: that stuff is you can see there's like a lot
Speaker 5: of money there to be to be spent on transportation.
Speaker 5: And I think it's kind of interesting because you know
Speaker 5: you mentioned this. We talk about like housing stuff and
Speaker 5: like food stuff, and people will like do all sorts
Speaker 5: of crazy things to like reduce those costs, right, And
Speaker 5: you don't see that much people talking about reducing like
Speaker 5: transportation costs other than like just driving like old car driving,
Speaker 5: you know, a cheaper car something like that. And so
Speaker 5: like you know, I'll tell people like, oh you should
Speaker 5: like just try, you know, biking as like your main
Speaker 5: mode of transportation, and people will be like, that's crazy, right,
Speaker 5: even at the same time they're like, you know, and
Speaker 5: I'm like in the financial independence community, so people will
Speaker 5: be like, these are people who are trying to like
Speaker 5: retire at like thirty five years old. And I'll tell them, like, hey,
Speaker 5: why don't you bike everywhere? They'll be like, that's impossible to.
Speaker 1: Drive? Is possible? Live on rice?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 5: And I don't know why that is, but you know,
Speaker 5: if you look at just like the general savings right there, right,
Speaker 5: So if you're looking at ten thousand or twelve thousand
Speaker 5: hours a year for a car, right, and you have
Speaker 5: two cars, I mean you're looking at you know, twenty
Speaker 5: twenty thousand dollars a year, twenty four thousand hours a year,
Speaker 5: but like if you can replace even one of those cars, right,
Speaker 5: so you save yourself ten or twelve thousand dollars a year,
Speaker 5: and that money instead of spending on a car, you
Speaker 5: were invested or something. I mean over a course of
Speaker 5: thirty years, that's like a million dollars. And if you know,
Speaker 5: if you like invest in, you have like, you know,
Speaker 5: pretty normal return and you know if you think about
Speaker 5: how long most people drive. Most of us drive for
Speaker 5: more than thirty years. We probably drive for fifty years
Speaker 5: or something. So that could be literally millions of dollars
Speaker 5: that you can save and invest if you, you know,
Speaker 5: put it to work on that. And meanwhile, like a bike,
Speaker 5: the maintenance cost of a bike is pretty much nothing,
Speaker 5: like if for an e bike the cost of like
Speaker 5: the electricity for the battery is like twenty five cents.
Speaker 5: Like it's like it's like a couple of bucks a year.
Speaker 5: It's literally like nothing. And you know, the maintenance itself
Speaker 5: on the bike is not very expensive. It's you know,
Speaker 5: you know, fixing flat tires, replacing some parts, these kind
Speaker 5: of things. It's maybe hundreds of dollars a year, you
Speaker 5: know for these kind of things.
Speaker 1: And much easier to YouTube those solutions than to YouTube
Speaker 1: the fixes on a car.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, absolutely, Like you know, flat tires and stuff.
Speaker 5: People you can do it yourself. Like I don't do
Speaker 5: it myself because I just like am so slow and
Speaker 5: horrible at doing it, so I always bring it in.
Speaker 5: But I mean I bring it in, I get flat change.
Speaker 5: It's like twenty bucks, right, and it takes them half
Speaker 5: an hour so ita. So that's kind of some big
Speaker 5: savings there. And then you know, the cost of a
Speaker 5: e bike obviously is way less than the cost of
Speaker 5: a car. I mean, you look at even buying like
Speaker 5: a like if you buy like a regular e bike
Speaker 5: for like a thousand bucks or something, or you said
Speaker 5: you had an e bike that was like only five hundred.
Speaker 1: Bucks, Well he got it on Facebook marketplace. It's a
Speaker 1: it was originally a fifteen hundred dollars e bike that
Speaker 1: he got for five hundred and I'll see allure of
Speaker 1: buying it. He got a great deal on it.
Speaker 5: And that is a great deal. And think about that.
Speaker 5: I mean he could literally buy like ten new bikes
Speaker 5: every year for the cost of a one of what
Speaker 5: it costs to keep a car going if you.
Speaker 3: Wanted to man not to mention like so, as I mentioned,
Speaker 3: we have scooters and we kind of like hack our
Speaker 3: transportation in that way. But one of the downsides for
Speaker 3: us where we live with the scooter is still needing
Speaker 3: to pay for parking, whereas the benefit of something like
Speaker 3: an e bike it gets you there faster than even
Speaker 3: just biking does, but you still get all of the
Speaker 3: benefit fits of it just being a bike, Like for us,
Speaker 3: a scooter doesn't count like that. I can't just park
Speaker 3: it next to the bikes and there are no scooter
Speaker 3: or motorcycle parking so it's and you need to pay
Speaker 3: per scooter, Like you can't park two scooters in one
Speaker 3: spot and just pay for one spot.
Speaker 1: And you have to renew the registration every.
Speaker 3: Year, right, Yeah, and it takes gas so there, but
Speaker 3: again we can run on one tank of gas for
Speaker 3: over one hundred miles per scooter, so it still is
Speaker 3: saving us tons on transportation. But this is definitely some
Speaker 3: strong benefits to the e bike kind of that, like
Speaker 3: even more radical middle of yeah, saving on transport.
Speaker 1: Something else I've been interested in is you do a
Speaker 1: lot of like Uber eats and like food delivery on
Speaker 1: your bike. I'd love to hear about that. And do
Speaker 1: you feel like using the e byte gives you an
Speaker 1: advantage over cars, like you can get to places that
Speaker 1: others can't, or be faster or just tell me about
Speaker 1: all of that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so for sure in a city, like I live
Speaker 5: in a city, and I think that I'm definitely faster
Speaker 5: than people who are in a car because I don't
Speaker 5: have to worry about parking and traffic or anything like that.
Speaker 5: And then just from like a delivery, just from like
Speaker 5: a money standpoint, it costs me nothing pretty much to
Speaker 5: operate my e bike, and so I'm making more when
Speaker 5: I'm doing the deliveries, and it makes it a little
Speaker 5: easier for me to I do something. When I'm doing
Speaker 5: food deliveries, I like do like multiple deliveries at once.
Speaker 5: It's called multi apping, so I can, like instead of
Speaker 5: doing one delivery, I'll do like two or three using
Speaker 5: like different apps. And it's much easier with the e
Speaker 5: bike because I don't have to worry about park car traffic,
Speaker 5: So it's like I can get from place to place
Speaker 5: a lot faster. And like from food delivery standpoint, if
Speaker 5: you think about where like restaurants tend to be, they
Speaker 5: usually tend to be in like downtown areas where parking
Speaker 5: is difficult and traffic is heavy, and so the e
Speaker 5: bike just has a huge advantage in like being able
Speaker 5: to hang out in like these downtown areas and get
Speaker 5: a lot of deliveries.
Speaker 3: When you're hopping on, hopping off, Do you have to
Speaker 3: be concerned about theft? Are you locking it up every
Speaker 3: single time?
Speaker 5: Yeah? So I so it depends where I am and
Speaker 5: how much I trust the place. Most of the time,
Speaker 5: if I can see it from the from the restaurant,
Speaker 5: like like through the window, then I won't lock it
Speaker 5: up because I'm usually just in and out in like
Speaker 5: a few seconds. But if it's is someplace that like
Speaker 5: like if I'm in certain places of downtown, for example,
Speaker 5: I'm not going to leave the bike outside for even
Speaker 5: a second, so then I will lock it up. Or
Speaker 5: a lot of times restaurants, I'll kind of like wheel
Speaker 5: it into like the little entryway area and just put
Speaker 5: it in there.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, nice, you.
Speaker 5: Know, like kind of the foyer part, and no one
Speaker 5: ever really cares.
Speaker 4: So yeah again, right, well, there's a will, there's a way.
Speaker 3: One other potential benefit I'm curious to hear your perspective
Speaker 3: on is just the way that e biking most places
Speaker 3: shifts kind of lifestyle. So I'm thinking about if you're
Speaker 3: talking going to the grocery store or even taking your
Speaker 3: kids places that you just don't have the opportunity to
Speaker 3: carry as much, which there probably are pros and cons
Speaker 3: to that, but I'm curious about the pros like the
Speaker 3: money savings or the ways that it shifted grocery shopping
Speaker 3: for you or simplified your life to whatever we can
Speaker 3: carry on the bike is what we can bring.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so you know, so I do definitely stick to
Speaker 5: places that are like closer, which is kind of nice.
Speaker 5: You know. So it's very easy for us to get
Speaker 5: to the park and stuff like that, you know, on
Speaker 5: the playground stuff because we can just I don't have
Speaker 5: to like load them into the car and like buckle
Speaker 5: him in. I can just like throw them on the
Speaker 5: bike and we're off and then you know, we just
Speaker 5: pulled right up to the to the playground and and
Speaker 5: that's it. So that kind of it does kind of
Speaker 5: shrink our world a little bit, which I think is good.
Speaker 5: I think a lot of us drive too far to places,
Speaker 5: like you know, like we don't need to be going
Speaker 5: like to the other side of town for everything. So
Speaker 5: that's one thing. As as far as like carrying things,
Speaker 5: I still carry a lot of stuff because we have
Speaker 5: that cargo bike, and so I do my Costco runs
Speaker 5: on that cargo bike.
Speaker 4: No, of course, you're not doing Costco on the bike.
Speaker 5: WHOA, Why, Yeah, I do Costco runs. My Costco is
Speaker 5: three miles from my house and it's all bike path
Speaker 5: to get there. The bike parking is right outside the
Speaker 5: front door, so which is great. I never have to
Speaker 5: worry about like because you know how parking.
Speaker 1: Lot yeah kind of small and dangerous.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I never have to worry about that. I just
Speaker 5: bike right up to the Costco, pull up to the front,
Speaker 5: lock my bike, and I'm in and I'll buy like
Speaker 5: three hundred dollars worth of Costco stuff. It's because it's
Speaker 5: it's mainly because this one bike I have, the cargo
Speaker 5: box bike, is like I can fit so much stuff
Speaker 5: in it.
Speaker 3: I want to know how many people are waiting for
Speaker 3: you outside just video recording you loading up your Costco
Speaker 3: haul on your e bike.
Speaker 5: Yeah. People people do it now. I've filmed some like
Speaker 5: to put on Instagram and stuff so I can share
Speaker 5: a link or something. You want to see what you do.
Speaker 5: But yeah, that's how I do it. And then you know,
Speaker 5: we'll usually if we do like a Costco trip with
Speaker 5: the kids, we'll take like two bikes and the kids
Speaker 5: will go on the the other bike on the way back,
Speaker 5: and then I'll just use the one bike to load
Speaker 5: it up with stuff.
Speaker 1: So last last question, tell us a little bit about
Speaker 1: the types, like the difference between the e bike and
Speaker 1: the cargo bike, and the prices and like what to
Speaker 1: look for, what to avoid.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so like a regular e bike, right, you can
Speaker 5: get them, Like there's a lot of like entry level
Speaker 5: brands that you can get and they'll be like thousand
Speaker 5: to fifteen hundred dollars for like the regular entry level
Speaker 5: E bike. I think those are great for anyone starting
Speaker 5: out because I don't think you can lose on that.
Speaker 5: It's you're probably gonna get your thousand bucks worth from
Speaker 5: if you use it like as transportation and not just
Speaker 5: as like a toy. So that's kind of that one.
Speaker 5: And then when you get to like the cargo bikes,
Speaker 5: there are like entry level cargo bikes that are like
Speaker 5: in the two thousand dollars range that are like the
Speaker 5: long tails, and then it can really start getting up
Speaker 5: and up. So the bike I have, the box bike,
Speaker 5: it's called an Urban Arrow. That bike was seven thousand dollars,
Speaker 5: which is obviously like a lot of money, like for
Speaker 5: someone you know to hear that, but like when I
Speaker 5: got that bike, I got it because or I got
Speaker 5: that bike instead of getting a second car. And so
Speaker 5: if you think about that that's actually like a really
Speaker 5: good price for like a car replacement, because even if
Speaker 5: I bought like a cheap used car, I would be
Speaker 5: probably spending double that, you know, fifteen twenty grand. And
Speaker 5: then right, and so like my my urban Arrow, I
Speaker 5: can you know, maintain it's a couple hundred bucks a
Speaker 5: year to maintain it, and I don't have to worry
Speaker 5: about insurance and gas and anything like that. And I
Speaker 5: use it as like my second vehicle. Essentially, it's like
Speaker 5: my car for myself. Yeah. So, but it it's not cheap,
Speaker 5: and I understand that, Like it's hard to convey yourself
Speaker 5: when you here someone say, oh, yeah, this bike is
Speaker 5: seven grand or whatever. But if you think of it
Speaker 5: as a transportation vehicle and not as a toy, then
Speaker 5: it starts to make a lot more sense. It's like
Speaker 5: it's actually a bargain.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's not the first bike you got either,
Speaker 1: Like you got acquainted first, you use your regular bike,
Speaker 1: then you got your fifteen hundred dollars e bike, and
Speaker 1: you worked up to where getting a seven thousand dollars
Speaker 1: cargo bike made sense.
Speaker 5: Right, And that's the thing that would have been hard
Speaker 5: for me to do as my my first bike. I
Speaker 5: have seen people do that, like they'll just like jump
Speaker 5: right into that. I think it's better to just get
Speaker 5: a entry level bike first and like see if if
Speaker 5: you can do it, like if it makes sense, and
Speaker 5: then you can kind of work your way up to
Speaker 5: better bikes because testimony is a different Yeah, there is
Speaker 5: a difference between like quality of bikes and yeah, like
Speaker 5: the more expense bikes aren't better.
Speaker 3: Well, speaking of something, quality and everyone is the best.
Speaker 4: You don't have to work your way up to it.
Speaker 1: No barrier.
Speaker 3: Dive right in the bill of the week.
Speaker 2: That's right, it's time for the best minute of your
Speaker 2: entire week.
Speaker 1: Maybe a baby was born and his name is William.
Speaker 2: Maybe you paid off your mortgage. Maybe your car died
Speaker 2: and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore.
Speaker 2: Duck bills, Buffalo bills, Bill Clinton, this is the bill
Speaker 2: of the week, Kevin.
Speaker 1: Every week we ask our listeners and our guests to
Speaker 1: share with us their favorite bill for the week, whether
Speaker 1: it be financial or physical, per person whatever. We're open,
Speaker 1: we're flexible. We would love to hear yours.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, So it can be like finding a bill
Speaker 5: right or like find getting me money, anything.
Speaker 1: Literally we leave it vague for that reason.
Speaker 4: It could be anything.
Speaker 5: Yeah great, Well yeah, I did have a funny thing
Speaker 5: happened this week where there's a dog walking app called
Speaker 5: Wag and I don't do a lot of dog walking
Speaker 5: these days with Wag, but the other day I got
Speaker 5: him thing saying that there was a dog available to walk,
Speaker 5: and it like showed the address as like literally my house,
Speaker 5: and I was like what. I was like, it was
Speaker 5: like it was like it had a circle and I
Speaker 5: was like, on my house. I was like, huh what,
Speaker 5: Like this must be like a neighbor So I was like,
Speaker 5: I'm just gonna do It's a twenty minute walk for
Speaker 5: it was paying twelve bucks. I was like, I'll go
Speaker 5: for a walk with this dog. And it was for
Speaker 5: a house just like a block over. So I went
Speaker 5: over there and walk this dog around the neighborhood and
Speaker 5: made myself twelve bucks.
Speaker 1: I love you like your side hustling. How like you
Speaker 1: were a lawyer and now you like do all these
Speaker 1: side hustles and love your life and ride your e bike.
Speaker 1: You are truly living the dream. I believe. I believe that.
Speaker 3: So that's awesome, so fun, what a great bill that
Speaker 3: the twelve dollars. It probably wasn't even just about that,
Speaker 3: but I'm kind of hearing like I'll get out for
Speaker 3: a walk too.
Speaker 4: Like they's kind of said to me.
Speaker 3: And then the dream and I'm helping somebody out and
Speaker 3: then I'm, you know, getting to buy a burrita later.
Speaker 5: I got to peek inside their house too, you know,
Speaker 5: looks like.
Speaker 3: Not be underrated. Yeah, that is.
Speaker 1: A big parton that's a nice kidchen.
Speaker 3: If you all listening, have a bill that you want
Speaker 3: to submit, if it's about a side hustle, if it's
Speaker 3: about making just a little bit of money but getting
Speaker 3: to peep on your neighbor, or if it's about making
Speaker 3: a lot of money and maybe no peeps, or your
Speaker 3: name is Bill and people are peeping on you. Frugal
Speaker 3: Friends podcast dot com slash Bill cannot wait to hear it.
Speaker 4: And now it's time for.
Speaker 1: The all right, this is when we will all answer,
Speaker 1: where's the best place you have ever rode a bike
Speaker 1: or e bike? Either in or or two? Kevin, you
Speaker 1: can go first, the best place, Yeah, either you've you've
Speaker 1: rode around.
Speaker 5: Or rode to Yeah, well you know, so there's an
Speaker 5: event here in Minnesota called Campfi. The guy holds it
Speaker 5: every or round fall or whatever right to end of
Speaker 5: the summer. And I have gone twice, and I've spoken
Speaker 5: there about e bikes too, and I always bike out there.
Speaker 5: It's like forty miles going out there.
Speaker 6: Wow.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I bring two batteries just in case I run out.
Speaker 5: Usually I don't need to switch batteries, but I'll just
Speaker 5: bring a second one just in case. And this ride
Speaker 5: is actually really good because even this is like example
Speaker 5: of ride bridgs. You wouldn't think it's possible because it's
Speaker 5: so far, but there's a bike path that goes all
Speaker 5: the way out there, so I can go from literally
Speaker 5: my house to this place that's forty miles way way
Speaker 5: out in the countryside, and I never have to even
Speaker 5: interact with traffic the whole way.
Speaker 1: WHOA, when we went to Campfi, you would not have
Speaker 1: wanted to. There is no bike path in Gainesville for
Speaker 1: that for that one.
Speaker 3: The highways are the toughest part too with that kind
Speaker 3: of thing, but uctually there's a way around it.
Speaker 1: And I can't believe there are not more people in
Speaker 1: the financial independence community e biking after that.
Speaker 5: I know, I think I convinced some people, but I
Speaker 5: always am trying to convince as many people as I can.
Speaker 1: I hope people are convinced after hearing this episode.
Speaker 4: You are helping the convince Ope first.
Speaker 1: Yeuh okay for me, I so I have only done
Speaker 1: maybe twenty yards on an e bike in my life.
Speaker 1: It was an exhilarating experience. But so I will talk
Speaker 1: about My favorite bike ride was on the Panel's trail.
Speaker 1: We did twenty miles, like, oh, well, I don't know
Speaker 1: if that was my favorite.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: We also did okay, I've changed it mid answer. It
Speaker 1: was a twenty mile ride through Saint Petersburg again on
Speaker 1: the Panel's trail, but then we transferred to the Skyway
Speaker 1: trail midpoint and we went down to like one of
Speaker 1: the most southern parts of Penelas County, and we got
Speaker 1: to see we were at the water, We got to
Speaker 1: see the Skyway Bridge, We got to like eat our
Speaker 1: lunch on this fishing pier, and we rode with our
Speaker 1: friends Jess and Joseph, and we got away from Kai
Speaker 1: for a day. We didn't have Atlas at that point,
Speaker 1: but it was just a magical bike ride with friends.
Speaker 1: I loved that one. That one's my favorite.
Speaker 3: I love how when you get away from your children
Speaker 3: you choose to run or bike.
Speaker 4: It's like, you've got childcare, what are you gonna do
Speaker 4: with it? I'm gonna run half marathon.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna ride my bike twenty twenty miles both ways.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. The other story was also we got we
Speaker 1: got rid of Kai. We got Kai started like daycare,
Speaker 1: I think, and we Travis had a day off and
Speaker 1: we did twenty miles from I think dunned into Tarpin Springs,
Speaker 1: So that was ten miles there and then ten miles back.
Speaker 4: Good on you. I don't have kids, but I feel
Speaker 4: like my answer when I've got childcare would be nap.
Speaker 4: I am going to take a nap.
Speaker 1: Our art. So my mom is watching the kids this weekend,
Speaker 1: and Travis and I are like, can you actually watch them?
Speaker 1: Not at our house because we would like to be
Speaker 1: at our house without the kids. I think we just
Speaker 1: want to lay down, stuff done. Yeah, Travis wants to
Speaker 1: play video games and work on his other He bought
Speaker 1: another I left for a book signing and four hours
Speaker 1: later he calls. He's like, I bought this vintage, like
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties Honda motorcycle that's worth like two thousand dollars
Speaker 1: for five through.
Speaker 3: It is really cool, but you need to stop or
Speaker 3: he needs to stop by two wheeled vehicles.
Speaker 1: So he wants to work on his bike and play
Speaker 1: video games. And I'm like, good on ya, I want
Speaker 1: that for you.
Speaker 4: Okay for me.
Speaker 3: Most recent thing that comes to mind, we rented bikes
Speaker 3: in Portugal and rode from the city to the beach
Speaker 3: and that was idyllic, just to be able to take
Speaker 3: in so much more than you would buy car, but
Speaker 3: be able to get further than we would have on foot.
Speaker 4: Biking is the radical middle any bikes.
Speaker 1: And we were with friends, very much the radical middle.
Speaker 3: It was Eric and I and then two friends and
Speaker 3: we were just doing our little bells back and forth
Speaker 3: and stopping along the way to take pictures and just
Speaker 3: riding to the beach all leisurely.
Speaker 4: It was awesome, good memories.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, Kevin, thank you so much for coming
Speaker 1: on the show. Where can people find more from you?
Speaker 1: If you've convinced them e bikes are the way?
Speaker 5: Yeah. You can check out my blog financialpanther dot com
Speaker 5: and I also have a YouTube channel, financial Panther that
Speaker 5: I film myself kind of biking around doing food deliveries
Speaker 5: and stuff. And I'm trying to do more content of
Speaker 5: biking around with like my family and stuff to show
Speaker 5: people how it's done. But those are the two places
Speaker 5: to check me out on.
Speaker 4: That's awesome. Got to see you loading up Costco on
Speaker 4: that bike.
Speaker 1: Yes, so we need we need more Costco content.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, my last video I made was me taking
Speaker 5: my Christmas tree back to my house on a cargo bik.
Speaker 6: Okay, checking out YouTube sold now sold Financial Panther on
Speaker 6: YouTube and Instagram and dot com.
Speaker 4: Thanks for being here, Kevin.
Speaker 5: Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we were definitely asking questions off the cuff here too,
Speaker 1: because it was so interesting to hear all of these
Speaker 1: new things. And I'm just I'm so glad that we
Speaker 1: got to share Kevin with you and share e bikes
Speaker 1: with you, because I hope maybe it just inspires you
Speaker 1: to get an e bike and you commit to writing
Speaker 1: it in summer, spring and fall and you don't do
Speaker 1: it in the winter, or maybe you're in Florida like
Speaker 1: us and you choose to do it fall, winter, spring
Speaker 1: and not in the summer rainy season, or you just
Speaker 1: choose to commit to it every day, every day except
Speaker 1: on days when it's raining, and then you find an
Speaker 1: alter alternative, Like getting creative is what's going to save
Speaker 1: you more money than just trying to like negotiate your
Speaker 1: your insurance down. Honestly, it's a good tip, it can
Speaker 1: help you, but like getting creative, it's what's really gonna
Speaker 1: drastically move the needle if you need that needle moved.
Speaker 3: And maybe it's not for forever, but even for a
Speaker 3: time if we're working towards certain financial goals. I did
Speaker 3: the math too, just for us personally, and Kevin is
Speaker 3: dead on with the amount that owning a vehicle costs
Speaker 3: year over year, and of course if you factor in
Speaker 3: a car payment to that, then until the car is
Speaker 3: paid off, you're looking at an average of, you know,
Speaker 3: seventeen fifteen to seventeen thousand dollars annually paid to a
Speaker 3: vehicle in all kind of forms year over year until
Speaker 3: the car is paid off, and then it's dropping you
Speaker 3: to about maybe ten thousand dollars a year. But it's
Speaker 3: not nothing. I think we approach car ownership like, well,
Speaker 3: you have a car, and transportation is covered, and that's
Speaker 3: just not true. Even once you own the car, there's
Speaker 3: still a good amount of costs associated with it. So
Speaker 3: wherever we can think about even just decreasing the amount
Speaker 3: of cars that we own, driving our cars less Yeah,
Speaker 3: certainly considering e biking, and maybe even when we're considering
Speaker 3: where we're buying our next house, how much might we
Speaker 3: be able to consider how close are we to public
Speaker 3: transportation or how bikeable is the city? How feasible might
Speaker 3: it be for me to live closer to my work
Speaker 3: so that we don't have to have two vehicles? Like
Speaker 3: that conversation can come into play. I think sometimes we'll
Speaker 3: say I'm going to move outside the city so that
Speaker 3: it's less expensive, but run the numbers on then what
Speaker 3: you'll pay for transportation and consider, okay, well what is
Speaker 3: the actual trade off here? Yeah?
Speaker 1: What if I lived in the city close to the
Speaker 1: things I want to be too and opted for an
Speaker 1: e bike? How much easier is it to then get
Speaker 1: around in the city? How much more accessible? And I
Speaker 1: loved what he said about a lot of the times
Speaker 1: that we are driving too far for things. When we
Speaker 1: are forced to stay in a closer proximity, then we're
Speaker 1: forced to get to know people in that proximity, and
Speaker 1: I think that is something that is highly undervalued. Agreed,
Speaker 1: So thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed
Speaker 1: this episode, please leave a rating, review comment on Spotify
Speaker 1: or Apple podcasts. It really does help. If you have
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Speaker 1: my mid forties. I'm a nurse and make good money,
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Speaker 1: learned how to actually manage money to make it work
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Speaker 1: I know how to make a budget, but again, how
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Speaker 4: WHOA, thank you even more. That's amazing.
Speaker 3: Thanks for such a beautiful review, so kind and encouraging
Speaker 3: and helpful to other people who might be thinking about
Speaker 3: reading the book. So if you've not picked up the book,
Speaker 3: please do so. We really do believe in it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: by what you love book dot com. There's even instructions.
Speaker 1: On that page on how to request it at your library.
Speaker 4: Yay, thanks for listening everybody.
Speaker 1: Bye. Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: It's making me want to get on my bike more,
Speaker 3: just even my regular bike. Although I do love scootering around, I.
Speaker 1: Have horrible balance. I've stated this, but I can do
Speaker 1: long bike rides on trails. What makes me nervous is
Speaker 1: sidewalks and roads with cars. So it encouraged me that
Speaker 1: Kevin was not like, oh, you'll just get batter and
Speaker 1: you'll get over it. He's like, no, you when you're
Speaker 1: in bike mode like mindset instead of car mindset, then
Speaker 1: you look for the roads and you find the roads
Speaker 1: more easily that are good for biking.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I am curious to like map out different paths
Speaker 3: to some of the places that we go.
Speaker 1: H yeah, it would be interesting. And now that we
Speaker 1: have an e bike in our home, so if you
Speaker 1: wanted to try one out, come over.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it's it's a thrill.
Speaker 4: I bet well. I mean I love our scooter.
Speaker 3: That's super fun and like we can keep up with
Speaker 3: the cars in the city, like we kind of more
Speaker 3: ride it like a motorcycle. Like you can't take the
Speaker 3: bike paths with the scooter, but I prefer to do
Speaker 3: that when I'm riding with Eric. I've ridden alone a
Speaker 3: couple of times, but it does feel it's it is risky.
Speaker 3: It is like I'm riding a motorcycle around and so I.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't like to ride a scooter or motorcycle on the road,
Speaker 1: but I would ride a bike on a bike path.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that feels better to me. And you can ride
Speaker 1: e bikes on bike paths.
Speaker 4: Yeah that is cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go I think it's the radical middle.
Speaker 4: Okay, let's do it. Get on our bike.