Leaving a hardware store, I saw an e-bike unlike any I had seen before chained to a lamppost. It was a standard road bike with two motors added to the frame. They were connected to the rear wheel hub with separate bike chains. The battery was housed in a hard case that sat behind the rear wheel. Several saddle bags indicated that the bike was used for carrying camping equipment.
While I admired the engineering, the owner emerged from the hardware store. “It’s quite something, isn’t it?” he shouted proudly. He was on his way to Bolinas on the coast and had just come from Big Sur.
Had had converted the bike himself, using his experience building and maintaining camera rigs. He first added one motor, then realizing that it wasn’t powerful enough for going uphill, he had added another one. Having built everything, he was able to fix most problems he encountered with the toolkit he carried around.
Later this summer, he was planning to cross the Sierra Nevada and ride route 395 along the Eastern Sierras, camping wherever he felt like it, charging his battery on the grid where possible, or off grid using a set of portable solar panels. In his experience, it’d take a day or so to get a good charge using that method, but he wasn’t in a hurry. He was around 60 years old and didn’t have a permanent residence, having sold his house years before. He seemed happier than most people.
Nehaveigur 