Adam Moran had long wanted to haul his twin daughters around on his bike. But pulling his girls, snug in the trailer behind his bike, felt wrong.
“You felt almost more separated than when you’re in a car because they’re just behind you zipped up in a thing,” Moran said.
At the time, in 2024, Moran and his wife had two cars, one with carseats and one without. Moran, realizing they barely ever used their second car, found a solution.
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“I sold the second car and got this e-bike,” Moran said. “It’s cheaper than a car, and I got in the habit of riding it with them.”
Moran bought a cargo e-bike that could carry his daughters safely and began commuting with them from their home in the Heights to his daughters’ daycare in Montrose three to four times a week. Moran also commutes on his bike to his job in downtown Houston. Since using his e-bike more, Moran said he’s often found himself whizzing by traffic on busy school days.
“Maybe 1 in 5 times, there were other people leaving daycare, going to the Heights, and I would pass them in the bike lane,” Moran said. “That’s always a great feeling, but I just enjoy it.”
Moran is one of a growing number of Houstonians who are turning to e-bikes for errands, commutes, and pleasure. Moran told Chron that his mental health has improved since he replaced one of his family cars with an e-bike.
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“I feel like driving a car, not every day, but once or twice a week, you get really pissed off at someone else for merging wrong,” Moran said. “But when you’re on a bike, you’re just having a good time.”
“It lets you get the job done.”
Since 2020, e-bike sales have skyrocketed thanks to the combination of cheaper components that lowered prices for consumers and a renewed interest in cycling during the pandemic. From 2019 to 2020, e-bike sales figures jumped 145 percent. Six years later, a staggering number of Americans own one or are considering purchasing one, by some estimates.
Generally, e-bikes are classified in three different ways. Some have moderate pedal assist, which lessens the work a rider has to do depending on the terrain. Others have a throttle, like an accelerator on a car, that can boost the bikes up to 20 miles per hour. The most soup-ed up models, often called Class III e-bikes, offer a pedal assist that can get riders up to around 28 miles per hour.
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For East End resident Veronika Simms, who uses her e-bike for everything from recreational rides to grocery shopping, she loves the versatility that comes with being able to turn the pedal assist on her bike on and off. It especially comes in handy on Houston streets, where bike lines are often a suggestion if they’re present at all.
“It lets you get the job done,” Simms told Chron. “In traffic, it allows you to accelerate a lot faster and even reach higher speeds in some hairy situations, where maybe the speed limit is 35 mph and cars aren’t really paying attention and there’s no bike infrastructure.”
Veronika Simms’ e-bike, which she uses for most of her daily errands.
Courtesy of Veronika Simms
Simms, 53, had always been an avid bike rider. But like many Americans tired of being cooped up indoors, bought bikes for recreation, she bought her first e-bike around the COVID-19 pandemic. She’s since become an e-bike evangelist and owns two.
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“To be honest with you, I think e-bikes could change the world,” Simms said.
Like Moran, Simms told Chron that riding her bike has greatly improved her mental health. Simms’ mother passed away during the COVID-19 pandemic. Riding her e-bike and being able to be outside and active while running errands grounded her. She’s made friends she can ride with, connected with neighbors, and felt more like a part of her community.
“When you’re on a bicycle, something opens up,” Simms said. “Suddenly, your awareness of your surroundings is broadened. You’re not stuck in a car, you’re not focused on a specific situation like you are in a car. You’re focused on everything.”
Simms said that freedom and new perspective “saved her life” in some of her darkest hours, which is partially why it frustrates her to see the City of Houston pull back on building bike infrastructure under the administration of Mayor John Whitmire. Still, Simms says she can navigate most of Houston’s Inner Loop without issue on her e-bike.
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“Its kind of blown my mind because, the previous administration really spent a lot of time updating the bike infrastructure around the city and it’s been amazing,” Simms said. “I can go anywhere inside of the 610 loop on my bike.”
A solution for “minor inconveniences”
For the e-bike riders of Houston, they have a newfound ally in city government: Joe Panzarella, a newly elected Houston City Council member. An avid cyclist and advocate for pedestrian safety before being elected to represent much of Montrose and the Heights, Panzarella recently bought an e-bike on the recommendation of a friend after his old bike was stolen outside of City Hall. What Panzarella immediately noticed was how much it smoothed over problems like Houston’s brutal heat.
“When it’s so hot in the summertime, the e-bike allows you to ride for 5 more minutes or 10 more minutes without breaking a sweat,” Panzarella told Chron. “That buffer of 5 to 10 minutes means that I can realistically commute to a meeting or City Hall without sweating.”
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Panzarella said he would like to see the city expand, rather than pull back on, bike infrastructure for regular cyclists and e-bike users as well as increase the amount of connections to the city’s network of bayou hike-and-bike trails.
“If you have an e-bike and you’re taking your kids on a ride or you’re just trying to get to another part of town, the bayous are such a major connector to everything in Houston,” Panzarella said. “But you have to be able to get to the bayou.”
Panzarella also said he was conscious of concerns from some pedestrians who regularly run along the bayou trails and may be dodging speedy e-bike users.
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“I do think we need to take some serious consideration on what kind of speed limits you might like to have on battery powered things,” Panzarella said. “The city needs to be investing in safe, productive spaces for people to be able to have recreational movement, be it running, be it jogging, be it an e-powered thing.”
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For Moran, the Heights resident, his rides along the bayou trails with his daughters have shown him the value of getting around Houston in a different way.
“We’d ride along the bayou and we’d see a bunny,” Moran recalled. “I’d pull over and we’d look at the bunny and talk about it for a bit and then keep going. That was always sweet.”