E-bike products and scooters Cycling Without that Pesky Peddling | Page 4

Some Brief History of the Electric Bike
If like me you have never seen an electric bike before you problem imagine that they are
some modern invention. However like the electric car, scooters and mobility\golf buggies
they have been around for some time. Indeed a flourish of patents for electric bicycles
designs first appeared back in the 1890s. These early designs using battery powered DC
motors to drive either one of the front wheel, back wheel or crankshaft were re-invented in
the 1990s and briefly went into production. An example of this was the zike which was built
upon early design principles by adding torque sensors and power controls. Despite this sales
were slow and few other electric bicycles were in production but by the late 2000s the
technology had improved to the extent that they had a range of between 25-30 miles at a top
speed of 20 miles per hour. These e-bikes then began to become more popular in europe and
the US.