E-Bikes & Bikes Customised to You
Hi. I'm going to talk today about how seniors can safely ride an Ebike, what we do to be safe and what accessories we use that we feel makes us safe. First and foremost is your helmet, always wear a helmet. I'm wearing a sixthreezero helmet that matches my bike. It's lightweight, it's comfortable, I don't even realize it's there. Whatever you wear, wear a helmet. We wear gloves. We have fingerless gloves we wear. The reason we wear gloves is because if you are going to fall, think about it, the first thing you're going to do is put your hands down. You want to protect your hands, so we wear gloves.
We wear tennis shoes because they give us a good grip on our bikes, on our pedals, and on the ground. That makes us very comfortable. We wear high-visibility straps. They have a hook on the end, which I don't use, but you could. Even during the day, these high vis straps make it easier for someone to see you. We carry a high pitch whistle and mace, around our neck, on a strap. The reason we do that, first and foremost, is because we have a lot of wildlife in our area, we have bears, coyotes, and deer, and we get chased by dogs. I don't ever want to have to use the mace. Usually, the high pitch whistle will scare them off.
Another thing a high pitch whistle does is if for some reason, one of us is out of sight of the other one, we could blow this whistle. We always ride in pairs. We never ride alone, partly because of where we ride. Partly because we just feel it's not safe, so always, if you can, ride with a partner. We are not in an urban area, we're very rural. If you're in an urban area, that might not be an issue, but for us, it is.
Let me talk a little bit about the bike, and the accessories we've put on the bike, and we'll go from there. These are both sixthreezero bicycles. They're 500-watt Ebikes. They both have seven speeds, 5 battery years, and levels. This is the battery, it's in the back. You just remove it with the key and slide it in and out very easily. We always take the key out when we ride. I put my key in my pannier. I have a sixthreezero pannier here. It's got two sides on it. I have ID on one side. I have my battery on the other side. In the cooler weather, I might tuck a little over the shirt in there.
This one has a phone holder on top. It can be removed. It's Velcroed on, it's very tight. We both have these bags that help your phone not overheat in the hot weather or the sun. I just slide my bag in there, zip my phone in the bag, zip it up, and I'm good to go, and it's very safe and stable. We have cameras and rear-facing cameras on our bikes. This will give you a view of what's behind you. I'll show you where the camera itself is on the back of the bike, down here, where my hand is, underneath my flashing light.
It does not record, it's just a live feed that tells us what's behind us, so if a car is coming behind me, I know it. If we're riding together, whoever's in the back, you can always check on them, make sure they're okay, make sure nothing's happening. We always use those. We both have water bottle holders on our bicycles. It's important to stay hydrated. We have headlights, and even though we've never ridden at night, we do have headlights. They flash on and off.
We have bells. In the State of Washington, it is a law that you have an audible device. These are sixthreezero bells. I'll give it a little dingle. Again, they match our bikes. We just thought that was fun. We use these if someone is coming up in the rear, whoever's in the rear, will ring their bell. Even though we have cameras, it's just another audible alert. A second safety alert that there's someone coming up behind you. Whoever's in the front, if a car is coming toward us, we always give the bell a little jingle so that the person behind knows there's a car coming toward us.
We ride on a lot of hills and curves, and so it's very important to be aware of what's in front of you, and what's behind you. This is just a cell phone holder, an extra cell phone holder. If I'm going to record something, if I want to do a video while I'm on the bike, I use that. Otherwise, I don't. That's what it's there for. The battery back here can turn on and off, there's a little on and off button down here.
When we charge the battery, we leave it off, of course, and when we put it on the bike, we turn it on. Then, up here, is the battery control. I'm going to turn it on. There you go. That tells me there's a full battery, it tells me how fast I'm going. When you are going to get on the bike, always leave that off. The reason being, that you don't want to accidentally get on your bike and accidentally push this throttle and have the bike take off on you while you're trying to get on it. I never turn this on until I am on the bike.
The other thing this does is gives you your pedal assist. You can see up in the upper right-hand corner, that there's a number one, that's your lowest level of pedal assist. You can do this and turn it to zero, that means you're pedaling all on your own. You can go all the way up to five. I've never done that. The highest I've ever gone on a really, really steep hill is three, and I seldom do that. Anyway, that's your control. If it's on even one and you hit that throttle, the bike's going to move forward. I'll turn it off right now.
Let's move to the other bicycle. This is, again, another sixthreezero bicycle. He has two water bottle holders. He has the same headlight. He has a bell. We could take this off for a moment. He's got the same pannier that I have. In his, he's got a battery pack because his cell phone doesn't stay charged very well. Same cell phone holder. He also has a rearview mirror in addition to the rearview camera, it just makes him more comfortable to have that extra mirror.
His battery control is here. It's a little different than mine, but it does the same thing and works the same way. He also has a pannier on the back and in this pannier he has tools. This is a tire inflater, a battery-operated tire inflater. He's got some cable ties. He's got some rubber gloves. I think he's got bicycle tubes in here. He's got a few tools you might need for your bike. Wow. He carries those with him. Obviously, it's charged and it works. That was scary.
He carries that on his bike all the time, and it does come in handy. We have had to use it. Sorry. His bike is basically, it's the same size as mine. It's got the same battery, his camera's on the back. We never ride alone. We always ride together, safety in numbers and all that, especially where we live. If you live in an urban area, it's probably safe to ride alone, but where we live, again, because of the wildlife and the animals, it's not.
The other reason it's not is because of all the hills and curves that we ride on. We're in a very rural area, but it is high traffic, so we always ride together. We have only ridden in the day, we don't ride at night. There are too many animals out at night, wouldn't be safe, so that is what we do to ride safely and keep safe, ride together. We have all our safety equipment, we always wear it. We always wear this gear. Always have our cameras on. We always have our headlights on. We always have our rear flashing lights on, daytime, doesn't matter, we still have them on. That's what we do to keep safe.Stop.