Is it possible to service an electric bike the same as a normal one?

• One of the great things about cycling is that bikes are easy to maintain. When something wears out you can just buy a new part and the tool and repair it.

Compare that with almost everything else in the world - TVs, cars, boilers, fridges, everything. The spare parts are either patented or proprietary. When you first buy one, you’re buying into a lifetime of hassle and expense and drudgery, dealing with tradesmen. It’s so bad that most people replace those machines every few years, rather than dealing with the trial of trying to maintain them.

It’s so bad that authorities enforce maintenance schedules, because many people just can’t face it.

When you buy a bicycle you keep it forever. You and it bare matching scars from your past accidents. You spend summer afternoons caring for it. You gradually modify it until it matches your personality.

A car starts to decay after a few years, you start to hate it. You throw a lot of money into it, then you throw it in the dump and you buy a new one.

• If you follow the perspective I’m taking, then would you say that electric bicycles are like cars or like bicycles?

It looks like everything electric is proprietary and not standardised - and therefore hard to source and expensive and bad quality. But maybe I’m wrong, or maybe things will change in the near future?

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