The (im-)mobile e-bike: infrastructural components of an emerging micromobility practice

Abstract

Electrically assisted cycling, e-biking, is a growing global phenomenon. Being a travel mode that facilitates individual travels without interaction with others, it has not the least become popular during the Covid19-pandemic. Just as other vehicles, the e-bike is operated somewhere and in connection to other road users, and far from always in motion. In this article, practices and related materials sequenced to e-biking such as parking and storing take centre-stage together with infrastructures such as the road- and electricity networks, facilitating and constraining the practice in different ways. The elements combined in e-biking, such as the electric motor which give voluntary assistance but requires physical movement in the form of pedalling, demands for charging and weather exposition, gives e-biking a distinctive form compared to other micromobility modes like cycling, walking as well as moped- and car driving, and thus also to the relationship to infrastructures. Increased knowledge of this relationship can facilitate planning procedures and policy making and is thus of general interest. The article departs from an understanding that practices, such as e-biking, are connected not only to other practices, but also to small- and large-scale infrastructures and the context within which it is performed. Infrastructures often figure in the shadows of the analysis of mobility but have great influence of how these practices are performed and on how they are understood.In the theoretical framework, theories of sequenced practices and the roles things, objects and infrastructures can play in practices are combined with mobility theories, including the new mobilities paradigm and theories of velomobility as well as of the domination of automobility. By analysing interviews and diaries written by e-bikers as well as policy documents and interview material with policymakers, interest organisations and cycle vendors, the relationship between e-biking and surrounding infrastructures of motion and non-motion is under scrutiny. The empirical material is collected in semi-urban and urban settings in Sweden, a country where cycling is presented as one solution to reach net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases in year 2045 but where the car by far is the dominating mode of personal transport. Results show that the electric components involved in e-biking makes the relationship with infrastructures different than in relation to conventional cycling. The e-bike is heavier, more sensitive for falling and for harsh weather conditions and is in general more expensive than a conventional cycle which implies more complex and demanding parking situations than for a conventional cycle. The motor creates other experiences of hilly or heavily travelled routes, of routes perceived as dangerous as well as other demands on clothing, and the computer makes it possible to control and measure the performance – speeds, distances, and level of assistance – also when the cycle is parked.  An increased knowledge on infrastructural and situational conditions of e-biking as derived in this article is important to better understand challenges and opportunities included in the transition towards a sustainable transport system and therefore highly relevant.