So what is all this noise I keep hearing about eeeehBikes? I mean, they must be pretty frightening to elicit such a visceral response from the cycling community at large.

I would like to proffer the suggestion that their shrill prefix stems from some sort of historical trauma, buried deep within cycling's collective unconsciousness. For yes, we have traveled down this road before…

Back in 1885 Edoardo Bianchi opened his famous celeste bicycle shop in Milan, Italy, and pioneered the use of equal sized wheels and pneumatic tires, which were heralded as the ne plus ultra in human transportation. However, meanwhile in Germany that same year, Gottlieb Daimler invented the internal combustion engine, and a year later, he and another German, Karl Benz, began tinkering on a new vehicle, which was to become the “Motorcycle”.

With the rapid evolution of that Frankenscience project, we cyclists now find ourselves labeled as the heathen minority, for Chrysler/Daimler and Mercedes Benz currently own the motorways, and as cyclists, we must daily run the gauntlet with these behemoth, exhaust spewing, over-accessorized wheelchairs.

And just how does the eeeehBike fit into all this? Well, bike + motor = motorcycle, proving that this so called hi-tech, “green” two-wheeler, is nothing more than the repackaging of a failed 1970s fashion trend, called the “Moped”.  Pedal like you mean it!  -Euro Freddie.

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