By Roy L Hales

As many as 60,000 Portland residents may use bicycles, or ebikes, every day. That’s Jonathan Maus’ best guesstimate. He says there are around 70 bike shops in town and ebikes are also displayed in a dozen or so. There are also two shops specifically dedicated to ebikes.

Jonathan is the editor of BikePortland.org and peddles four miles to work every day. The trip takes 20-25 minutes, depending on the conditions.

Jonathan is not deterred by rain, which is usually a light drizzle in Portland.

Looking through his flickr stream, it appears that he does not find snow a hindrance either!

“I have a minivan at home, but try to avoid driving it,” he said. “You can go whatever speed you want on a bike. You can see the neighborhood and get some fresh air as well as exercise. Biking is fun, it lets you be a kid every day.”

“The idea that people use bikes because they have no other option is a myth. The majority of people on bikes still own cars. They use their bikes out of choice.”

However he suspects that most people opt for another mode of transport if the journey is more than 6–7 miles. One of those options, of course, is using an ebike. Jonathan recently posted the following video,of fellow Portland resident Paul Turner making his 19-mile commute to work, on his website