Hi, I'm TFox, and I'll be your guest blogger today, and from time to time.

I'm working on my electric bike. Electric bicycles are perhaps the most efficient form of individual transportation possible. (Bikes are pretty good too, and good exercise, but the human machine isn't nearly as efficient as an electric motor, and the energy costs in farming the food the human machine eats are quite high.) Every few years, some visionary or inventor realizes this anew, and starts a business making them in mass, feeling certain they will take the world by storm. Clive Sinclair, EV Warrior, Lee Iacocca's EV Global, Ford's Th!nk, Wavecrest, Segway (similar, but can't be pedalled). Unfortunately, most transportation consumers don't want maximally efficient transportation, and the few who do already have a bicycle. So they all go out of business, meaning their products will soon be in liquidation. I bought my bike from Total EV, a venture started by an electric power utility who decided that electric vehicles, sold over this newfangled internet-thingy, made the perfect complement to their existing electric business. They later reconsidered, and I ended up with a cruiser-style bike, with battery and motor, made by Currie.

Unfortunately, it never worked well. It was just kind of slow. And to me, there's no point in a motor if it can't take you as fast as you'd pedal anyway, if you weren't on a bike that weighed 16 tons. Also, it was unreliable -- the power would just cut out, leaving you to pedal the monster home. (Easier than pushing a dead car home, though, at least it has pedals.) Worse yet, it was ugly. A shiny chrome curly cruiser is just not me. But well, maybe the nice-looking bikes didn't require a liquidation sale to move.

So I've been trying to address these issues. I bought a new motor, which should not only work but also have a bit more power, and threw in a pinion replacement to up the gearing, so the power will end up taking me faster. It finally arrived, and I tried installing it this evening. How hard can it be? It's just a bicycle, right?