Less than a year ago, Brad Hepfer thought his beloved daily bike rides in the outdoors were over.
A diabetic, the 72-year-old underwent two knee replacements and just when he felt he was back on track, he suffered a heart attack and had surgery.
But on a recent raw Sunday, the Quarryville resident was pedaling across the Safe Harbor railroad trestle that connects two of Lancaster County’s most popular rail trails.
Rather than hanging up his bike and giving up his forays into the outdoors, Hepfer has ridden 3,300 miles since his heart surgery. Thanks to an electric bike.
“It’s been a godsend,” he says.
Electric bikes, commonly called e-bikes, are one of the hottest things in bicycling and outdoor recreation these days. They are used both for commuting to work or getting around on city streets, and for riding on Lancaster County’s many multi-use public trails.
“The pandemic just launched it. People wanted something to do and decided to try this,” says Ryan Finger, co-owner of the Let’s Roll electric bike shop and rentals in Lancaster city, which opened in 2022. Business has been so good that Finger and his brother-in-law partner, Tim Hill, are opening a second location in April, a block from the Northwest Lancaster County River Trail in Columbia.
With an all-but-silent electric motor and battery, a rechargeable e-bike helps you pedal when you need it. Many e-bikes also have the option of a full throttle, fully taking over the pedaling for you.
During pandemic times when record numbers of people are getting outdoors, e-bikes have become just what the doctor ordered for many seniors and those with physical impediments. Even healthy people find they can go farther and see more with the pedal assist offered by the bikes.
“Seventy-five percent of our customers is the older crowd. They need just a little bit of help on the hill, or want to go a little farther,” Finger says. “And it’s a great way for families to do things together outside.”
But there also has been pushback by some trail users, most frequently complaints of high speeds and being startled by the silent vessels zooming by or bearing down on them.
“I’ve been kind of shoved off the beaten path by people coming down the trail at me at ungodly speeds. They are not pedaling at all. They’re basically dirt biking on the trail. Their hair is blowing in the breeze,” says Jim Hearn, a member of the Martic Township Rail Trail Advisory Committee which guides use on the Enola Low Grade Trail. “There’s a real courtesy problem we foresee happening more frequently.”
But Hearn also has friends who are riding bikes again because they purchased e-bikes. “What we’re seeing are older people. People who would not be riding a bike are now pedaling out in the open air. There’s a lot of positives from it.”
An e-bike can enable someone to keep up with a partner, resulting in more together time outdoors. Some trail users polled on rail-trails in the county grumble that e-bikes are a kind of a cheating way to ride a bike.
Amid this sudden and growing popularity of e-bikes, trail and land managers around the county are scrambling to determine what controls, if any, should be put on the new kids on the block.
The results have been all over the map, with many officials waiting to see what others will do.
