Nelson’s Corner -E-bikes and iPhones: The Devil’s Technological Spawn

Several months ago, while returning from a mountain bike ride on the local single track, I was knocked for a loop by a teenager riding an E-bike. He was inattentive, not reckless, and sort of apologized when I regained my senses while attended to by the Mountain View Rescue Team. A few days later, I declined to “testify” in some legal action taken against the kid.

I can well imagine that I would have been an E-bike rider if such things were available back – way back! – in the day. But they weren’t – and that’s a very good thing.

There’s much to dislike about those machines, even if you’re not a crash victim.

Most unfortunate is what is lost to this generation. Among my life’s greatest joys has been pedaling an actual bicycle. It started at age 8 or 9, when I would pack a PB&J and head down a street that turned into a country road, pedalling through cornfields and past red barns. In those days, we called such adventures “bike hikes.” 

My sense of independence and self-reliance was profound and seasoned with a dash of romance as the route took me by Carol Hathaway’s house. She was a 4th grader’s blonde-braided dream, although I cannot recall ever speaking to her. The round trip may have been all of three miles.

With a break for a little bit of college and a lot of Army, pedaling a bike has been a gentle pleasure and an intense thrill. 

When I was a new dad, I took 50-mile bike hikes into the splendid hills and valleys east of Cleveland, Ohio, starting at sunrise and returning in time to make pancakes. When our kids were grown enough, I spun through our suburban neighborhood with my daughter in a bike seat and son in a backpack. I cycle commuted to work as a necessity and a bit of a game. 

For much of several years, I cycled everywhere I could, year-round, including to business meetings wearing rain gear and packing a wrinkle-free suit in a waterproof backpack. I did Superman changes in gas station toilet stalls or corporate lavatories. I learned to balance on ice and brake with my feet when wet pads failed.

I thought then, and think now, that the world is best experienced at bicycle speed.

Later, I raced bikes. Not for everyone, I suppose, but there are few life experiences more vivid than riding shoulder-to-shoulder, wheels inches apart, through sharp corners at 30mph.

Bike riding under your own power is empowering. I learned that as a child and regret that so many children today have lost the beauty and freedom of pedaling through a three-mile bike hike, seeing, hearing, and smelling their world.

The impact of technology is similarly disempowering. Digital representation of life is not life itself. Children’s brains are too busy with iPhones and iPads to make room for imagination and invention. ChatGPT and other manifestations of AI may be pragmatically helpful, but are replacing discovery, ingenuity, and diligence. 

An April 19 New York Times column by Molly Worthen explicates the shallow “learning” offered by games, computer simulations and other highly profitable educational shortcuts. Technology in schools is a plague, offering the illusion that machines can make education more cost-effective and entertaining. As Worthen points out, there is a powerful correlation between increased technology in schools and decreased scores on standardized measures. I don’t give a damn about standardized measures, but this correlation shows that ed-tech fails to reach even its own dismal goals.

My paired critique of E-bikes and school technology is not a contrivance. In each case, the benefits of work are sacrificed to effortless entertainment and illusory gains. I suggest, with supportive evidence, that pedaling a bike for 30 minutes is better for the brain than a full day of digitized educational games.

When lying helpless in rehab after a paralyzing spinal cord injury, I visualized riding a bike again. My brain knew I could do it before my body could move. I could, I did, and, in addition to my wife, a daily mountain bike ride became my salvation when much else was lost.

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