Woods Hole Research Center staff show off their commute bikes. Paul Lefebvre rides a recumbent 2-3 times a week. Joe Hackler built 7-8 electric bikes with a flat-foot design. Greg Fiske averages 2,000 miles a year on a single-speed, replacing about 100 gallons of fuel.
My name is Paul Lefebvre. I'm a research associate here at the Woods Hole Research center. And I commute two or three times a week on my recumbent bicycle. It's a Rans V Rex. It's very comfortable. It's better overall. It's easier on the hands, wrists, neck, shoulders, back, and especially the seat. And it's an enabling me to boost my miles. I'm doing more each week and I hope I can be doing it five days a week by the end of the summer.
Hi, my name is Joe Hackler and I'm a research associate here at the Woods Hole Research Center. And I've been into electric bikes for a few years now. And I think I've built up, oh, seven or eight of them all together by now. And this is my most recent ride. It's really just a bicycle here with an extension on the back of it that gives you a longer wheelbase and it moves the back wheel back a little bit and it gives you all this carrying capacity. And this particular bicycle is what's known as a crank forward bike or a flat foot bike where they move the seat back a little bit. So you're sort of becoming more recumbent in your riding. So it's a lower center of gravity, it's more comfortable. My short legs can reach the ground when I come to a stop. And it's also an electric conversion where I've got a little hub motor, actually a significant hub motor back here. And here's my battery. Of all the bikes that I've built up so far, my friends find that this one is the most fun and the one that they like the most.
I'm Greg Fiske. I'm the GIS manager and research associate here at the Center. I bike about 2000 miles a year on average. I've been at the center now for close to a decade. This will be year number 10 coming up soon. So that's about 20,000 miles. A couple years ago I bought this bike, which is simplified for my commute here on the Cape. We have wind, but we don't have hills. So I got a simplified single speed with an extra rack on the back for luggage and a clip on my handlebars here for extra luggage. That allows me to offset to 2,000 miles a year, which, using my vehicle, would probably burn about 100 gallons of fuel. To do the same distance. That 100 gallons of fuel these days cost about 400 some odd dollars. So that adds up pretty quickly if you can count 10 years of $400, plus a year of savings. And I assume that's going to continue to ramp up as we go here. I'm Greg Fisk and I love to ride my bike.
I'm Joe Hackler, and I love to ride my bike.
I love my bike. I love riding it.
WHRC's Sustainable Science Speaker Series - Dr. Toby McGrath speaks on Sustainable Fisheries
