Speed Pedelec Commuting

Back in 2017 I sold my motorbike and bought a second hand speed pedelec to bike to work. Stromer was gaining popularity and I did a couple of test rides on one. Besides being fast the bike was obviously also very expensive and I decided to opt for a second hand demo model of Cannondale instead, a Control E Speed. It had been driven for only 500km and I could buy if with a 25% price reduction. That made the investment a little less risky financially as I wasn’t sure I would consistently use the bike to commute. The first years were a bit of a mix with 1000km in 2017, 2000k in 2018 and another 1500km in 2019. I was off to a flying start in 2020 but then covid 19 kicked in and commuting came to a grinding halt. These first few years I didn’t manage to turn taking the bike to work into a habit. But all the working from home and the quiet traffic in the early days of covid seem to have eroded my tolerance to traffic jams. That together with 40% working from home has resulted in effectively switching my main mode of commuting from car to bike since 2021. I now bike to work +300km every month and in the morning it takes an equal amount of time on bike or by car if there is no exceptional traffic. Same story in the evening. This used to be different pre covid as I typically came home late when the traffic jams were over. But now I come home at more reasonable hours and if needed I can do some more work after dinner. On the days I am working from home I actually can put in an additional 1.5 hours of work and still stop early as I don’t have to spend time commuting. At least a little bit of ‘good’ has come out of the whole pandemic.