By J. DAVID GOODMAN
Published: January 31, 2010
SHANGHAI — Jiang Ruming, a marketing manager, owns a van, but for many errands, he hops on a futuristic-looking contraption that lets him weave rapidly through Shanghai’s messy traffic. He rides an electric bicycle.
Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times
Roger Phillips, 78, uses an electric bicycle in Manhattan, although they are not officially permitted on New York streets.
J. David Goodman for The New York Times
Electric bicycle riders in China, where about 120 million such bikes are used, with some going up to 30 miles an hour.
Half a world away, in San Francisco, the president of that city’s board of supervisors, David Chiu, uses an electric bike to get to meetings without sweating through his suit.
And in the Netherlands, Jessy Wijzenbeek-Voet recently rode an electric bicycle on a long trip that, at 71, she would not have been able to make on a standard bike.
