Riding An E-Bike Built Like A GoKart Is As Fun As It Sounds

What if you could enjoy the benefits of a bike and the benefits of a car at the same time? Sojourn Labs, a Toronto-based startup, is prototyping a new kind of vehicle built to bridge the gap between bikes and cars, aiming for that happy medium of convenience and safety. The basic idea: A hybrid combining the exercise and eco-friendliness of a bike with the comfort, storage, and safety of a car. Fair enough. I had to test it out. For people living in cities like Amsterdam and Copenhagen, biking is often a more logical commuting choice than driving, even in cold weather. Most North American cities remain firmly entrenched in car culture, though, which means streets are set up for sedans, not cycles. Most people who bike in urban areas have a close call story in their back pocket (mine involves a rainy Saturday, a streetcar track, and a BMW).

And most of us keep our bikes locked up during the coldest months. This kind of vehicle looks a bit like a recumbent bike, but it is wider and more protected than a bike, and the windshield protects against biting cold (they're also planning to add other insulation on the next model). It's electric, and runs on a battery. Their current model is classified as an e-bike, so it only reaches speeds around 20 mph (that's plenty fast for commuting on city streets). 

But with storage space, a proper block against the wind, and software that helps you determine how much effort you need to put into pedalling, their vision is more in line with a true hybrid between a compact car and an e-bike than your standard e-bike. There's also the possibility of going faster, but the team wanted to keep it classified as an e-bike so that people wouldn't need a license to ride it.