Hi everyone. Welcome to Gadget Lab. I am Michael Colori, a senior editor at Wired.

Lauren Good is off again this week. Normally, I'd be super lonely, crying into my artisanal kombucha.

But luckily, I am joined by two writers from Wired's reviews team,

senior writer Adrian Soe, and staff writer Parker Hall. Say hello, you two. Hey,

hi, Mike. Hi, guys. So this week, we are talking about e-bikes, you know, electric bicycles.

They've come a long way in the last few years. Today's e-bikes are more powerful, more elegant. The designs have improved. They're lighter and easier to maneuver. Also, battery technology continues to get better and better, so e-bikes can go for miles and miles before conking out. If you live in a city or even near one, they also have the potential

to completely change the way that humans move around, zipping between home and work and school

on two wheels instead of four. At least that's the idea once the world opens up again. So later

in the show, we're going to offer some tips on how to navigate the e-bike world if you're curious about

buying one. But first,

let's talk about the growing trend towards powered cycling, as I like to call it. Now, Adrian and Parker,

both of you have written and reviewed many, many electronic bicycles for Wired. So I'm going to start

with you, Adrian. How did you get into e-bikes? So I first started getting interested in

e-bikes because I take my kids, they're three and five now, and I take them to school, or I did

when schools were open, I took them in a bike trailer and hauling like two kids and two bags on a

tully bike trailer on my underpower, my, you know, my analog

bike or whatever. It was just so painfully slow and I have to cross this one road. And my husband

was genuinely afraid that like some 18 wheeler would just come barreling towards us and I'd be like

totally unable to move or like the axle would fall out on my like 10 year old surly or something

so about like a couple of years before I started reviewing e-bikes he just started like hinting really

strongly like maybe you need a motor because you're too weak and too

slow. So if you're going to keep doing this, you definitely need some help. So that's how I kind of

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