| To Adam Ostlund, every bicycle is just an e-bike waiting to happen. This realization came after someone effortlessly zipped past his father on an e-bike on the way to work. Blown away, the elder Ostlund converted his favorite bike at home using a kit. It transformed the steep hill on his commute from a pain to a pleasure — and then his life. "People in the neighborhood would ask, 'Why are you smiling?'" recalls Adam Ostlund, who with his father manages Electrify Bike, a bike shop dedicated to converting e-bikes. "He started putting neighbors on his bike, and that turned into a business out of his garage." Today, Electrify Bike has converted hundreds of bikes for customers in West Jordan, Utah, and shipped more than 6,000 kits across the country. This electric boost, Ostlund argues, could put millions of people back in the saddle, especially those unwilling to shell out thousands of dollars for a new electrified bike, or who want to see old bikes gathering dust in their garage back on the road. "Our starting line is that there's one hill in everyone's life that keeps them from getting on that bike," he says. E-bikes are having a moment. Last year, 18 percent of all bike sales in the United States were electric, roughly 1 million bikes. E-bikes' ease, range and power make them an ideal replacement for car trips: A 2023 study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado found e-bike trips substituted for cars 34 percent of the time, and at a fraction of the cost, for low-income residents who received one. A 20-mile daily workday commute on an e-bike costs about $20 annually in electricity. But the price of e-bikes remains out of reach for many. They start at around $1,000 and cargo bikes easily exceed $6,000. Conversion kits — a compact electric motor and battery for conventional bikes — promise to turn any bike into an electric vehicle for a fraction of the price. So I ordered one for my Bianchi Volpe, a Frankenstein machine cobbled together with spare parts by several owners over many decades. If a kit could electrify it, it should work for anyone. I was skeptical that my old bike could learn new tricks. But last week I found myself pedaling my new, old electric bike to work. Here's why you might — or might not — want to convert your dusty, trusty two-wheeler for the electric age. Click on the button below to read the column, or watch the video. Write me with your questions at climatecoach@washpost.com. I read all your emails. | 
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