I’ve had my electric bike in Florida for about a month now, so I thought I would post an update. And it might surprise you. Even though I vowed to use only the electric bike this summer while keeping the Brompton tucked away, I’ve taken the electric bike out a mere 3-4 times.

There are several reasons.

First, I live in a very tiny apartment, and it’s a pretty big bike. Making room for it in here is a bit of a squeeze.

Second, getting it into my apartment has been a giant pain. The bike is heavy at 80 pounds, which makes it a smooth ride but a beast if you have to go up any stairs. Before getting it into my building, the bike must go up three steps to a very small landing. I have to motor it up the steps because it’s too heavy to get up them any other way. Normally, someone who owns this type of bike would keep it in a garage that is level with the ground.

Once I get it up the three steps, I have to turn it 90 degrees and wedge the giant handlebars through a doorway. Then I have to turn it another 90 degrees to get it into the very small door of my apartment. Once inside, I have to turn it 90 degrees in a very small amount of space to get it into the corner when I keep it.

It’s a HUGE production to do this. So much so that it makes me not want to take it out at all.

Lastly, and most surprisingly, the few times I did take the bike out, I felt like I was right back in an automobile. I had to drive on the road, which meant was traversing the one-way streets to get where I was going. Also, there are some bigger roads around me that I didn’t want to go on because of faster traffic, so that put me on smaller interior streets.

But mostly, I just felt like I was going too fast. I was no longer going at a human-capable speed. This bike actually goes quite fast, and it’s hard not to twist that throttle if you know the potential is there. After having slowed down so much in my life, I felt weird about speeding back up.

When I lived in Sarasota, having something like this was more convenient because I had a garage to store it in, and I lived 3 miles from downtown, which made having the extra horse power very nice. But now that I’m right in downtown with these darn steps, this bike just doesn’t make sense.

And so this amazing bike that I was so looking forward to having has been sitting unused in my apartment.

I’ve decided to sell it to someone who will appreciate what a fantastic resource it is. If you are that person or know someone who might fit that description, please visit the Craigslist ad I’ve created for it.