Schwinn 2007 Campus Electric Bike

Dubhgan would probably get a real kick outta this. We had been talking about ebikes just after he arrived since he was getting a little tired of making a long commute from his house to his Japanese lessons every weekend. I don't know how many kilometers it is but it probably takes him about 35 minutes to bike each way in urban conditions.

Most of the systems around here use sealed lead acid batteries and cost in excess of US$1000. We looked at a few bikes made in the US and they were pretty pricey too, especially including the shipping.
This Schwinn might not offer a better solution, but it still looks like a cool bike. Interesting new battery technology and drive train. I actually can't tell how the electronic drive train works. Most ebikes have an obvious connection linkage with the manual drive train, but there's nothing to see from the photos on Schwinn's website.