Why Mastodon

So why did I open a Mastodon account and why do I think Mastodon can replace Twitter.

I started looking for alternatives to Twitter soon after Elon Musk purchased it and sent it to hell in a hand basket.

Of course, Twitter’s problems started much earlier than that. As soon as Twitter realized that as a business it had to monetize it’s product an emphasis on profitability took over and it ceased to be a primarily community space. At that point many of us wished there was some sort of co-operative community based alternative. Many of us did not realize that one did exist, in the form of Mastodon, until we started looking harder after Elon Musk purchased Twitter as his personal vanity project.

Of course the purchase of Twitter by the world’s richest person could have been a positive thing, The new owner could afford to subsidize it as a project for the common good. But instead he decided to use if for self promotion and to pursue his own perverted concept of free speech, turning it into a haven for disinformation, conspiracy theories, the spewing of hatred and a platform for right wing extremists and white supremacists.

This has forced many from minority and vulnerable communities to leave the hatred for their own self-preservation. Those of us more privileged were able to use our ability to filter what we see to protect ourselves. The reason we remain is that so far no alternative has the audience reach that Twitter does. But many of us are looking at Mastodon as that potential alternative and replacement for Twitter.

Can Twitter be saved. Perhaps, but it’s business model means profit will always be put before community. Could an angel investor with deep pockets subsidize it for the common good. Perhaps, but there are very few people in that position and that would leave the Twitter community beholden to that person.

Can Mastodon realistically replace Twitter. The beauty of Mastodon is in it’s co-operative federated structure and volunteer moderation teams. What Mastodon would need to replace Twitter is a huge increase in server and bandwidth capacity. But it does not need a single angel investor. It could do that with thousands of individuals, organizations, and even corporations willing to provide for the cost of the server and bandwidth capacity necessary, in exchange for the goodwill that would create. As to the increase in moderation capacity needed, the strength of Mastodon is that it is scale-able, as it’s user base increases so does its potential volunteer base. So, yes, I do believe Mastodon can eventually replace Twitter.

The other benefit of Mastodon is that it will not attract the hateful elements that Twitter does. For example, these are the rules for the server I am on.

Some ground rules. These are set and enforced by the mstdn.ca moderators.

1.  No toxic and hateful speech.
2.  No incitement of violence and no promotion of misleading or violent ideologies.
3.  No harassment, dogpiling, or unwanted advances.
4.  No doxxing of other users.
5.  No content illegal in Canada or copyrighted content that you don't own rights to.
6.  Sexually explicit or violent media must be marked appropriately.
7.  No spamming. Excessive posting, boosting, advertising or mass-marketing posts will be   actioned accordingly and based on intent.
8. Be yourself. Accounts intended to impersonate or parody are not permitted, and those found to be directly misrepresenting themselves as another person or entity will be actioned accordingly.
9. Agree to the Terms of Service and Code of Conduct.

Put more briefly, this simply requires that users not be assholes and that they act like decent human beings while using Mastodon. However, this will keep the “anti-woke/anti-PC” crowd away as they see human decency as an affront to their right to free speech and would not want to be associated with such a “woke” service and will likely prefer “TruthSocial” anyway.

For now I will remain on Twitter, taking advantage of the greater reach it currently provides. As for Mastodon, I will likely be easing myself into participation there as I figure things out.

My Mastodon user name is @the5thColumnist@mstdn.ca and my Mastodon main page is located at https://mstdn.ca/@the5thColumnist

You can learn more about Mastodon here https://joinmastodon.org/

To join mstdn.ca go here Sign up - Mastodon Canada (mstdn.ca)

COVID-19 Pandemic Reflections and The Next Pandemic

Well the pandemic is over, at least according to most governments, science and medicine not so much. So now it is time to look back, and to look forward.

Perhaps my biggest reflection is that governments, at least in Canada, did not receive the rational criticism for their failures that they should have. The media was intent on concentrating on the irrational response of the anti-science, anti-public health, anti-vaxer crew who were co-opted by the far right white supremacist convoy types in Canada. The left, on the other hand, felt so strongly the need to defend the principle of governments acting to protect Canadians from this deadly pandemic that they failed to properly criticize governments failures in doing so. Not that there was no rational criticism, but what there was was overwhelmed by the Freedumb Convoy Shitshow.

The biggest failure was in not being prepared, even though scientists and public health officials had predicted that pandemics would be commonplace in the future, along with not following the precautionary principle and treating it as airborne until that could be completely ruled out.

But the most egregious, and I would say unforgivable decision, was to not utilize the front line of our health care system, but rather shutting down the vast majority of family physicians’ offices pushing an even greater workload onto the overwhelmed hospital system. This was either complete negligence on the part of the health care system or a clear indication we don’t actually have a health care system but just a bunch of disconnected parts.

As far as messaging goes, we had the use of the language “social distancing” rather than “physical distancing” at a time when maintaining social connections was critical to people’s mental health. Along with that error in messaging was the message to stay inside, rather than stay away from other people, at a time when getting outdoors (with appropriate precautions) could be critical people’s mental health.

However, in the long run, if only coincidental, there is some truth to the arguments for “no more lockdowns” and “we have to learn to live with the pandemic”.

If and when pandemics become a normal part of our reality we will indeed have to learn to live with them and it will not be sustainable to completely shut down our economy and society everytime they occur. Shutdowns or lockdowns, whatever you want to call them, will have to only occur rarely and for short periods when necessary to get an initial grasp of what is happening. And they will of necessity have to be political decisions.

But living with pandemics does not mean ignoring them. It means taking necessary precautions, such as physical distancing, masking with high quality masks, extensive vaccination programs, and, at times, restricting the highest risk activities such as large indoor gatherings of people packed closely together for long periods, methods that have been proven to work and reduce the incidence and seriousness of the outbreaks and most of all save lives.

But most importantly it means being prepared beforehand.

The first step in being prepared is having a primary care system where everyone has access to a primary care physician. In Ontario everyone does not have access to a primary care physician so we urgently need to drain more family doctors, fast track the approval of foreign trained doctors to work in Ontario and increase immigration and training of doctors from abroad, along with increasing the number of nurse practitioners available. And, of course, not shutting the primary care system down during a public health emergency.

We also need to have a hospital system that is not running at over 100% of capacity during the best of times. How do we build in excess capacity without it being inefficient. By using that excess capacity. As it is now so-called elective surgery is ridiculously backlogged. But this elective surgery is not elective at all. What we call elective surgery is surgery for non-life threatening conditions. Knee and hip replacements, eye surgery and many other so called elective surgeries may not be life saving but they certainly can be life changing for many patients for whom they make life worth living again. We can then, in the case of a public health emergency, divert that capacity to save more lives during a future pandemic. Purpose built publicly funded and operated specialty clinics can be part of that solution, and can be used to treat pandemic patients separate from hospitals, reducing the risk of infecting patients in the general hospital population.

And, though it need not be said, when the problem is the lack of doctors and nurses adding profit into the system is not going to solve the problem, only add unnecessary costs.

It also should not have to be said that the lives of vulnerable elderly persons should not be routinely sacrificed to ensure the profit margins of private long-term care facilities, creating a situation where those needless deaths increase exponentially during a pandemic. Being prepared for future pandemics requires that all health care should be publicly funded and operated. Private profit has no place in health care because that profit always has to come at the expense of patient care.

The other need for preparedness is economic. During the COVID pandemic the government scrambled to implement makeshift assistance programs for those economically impacted by the pandemic, and though it helped many it was a very messy solution. What we need is a permanent solution that will not only deal with public health emergencies but also with the economic disruptions of a transition from a fossil fuels based economy to a sustainable energy based economy. What we need is a guaranteed basic income along with a fair progressive taxation system.

There is no justification for not being prepared for the next pandemic.

Photo Versions Created with Franzis Black & White Projects

Back in the day, not my day but the day, cameras were not an app on your phone but bulky and heavy apparatus with explosive flash powder that could only take monochrome photos. We have advanced a long way to today’s sophisticated DSLRs and prosumer cameras such as my Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ100 .

So why black & white photography today when the technology has moved so far beyond it. One can be overwhelmed by the colour in a colour photograph and miss the complexities of light and contrast and even the composition. A black & white photograph can put the emphasis on the other aspects of the photo rather than the colour. But for me it often has more to do with the subject. For historical, or even industrial photos, there is a certain authenticity that a black & white image provides, It is like the photo was taken back in the day.

The photos in this project were taken with my Konica Autoreflex T-3 35 mm camera using 100 ASA colour slide film. They were scanned with my CanoScan 4400F scanner at 600 DP with low compression. The colour images were enhanced with Simply Good Pictures 5 and converted to black & white using Franzis Black & White Projects 6 Professional.

The Natural High Quality setting on Franzis Black & White projects provides high quality black & white versions of the colour images. There are also a large number of other presets available to provide other versions, some with subtle differences and some with much greater differences, including a number of artistic settings. All of the presets have an unlimited number of individual adjustments that can be made to them. This project displays a number of the different photo versions that are available with Franzis Black & White Projects.

King’s Landing Historical Settlement, New Brunswick, August 8, 1982

Original Scanned Slide (1636)

 

Enhanced Colour Image

 

Black & White Version - Natural High Quality

 

Black & White Version – Toning Butter Cream

 

Black & White Version – FX Snapshot

 

King’s Landing Historical Settlement, New Brunswick, August 8, 1982

Original Scanned Slide (1638)

 

Enhanced Colour Image

 

Black & White Version - Natural High Quality

 

Black & White Version – Toning Photo Paper Warm

 

Black & White Version – FX Memories

 

Vanscoy, Saskatchewan, July 3, 1983

Original Scanned Slide (2016)

 

Enhanced Colour Image

 

Black & White Version - Natural High Quality

 

Black & White Version – Natural Structure Dark

 

Black & White Version – Landscape Light Beams

Towards Murray Mine, Sudbury, Ontario, August 17, 1984

Original Scanned Slide (2196)

 

Enhanced Colour Image

 

Black & White Version - Natural High Quality

 

Black & White Version – Surreal Prismatic

 

Black & White Version – Landscape Infrared

 

King’s Landing Historical Settlement, New Brunswick, July 9, 1998

Original Scanned Slide (3760)

 

Enhanced Colour Image

 

Black & White Version - Natural High Quality

 

Black & White Version – Artistic Old School

 

Black & White Version – Landscape Dreamy

 

Photo Versions Created with Franzis Color Projects

Way back in the day when I used to be a member of the Camera Club of Ottawa and we met at the NRC building on Sussex Drive the most usual criticism of my photos was that they were “good record shots”. I did not see that as much of a criticism at the time because then I mostly thought of photography as capturing what was there, rather than as artistic expression, and that composition was the main skill required. At that time I was using a Konica Autoreflex T3 35 mm camera shooting mostly Fujichrome 100.

When I got into digital photography and realized what one could do with photo software I began to see photography more as an art form, Of course even back in the days of film one’s choice of film to use and settings to use, not to mention darkroom work, meant that photography was always an art form.

Currently I do All my photography with digital cameras, my main go to camera being my Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ100. However the photo used in this blog post was taken with my Panasonic Lumix TS5 compact waterproof and shock resistant sports camera that I can easily carry in my small bike pouch at the front or in the pocket of my PFD when kayaking.

So far the best single click photo optimizer I have discovered is Simply Good Pictures 5 .For all around photo editing (and for display map creation) I tend to use Adobe Photoshop Elements 2023. However more often than not I am using Franzis Color Projects 6 Professional for the interesting effects it can create. For conversion to Black and White my choice is Franzis Black & White Projects 6 Professional with it’s large selection of options.

Franzis Color Projects provides an extremely large number of preset effects, some that just enhance the quality of the photo, but also many that provide artistic effects that create a whole new look to the photo. Each preset choice can be further refined within the program. The program can also emulate many specific types of film.

For this demonstration project the original photo, taken on the Old Quarry Trail in the Ottawa Greenbelt, was shot with my Lumix TS-5 and then auto enhanced with Simply Good Pictures and then the individual effects were applied with Franzis Color Projects Professional 6. 

Original from Panasonic Lumix TS5

 Interim Phase - Simply Good Pictures Auto Enhancement

 

 Franzis Color Projects Edited Versions

 Natural Structure Dark

Natural Colour shift 1

 Natural Colour shift 3

Surreal shifted

Landscape Blue filter

Architecture Monochrome

Architecture Sketch

Portrait Low key

Artistic Water mirroring

 Painting Bright sketch

Is It Time For The NDP To Rebirth Itself

The North American right wing has been overtaken by a vile hateful Donald Trump inspired populist MAGA movement that has spawned the Freedumb Convoy types and infected the Canadian Conservative Party and what was once a principled conservative tradition in Canada, although you have to go back awhile to the former Progressive Conservative Party to find it.

Canada has long had a form of populism of it’s own within the Liberal Party but a much more benign form. Intent on maintaining it’s position as the “natural governing party” the Liberals focused their policies on what would be popular with voters, tending to “campaign from the left and govern from the right” with policies just progressive enough to get them elected without upsetting the financial powers that be that actually run the country.

The New Democratic Party has often been criticized for being too ideological but in truth that was it’s strength, being a party of social democratic principles. But it seems that it is now embracing a populism of sorts. Instead of pursuing a comprehensive social democratic platform it seems to be taking a series easy unfocused pot shots at the both the Liberals and Conservatives. At the same time it tries to convince the Liberals to adopt what it sees as popular polices and take credit for them, leaving them open to the description “Liberals in a hurry”, long decried by those of us on the left.

What is the solution. It has been over 60 years since the NDP was founded in 1961 by the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) and over 90 years since The CCF was founded in 1932 by a number of socialist, agrarian, co-operative, and labour groups and the League for Social Reconstruction. Is it time for a rebirth.

Social democracy may be at the heart of the NDP but Canada’s social movements have been it’s soul. Is it time for Canada’s social movements (labour, environmental, indigenous rights, anti-poverty, fair taxation, public health care, women’s liberation, pro choice, LBGTQ+, anti war, etc.) to come together to birth a new Social Democratic Party for Canada, that will fight a principled fight for a better Canada for all.

What will this party stand for. That will of course be up to the party but I do have some ideas for some founding priorities.

The first priority must be electoral reform because if democracy is not working neither is anything else. We need an electoral system that provides for local representation as well as a House of Commons membership that reflects the philosophical positions of the voters as expressed in the total votes for each party. There are several variations of Proportional Representation that do this. My personal preference is Mixed Member Proportional (MMP).

The next priority must be tax reform, with a progressive income tax system where the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share. Without fair and adequate taxation government cannot fulfill its responsibilities to the people including public health care, the social safety net, and addressing income and wealth inequality.

The new party must also commit to completing the public health care system to include pharmacare, mental health care, dental and vision care, and long term care. This must include returning to 50% federal funding as the only way to ensure the provinces live up the the Canada Health Act is the federal spending power. Tax points that can be used to subsidize the oil and gas industry, provide benefits to land developers or bribes to voters will not save our health care system.

The last on my last, but far from the last of the policies the Social Democratic Party must adopt, is an industrial strategy designed to provide for sustainable development and fight climate change by creating good paying long term unionized jobs.

Indeed it is time for a rebirth.

Left, Right or Centre – Explainer

In today’s age of populism, with ideology apparently dead, how do you now if you are on the left or right or in the centre. There are indeed some basic philosophical positions that determine if you are on the right, left or in the centre.

If you are on the right you believe in individualism and the free market. Individualism rules supreme and there is no such thing as collective rights. You believe in the mantras that “acting in your own self interest is in the best interests of society” and “what is good for General Motors is good for America”.

You believe that almost everything, except perhaps policing and the military, is done best by the private sector and that the profit motive is the best motivator of people. Competition is the best way to provide progress and create wealth.

You believe in inequality because that is the best way to reward intelligence, talent and hard work. The poor are poor because they do not work hard enough.

You believe in small government whose role is essentially to protect private property rights. You think of taxes as something an outside entity (the government) takes from you, you may even refer to it as stealing. You may also believe in unfettered free speech.

If you are on the left you believe in community. You believe that individuals are not completely fulfilled unless they are part of a community. You believe in co-operation and working together for the common good. You care for others and believe everyone deserves respect and human dignity.

You believe everyone deserves a decent life and all work should receive a living wage with employment benefits, especially decent pensions. You believe the level of inequality in our society is immoral and billionaires should not exist.

You believe government exists to serve the common good by providing public services efficiently and reducing economic inequality in society. You believe taxes are how we collectively spend our money for the common good.

You may even believe that we have a responsibility to contribute to society according to our ability and society has a responsibility to provide for our basic needs, including food, clothing, housing, education and health care.

Those of you who claim to be in the centre are probably actually on the right but you believe government has a role in reducing the worst aspects of capitalism and providing a social safety net for the victims of capitalist excesses.

The Benefits of Being a Nobody on Twitter (& free speech)

Following 193 accounts and with 329 followers I am a relative nobody on Twitter. By controlling who I follow and who I block I can protect myself from the worst of Twitter. By choosing to follow legitimate news sources and people with similar interests, like cycling, my Twitter feed is interesting and mostly enjoyable. I even have a few significant followers who I occasionally engage with and who may extend my reach with retweets. I hope my tweets, usually about politics and social issues along with cycling and the outdoors, are interesting and useful to people.

Since I am a relative nobody I do not have to worry about being trolled and if I am “attacked” on Twitter it is for what I have said and not who I am. That cannot be said about what a lot of people on Twitter are facing, particularly in light of the new “freedom of speech” Twitter which has increased trolling and attacks on vulnerable and disadvantaged minorities forcing many to leave Twitter.

Free speech should belong to everyone. If Twitter becomes a haven for privileged white men to spew hatred that will not be a victory for free speech, but a failure of it.

An Open Message to Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe

The election is over and you can now free yourself from your election handlers. It is time to move your focus from getting elected to making Ottawa a better place to live.

So what should your first priority be. During an election campaign it is obviously whatever the largest group of voters will vote for, and you seemed to think that was NOT spending money on cycling infrastructure. But more on that later. The campaign is over.

You now need to think about what is most important to all Ottawans, and in particular vulnerable and disadvantaged ones. I put it to you that the most important thing to most of us, after our families, is our home. So try to imagine not having one. So, even if the homeless tend to not vote, as mayor they should be your most important concern.

Most municipal candidates seem to fear this issue mistakenly thinking it is too big a challenge and too costly an expenditure and they try to pass it on to other jurisdictions where it gets lost in a lack of political will. But Finland has shown that not only can providing homes for everyone be done, it saves money because it costs less than all the measures needed to deal with homelessness. It may take some imagination and dedication and work with other jurisdictions to get this done, but it can be done. There are people in Ottawa with the ability and dedication to make it happen. Work with them.

As to the apparent misplaced obsession of your election campaign, your opponent’s brilliant plan to finish Ottawa’s cycling network in 5 years instead of 25 while spending the same amount of money annually over 25 years, it is time to look at it on it’s merits and not how it can be twisted to your electoral campaign advantage.

How can one argue against a proposal that increases the cost effectiveness of city expenditures many times. You only get the benefits of any type of network when it is fully completed and interconnected. This plan expedites that so the construction costs are incurred when they are lower and the full benefits of taxpayers money is achieved in 5 years, 20 years before all the money is paid out by taxpayers. As well, networks are most effectively built from the inside out so that as much as possible of the network is interconnected. This means that it is the suburbs that benefit most from the expedited construction.

This plan, of course, does not only benefit cyclists. If you want to reduce automobile traffic congestion building more automobile infrastructure will not work because of a pesky thing called induced demand. The only way to reduce traffic congestion to reduce the number of cars on the road and that means improving public transit and cycling infrastructure. Since over 50% of car trips are short enough to be replaced by cycling, building an effective cycling network can be an important part of reducing automobile traffic congestion.

There is no reason to oppose this plan, which better spends taxpayers money, unless you simply do not want to spend any money at all on cycling infrastructure.

A Tale of Two Twitters

It is the best of the Internet, it is the worst of the Internet, it is the purveyor of wisdom, it is the purveyor of disinformation, it is the home of knowledge, it is the home of wilful ignorance.

Beyond the literary allusion (words inspired by Charles Dickens) there do indeed seem to be two Twitters. 

One can be a place of enlightenment where people share information, opinions and even wisdom and rationally debate the issues of the day.

The other can be a place where people spout conspiracy theories, lies, hate, and even threats, without any personal accountability under the cloak of anonymity.

What is the solution. Some would have us eliminate the second Twitter in the name of civility. Others would argue that Twitter should be a place of absolute free speech without any required personal responsibility.

I would suggest a solution that allows the users to choose which Twitter they want to be part of with a few simple changes that otherwise allows Twitter to continue as it is.

The first thing is to open up Verified Accounts to anyone who wishes to be verified rather than allowing verification only for VIPs and so-called influencers. The second would be to then allow Verified Users, if they wish, to restrict who can see their Tweets and whose Tweets they can see to Verified Users only.

Let people choose the Twitter they want to be part of.

Norco Scene VLT, The E-bike For People That Hate E-bikes

Definitions first. How do I define e-bike. An electric motor assisted bicycle that can be pedalled easily without the assist turned on and that requires pedalling for the motor assist to function. Any so called “e-bike” that does not requiring pedalling to move (except when coasting) is a variation on an electric motorcycle or scooter.

We are midway into our second season with our Norco Scene VLT e-bikes and both my wife Christine, whose idea it was, and myself, who was somewhat reluctant, are extremely happy with them.

 

What my clickbaitish headline is actually meant to convey is the fact the Norco Scene VLT is a great bike for someone like me who prefers to ride under my own pedal power most of the time.

The first thing I noticed when I first tried out Christine’s Norco Scene VLT (she bought hers first) was that without the power assist on it was no more difficult to pedal than our Brodie Sterling hybrids. I have no doubt that with the extra weight there is probably a measurable amount of more effort required, but certainly not a noticeable amount to the rider. Part of that might be the fact that these are not inexpensive machines so the gears and bearings are high quality probably contributing to less rolling resistance and somewhat making up for the extra weight of the motor and batteries.

So let us talk about the hardware.

The first thing you will probably notice is the lack of a top tube, not even the slanted type found on so-called women’s bikes. I never quite understood that. A top tube you cannot slip off your seat onto would be one of my top design choices for a men’s bike. But this bike is a fully step through bike meaning no worries about top tube injuries and no needing to throw your leg over the bike when starting out.

The next thing you will notice is that this is a fully upright bike. While racing bikes and mountain bikes have you bent over the top for increased speed or control and hybrid bikes put you in a somewhat less bent over position, this bike is designed for comfort and is fully upright something you will appreciate on longer rides. The upright stance however does not prevent one from leaning forward on the hills for more power,

You may also notice the dropper seat on the Norco Scene VLT. Originally designed for mountain biking, so that you can lower your seat for downhills or technical sections, on the Scene the purpose is to allow you to have your feet firmly on the ground when stopped for stop signs or red lights. My wife Christine loves hers but I have not really been able to get into the flow of using it.

Something I did not notice until I had to repair a flat tire (tube) is the through axle on the bike. All previous bikes I have owned have had the axle as part of the wheel. With that setup it is possible to misalign the gears or disc brakes if you do not tighten the quick release carefully, although this has only happened a few times for me. With the through axle, the wheel sits in the frame independently and the axle slides through both the wheel and the frame always aligning the disc brakes and chain in the same position.

While we are talking wheels, the Scene has 27.5 inch wheels, halfway between the traditional mountain bike wheel size (26 inches) and the normal racing bike wheel size (29 inches), although 27.5 inch wheels are becoming the most popular mountain bike size now. The bike also comes with hydraulic disc brakes. The approximately 2 inch tires are suitable for a wide variety of riding surfaces.

Perhaps the most significant difference, other than the motor, on the Norco Scene VLT from most bicycles today is that it only has one gear range rather than three and thus no front derailleur. While one might want more gear choices for competitive racing or technical mountain biking, the 9 gears on the Scene are more than adequate for the utilitarian or recreational cycling one will use the bike for. This provides the advantage of having the gear shifter on the right handlebar and the power selector on the left handlebar without an additional gear shifter on that side to cause confusion.

Of course as an e-bike the Norco Scene VLT comes with an electric motor, integrated into the bottom bracket, and a battery. The power assist has three levels, eco, normal and high, four if you include off. It also has a setting to power the bike slowly while walking it if desired.

With the electronics comes a bike computer. We have always had problems with third party bike computers on our other bikes but this one works flawlessly. The only complaint I have is the size of the display which only has room to show the power level and one other item, we usually set it to show speed. The bike computer works as long as the battery is turned on even if the power assist is turned off. The bike computer keeps track of: speed, trip distance, total distance, range, time taken, speed, average speed, maximum speed, cadence, and current time.

As to power consumption, my wife Christine usually rides in eco mode full time and we have done over three hour 60 km rides with her power not dropping to 50%.

You might be asking, what about rain, can I ride a bike with an electric motor in the rain. The Internet seems to have varying opinions  about this. What I can say is that we have rode our Norco Scene VLTs in the rain (but not downpours) as well as through shallow puddles and even got stuck in the mud once without any apparent problem (yet). But I would certainly avoid submerging the bottom bracket or motor under water.

Now the big question is why pay more for an e-bike when you could buy a regular bike for much less.

I tend to use my power assist as another tool along with the gears. However how and when I use it often just depends on mood, whether I want to go all out for a workout and avoid the power assist altogether, just go for a more casual ride, or go for a much longer ride where I want to manage my exertion more carefully.

The latter case is most interesting. Killer hills can take a lot of exertion and just reducing that exertion with power assist for those short sections may be able to increase your total distance for the ride or just make the ride more enjoyable.

Wind, of course is another factor. The availability of power assist means you can go out on windy days and have some help pedalling into 30 km + winds.

In many cases just having the power assist available may lead people to try out longer and more difficult routes than they otherwise would.

The other benefit is power assist allows “weaker” riders to ride with stronger ones by using the power assist to equalize their pace.

There are two particular scenarios I can think of for the use of power assist.

The first is commuting where one can go faster and with less exertion and avoid arriving at work hot and sweaty, especially if shower facilities are not available. Then on the way home one can turn it off and get your daily workout.

The other is really hot days when one can use the power assist on killer hills to avoid dangerously over-exerting in the heat.

As to what setting to use, I have found that the lowest eco mode is all that I normally use and usually only throw it into high if I have had to stop for some reason and then want to catch up quickly to my riding partner. Everyone will, of course, have their own preference.

Many people will intuitively think that using an e-bike means you get less exercise but that is a misunderstanding. Most people will ride at a comfortable pedalling pace for them. With an e-bike the power assist will just allow that pedalling pace to take them on longer rides faster. Indeed the peace of mind of knowing the assist is there will likely lead people to ride more often and go on longer and more difficult rides. More riding means more exercise.

So, no, your friend did not buy an e-bike because they are lazy.

Full specs for the Norco Scene VLT can be found here.

Norco also makes a similar e-bike with front suspension, the Norco Indie VLT.

Norco also makes a non e-bike version of the Norco Scene. 

The Norco scene can be purchased in Ottawa or Carleton Place at Joe Mamma Cycles. 

One last comment, if an e-bike is beyond your budget but you are looking at buying a new bike for commuting or recreation I would certainly recommend looking at a step through upright bike if comfort is more important to you than speed.