This makes me think of how my parents' generation would drive across town to save 5 cents on gas. Assuming a 13 gallon tank, you're saving about 65 cents. Congratulations, big winner coming through! I will pay that 65 cents to have an extra 10 minutes of time to myself and have a hard time seeing how anyone would rather have the 65 cents.
Do you prefer the praying mantis bars, or the under-seat steering? I hear you on the price, I've been eying the Hase Pino Tandem for a while now. The driver is upright in the back, while another rider can pedal along recumbent in front. It's a marvel. Test rode it 2-3 times and I just can't bring myself to fork over that much dough unless I have to (which is why most of the recumbent riders in my life did it). Also knowing I'll have ongoing maintenance costs the whole time I have it and some of those parts may not be off the shelf.
The guys who ride the recumbent trikes have it made though, they can pull up their wheeled lawnchairs in a circle and reach behind them into the attached cooler for some snacks.
They neglected road maintenance for decades in a climate with hot summers and cold winters so large cracks developed across the roadways every 10 feet. If I stood for every bump, i would never sit down. I bought a suspension seatpost.
It's a great way of smoothing out the smaller bumps, or the rumble of crumbling asphault. That's about what I paid for mine. Unlike a suspension that will suck away my power, once I stand up, the bike is as rigid and connected as ever. When I sit down it's like I'm floating on a pillow a few inches above my speeding bike. I set it per their suggestion but when I have some time I want to see if I can get it tuned in even better for me.
Something that stuck with me from at least a decade back was multimodal transit, aka cars that can become trains and vice versa. Imagine driving your low speed cargo pod car thing to the local train station and hitching together with a bunch of others before making the hour trip to a neighboring city on rails at high speed only to split up automatically at the other end and continue to your separate destinations. Its a combination of the efficiencies of transit and the freedoms of an individualized last mile solution. It reduces the need for freeways without hurting mobility at the origin/ destination.
I've probably had the seat post for about a year. I had one before on my father's bike which I rode from time to time, but it seems they've come a long ways since then. When I put one on the Turbo Vado I fell in love with it. I used to stand up for big cracks in the sidewalk or when dropping off pavement onto a dirt path, but now I just float over all those little obstacles while continuing to pedal and without transferring a bunch of shocks straight to my sit bones. It's an odd feeling at first, but I don't feel like I gave anything up for the extra comfort: not speed, not weight, not handling... it just isolates me from small to medium sized bumps. I did have to move my rear reflector a little bit and I moved my second taillight to an under seat mount so it wouldn't interfere with the seat post. Installation was DIY and my post came with a few extra springs to tune it to the rider's weight.
Yeah, I think the main difference with the 5 is the carbon fork and the bike can do some assist adjustments where it will increment the assist up or down based on how far you tell it you are going to make sure your battery takes you the whole way, or to keep your power/heart rate or something at a set value. I don't need that stuff, but I did find my butt determined a suspension seat post was the single biggest improvement to the bike.
I have the 4.0 EQ and love it. It's no electric motorcycle, you do have to pedal, but if feels incredibly natural and it's light enough to keep going when the battery dies and not feel like a wheelbarrow full of lead bricks. 9/10 with 1 point docked because the way the charge cord sticks into it is dumb and makes the $100+ power adaptor susceptible to damage.
I bought a mid drive with a small motor because I wanted to put in some effort. If I had gone in with the idea that I was going to buy an electric motorcycle with pedals, I'd also be disappointed at the current crop of ebikes. There are some gems out there, but a 250w hub isn't going to do mush for you unless you already live somewhere nice and flat.
Yes, I'm several years into my de-googling process and a solid email client is not something I'm worried about. K9 is great and, as Thunderbird, we can only hope that it gets better.