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Bicycle bling: All the accessories you’ll need for your new e-bike – Ars Technica
2025-04-23T13:43:36Z
To accompany our cargo bike shopper’s guide, here’s the other gear you’ll want.
If you’ve read our cargo e-bike shopper’s guide, you may be well on your way to owning a new ride. Now comes the fun part.
Part of the joy of diving into a new hobby is researching and acquiring the necessary (and less-than-necessary) stuff. And cycling (or, for the casual or transportation-first rider, “riding bikes”) is no different—there are hundreds of ways to stock up on talismanic, Internet-cool parts and accessories that you may or may not need.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing! And you can even get creative—PC case LEDs serve the same function as a very specific Japanese reflective triangle that hangs from your saddle. But let’s start with the strictly necessary.
This article is aimed at the fully beginner cyclist, but I invite the experienced cyclists among us to fill the comments with anything I’ve missed. If this is your first run at owning a bike that gets ridden frequently, the below is a good starting point to keep you (and your cargo) safe—and your bike running.
First thing’s first: Safety stuff
Helmets
I once was asked by another cargo bike dad, “Are people wearing helmets on these? Is that uncool?”
“You’re already riding the uncoolest bike on earth—buy a helmet,” I told him.
For the most part, any helmet you pick up at a big box store or your local bike shop will do a perfectly fine job keeping your brains inside your skull. Even so, the goodly nerds over at Virginia Tech have partnered with the Insurance Institute for Highways Safety (IIHS) to rate 238 bike helmets using the STAR evaluation system. Sort by your use case and find something within your budget, but I’ve found that something in the $70–$100 range is more than adequate—any less and you’re sacrificing comfort, and any more and you won’t notice the difference. Save your cash.
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