Elbows up: economic resilience plays out on the handlebars too

Mobility · Resilience · Work

Elbows up: economic resilience plays out on the handlebars too

"Elbows up" has become Canada's reflex in the face of trade tensions and the early signs of recession: you protect yourself, you stay standing, you take back control. That reflex belongs on the street, at work, and in how you get around.

More and more people walk into our stores with a very concrete question: "if things get tight, how do I protect my spending and how do I keep working?" The answer comes down to three tools: the bike, the e-bike and the electric scooter. This isn't an article about bikes. It's an article about economic resilience, sovereignty and well-being.

1. What past crises already taught us

Canada has already had its dress rehearsals.

$200 BCost of oil shocks for Canadians over three years, through the end of 2024Centre for Future Work

50%Canadian counter-tariffs on hundreds of American goodsGovernment of Canada

1.4%of Canadian commuters rely mainly on a bike, a rate flat for yearsStatistics Canada

None of these crises were predicted. All were predictable in principle. The decision that protects you gets made before, not during.

2. Less money at the pump, more money in the Canadian economy

This is the dimension that matters most right now: economic sovereignty.

A gas vehicle is built elsewhere, supplied with parts from elsewhere, and fuelled through refining chains you don't control. The 2022 shock proved it: $200 billion left the Canadian economy, with nothing coming back.

By contrast, a bike, an e-bike or an electric scooter gets repaired with parts and labour you find here. It gets fixed in a shop in your neighbourhood, by people who live in the same city you do. And the electricity behind it is largely generated in Canada, notably in Quebec.

Every kilometre travelled on something other than gas is a kilometre that doesn't send your money abroad. The less we depend on imported oil, the more of our operating money stays in our streets, our shops and our jobs. A household's resilience and the country's resilience are the same gesture.

3. The math everyone understands

The arguments that convince most people aren't environmental. They're accounting arguments. A study by the Les Boîtes à vélo network calculated the fully loaded cost per kilometre of a utility vehicle, purchase, energy and maintenance included. Here are the amounts converted to Canadian dollars:

Line item	Diesel utility van	Electric cargo bike
Fully loaded cost per km	≈ $1.65 CAD	≈ $0.50 CAD
GHG emissions	baseline	÷ 7

About three times cheaper per kilometre. And that's not where the gap gets ugliest: it's in the line items nobody budgets for.

"Some businesses had a parking-fine budget of over $1,400 per month per vehicle before switching to bikes."
Damien Garreau, co-founder of Jhog (Angers), cited in a Les Boîtes à vélo study

Add parking, insurance, traffic and heavy maintenance. These are expenses that produce nothing: they put you back at square one every month.

For short trips, the electric scooter follows the same logic: it costs a fraction of a fossil-fuel vehicle per kilometre and slips through where a van can't go. And good news: several Canadian, provincial and municipal programs offer e-bike purchase incentives worth up to $1,400, depending on where you live.

4. The giants already ran the numbers for you

Cargo bikes aren't a symbolic gesture: they're a tool for work. And the best proof is that the biggest logistics companies in Canada use them.

• FedEx launched its electric cargo bike program in Toronto in 2020, a first for the Americas. It has become one of its largest programs.
• Purolator, one of the biggest parcel names in Canada, delivers by cargo bike in Toronto, along with NationEx.
• In Vancouver, the Shift Delivery co-op has delivered by trike for years, with cargo bikes carrying up to 230 kg each.
• UPS is testing and deploying cargo bikes in several cities.

These companies don't do sentiment: they tested, measured and concluded that bikes do the job, faster and cheaper in the city. You don't have to convince them. They're already convinced.

5. The human dividend: health, well-being, energy

Protecting your budget is good. Protecting your people is better.

Fewer sick days

A study by the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, published in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, compared active commuters with motorized ones:

• 8 to 12% fewer sick leave days among those riding about 61 km a week by bike;
• 18% lower risk for absences of 10 days or more;
• on average, 4.5 fewer sick days per year.

For a business, one sick day avoided per employee is a payroll line that doesn't go out and a shift that doesn't fall apart.

A health system with relief

According to Vélo Québec and the World Health Organization's HEAT tool, Quebec adults logged 305 million hours of cycling in 2025, representing 350 deaths prevented per year and over $3.3 billion in health savings, close to 5% of the Quebec government's spending. Meanwhile that spending rises 6.8% a year.

And there's the joy of it, plain and simple

We talk a lot about costs and productivity, but the other half of the truth deserves saying: riding is enjoyable. That's not a weak argument, it's a documented one.

A meta-analysis of 87 studies across 19 countries, published in 2026, examined the effect of cycling on human well-being. The results are unambiguous:

• 67% of psychological well-being measures showed improvement after cycling;
• 100% of outdoor interventions reported a positive effect on affective well-being, mood and emotions;
• 100% of studies reported a positive impact on social well-being: more connection, less loneliness, stronger community;
• and 52% of cognitive measures showed gains, notably in processing speed and attention.

Another line of research compared travellers' moods by mode of transport. One finding keeps coming back: people who get around by bike are the happiest, even when researchers control for physical health. In other words, it isn't just that cyclists are fitter. The act of riding itself is what does the good.

Part of the explanation is a sense of accomplishment: you move under your own power, you feel the wind, you see the city differently, you arrive having already done something with your day. On a bike or a scooter, you're not stuck in a box staring at a bumper. You're outside, present, and in charge of your route.

And in a period of economic anxiety, that counts for something real. An employee who arrives at work in a good mood after fifteen minutes on a bike is not the same employee who arrives after forty minutes of gridlock. A team that enjoys getting around is a team that stays.

6. What about winter?

The number one objection in Quebec deserves an honest answer. And the answer is that cities changed before we did.

In most downtowns, bike lanes are cleared. It's a fact people forget: snow clearing is no longer a theoretical obstacle in dense neighbourhoods, it's been part of Canadian cities' winter routine for years. And increasingly, that clearing extends beyond downtown, into residential neighbourhoods and suburban arteries. It improves every winter.

And above all, the gear caught up. The fatbike opened the door, and it isn't alone anymore: more and more bikes, e-bikes and scooters are designed or outfitted to ride on snow and ice, with wide tires, studs and motors that hold their torque in the cold. More and more people don't put their bike away in November, they just switch tires.

The real barrier is gear, not weather

Bad weather is cited as a barrier by only 18% of Quebec cyclists, far behind distances being too long (41%) and having too much to carry (25%), exactly what e-bikes and cargo bikes knock down. In other words: what stops people is almost never the snow. It's not having the right bike, the right tires and the right clothing.

The realistic scenario isn't replacing your vehicle: it's using it less. A bike, an e-bike or an electric scooter for short trips and the warm season, the vehicle for exceptional loads and long distances. The math tips for eight months out of twelve, and that's already huge.

7. Where to start, concretely

1. Measure your real trips. Pull your vehicle data: how many kilometres happen in the city, within a 10 km radius, less than 5 km from the point of departure? In Quebec, 39% of the population lives less than 5 km from work. According to Vélo Québec, 32 to 55% of motorized trips could be done on an electric cargo bike. Up to one trip in two.
2. Pick one route to convert. Not the fleet, one route. That's what worked in every documented case.
3. Choose the tool for the load, not the fear. A cargo bike for volume, an e-bike for 5 to 15 km trips, an electric scooter for the last mile and connections.
4. Test across a season. The math is an eight-month math, not a three-week math.
5. Plan the maintenance. A bike that stays on the road has to be repairable fast, and locally.

8. Resilience in one sentence

Don't depend on a single way to get around. Have two. Or more.

The day the first one seizes up, pump price, missing part, long line, you don't stop: you switch modes. That's what being ready means.

There's one line that comes up with everyone who made the switch: "we should have started earlier." Not because it was hard, but because every month spent in the old model is a month of variable costs that never comes back.

The early signs of recession aren't a reason to wait. They're a reason to act, calmly, with numbers, one trip at a time. Elbows up, hands on the handlebars.

Come see us in store: we look at your real trips with you, not the spec sheet.