E-bikes weigh more, so shipping them around has more emissions as well.

I don't mean to attack you but there's a point to be made here as per the slavery conditions battery ressource miners minors are subjected to but like a shipping crate full of batteries ain't it. Like look it up, the "shipping" part of most goods is like in the cents regions because a container ship is pretty damn efficient.

One way to look at it is to compare it with the EV debate- the carbon expenditure to create a new EV far outweighs the net emissions of keeping an old combustion vehicle running for a year. But say you drive 20,000 miles a year. At some point (I forget the math but it's 5-10 years) you've closed the gap and now you've got a real net deduction of emissions per year (vs driving the ICE). It's gonna be a lot more variable with humans and the types of food we eat but there should be a similar crossover point there too.

The added weight may be a lot of emissions over thousands of bikes/batteries, but per bike its probably negligible. The only part that is usually not manfactured locally is the battery, which can be shipped in bulk on cargoships for very minimal CO2 per-item (and more space-efficient than a bike frame).

This is for food, but the point is the same; transport is done in such high quantities that very few food items here even register as significant sources of emissions. I dont think this chart is super accurate but I hope that gets the point across.

No way the carbon footprint of buying a new E-bike is lower than me going to a local upcycling place, fixing up an old bike from the 1970s using spare parts, and using that as my daily driver.

The logic of repairing and using an old beater car might work out on emissions, but not with acoustic bikes. There are a lot of assumptions being made in these calculations and there are a lot greener ways to acquire an acoustic bike than buying a new one from a store. Upcycling a bike will always be greener than a new one and the classic steel frames just keep going so long as you can find parts. I suspect their improved ergonomics over modern bikes also contribute to less human energy needed to drive them. I'm not really using significantly more calories biking to and from work than I am walking.

Creative assumptions and manipulations of data to reach conclusions that are obviously misleading and likely incorrect without these manipulations. In the long term, replacement batteries for an E-bike will easily make the manufacturing emissions outweigh those of a new analog bike.

I support more bikers and E-biking gets some people into it that otherwise wouldn't, but this reeks of attempting to justify and prop up tech in ways that it does not need and that will ultimately fuel more emissions in the long run. Better urban design and seasonal maintenance can largely offset the justification for needing an E-bike.