Originally Posted by
Dockhead
The most pleasant surprise for me from ebiking has been what a good workout it is. I really didn't expect this. I found this study which confirms my experience:
https://electrek.co/2019/08/11/elect...than-cyclists/
The secret is that you have full control over the amount of workout you are getting, so you just set the assist level to get a constant, sustainable, pleasant level of effort. You don't worry about hills. You go faster. So you can cover a lot more distance. Not to mention a large proportion of what would otherwise be car trips, can be pleasantly done on two wheels.
I am just more and more delighted with this decision to buy an ebike instead of a car, with every week which goes by. It's an incredibly versatile, useful vehicle, which gives enormous pleasure.
Agree 100% and regular cyclists just. don't. get it. They assume eBikers are all lazy or crippled.
I'm in my local bike club and there is a stigma against eBikes. They accept eBikes for older riders or riders who are handicapped in some way, but I get little looks and comments when I choose to ride my eBike as an able-bodied middle-aged man. Sometimes, it's that I'm sore from the previous day's ride and want to rest my muscles, so riding the mBike again isn't in the cards. I either forgo the ride or take my eBike.
There's one guy who rides an road eBike (Trek Domane+) who used to be A Fast Guy. he had heart problems and got a pacemaker, so that his heart cannot go fast enough for him to maintain the pace he did as a younger man, but he wanted to ride with the same fast people. For him, the solution was eBike. He couldn't take the hit to his pride of moving down to a slower group. OR, he didn't want to be
limited to the options of either riding with the slower group or getting dropped from the faster groups.
Another point in favor of eBikes is temperature flexibility: In hotter weather, we don't have to arrive sweaty. When it gets really hot here, I plan to take my eMoped and not sweat at ALL on the commute in to work.