Originally Posted by
NeilGunton
I don't think anybody has ever claimed that getting a train ride for some portion of your bicycle tour means you're somehow "not on a bicycle tour". Out of many thousands of tour journals over on crazyguyonabike, just about everybody takes a car, train, plane or boat ride at some point. It's fine. As long as the main mode of travel is using your bicycle, then it's a bicycle tour. Where that line is, in terms of purity, is up to you, and I think most people are comfortable with that, assuming good faith.
I think most people also have an intuitive understanding that bicycles aren't supposed to have motors. At a gut level, disabilities aside, it just feels like cheating. You're supposed to do the pedaling yourself. It's just how it is.
To me, if using an ebike is cheating, so is using a train to shorten the distance and effort required.
If one were planning a 1000 mile trip, and riding an ebike (assuming 70% pedaling required) for the whole thing or putting a bike on a train for 300 miles of it and riding the other 700, who really toured more? Your main mode is still a bike, so the guy that sat on a train for 300 miles should be the better tourer, right?