MikeDeason

No Ebike thanks. I commute and recreational light trail weekends for fitness. I sit in my azz all day at work.

this bike is going to motivate me to do more pumping, not less

Aubergine 

And there we have about the best explanation possible for this purchase.

SpedFast

Well put! That's a statement I can get behind

SpedFast

Your bike is not my cup of tea, but you're absolutely correct in stating it looks good. The color, the smooth lines. Sweet looking ride!

PromptCritical 

Besides the Thudbuster line, CaneCreek makes an eeSilk handlebar stem that works wonders on our San Diego "roads".

https://canecreek.com/product/eesilk-stem/

Rick_D

Will add that if one's commute is filled with rainbows and kittens and lacks death-dispensing distracted drivers, suffering from oxygen starvation way up in their jacked-up pickups, then a leisurely commute is a perfect tonic for beginning and ending a day deskbound. No question.

However, in the second scenario the bike commuter's top priority is minimizing the time spent in traffic, for which an ebike slices precious minutes of exposure 2X/day. Win-win. (With a boost type bike one can have the same workout, that much I've figured out.)

soyabean

A double suspension BSO from Walmart is going to motivate me to do more pumping.

Just think of the workout I'll get from fifty pounds and a Falcon derailleur.

MikeDeason

Whatever gets you riding. I may be totally off on a tangent but my impression is that e-bikes are simply a means to get from a to b with less effort than a mechanical bicycle. A car does that even better and I have a car.

While I may curse hitting a red light, relying on a battery to get going again defeats the objective of my commutes. Striving for the best possible mechanical experience however, does not. Just upgrading my crappy 25yr old hybrid has got me out on more recreational rides and more challenging commuting routes.

SpedFast

Don't forget about all the experience you'll gain from constantly working on it too. Win-Win

Aubergine 

MikeDeason , read what Jan Heine has to say about modern bikes and suspension. https://www.renehersecycles.com/pari...or-everything/

As I've said before, really all you need are good fat tires. Suspension is unnecessary unless you're humping roots and rocks.

Maelochs

Suspension is unnecessary ... but then, bikes in general are not necessary.

As for e-assist---the point is not to lessen effort all the time, but to lessen effort or increase speed when one chooses.

I did a group ride today with a guy on one of those Dutch (? Certainly European) cargo bikes with a box in front of the rider and a tiny 20" (as opposed to a normal 20"??) wheel way out front. (I guess he had lived in a lot of European countries where using bikes for almost all transport was possible and even sensible.)

He had an e-assist, because his bike weighed a cubic ton compared to most, and was designed to carry his two kids, or a week's groceries, or whatever .... it didn't make him ride less, but it made the worst part of his rides a little better.

Nothing wrong with e-assist, or with not wanting e-assist, but no sense is forming a mistaken impression of what it is or what it does.

I spent a very long time car-free, and there were certainly days when a little help would have been appreciated---and that was when I was in fantastic shape ... sure, you Can just nail the throttle and drain the battery ... you can also use it for a little boost on a hill start or on a day when the legs are hurting.

I can see that if I ride long enough, I might need e-assist to keep up with some groups, or to help if I hit really big hills. If e-assist keeps me riding another several years late in life,, bring it on.

tFUnK

Everyone has a different definition of "commuting" so the only thing I'll contribute is that back in the day I rode a front suspension hardtail mountain bike on the streets of San Francisco (lots of rough pavement) and it was a lot of fun. The other folks on the ride had road bikes with skinny tires (these were the 23mm tire days) and they were sketched out by the potholes and train tracks whereas I was super confident and hitting everything without needing to scrub speed. On paper the front shocks are overkill but I just remember it being super plush hopping curbs, rolling over potholes, etc. RS SIDs 100mm on 26x2.0 tires, IIRC.

PeteHski

I think this bike will work pretty well for commuting and certainly for light trail riding. But to end up with a $9k XC race bike just to get SRAM AXS and a flat bar is absolutely nuts! But at least it will be a very nice bike.

Rick_D

Similar. Before getting my belt bike I commuted a hard-tail mtn bike, which handles dubious pavement, light rail tracks, wet striping, etc. with none of the beating one takes on a standard road bike (the bike itself taking less of a beating as well).

Funny how, presuming a relatively short commute of a few miles, one learns every pavement quirk on the route, plus those intersections where folks tend to blow though the stop. Whee!

Smaug1

An eBike is what you make of it. There are a TON of use cases for them, and the one you mentioned ↑ is just one. Other examples:

• Get people with bad knees riding again. For them, the choice is no biking or eBiking.
• Arriving at the destination not sweaty in the summer
• For a lot of local trips, people take a car because they don't want the effort riding. For example, a lunchtime errand, light grocery run, commuting. We bicycle commuters are a special breed of course, but regular people would be more likely to ride if it wasn't so much effort. (esp. uphill or into headwinds) It can take a lot of the pain out of cycling, while leaving all the pleasant parts.
• My riding today is a prime example:
  • I took the eBike to work today. I rode in unpowered this morning for a bit of exercise. (2 easy miles, but not as easy as you might think, since the bike weighs 70 lbs!)
  • I have a lunchtime appointment across town 5 miles away. It's uphill most of the way there. For this, I will use Level 1 electric assistance, so as not to take too much time or get sweaty; I still have to work the rest of the day. My pulse will still be 130-140, so not letting the motor do all the work even here, while going 15-20 mph going uphill. Lunchtime is too limited to go 8-10 mph for this trip. I may go unpowered on the way back to work.
  • For my commute home, I'll probably use Level 1 power again, as it's overall uphill and I will be joining the faster club road ride of the week tonight and want to save my legs for that. (~ 27 miles)

Not always, especially in congested city areas or short trips. My commute to work is 2 miles, and even my CR-V hybrid, which is rated for 40 mpg in the city only gets maybe 17 on that short of a ride. The eBike is a no-brainer here and in any similar ride. I calculated that a $2k eBike pays for itself in gas savings alone in 4 years' time.

Well, you might find you don't like sitting in your sweat all day after that commute, when the honeymoon wears off. Time will tell! Maybe I'm in worse shape than I think, but when I have to climb hills, I sweat no matter what, once the weather gets warmer. Even in low gears, it's real work.

SpedFast

I don't have a problem with E-bikes. I know they serve a purpose. It's all the uneducated salmon riding them. Most people on them have never ridden a bike and have no clue what cycling etiquette is. Everyone should know you don't ride motorized vehicles on the sidewalk, forcing pedestrians into the road. Or young kids doing spin-outs in the wet grass in front of a memorial, turning it into mud. I could go on, but why? Okay, got that out of my system. what a beautiful day. Think I'll go for a ride

70sSanO

That eeSilk is pretty cool. I hadn’t seen that before.

The lockout is a nice feature for smooth surfaces.

John

Rick_D

Our rental bike fleet (think Jump Bike, Lime) have vanished, leaving a cloud of rental e-scooters behind. I suspect the common perception of an e-bike is one of those, ridden by tourists and Friday night bar hoppers.

Newer on the scene are privately owned Big Boy throttle bikes that I suspect mostly fall under the DMV moped category, and not Cat 1, 2 or 3 ebikes. Yet are operated as bikes in bike-specific places. Fad? Too soon to know but an 80-pound thing blasting along at 30 is a different sort of "fun" to contend with. Sound system pondered separately.

bboy314

They annoy me too, but there must be at least 100 other “let’s complain about irresponsible e-bike riders” threads on here, so maybe this thread should stay on topic.

Maelochs

Bad road users abound, on foot, scooter, skateboard, bike, e-bike, moped, motorcycle, car, truck .... anything I forgot? The idiot is an idiot on any conveyance.

Who prefers an idiot in a car to an idiot on an e-bike?

SpedFast

I guess I expect an idiot in a car. I'm disappointed by the idiot on the bike. I expect the 2-wheeled idiot to know better. My bad.

Rick_D

Now that it's spring, the vast majority of cyclists are folks who are not enthusiasts, having extracted their bikes from the back of the garage for the first time since September and finally locating the pump. Unless you live in Netherlands or somesuch. Just how things are.

shelbyfv

What's the ETA for the new bike?

georges1

I am using this 32 years old 1992 Giant Tourer Hybrid with Schwalbe Marathon 700*35 tires, Mavic,A 719 rims and XT 780T transmission and it has its rigid fork which is more than plentyful for any gravelly and bumpy road even cracked pavement