tcs

Moped: A portmanteau of motor + pedal.

...you'd pretty much have a third millennium incarnation of a Velosolex.

alan s 

AlanK

From what I can tell, you seem to have some sort of weird bias (ideological?) against all e-bikes. As long as they're ridden courteously and responsibly they're not practically different than a conventional bike; they just make inclines easier and faster.

HobbesOnTour

I like your logic!

Let's see where that brings us....

If you use non-motorised transportation, please stay off the roads.

I'm not even going to start on your logic behind calling a e-bike a motorbike.

I live in the Netherlands. There are E-bikes everywhere! I meet, pass and am passed by e-bikes every day.
I also encounter mopeds - real mopeds, engines and not a pedal to be seen - on the same bicycle paths that I and the e-bikes use.
You know the biggest problem on these cycle paths? It's not the E-bikes. It's not the (fully motorised) mopeds. It's the damn wannabe racers in their peletons. Thankfully it's Autumn now, so they pretty much disappear, so myself, the E-bikes and the mopeds can get along just fine!

HobbesOnTour

They also give a significant section of people the confidence to get on a bike and go for a ride, people who "feel" they could never do it on their own.

An argument could be made that someone who straps their gear onto their e-bike and cycles off, assisted by a battery, is more of a cycle tourist than someone who hops onto their bike and has their gear carried in a van that's also carrying tools, spares and a mechanic. They are two completely different experiences, and the motor is not the difference.

I don't get the hate for e-bikes, especially in a Touring Forum. Without fail, every time I pack up my bike and head off I am guaranteed to meet at least one person who wants to know what I'm doing, where I'm going etc. Invariably, they will express a desire to do something similar....but there's always a but. And normally that but has to do with a fear and a belief that they could never power themselves along. If pedal assist gives them the guts to head off, then I'm all for it.

I love touring on my bike. I'd hate to be the person who discouraged anyone from trying to do the same.

In the interest of transparency, I should admit that I use a motor when I tour. And batteries!
The motor is not terribly powerful - it's the one between my ears. It's the most important motor - If that's not working right, my tour is not going to be right.
And the batteries are in my phone, my kindle, my camera, my gps and my rear lights. And I charge those as I ride from my dynohub. (Can I look down on those who charge their electronics in the wall?)

raria

I started the thread someonw posted https://www.bikeforums.net/touring/1143244-touring-someone-riding-e-bike.html and i never did as the riders were too much like you.

Try to remain civil and polite.

jefnvk

Interesting, never knew that!

Probably because everytime one asks about touring here, even if the thing they are asking about has nothign to do with their ebike, they are told to head off to ask somewhere like a Harley forum, because that is obviously more akin to what they are doing?

​​​​​​
I don't have one, probably won't have an interest in one until I am elderly, but to be brutally fair a large number of non-ebike riders are every bit as rude.

Really? In what ways, specifically, is the mere presence of an assist motor making it "fundamentally different"?

indyfabz

Why would you ask someone to give up their legal right to ride in "bicycle ways?" For example, e-assist bikes are expressly allowed on some MUPs.

alan s 

jefnvk

Eh, and I maintain that bike touring is a very wide and encompassing term. What I did and how I planned Iceland versus Belgium/Netherlands, both on regular bikes, was far more different than how I would have planned Belgium/Netherlands for a ebike versus a regular bike. There certainly can be differences in planning, I just don't view them to be that big of a change that it is fundamentally different. Things like distances and carrying capacity are always considerations, and while I understand people have strong feelings against them, it doesn't change the fact that outside of the charging aspect, they aren't really that different from regular bikes. Unless we are picking corner cases that are quite the outlier, you can't carry substantially more or need less, you can't ride substantially farther or faster than an average cyclist (even if it may be easier on you in hills or on the homestretch), the touring gear itself is all the same. The routes are the same. Might be a bit more specific on accommodations, when charging is taken into account, but that is really no different than one would deal with credit card or supported touring. Can I say there is more to break down? Sure, but there are enough threads here about what components you have to put on a regular bike to avoid being stranded with no help in rural Yakistan to think that is again not much more of a consideration. Bosch has decades of sealing automotive and motorcycle components, I'm fairly certain they are competent at sealing ebike components from rain.

alan s 

Rob_E

Has not been my experience. On a mini, credit card tour of the Katy Trail, with three people on bikes and my uncle on an e-bike: My Uncle is the only one who's bike suffered from the weight of the gear. I believe having all of his gear plus his bike battery on the rear rack contributed to his spoke issues. But his battery was the only piece of "extra" gear. It's not as if he was able to ignore all weight constraints and carry what he wanted. He actually would have done well to carry a little less than everyone else to make up for the weight of his battery. The distance he rode was the same distance as the rest of us. Maybe he could have ridden further. I could have, too. But it wouldn't be accurate to say the distance he could ride was not affected by his physical ability. It'd be more accurate to say that the distance he could ride was a combination of his physical fitness and his battery capacity and was no doubt also affected by how much weight he was pushing along. He was consistently at the rear of the pack. I imagine he could have relied more heavily on the motor and passed us all early on in the day, but he then would have used up his battery, and we would have caught up to him. But he didn't do that. He used his battery just enough to keep up with everyone and keep him going to our final stop of the day, as a result, we never had to stop part way through the day to find his electricity "fix." We did stop several times a day to take in the sights, have a meal, talk to other cyclists, etc.: to recharge ourselves, but never the bike. Basically I took two separate, but very similar trips with the same people both this and last fall. Last year there were four, self-propelled bikes. This year one had been converted to an e-bike. The biggest difference to me was that I didn't worry about my uncle falling behind and not being able to catch up. The biggest difference I noticed in him was that he wasn't as grumpy at the end of the day.

There are certainly differences between bikes and e-bikes. But there are more similarities than there are differences in my experience.

fietsbob

Bromfiets is What the Dutch call Mopeds,
and many of the bike paths are shared by push bikes and mopeds.
as I found during my visits ..

alan s 

jefnvk

And if the only difference between any of those and a regular bike was the presence of an assist motor for hills or keeping up with stronger riders and a battery, you'd have an apt comparison. @Rob_E's uncle got to pedal a two wheeled human powered vehicle along with his family on a vacation, just with a bit of help. This type of response is what I was thinking about when raria asked why ebike riders are rude. Bashing on a guy who used an ebike to enjoy a trip with his family for daring to suggest it was a "bike tour", because it is only a hop skip and a jump from calling an RV a bike, is far more rude. Would you say a kid on a tag-along bike didn't really bike tour, because they weren't pedaling themselves and got help? How about a less fit person in a tandem, when it is obvious one person was carrying the bulk of the load?

As to the "there's an ebike forum, take it there", have you looked there? It is the appropriate place to ask about things like range, which one to buy, waterproofness of connections, whether they are right for you, etc. It is a silly place to ask about panniers, racks, light tents and sleeping bags, how to balance loads in bags, etc. Posing touring questions there to appease the ebike haters here would be as useless as coming here and asking what replacement battery you should buy for a tour.

Doug64

Is this a bicycle or a motor bike? It is a Schwinn Phantom bicycle with a motor. If I threw panniers on it and toured would it be bicycle touring? I'm not sure where your draw the line, or if there is a need to draw a line. Does it really matter? I agree with jefnvk, that if the post is about tents, panniers, other gear or routes; it should not matter if they ask the questions here. We may even learn something.

There are other parts of the world where motor scooters, e-bikes, smaller motorcycles, and "real" bicycles co-exist together very well on paths separated from auto and truck traffic.

3speed

alan s 

indyfabz

I agree.

350htrr

I too look on it as pedaling is a MUST to be considered riding a bicycle and touring with a bicycle... So, as long as one must pedal to make the E-Bike assistance work and no throttle is used, one IS riding an E-BICYCLE... it is that simple to me, as soon as one stops pedaling and still keeps moving with the power of the motor one is now riding a moped... Basically it's "assistance", like gearing would "assists" you to make it up that hill... Yes one is motor assist and the other a mechanical assist, but both are assistance, why are there not only people who ride single speeds allowed to be considered true bicycle touring,? ...

EDIT: I think CHEATING is the operative word that people who are against E-Bikes think of... JMO

jefnvk

@alan s - I read it as a "will an extra 15# like these bikes have hinder touring while pedaling", to which I say probably not in most realistic use cases. In any case, even if I felt it was too far into technical ebike discussions, it is still very easy to simply ignore.

There is a bike mechanics forum, a C&V forum, a MTB forum. I don't direct someone with a Univega Specialissma build or any number of the MTB->Tourer threads to one of those forums, because this should be reserved strictly for purpose built touring bikes like the LHT and Marrakesh and 520. It is a surprising number of threads I start that could go in a number of different subforums, I put them where I think they will get the most useful response.

It is not unlike having to create a new fatbike forum because a handful of MTBers couldn't stand the thoughts of them. I'm glad it exists so I can not have to deal with some of the BS, but I feel like I ultimately end up missing out on the knowledge of others who simply don't look in there regularly. For that matter, one of these days I plan on taking the fat bike touring, I am certainly not posting my touring questions there simply because it is a non-conventional touring choice.

veganbikes

The Raleigh Redux is an excellent e-Bike though the new one would need a new rack for the back and possibly fenders as well since they use the integrated stuff that doesn't hold as much weight and doesn't have the ease of pannier mounting. The Tamland is a drop bar Redux they aren't making this year and probably won't find easily. I will say it is not an ideal touring bike in terms of long range and if you happen to be touring away from power that won't be great. However it uses decent parts and the Brose motor is of good quality.

I liked the bike enough to actually get one myself though currently it is in parts waiting for me to rebuild it the way I want but I have ridden it a bunch and have ridden a whole bunch of other e-bikes and it was one of my favorites.I don't plan on doing much touring on it mostly commuting and getting around getting groceries and running other errands.

Happy Feet

I dunno about this touring stuff but I LOVE that bike!

I have a cruiser already selected and am just waiting for it to come up in the project que to put a gas motor in ala Harley/Indian motor bicycle fashion.

1-track-mind

Dude, you just don't get it. If a class one pedal assist e-bike gets you of a recliner and out on a bike tour, it's a good thing.

Mike Ayling

The Crazy Guy on a Bike doesn't think so either!

Mike