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and... Motorcycles are even better yet... Depending on what you want to achieve…

Buglady

I've been a commuter cyclist and car free since 2005. Three years ago some serious health issues took me off the bike. (Some of my internal organs decided they wanted to kill me. It was unpleasant). I'm recovering, but slower than I would like, and I am dealing with what may be permanent chronic fatigue and low-level chronic pain. :/

I started to think I might need to look at getting a car just so I could stop exhausting myself getting to work and doing errands. I don't like that idea at all... so I test rode an e-bike with Bosch mid-drive motor, pedal assist type, and found it was all the things I like about cycling, without the exhaustion. As someone said a few posts ago, it's like riding with a tailwind. Still riding. Still moving.

I bought my e-bike, a Ghost Square Trekking B2.8, six weeks ago and I am feeling so much better already! A couple of ginormous panniers on the rear rack swallow all my groceries easily, and my homeward commute from work - the uphill one - takes 15 minutes instead of 45. I've actually got a bit of energy to think about riding my other bike recreationally, for the first time in far too long.

The bike was expensive, but that $3K gets me a WAY better bike than it would a car, and I don't have to pay ridiculous amounts for registration, insurance, and maintenance. (I'm a full time bike mechanic and I'm certified for all the Bosch systems, so I can do everything myself. This is not true of a car).

Don't knock it till you try it, and don't judge those who use e-bikes. You don't know what their story might be. I didn't think I'd go from athletic, riding 150km at a time at the peak of my fitness, to struggling with a 5km commute in the space of a year, but it happened.

Rootman

Ebikes can be a wonderful thing, or a crutch. It just depends on how you use them. I just got an ebike one month ago and am enjoying the hell out of it. I am a fan of long slow rides, my favorite is 62 miles starting just after dawn. My Giant Explore E+ has no where near enough battery to cover it even on the lowest setting. I ride the outbound leg with assist turned off and only turn it on for ascending hills. I then start back and turn the assist on for hills and open areas. As I approach home I might leave it on the first or second level, overall it's a ascent in elevation from that end home. I turn it all the way up for the last 1/2 mile home, a fairly busy street by the time I hit it. When I get back home I have about 30 to 50% of the battery capacity left.

My thighs still burn from the effort but I'm not totally wiped out like I was on non-E bike. I have the energy to do some other things, and maybe even take an evening ride. It's been a godsend. I've returned to rides I've given up on because of hills and always have a lot of battery capacity left when I return home. As the days grow shorter I can take rides after work that I could only take on weekends and days off because of time. And yes, sometimes I take a short jaunt and leave it on high just for fun. But those are short and infrequent. It is the best bike I've ever bought for myself.

Buglady

Exactly this. I haven't done a long ride like yours on the e-bike (sounds wonderful!), but the steep hills on my homeward commute are so much more manageable. I'm still putting in effort, similar to walking fairly briskly - just enough to feel good and get my head straight after the day's work, which was the reason I started cycle commuting in the first place - but not tipping over into the desperate exhaustion and additional stress I'd been fighting.

(I have named my bike Dory because she's blue and because "just keeps swimming" is a pretty good motto)