Gresp15C

I passed an entire peloton of road bikes today. I was going about 25 mph downhill, and they were doing about -15 mph uphill.

JanMM

I passed an e-scooter on the way home from work a couple of years ago, when I still worked. I was much more aero than he was.

livedarklions

On the rail trail mups this is often the case as there are very few hills of any real grade and the motor assistance usually quits at 20 mph, but if there's hills, forget about it.

Camilo

To me, if it was powered "without moving his legs", it's not an e-bike, but an e-motorcycle. An e-bike, to me assists pedaling, not substitute for it. I'm a big fan of e-bikes, but don't believe that e-motoccycles belong on MUTs, they should be on the road with other motorcycles and scooters

MattTheHat 

Many e-bikes can run in either pedal assist or throttle only mode. Depending on the assist level, pedaling with the highest assist setting just seems like a formality. I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t think there’s and real way to regulate which type rides where.

ZIPP2001

I've run into this guy two times in the same area, and he won the first one, and I got him on this one. Hoping we get the deciding match sometime this summer. It's all good and fun, and if that's how he gets around then that's how he gets around.

nStyle

I like a, b, c, d, and even e bikes. They’re all great. I’ll take all the bikes please. Anything beats walking.

Digger Goreman

I kinda get what you're saying, but disagree with the last!

Anything beats not exerting yourself... including e-bikes.

nStyle

Idk I heard sleep was pretty enjoyable

Artmo 

[QUOTE=friday1970;21535602]When you got passed, did he give you that "Lance Armstrong Look'?

On one of my brevets last year, this subject came up. We all agreed that while we would not use one ourselves (currently, at least), we didn't see e-bikes as a bad thing. The reason is because it is getting people out of the house who normally would not be able to.

They are ugly, bulky, heavy, and expensive. But the smiles I see on people who ride them as I pass and wave...it's a beautiful thing.[/QUOTE

Take a look at e- road bikes from Specialized, Giant, Orbea, Bianchi and others. Hardly ugly, expensive, possibly, not overly heavy.

jjefferies

Hey, you picking on us 75 year olds? Nursing home? Let me tell you what you can ...

Koyote

I'm not picking on you...I'm encouraging you to buy an e-bike!

StrikeLite

I've had a Specialized Turbo for the past three years. On nice days from April-October, it is my primary form of transport to work. I work 25 miles away from home and regularly have to carry a camera or computer into work. Whereas I could take the road bike, arriving on time and in a condition to work a professional job makes riding an E-bike worthwhile. I am on the heavier side, but my fitness has improved due to the fact that I have a chance to ride and get to workout.

I charge at home, and charge at work. Everything about it makes it a pleasant experience, not only for me but also for those I share an office with. The days I get a chance to ride are the highlight of my work week. Owning an e-bike doesn't lessen the enjoyment I get from owning and riding my other bikes, it is just another aspect of the sport.

-my two cents

WinterCommuter

Still kinda bugs me when a duffer passes me on an ebike doing 25mph+ and i’m full gas on my aero bike. That said, i respect it. I guess, some purists would say we’re both cheating, me on an aero bike and the ebikers with their motors. If it has 2 wheels and pedals, it’s bike and i like it.

1979schwinn 

My wife has one. It weights 60#. You get a work out when the battery dies. This one has three peddle assist settings. One of the things you have to learn to do is turn the assist OFF when you stop.
If you bring your top peddle down when assist mode is on and you are trying to stop; it will still go and run over you trying to put your foot down. It is fun to ride and gets about 30-40 miles a charge.

Kirbentech

As an older-ish rider, I don't mind getting passed by e-Bikes, since I'm so used to getting passed by almost everyone else. I still like the challenge of riding under my own power, so my real competition is just myself and my own improvements. I've always had good interactions with e-bike riders. Re: Vail pass mentioned in another post, my greater worry would be the groups who drive their bikes to the top of the pass, then go careening recklessly down the bike path - something I probably would have done years ago!

greenspark

Go to em3ev.com (where I shop) or depending on your location, use Google to find a vendor in your country (or if lucky in your area) who sells bolt on, mid-drive kits. Remove (or have a shop remove) your bottom bracket, install the kit, battery and handlebar accessories. You now have power assist. You still pedal. You decide how much assist you want. Your tires do not change. Unless you get a silly-power motor (like 5,000 W) it is an assist. Normal riders put out 100W. Lance Armstrong reportedly put out 450W. Add a 350W motor is not quite the same as giving yourself a Lance Armstrong body but it does develop a completely new riding experience.

If you go up the hill without moving your legs (5,000W) then you have changed from a bike rider to a motorbike rider - different experience and not my cup of tea (besides it means a lot larger, heavier, more expensive battery). Do note however, that your bike does gain dead weight. About 6KG for the motor and more for the battery, (depends on size). If you want to start with less weight and power or want to limit your spending, go with the 36V. If you want all the power you will need go with the 48V.

I would advise against starting with a bike-store e-MTB as your first ebike. The motor should be fine, because it is made by a small group of huge manufacturers, but the bike frames tend to be a way-overpriced afterthought. Bikes are a complex assembly of geometry and components, and too many are copy-cat products - like putting an aerodynamic body kit on a secretary's Toyoto as if it is ready for the Nürburgring. Once you have come to understand how the motor changes the experience, then begin to educate yourself on what you want in a bike where the motor is nothing more than a check on the check list.

As for the views of your fellow riders, think of this like the 1920's. Horse riders come in two breeds - conservative and liberal (as the words meant before red/blue states). A liberal says "let's try something new". A conservative says "let's not, what we have now is good enough for me". They will argue like conservatives and liberals have always argued, but like the era of horse riding, in areas where gravity or wind is not your friend, the motor will win. Who rides horses today except pre-teen daughters, rich rural gentry and Amish? Not many.

My own experience? As a kid, I lived in a hollow with a steep road up and then a steeper switchback down before one gets to the village. But in the summers I went to an island where we were given green English 3-speed sports bicycles. Utter freedom - just come home for dinner. We rode everywhere. As a teen I rode a Schwinn Continental from that island in New England down to Virginia along the coastal highway, but as soon as I got my drivers license, the Continental rusted in the garage until I tossed it. Even my Peugeot PX-10 never got used. I still have it with probably 100 miles on it since new with the moderate corrosion that comes with age. That was the sum total of my bike romance until 2011 when I was in Italy and was given an Italian city bike to ride to the next village on back roads among olive trees and ancient farmers to have our cappuccino every morning. Memories flooded back of my first love, the green Raleigh 3-speed in the warm summers on our island. We went to a bike store in Lecce to check out Bianchi's city bike offerings, but my wife spotted a really well-designed Italian ebike. Reminding me that where we live now has a 10° hill just outside the driveway, I bought it and took it home on the plane. Going up that hill was a game changer. No screaming legs pumped with lactic acid. No pain in the lungs. No sweat soaking my shirt. Thus began the adventure.

At that point the only ebikes I could find were awful. Really bad, horribly overpriced frames, cheap components and an uncomfortable ride. So I ordered the most powerful hub motor I could find and bolted it on to my 20-year old Gary Fisher hardtail that had been slowly rusting in the garage because the hills where I live were just too hard. Big mistake. Unlike my wife's Italian ebike, my kit was a rocket ship. It truly wanted to kill me, allowing me to break automobile speed limits and having this annoying habit of suddenly giving it full throttle at a red stoplight trying to throw me into oncoming traffic (some sort of bug in the system that I eventually sorted). So, I bought a second kit from a Chinese vendor where I had to solder all the joints - disaster. Finally I started buying from Paul Lynch an Englishman in China (em3ev.com) and have remained loyal because he has good prices, excellent customer service and sorts any problems. Eventually I settled on the kit that I am recommending to you. The first kit bought in 2013 began to get tired this year (batteries lose their capacity), so I decided to buy the most recent version, which is said to be stronger and more durable. I run it on an Italian city frame just like the bikes we used in Lecce.

I am sure there are many other alternatives by now, and if you like researching on line, lot's of advice. But if not, you might benefit from what I learned. It's a whole new world, if you have the funds, give it a try. And if you don't like it, keep your old bottom bracket and revert. But, I'll wager you won't revert.

greenspark

Your wife has the wrong system. Get one that has a brake cutout so the motor cannot run while the handbrake is used.

Camilo

Sure it is. If it's got a throttle that you can use to power the bike without pedaling, it's not allowed. Now, enforcement is a different story.

There's been motorbikes called MoPeds for decades (now some states erroneously call motorscooters, without pedals as MoPeds). Anyway, mopeds have always had pedal assist and throttle. I do not know of anywhere that they are allowed on MUTs, MUPs, Bike Paths or whatever they happened to be called. The only difference between these type of mopeds and an "ebike" with pedal assist and throttle, is the engine - one electric, one internal combustion. One silent, one sounds like a motor scooter. Functionally there is no difference, and therefore should be no difference in how and where they're used. All JMHO of course, but I just don't see the difference and will continue to call an ebike with a throttle for what it is, A motorcycle.

MattTheHat 

I see a huge difference between an e-bike and a moped. 1. Sound. 2. Size/weight (I’d rather be hit by an e-bike. 3. Smell (I’ve smelt way too much two-stroke exhaust in my life).

I’ve got no problems with e-bike on the road (better than a car) or on the MUP. I’ve yet to encounter a jerk on an e-bike on a MUP. I wish I could say that for bicyclists.

dkatz1

I often use a bike path along the Charles river on my commute to work....but sometimes, when I'm in a hurry, I take a "shortcut" down Western ave, a fairly busy street...strip mall, aujto body sops, fast food places, a lot of traffic...
And buses.
There's a bus stopped, loading passengers....
I go around it.
Sooner or later, the bus passes me.
then stops and happens again....
Sometimes, when I'm passing them (this being a two lane road) they start up...
This game of bus leap frog is sometning i don't care for.

MattTheHat 

Interesting. I didn’t know about the mid mount kits. I personally don’t want to go the DIY route, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

Notso_fastLane

I'll take my 80# velomobile with no motor over an e-bike any day. It's slow to get going, and positively crawls uphills, but once I'm on level ground, it builds speed nicely to about 22-25 mph. A very slight downhill 3-mile stretch I ride regularly has me cruising at about 35-38 mph. For comparison, when I'm going the other way, I cruise at 15-17, so it's really slight. Doesn't take much.

RohloffRoller

Riding an e bike to work to avoid getting sweaty is a good use,

For the rest they are great if you are sick, lame or lazy!

Mike

greenspark

It is interesting what people will say in the safety of their bubble sitting in front of a glass screen typing into a keyboard. I wonder how we would react to Mike saying this if we were in a face-to-face social gathering together, perhaps chatting about how ebikes are a rising trend, and he let loose with the above quote. If he said it with a smile, clearly taking the piss out others, [translate into American English as poking fun], then it might pass without much comment - one of those fluff comments that add little, but no one minds. But if the exclamation point (!) means he is serious or being aggressive, the others would mumble something to extract themselves and move away, thinking or commenting to their mate, what a tw*t [AE=jerk].

Ebikes are a new form of transportation. They look like bicycles, indeed can be made by adding a motor kit to a bicycle, but they are a different vehicle. To understand this, rent one for a day, and after becoming used to it, shut the power off and see what happens. That hill suddenly became huge. The wind became strong. The distance further and the experience transformed from delight to leg and lung pain; a bit like riding through molasses. With a reasonable power assist (750W or less), the power becomes invisible. You are pedalling, moving forward, and it feels normal. Only when the power cuts do you realise how the assist has changed the experience.

In urban areas, ebikes can be the fastest form of transport. Indeed in Auckland Central, where they just lowered the speed limit to 30 kph (18 mph), ebikes will be candidates for speeding tickets. Getting from the CBD to Ponsonby can take 30 minutes by car and 40 by bus, or 5 minutes by ebike. The trains and ferries take them for free. The Auckland hills and wind are such that traditional cycling is reserved for very fit riders. The ebike riders are not lazy, they are transporting themselves. Do we call car drivers lazy? No they are just drivers.

If you go to Europe, you will find cities that have extensive cycling infrastructures. Most of those cities are flat. Until ebikes, steep places like parts of Switzerland were less likely to be cycling paradises. Now that is changing.

America has regarded bicycles as a toy for children, with a very small minority of adult road riders and more recently MTB riders except in trendy cities like Boston or Portland. But now, ebikes are making inroads. Curiously, America is better set up for them because when they built the Interstate Highway System, that reduced traffic on the secondary roads - fewer trucks to blow you into the bushes. And America has always built big, so the roads are much wider. The main challenge has to do with drivers who see so few cyclists they don't share the road or know what to do. As ebikes put more people on two wheels, this will change.

Riding an ebike is a good way to get around as long as you are dressed for the weather. They are good to ride to work, to shop, visit friends or just get outdoors. They open up new destinations, and if the seating is upright so you can see others, they are social. People smile and acknowledge each other. Ebikes are a shift in technology that changes how people live, especially in urban environments.