DonkeyShow

F1 car ends up useless, the dragsters take the lead initially but crash in a fireball of glory at the first turn. The midgets abandon the race before getting run over by the rock truck and the trophy trucks probably flipped half a mile back. Rock truck wins.

Broctoon

Yep! Rock crawler FTW, rolling across the line at about 20 MPH after everyone else drops off... if he doesn't run out of gas. Not a very interesting race.

tomato coupe

$10 says the OP owns an ebike, and this odd race proposal has something to do with getting ribbed by regular bike riders about his ebike on group rides.

Eric F 

Dylan manages to spend a lot of time on it going pretty fast. It works for him. Personally, I prefer my gravel bike set up with a fairly aggressive position, too, but not as aggressive as Dylan.

wheelreason

LOL. I don't understand how I can ride away from e-bikes, I keep coming up along side and yelling "use up them Duracells darn it"

tomato coupe

You attack on slight downhills where their speed limiter kicks in ...

Germany_chris

I kinda get where the OP is coming from...

Rally racing with different groups of bikes on the same circuit.

Build a race with defined distances some cobble, some gravel, some single track, some road, and some grass have winners from each group and and overall winner.

Broctoon

Including e-bikes?

Germany_chris

Why not?

Broctoon

Because it's pointless. Same reason we don't race bicycles against runners, cars against bicycles, or jets against cars.

Eric F 

This already exists. The Belgian Waffle Ride - which they call an "unroad" event, but most people consider "gravel" - includes a separate e-bike category. However, I think it's only for the shorter distance events, not the full Waffle, which tends to be 120+ miles. There my be other events that include an e-bike category, as well.

Germany_chris

It's pointless to you

Eric F 

That would be the point of racing against e-bikes and comparing head-to-head results? In most motorsports, there are categories with limitations to keep the playing field relatively level (theoretically).

Maelochs

As I keep saying ... the desing of the course would detemine the winner. So once the course is built, the race proves nothing.

How would it even be a "race"? How can one determine which is faster if certain vehicles are being misused?

Fin9sh the race with a steep 12-mile climb and only th road bikes would finsih. The DH bikes ... too heavy. The XC bikes .... too slow. The e-bikes ... out of battery and parked. The gravel bikes would all be second.

I tis like a GC stage versus a sprint stage in a Grand Tour. The sprinters gain maybe a second on the field in a sprint stage, and lose maybe 45 minutes on a climbing stage ... and that is on identical bikes. Ecet in this case the difference would be hours, niot minutes, and half the field would retire.

Or ... make a long lfat coursde wheere the e-bike rider could conserve battery and blast ahead at the finish ... what does this prove?

All the road bikes woud fail utterly on the XC and DH sections. If the e-bike was an e-MTB, it might do alright ... but would run out of battery later and be even heavier than a e-road bike. What does this prove?

As I said .... If people want to see this, it should be easy to set up. Do it or admit you don't care. If people just want to argue about it ... you are done. sorry.

Germany_chris

That's why a specified groups, pedelecs aren't as fast as people make out.

shelbyfv

But it's just a regular bike, only with ....

Broctoon

I was thinking the OP is on a regular bike and getting tired of being passed by overweight seniors on e-bikes. "I'd like to see how fast she can go an hour from now when her battery runs out."

adlai

OP does own an ebike which I use sometimes when I'm feeling lazy. But for pure feel I vastly prefer a good road bike. But it's interesting to me to think about the tradeoffs of the ebike versus the road bike and how they compare.

I"m also the guy who started the "it's okay to walk up steep hills" thread. It's also a lot easier to walk up steep hills when you're pushing a lightweight carbon road bike versus walking up a hill with an ebike. Some hills are too steep even for the ebike as well, and there are also stairs that I have to climb while holding a bike and the road bike wins there too.

adlai

Perhaps the way around that is to keep the exact course route a mystery to the riders until they actually go on the race.

Hell, it is possible IMO to design a race course where skateboards would win versus bicycles. Give it enough stairs.

DonkeyShow

I think I saw christiano Ronaldo vs a veyron vs a jet once.

Eric F 

I doubt you would get as much diversity as you imagine.

Have you never ridden - or seen someone ride - a bicycle down stairs?

zandoval 

There are bicycles and then there are motorcycles. Gas or electric its is still a motor. The window for putting pedals on a motorcycle and calling it a bicycle is closing rapidly. And its getting closed not by those geezers needing pedal assist to enjoy riding again. Its getting closed by those guys burning down the bike path at 40 MPH. Or tearing up our easy single track.

Sure there is a need for e-bike competition. It will only make a better e-bike for sure. Racing them under different conditions will foster innovation and development. We can make a National Association to promote the races. Something like National Association for Stock Ebike Racing. Yep...

I am sure Daytona Beach would not mind. But then again Red Bull will certainly beat them to it...

Broctoon

All valid points when we talk about what kind of bike to ride for transportation, recreation, fitness, etc. This does not make the idea of racing e-bikes against other bikes any less silly. Remember: bike riding and bike racing are different activities.

Broctoon

On varied terrain? If it starts on a runway and goes longer than a half mile or so, the jet wins every time. If it goes up a steep, rocky hill, that soccer guy would win, easily. (So would my 78 year old mother.) On a road, the Bugatti wins a race of almost any distance.

Maelochs

I think we need a sport where the football players and cheerleaders all compete. The football players would need to do cheers between plays ... and the cheerleaders would then line up and run plays against the players.... should be entertaining once the cheering ended .... of course the game would only last one play.