Originally Posted by
Classtime
I’m a Snob and always look down on e-bikers. I’m actually a hater of e-bikes and usually cannot separate the bike from the biker and hate the whole package. Electric motorized bikes are NOT a genre of cycling.
I understand you completely. That was my initial reaction to all e-bikes. My position has evolved a bit. I am now bothered a lot less by someone who is using the e-power as a supplement to pedal power to allow them to ride places they otherwise could not. I try to tell myself that there is nothing wrong with this, I'm just not there . . . yet.
Around here, a surprising number of people have adopted electric long bikes to transport their kiddies to/from school, the park, etc. The bikes I so dearly love would be singularly ill-equipped to do that. So e-bike on, parents. Maybe, just maybe, this will be a gateway drug for some of the young'uns that leads them to take up cycling down the road. Hey, a guy can dream . . . .
Folks who use an e-bike that is 95% "e" and 5% "bike" as a substitute for a motorcycle still annoy me. I've gotten better - not perfect, but better - at not letting them harsh my mellow for more than a moment. But if any subset of e-bikers deserves my/our scorn, it's these benighted souls. Their mindset is truly not that of a cyclist.
It still puts me out for a moment when I am grunting up a hill and an e-bike - any e-bike - whizzes by me. But for the most part, I have gotten to where I regard e-bikes the way I regard cars, busses, motorcycles, etc.; other things on the road of which I must be aware but I can live with so long as they are aware of me and obey the rules of the road. It has taken a while to get to this point and as noted above, I'm not perfect at it.