Originally Posted by rm -rf

The wife of one of the local riders got a Trek ebike. Our rides were too long and too much elevation for her, previously. So she rarely rode. WIth the ebike, she could confidently ride our 50 mile rides. She rode with the assist dialed way back most of the time and got surprisingly strong! Late in the season, she rode up some impressive hills with her old non-e bike. Yeah!

There's some newer road e-bikes that have small batteries and less powerful motors, so they aren't too heavy, and you have to look closely to notice they are ebikes. These will need a good amount of rider assistance for steeper hills and longer distances. I like the idea of just a partial assist for a lot of riders.