NeilGunton

I want to clarify, since it's been mentioned, that I don't allow e-bike journals on crazyguyonabike. My opinion is, and has always been, that putting any type of motor on a bicycle changes the equation in such a fundamental way that it's no longer "bicycle" touring. The thing is, once you have a motor, any motor, then it becomes very difficult to know where to draw the line. Sure, e-assist is just the tip, but then the lines are pretty blurry all the way up to full-fledged motorcycles. Right now I see arguments based on disability and accessibility, which is insidious because I can guarantee that over time, these e-assist motors and batteries will become more and more efficient. Where do we stop? Drawing arbitrary lines of "oh well you still have to pedal x amount" is going to be ever shifting, and if we move the goal posts based on appeals of wanting to be able to accompany your spouse, then the whole concept of "bicycle touring" has lost all meaning. Once we let political correctness and "let's include everybody" rule the conversation, then the space called "bicycle touring" ceases to have any meaning.

Drawing the line at "any type of motor" is much clearer, and, I thought, obvious, but it's equally obvious from this discussion that not all feel that way. I understand, but I want to say that it's not about hate, and it's sad that the people who think that motors have no place in "bicycle touring" have been shouted down, browbeaten, and labeled as trolls. The argument against e-bikes is simple, and it's not trolling - it's just calling to what many of us thought was a fundamental and self-evident part of what "bicycle touring" means: No motors allowed.

Some will argue that if you disallow e-bikes then you might as well disallow credit card touring, or supported tours. No. As long as you are riding a bicycle, which has no motor, then you can be on a racing bike for all I care, it doesn't matter how much gear you carry. You're still riding a bicycle.

And others have argued that having gears on the bike somehow means that you are getting "help" and so why not also allow e-assist - it's the same thing, right? No. Gears are just a mechanical advantage that doesn't put any external power into the system. In any case, the length of your cranks (and legs) also affect the gearing of your bike. This is different from having an external motor. And arguments about how you put 70% and the motor gives you 30%, so if you don't pedal then you don't go anywhere... so what? You're still getting help from an external motor. There's no way around that. I might as well argue "why not just take the motor off completely and then accept that you'll be going 30% less distance in a day - but the distance you do go will mean more, since you did it ALL under your own steam". Which is what, I thought, bicycle touring was supposed to be all about.

But again, this isn't about hate. It is, mainly, just a categorization issue. I allow e-bike journals on crazyguyonabike's sister site (which uses the exact same code and layout), topicwise.com. Currently most of those e-bike journals are on the general 'travel' topic, but the lack of a specific e-bike topic is mainly due to a failure on my part to have completed all the work I need to do in order to created all the myriad of topics that I want to have on there. I am in the process now of trying to get to the deep back-end work I need to do in the database and code that will allow me to be able to create a much more inclusive and broad range of topics there, one of which will definitely be e-bikes. I think it's a very intriguing area, and very encouraging for areas like commuting and local travel from home. It's just that I see bicycle touring as not being about having a motor on the bike, and so crazyguyonabike is not the place for those journals. Topicwise is. I know some say that being sent to topicwise is like being sent to Siberia because it doesn't have the popularity of crazyguyonabike, but that won't always be true. The changes I am working on will bring the topics together so they are not all separate and balkanized as they are now. Once I have done these changes, I think topicwise will grow and get a lot more popular over time, hopefully eventually being even bigger than crazyguyonabike. You'll still be able to focus on specific topics, as you do now, but it will be a lot easier to see what's going on across lots of different topics at once. It'll be very interesting.

Anyway, it's up to the mods and community at bikeforums as to what you feel constitutes "bicycle touring" over here. On this website, I am not an admin, but just another voice. I am not a troll, I just have an honestly held position that motors have no place in bicycle touring. If someone isn't able to ride a regular bicycle, then I don't think political correctness and arguments about disabilities should be used to browbeat the rest of us into accepting that "anything goes", because then the entire space starts to lose all meaning. I don't think I'm alone in this feeling. And it's not "harmless" to say "just ignore the e-assist discussions if you have nothing positive to say". These are forums, the very definition of "a place for discussion". I see people talking about banning specific individuals from these discussions just because they disagree that e-assist belongs under bicycle touring. And, indeed, I see certain voices have apparently been silenced, who were not (in my estimation) trolling or even being that impolite. They were merely arguing a position, and they have been silenced for having that position in the very place that was supposed to be for their position (that bicycles don't have motors, and putting a motor on a bicycle makes it into something different, something this particular forum was not supposed to be about). Many people who tour by bicycle do, I think, see themselves as separate and different from motorized vehicles on the road, and the threat of intrusion into this space of people who want to put motors on bicycles just feels wrong in a very fundamental way. Again, I'm not arguing against the very existence of e-assist or e-bikes or whatever you want to call them; just that they don't belong here, in the bicycle touring forum. But that's just my opinion... what a forum is for after all.

Neil