Originally Posted by
jefnvk
And if you did a coast to coast tour, but hopped on a train for the Rockies, what would you call that?
Well, personally, I would call it a failure, because I value conquering hills as being an essential part of the bicycle touring experience. I don't like stopping on hills, let alone skipping them. But that's just me. If someone else is doing a bicycle tour, and chooses to skip a certain section for whatever reason, then that's their prerogative. The important thing is that they are doing the rest of their tour on the BICYCLE.
You could always construct gray area arguments, e.g. what if someone does a bicycle tour where 50% of the distance is done via train. I say, whatever. It's a bicycle tour if the portions you are doing as the "tour" are on a bicycle. It's really up to the individual to say where that line is, because it's completely subjective.
It's not subjective whether or not your bicycle has a motor on it. If it does, then that's not a bicycle tour. Pretty simple, sorry you're having trouble understanding. Or, more likely, you understand perfectly well, but think you've latched onto an argument that throws everything into doubt. Ok, I guess you're free to pursue that line if you want to, but you know and I know that you're being disingenuous. It's perfectly obvious what the difference is between using a bike with no motor, and one that has a motor. It makes no difference what other modes of transport you use to get to/from the tour, or if you skip sections, as long as the main body of touring that you call the "bicycle tour" is on an actual bicycle.
Technology has already progressed well past that point. We've had motorcycles for a hundred years, and the lowly pedal bike has yet to disappear. I'm not worried that it is going away anytime soon, at least not due to ebikes.
Who said anything about bicycles going away? The argument is about whether or not motorized transport belongs on this forum.
To me, the amount of time I spend getting worried about what people on ebikes call their touring is nil. What I do care about is people calling them out, while being fine with spending their own bike tour on a train for the parts they won't accomplish under their own power.
Ok, so you don't care what gets discussed on this forum. Some of us do. There's the rub.
Again, to you. I click on dozens of threads a day over this and other forums that I glance at, see that it interests me in no way, and move on. Until the site institutes some sort of limit on the number of threads that can be going at any one time, it does not decrease the usefulness of any other thread that may be going. Noise ratio? Again, it takes literally seconds to know what is useful or interesting and what is not. For someone wasting time to decrease the usefulness of a thread they had nothing constructive to add to, increasing the noise ratio of the good information that could have been shared, it is a bit of a silly argument.
According to your argument here, then, spam is not a problem at all. And yet... it is. It's almost as if reality doesn't match up with the narrative you're trying to spin here.
My touring bike is a C&V. Should I only talk about it there?
I don't know, is it a bicycle? If so, then great - talk away. If it has a motor, then take it to the e-bike forum, it's there specifically for you.
Or, perhaps, does it make MUCH more sense for me to ask questions about racks, bags, packing suggestions, where to stealth camp, how to carry enough water, here?
Sure, those are all touring topics. What's your point?
You are all acting as if ebikes are some sort of magical machine that makes all of the touring aspects go away. The difference between grandma on an ebike and Froome on his bike is that he is still going faster and farther most days. It isn't jumping on a Gold Wing for a 400 mile day on the interstate, it is still effectively the same dang thing when all is considered.
Ah, this "it's all the same" argument again. You see, it really isn't. Putting a motor on the bike changes the equation immediately. It's no longer a bicycle, it's a motorized vehicle, which isn't what "bicycle touring" is supposed to be about.
Neil