Polaris OBark

Thankfully, no one discusses this: https://www.democracynow.org/2023/7/13/cobalt_red_kara

Polaris OBark

This actually appeals directly to my own paranoia/realism.

The conversion I am going to hell for is a drop-bar bikepacking mountain bike. I think I could pedal it out with the extra weight of the battery and motor, but could also see getting myself into a significant problem.

Maelochs

So ... your point here is that because e-bikes are for sale, the people who make money selling them don't want to sell any more? Your business acumen is positively inspirational.

Further ... one of the best potential markets for e-assist bikes is ..... Pedal-bike riders. As most of us know, there are older riders who want to keep up with their friends, or riders who have spouses who want to ride along and cannot keep up without e-assist.

Equally there are many riders who categorically reject e-bikes as being cheating,. fake, or just evil for some reason. But .... if in general cyclists completely accepted e-bikes (or e-assist bikes) and all the reactions were positive that would be a huge boost to the industry.

Not particularly sophisticated marketing strategy .....

DMC707

I weighgt 260 lbs right now -- down from 325 - at a height of 5'9" -- i had a new bionic knee installed 2 years ago at the ripe old age of 48 - i need a new shoulder on one side and some work on the other and basically everything hurts when i get up in the morning.

I bought my Turbo Levo (Specialized heavy duty mountain bike with a lot of suspension travel and wide tires) saying that this may be my last resort last November. if i didnt reverse the damage i was doing to myself with excess weight, i may never get it done at my age. I realize 50 is not THAT old by today's standards, but i do know statistics on people implementing change and its grim at this age onward.

I have plenty of analog bikes including a very nice mountain bike but in an odd conundrum, although i knew the regular non assisted bike would give me a better workout, truth is, it was bothersome to ride at my weight -- punchy singletrack was almost always a partial hike-a-bike and donking into tree roots and rocks at 5 mph is more painful on my damaged shoulders than hitting things with a little momentum - and i was also dealing with some real body image issues (still am - lycra makes it worse )

The e bike doesnt help the body image issues - i just had to suck that up and get out there, but i carried more speed and was soon riding trails i hadnt been on in a decade. Was really fun

Regarding the workout? I'd say it depends on your goals -- i ascribe to the theory that a longer steadier state zone 2 workout is more efficient for truly obese people to burn a higher percentage of fat from their workout time even if the calories burned may be a bit lower than a higher intensity effort. The little cranks on the bike - i believe they are 160's - mean i spin like mad to keep the beast working most efficiently because if your pedalling style is choppy, you can feel the motor kicking in and out.
At probably 60 lbs and with a lot of parasitic drag coming from the bottom bracket area, i'd guess that keeping the motor turned on the first setting is roughly equivalent to riding my un-boosted 28 pound trailbike

Im a Strava addict and i love data -- the bike is so big that i have segment times in many areas of my local trails that i have done faster on my conventional bike but its close. But i recall my first ride and i did a 7 mile loop -- on my conventional bike i would have been thinking about loading up and heading back to the house, as that is about an hour of effort -- but on this one, i went out for another half a loop

This may sound like comedy but i have been using it in local group rides. If i am riding with the "B" group that averages about 18mph, its all i can do to hang onto the back - i typically volunteer to ride sweep and hang in the back anyway .

When Covid hit, i sold my old road bike - a very nice late model Tarmac, - to fund my trailbike build as i didnt think i would ever do the bike justice again - and besides , i have a bunch of old C&V bikes - (but with aggressive riding positions and tall gearing , those werent getting any use either)
the weight loss inspired me to build up a new road bike from a newly aquired secondhand Roubaix frameset and a Dura Ace 7800 groupset i had stashed. I'm still getting used to the positioning but i am riding it with the "C" group on my local rides

Have also entered 2 E-MTB races. Trying to hang onto the back of a fast road group ride kinda' duplicates the heart rate demands i am likely to see at the races, so that works out too although the ultimate goal would be to hang in there on the new Roubaix


And -- pics or it didnt happen --

Me finishing the Hotter N' Hell Hundred on the e-bike 2 weeks ago




As mentioned - this beast is about as far from being a proper road bike as you can get



But the extra seat time, weight loss, and - i guess - a little bit of newfound confidence maybe - has me experimenting with the new road bike



I still feel like Shrek out there riding in public, and thats just going to take a lot more work -- 5'9 anmd 260 is much better than 325, but its still a long way from a favorable bodyfat % --- but i'm taking Ozempic too and eating a clean diet so i'll get there

The E-bike saved my cycling life . maybe even helped save my life period. Because i wasn't riding , and what kind of life is it without bikes to ride?

Polaris OBark

I am suggesting that the idea that the OP is part of an e-bike marketing strategy is about as plausible as the idea that the lunar landings were faked.

SpeedyBlueBiker

I'm sure that people have made claims that an e-bike gives you a better workout. That doesn't make it true.

Maelochs

Have you ever been to the moon to check?

Polaris OBark

Do you really know that the earth even has a moon?

I heard it is made of paper.

spelger

funny, i always associated the Che with this fun loving guy:

Maelochs

Which is why landing on it was so difficult.

DMC707

blue cheese

genejockey 

Wensleydale?

genejockey 

Funny thing is, not one single thing I'd ever read until I clicked on this thread said anything about e-bikes giving a better workout. Indeed, now that I've read through the thread, and even clicked on one link, I STILL haven't read anything that said they give a better workout.

Well, maybe the comment about what happens if your battery dies and you have to ride a really heavy bike home. But that's it!

noimagination

Interesting perspective. I've always kind of turned my nose up at e-bikes, too.

My wife and I ride a tandem, and I'm a much stronger cyclist than she. We can climb most climbs around here, there are a couple that I avoid because they're too steep for us as a couple (although I can ride them on my single). So, we have not really needed any e-assist to do a wide variety of interesting/pretty rides around our area (from 1 - 3 hours).

However, now we are adding a trailer (we've acquired a couple of puppies and we want to bring them along), and I'm not sure we'll be able to do some of the climbs with the trailer + puppies. We live near the top of a hill, for example, and we currently bottom out on only one approach to our house (there are basically 4 approaches). It will be interesting to see what we can handle with the dogs in tow, especially since the last climb is the climb home, and therefore always comes at the end of the ride when we're most tired.

Adding e-assist to our tandem would make more routes available to us, while (using your reasoning) we would get about the same amount of exercise (using the e-assist on our normal routes) or more exercise (would make more routes available, reducing the boredom factor and encouraging us to ride more).

We're in our late (very late) 50's.

veganbikes

Nope, I didn't hate on e-bikes in any of that. I did hate on mopeds to a degree but those throttled machines are not e-bikes. A bicycle is something you pedal to move forward a moped may have pedals but has a throttle to move it forward.

Maelochs

The study @PeteHski posted (https://storybicycles.com/blogs/ebik...20participants) says this:

“The study, published in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, found that e-bike riders actually get more exercise than traditional bike riders. The researchers looked at data from 10 studies conducted in Europe and North America, which included a total of 1,415 participants. They found that e-bike riders spent more time riding and covered more distance than traditional bike riders, which resulted in more overall physical activity.” [emphasis added]

I had never hear this either because I don't read bike articles or e-bike articles or much of any of that stuff ... but I am sure if I were more immersed in modern popular media I might have heard this more.

I seem to have heard the point about e-bikes and exercise discussed on this site though, but only in passing.

Polaris OBark

I have heard claims that people make claims that an e-bike gives you a better workout, but this only proves that SARS-CoV-2 was created by illegal aliens from outer space.

Lombard

I think we can conclude after 117 posts that it's all a big conspiracy by Big Ebike.

3alarmer 

...choose riding areas that have wildlife live cams.

3alarmer 

...............................................and she does it all, without breaking a sweat.

Polaris OBark

​​​​​​​Sounds like me on every backpacking trip I have been on.

Ogsarg

"barrage of online articles and claims an E-bike actually provides a better work out than conventional bikes in general"

Maybe just me but I have yet to see a single article claiming e-bikes provided a better work out than conventional. Have an example?

Trakhak

PeteHski did not provide a link to a study report. The link is to a blog post from StoryBikes, a seller of e-bikes.

I searched the site of the journal cited by StoryBikes; the search resulted in a page listing several relevant citations, none of which include statements claiming that e-bike riders get better exercise results (whatever that means) than conventional cyclists.

The Results section of the Abstract of the most relevant-seeming article noted that while the e-bike riders in the study exercised at a level below that seen with the traditional cyclists, they exercised at a level above that of the walkers in the study.

I don't care to get on the mailing list of StoryBikes, but I hope someone here is curious enough about the study they cited to contact them and ask for a link to the journal article.

3alarmer 

​​​​​​​https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifes...a4c_story.html

Reynolds 

I've read you get a better weightlifting workout if you use an e-hoist: