Broctoon

I'm a little late to the party, but I'll chime in. Referring to the thread's title, I have not read anything claiming that e-bikes give a better workout. Maybe the OP looks at articles or websites in bizarro world, where up is down and black is white. An e-bike can give an effective workout in one special circumstance: when the battery is dead. All that weight is sure to make you work harder, compared to riding the same route on a light bike. Ditto a motorcycle with no fuel... pushing it home might help one's fitness.

3alarmer 

.
...just in case anyone is still wondering about where I came up with the crazy idea that industry lobbying was a major factor in keeping this new class of motorized transportation regulated by the CPSC (where bicycles were originally assigned because they thought only children rode on them), here's a link to the People for Bikes official online presence. The link is to their position policy statements on e-bikes.

If you need an explanation of the term "model legislation", it's something written by a lobbying group, and submitted to as many state and federal legislators as possible. It's accompanied by assurances that this is what all the voters back home who ride bicycles want, because, after all, we are "people for bikes". They appear to be especially upset by recent federal rulings.

hubcyclist

you can always count on an e-bike thread to cause a ruckus.

I have seen stuff (if I recall, industry research, which of course take with a grain of salt) that people on e-bikes ride for longer compared to riding non e-bikes. but time alone doesn't tell the whole tale, in my opinion. Unless they are measuring kj of user generated work, you can't just assume more time equals more work. More often than not, when I see an e-bike, I see someone not actually pedaling. people can do what they want, of course, but I don't think time spent riding alone is a good metric to compare the quality (from an exercise standpoint) between e-bikes and non

Rick_D

Promised myself I'd not read upthread, so another late in-chiming.
IMHO the most important part of exercise is taking that first step out the door, and if a new ebike gives somebody equally new incentive to do so, then win-win.

One month into ownership, I've learned (via Garmin data) it's possible to get a workout equal to that of riding a non-boosted bike. It's a process of pushing oneself to the same levels--the ultimate difference between the two is how much ground is covered. In comparison to a good old leg-powered bike, a lot, as it turns out. Also find it helps to have programmable boost profiles. Been fiddling with mine and am pleased at having that level of control whilst switching among them and also off, as desired, on the go.

In sum, I'd hesitate to assert one gets more or less of a workout--the rider's habits are the important variable here. Heck, it's easy to tool around on a bike of any kind at 6 mph and not budge the heartrate off resting levels.

Maelochs

Yeah, this thread has had about four waves of immigrants arriving with the same posts which were posted before each arrived. The horse is dead .... the corpse is rotten.

And just so none of you think this is an anti-immigrant post:

njkayaker

You don't have any experience with clubs, obviously.

Many clubs don't have enough rides or enough e-bike users to have separate rides for them.

Also, some of the e-bike riders would complain about the segregation.

3alarmer 

...so you're saying they're a bunch of whiners ? It's a joke and the question is rhetorical anyway.

njkayaker

Like their motors.

I was being a bit harsh. Our large club doesn't have many e-bike riders. They wouldn't be happy (reasonably) not to be able to ride with their friends. The point of the e-bike is to be able to still ride with their friends.

A (very nice) club in Ventura splits up their group ride into e-bike riders and others. That works for them because they have a relatively larger proportion of e-bike riders (for some reason) and don't run many rides.

3alarmer 

....I confess I know nothing about club rides. Most of my mileage on a bicycle has always been accomplished alone. It's always been me time.

njkayaker

Nothing wrong with that (obviously). You aren't giving advice about how to run a club either.

E-bikes have "interesting" issues for clubs (issues that just don't exist for solo riding).

(Most riders aren't riding with a club.)

big john

I was climbing with a friend and he was riding his Creo. The motor was loud and I complained about the whining to him so he turned it off. I said " it's so nice and quiet now". He said "I can leave it off but you'll probably have to take me to the hospital when I have a heart attack". I told him to turn it back on.

50PlusCycling

Welcome to the world of marketing. In the past, tobacco and Coca Cola were advertised as being beneficial to your health. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Polaris OBark

Enlightened and informed opinion at its finest.

SurferRosa

Worst party ever, am I right?

veganbikes

Speaking of clubs, do you like frilly toothpicks?

R.I.P. Mitch Hedberg!

3alarmer 

...I didn't mind all the drunks. You expect that at a party. But those guys who vomited in the swimming pool kind of ruined it for me.

Leinster

so folks on e-bikes ride farther, and for a longer time, than acoustic bike riders, and they’re quantifying that as “more exercise.”

It doesn’t appear to account for effort put in, energy expended, weight loss, etc etc.

If e-bikes mean that people “bike more, farther and for longer, then it’s a good thing that we should want more of.

KPREN

To those of you who think that I do not get as good a workout on my e bike as I would on a regular bike: It is not your responsibility to see that I get a good workout on a bicycle. Staying fit is 100% my responsibility and mine alone. I am pretty fit for 68.
I do not use my e bike much for basic transportation.
I did not buy my e bike as an exercise machine.
My e bike ticks none of the boxes in my book as a decent motorcycle.
My e bike costs more per mile than my automobile.
I justify my e bike 100% on the hedonistic fun factor that it is. I find it damned fun to ride and I am glad that it is legal to ride it.
If some of you find this objectionable, its not my ego or image problem.

3alarmer 

...I think you have an essential misunderstanding. I don't care where you ride your bike or why you ride it, so long as you do not use it to endanger others, who use the same bicycle lanes and trail infrastructures that you now ride thanks to our previous efforts at establishing them. Unfortunately for you, you have some bad actors in your clubhouse. And even if you are not one of them, or do not know any of them, you will be lumped in together with them as this all plays out in more regulation on where you can ride your electrically assisted machine.

But don't be sad. You have a very active lobbying group, Bikes for People, inundating legislators across the country to expand your access to trails and bike lanes in every state. You're kind of screwed if you live in Alaska, but even there, you can ride them on motorized pathways. Which is probably where they belong, If anyone should be sad, it's me. The majority of local bike advocacy organizations are drunk on the same Koolaid, hoping it will get more people on bikes and expand their membership. There's not much positive evidence of that so far, but it could happen.

Meanwhile, if your bike is costing you more per mile than your car, some here would question your reliability as a booster of this new technology. Be careful. Falling off a bike going 30mph is no joke at age 68. Most of my crashes thankfully happened in my 20's-40's, when I healed faster.

3alarmer 

...why ? I mean, I'm not even sure it's true in a lot of cases, but why is it a desirable goal ? There are a great many benefits posted by e-bike boosters that do not seem to have come true yet.

People were supposed to abandon their cars, and ride e-bikes instead. There are a great many e-bikes in NYC, but they just instituted peak hour traffic pricing there. That's in spite of a considerable number of e-bikes sold in NYC and now obvious on the streets and bike lanes there. They seem mostly to have replaced regular bikes, that the same people used to ride. If I believed all the spin the industry is putting out about the product, I'd probably be much more enthusiastic.

E-bikes have been around a while now, and I'm not seeing what you seem to believe true. Everyone I see who has one here still has a car, as do I. The only people I know here who bike regularly and are car free, are the ones who have been doing it for years on regular bikes. It's hard for me to believe how quickly the idea that you "need" an e-bike to get around town has taken hold. Still shaking my head.

PeteHski

So are you saying that e-bikes are not potentially beneficial to your health or even harmful like smoking? What claims are actually being made by e-bike marketing anyway?

Edit: This is what Canyon are claiming:-

https://www.canyon.com/en-gb/blog-content/advice/e-bike-calories-burned-weight-loss/b21122021.html

I only skimmed the article, but it’s not making any massively bold claims. It’s more of an attempt to debunk claims that e-bikes cannot provide any meaningful exercise. The article also appears to be aimed at the overweight masses who are less likely to be motivated to ride a normal bicycle.

Maelochs

E-bikes are exercise tools. They can be used in many ways, or not at all. So, it is the person exercising, not the tool, which determines the workout.

This has been stated repeatedly. Not sure why so simple and clear a concept has not sunk in.

I say that charitably ... bless your hearts.

PeteHski

True. My neighbour has a traditional bicycle that just hangs on his garage wall. I'm pretty sure he isn't getting any exercise from it.

cb400bill

This thread has run its course.

Thank you for participating.

Thread closed.