Originally Posted by
alan s
Sure. Did you factor in weight, wind resistance, terrain/environmental factors, temperature, etc? Seems vastly oversimplified.
Of course it is simplified, as is any general heuristic. To arrive at an accurate number, for any given bike and rider, there would need to be a datalogging wattmeter positioned on the bicycle. Such wattmeters do exist and the results are regularly shared in conversations
such as this one.
All that being said, while more complicated tools,
like this range calculator, do take more factors into consideration, 20Wh is a good rough estimate for an e-bike of normal bicycle configuration operated at normal bicycle speeds. If you were to replace the 20 with some other realistic number, you would still reach the same conclusion of:
Sounds like a pretty hardcore bike commuter.