Well, I'm 51 so I have a while to go till I hit 60. Why push it? If you are exhausted by the time you get home, why push it. I'll ride on a day like today where its 21 when I levae the house but Yesterday with 50mph gusts is ridiculous. Perhaps some cross training, swimming, spin class or bike one way may prevent your exhaustion.
The ebike will help you avoid pedalling up hills, but does nothing for the heart. Its the climbs that warms me up and I look forward to them. If you expect to pedal while on the flats, you won't. Those puppies are mucho heavy.
Buy a scooter, motorcycle or bike when you want to. Cycling/Excersise should be fun if notthen try to find ways to make it fun.
As far as using your ebike on a pedestrian/cyclist pathway, well that's your business.

Good luck[/QUOTE]


You need to know more about ebikes; you get what you pay for. For $500 I get the old style bike that's too heavy to pedal without the motor. For $2500 I get a Trek Valencia Plus, which with battery and hub motor weighs less than my current Trek 7100. Guess which kind the delivery guys get?

There are also two kinds of propulsion systems; throttle and pedal assist. A throttle is very much like a moped but the pedal assist technology allows you to dial in the kind of assist you want, from nothing to 200%. But you MUST pedal or you get no assist. The Bionx PL3500 kit comes with a controller that allows both, but the Trek Valencia Plus only comes with pedal assist. Both allow regenerative breaking however, which gives even greater range on the battery. Sort of like the Prius. As you point out, you still have to pedal very hard in winter just to avoid freezing. I only intend to use the assist it to make my commute akin to 10 miles instead of 15.

The law that is being discussed that would legalize ebikes in New York, which is the ONLY state where they are not legal, limits the assist to 20 mph. I should point out that the biggest PITA that I find on bike paths are the jackasses who think they're in the TdF. If you want to go more than 20mph, get out of the bike path and into the street. MUPs are sort of a mixed bag anyway. At least in winter we don't have to put up with too many joggers. You would probably like my riding more on the bridge with an ebike than without. If I'm passing someone on that bridge it's because they're going the other way.

Now a bit on what happens as you age some more. It differs by person of course but always happens. Until this year I put away my surfboard sometime in late October, and take it out again in late April. I may bike through the winter but I don't surf it, although lots of people do. Once I get back in the water, I paddle out and off we go. This year, for the first time, my arms were dead in April. I could barely paddle; it took a month before I could swim the way I always have. That never happened before. Physiology changes. So, this winter I'm swimming once or twice a week just to keep the arms in some sort of shape. And I hate swimming in pools.

It will all work out. I think that ebikes are very much the way things are going to go, as battery technology advances. Most people who wouldn't consider using a bike to go shopping might change their minds if it was a bit easier to do.