It still requires the same amount of overall HUMAN energy (watts) no matter how many gears you have! Get it? Bone up on your physics.

I'm totally with BigAura on this one.

Hopefully, e-bike touring weenies will start their own forum. This is insane.

Maybe I'm just a masocist but my strongest memories of touring involve going up 7+mile mountain passes and feeling pretty good about myself. Not sure what you do with a 40 lbs e-bike when the battery dies half way up. I guess the suffering really kicks in.