Originally Posted by
polyrhythmia
Rider power should be at least 1/3 of the total power in my books. More than that and I feel like I'm not really making any difference. And if the system fails, I would have to pedal a heavy bike. Rider assisted motorcycle? Nope.
Is that based on personal experience? My experience is quite different. That may be because my ebike is a Class 3 and I have to at least move the pedals to get the motor assist going. That effort seems to trick my brain into perceiving that it's providing all the power if I'm putting any substantial effort into pedaling. And I usually am doing that. I have to actually remind myself that the motor is doing the work by looking at the power meter readout and bike speeds. Psychologically it gets easy to be fooled. But I've ridden bikes all my life and its just natural for me to pedal while riding. It feels very odd if I don't. So your 1/3 power thing doesn't work for me at all. Even when consciously taking it easy on the ebike, I run only at about 10-20% lower effort (based on heartrate) than on my regular unassisted bike.