Pouhana

The same downward slope of usage for jet skis, wind surfers, even motor cycles.

I bought a new Trek the same month I bought a new Harley. Sold the Harley because I used it less hours per month. (I have other toys)

Treadmills are most underused tools.

linberl

A 5 or 10 year old e-bike wouldn't be worth anything at all. The biggest expense is the battery and they don't last that long (2 years average). Overall prices may come down due to economies of scale and improvement in battery tech., but it doesn't make sense to buy a used e-bike that's more than a year old unless you can make your own batteries. Also, many of these e-bike companies won't be around 5 years from now so getting parts (related to the battery/motor) will be difficult. I support the concept of brilliant kits, whether mid-drive or hub, that are easily installed and removed with more standardized parts; all the proprietary stuff every vendor has just means those bikes will end up in landfill.

Joey21

So does 350W = 350W reliably? 350W on my BBSHD is not the same as 350W on my geared hub motor bike.

I ride a high power BBSHD because I'm a big middle aged guy (working on being a smaller guy) with a few aches and pains and we have steep hills here. No motor means no bicycling without taking an analog bike to the park to do loops on the 2 mi long paved walking path.

Or - I can take a beautiful 20+ mile ride through the country that begins in my garage and ends in my garage. My favored path requires a steep 500 ft vertical climb (8% perhaps) and another longer 500+ ft climb that is more gradual over a few miles. My route has scenery as nice as anything I've ever seen in the parks and light to no traffic.

The ride out is fun but the ride back is far from it.

I'm happy to see people out there pedaling. Especially where I live. Part of the town is a nice place to ride but the amazing country roads around town where we live just aren't fun without either being pro-racer fit or an ebike boost for the hills.

FWIW I don't see the road bike guys riding out near my house. Maybe they don't like big hills. I rode with them once and they preferred a route that has more moderate hills. They also didn't seem to appreciate my Fred bicycle fashion... Oh well. I like my DIY ebike bike and don't have special clothes to ride in.

I spent my lunch hour riding across town and around that walking path at the park and back. Rode twelve miles at lunch. Was able to pace myself and strategically use the boost so I was still presentable for the work place when I returned. It's 94F / 50% humidity today so it feels like 98F. I keep an analog gravel bike in my office (80s Schwinn). Ain't riding that at lunch until it cools down outside more.

I popped it back on charge and will ride home this afternoon - 8 miles of country lanes and a few steep hills.

Joey21

And its silly to junk a bike b/c the battery wore out but we know that people will do that. Too hard to find a battery. Too expensive to buy a replacement battery. Blah-blah-blah...

I helped a guy this summer work out wiring up three little UPS SLA batteries to his ebike b/c he didn't want to invest in a proper lithium battery. Easy circuit but completely beyond him.

18 months from now it'll be dead again. Wonder if he will rebattery it or let it sit in the corner for another decade?

I expect that'll be a good little side business - flipping ebikes that need little repairs.

I wanted to avoid the proprietary battery ebikes so that when my current 48V battery wears out I can rebuild it myself or purchase another downtube battery/case/mount and ride again. At the same time if the motor blew up spectacularly and I wanted to switch, I can. I prefer the agnostic tech. battery doesn't care which motor and the motor doesn't care which battery - as long as the voltages match.

So many people gripe about Aliexpress ebikes but my other bike came directly from there. It is a Jueshai "mtb" 48V geared hub bike aka basic bike not really ready for real off-road but it does gravel and dirt roads really well. Everything on that bike can be sourced from a 100+ different retailers. As much as I love the $4500 mainstream refined ebikes, I can't justify the cost of the bike or the cost of the parts. Both of our ebikes cost about $1200 each.

linberl

Yeah. And that's why I like kits that can be moved from one bike to another. I plan on keeping my two bikes til I die. Being able to put a motor on each one when I choose is paramount. Unfortunately, we need to do a better job recycling batteries and such, but at least the batteries are all I would need to replace to keep it going. I'm hopeful that a new repair industry will pop up to help consumers replace their core batteries inside the enclosures and/or repair motors as needed. Not everyone has the skills to take their units apart (I don't feel comfortable doing that). But I do know it has 18650 batteries inside, which are easily available. The bikes themselves are very durable and I am completely comfortable overhauling them both. Modularity should be a primary consideration for the future of e-bikes.

unterhausen

every time I see this thread at the top, I think about how my goals for an ebike are to get less exercise.

tatkins

Is this serious?

Rick53

huh?

bhtooefr

So I'm gonna hop in here with a couple of observations, having just gotten a Class 1 torque-sensing e-bike, and having commuted on an electric scooter that performs within the European EPAC performance envelope (250 W nominal, 500 W peak, 25 km/h (15.5 MPH) top speed, even though it is very much not that because of not having pedals at all, and a having a throttle).

First, this was a European study, which does pretty significantly affect things due to the regulations in effect in that market. Their Electric Pedal Assist Cycle class stops assisting at 25 km/h, and throttles aren't allowed.

This means that if you want to go faster than 25 km/h, you're going to do it on your own muscle power, end of story. And, while low-end pedal assist systems only use cadence, so you can spin with zero torque, the better systems use torque sensing and multiply rider input power, and even with a cadence sensing system you may well be putting some power in.

(They do also have an "S-Pedelec" class, which is effectively a sub-class of 45 km/h (28 MPH) mopeds (complete with requirements for licensing, registration, and insurance) that has stricter power limits (350-500 W rating instead of the 4 kW that mopeds normally get) and a ban on throttles, in exchange for very limited cycling infrastructure access. This is pretty much exactly our Class 3, except for how the power rating works, and the states that recognize Class 3 don't have licensing requirements.)

Additionally, 25 km/h is more compatible with cycling infrastructure's typical design speeds than the 20 MPH (32 km/h) of a Class 1/2 e-bike here.

Of course, European power ratings are kinda... out there, due to how electrics get to be certified with their "continuous power" - average power over a 30 minute test, run at a manufacturer's best estimate of average power. So, while their EPACs are only allowed "250 W", that really translates to most of the European-intended mid-drives (whether they're 250 W for a EPAC or a US market Class 1, or 350 W for a S-Pedelec/US market Class 3) outputting somewhere in the 400-600 W ballpark of peak power (the Bosch Performance Line Cruise hub motor model on my bike is rated for 490 W peak), whereas the US laws are just 750 W, that's it.

Once you consider that European e-bikes must be pedaled to get anything, that makes the logic for European e-bike riders getting as much exercise far easier to grasp - more trips being practical meaning more activity despite some of that activity's power coming from a non-human source.

And, honestly, I don't ride my analog bikes much. The recumbent trike is too bulky (and has some annoying design issues), I just don't like the recumbent bike all that much, and all of them end up being slower than I'd like with me on them, for commuting (and, of course, the whole issue of showing up to work drenched in sweat, with my lungs burning). My electric scooter was far more enjoyable to commute on, albeit not very activity-promoting (but quite possibly slightly more exercise than driving!), and ultimately a bit too sketchy on the local terrain (hence buying a proper e-bike, and the scooter will be used for more complex journeys that need a smaller vehicle, as well as travel).

Also, my understanding of the Dutch study on safety is that it's not old people in mid-life crisis, but rather older people in late life gaining or maintaining mobility that they would have otherwise lost, but having less ability to manage a similar performance envelope to what they had when younger, and less ability to handle the injuries from a crash as they had when younger. Given the popularity of transport cycling in the Netherlands from childhood, though, I would doubt that it's an inexperienced cyclist scenario.

I would love to see a US study on all of this - I suspect the higher speeds of Class 1 e-bikes may actually promote even more exercise than a European EPAC due to enabling higher speed commutes (making more trips workable on the bicycle) in addition to the sweat reduction of an EPAC (despite the fact that being able to get assistance at higher speed may reduce exercise), but conversely the throttle on a Class 2 would reduce exercise (but it's possible that the net exercise amount is increased over a analog bicycle hanging up in a garage, through things like helping a hub motor Class 2 up hills through pedaling). And, I would also expect higher speeds to produce more crashes with more severe injuries, as well as more crashes caused by inexperienced - but younger - cyclists.

fly135

I just bought a HR sensor and took my unplugged street bike out for a 10 mile ride (rest at turnaround, 20 mile total) that I take each week with a group on a MUP. I recorded the speed/HR information in a free app ( two 10 mile rides). I also put in a lot of effort and would say that I got the max amount of exercise I could about handle. Next week I intend to do the same ride on my class 1 eMTB. I'll post both graphs. I'm absolutely positive that the level of exercise will be lower. But I still expect to see my HR to go into a zone that counts as decent exercise.

linberl

I don't think the benefits are equal by any means if you do the same ride. The evidence suggests that e-bikers ride longer, and the cumulative benefits are more equal as a result. If you're up for it, it would be cool to see you test out how much more riding you need to do to get the equivalent benefit.

fly135

The equivalent benefit is a question mark. The data is basically HR and time. But I question how to measure equivalency. I've been looking into how people use HR to gauge exercise. Maintaining a certain percentage of your benchmark "max HR" puts you in different training zones. I averaged a HR of about 150 for 35 mins. I'm positive I will avg lower on the eMTB, which puts me in a different zone. So how do you compare benefit across zones?

I'm not used to exerting myself as much as I did on this ride. I'm 64 and have been a regular waterskier/wakeboarder for over 40 years. I've had an annual pass at the local watersports/cable park for the 20 years they've been open. But I feel sure that I never have my avg HR that high a percentage of my max for that long a time. This makes me wonder if being in that high a zone is much more beneficial to my health than a lower zone. If your goal isn't to win races but work for optimal health benefit, what would be the conversion factor across zones? How much time in zone 4 do I need to get the same health benefit of a time in zone 5? Zone 3 to zone 4 and so on.

I can say that I wouldn't even be riding a bike if it wasn't for the ebike. It was that ebike a friend had that got me to buy one. Depending you how you ride your ebike it might be that you only need to ride a little more to get the same benefit as riding a regular bike. Based on my experience of staying in good physical condition by exercising frequently in a lower zone, I tend to think that pushing really hard might be a diminishing returns kind of thing. Where you have to work a lot harder to get just a little more benefit. I realize that the best way to get a better perspective is to ride my unplugged bike more and see if I can tell much benefit.

kq2dc7

If a pedal assist is making it easier and that is cheating then why are we not all still riding old heavy department store bikes? They require a lot more work to cover the same distance so it would be more exercise and increase the benefits of riding.

linberl

It would take a lot longer to get where we are going as top speed would be limited. If you use PAS judiciously, you can definitely get the exact same workout on an ebike that you do on an analog bike, but you will get where you are going in less time. For me, if I have 2 hours to ride, without a motor I can go distance x. With PAS and my motor, I can go distance x + y. Overall effort is the same - I ride more miles at a faster pace, using a cadence of 70 analog and 85 with my motor. Since I'm actually spinning faster with the motor, and resistance is kept similar by shifting to a higher gear when motored, it's pretty much a wash...as long as the distance is sufficiently increased.

blacknbluebikes 

Selection bias at work: This study is really about commuters and town-trips, not about people who cycle for exercise. Look at the distances cited at the beginning of the article. 9km (5.6mi) or less.
This is saying, basically, that people using e-bikes are likely to get more exercise than people who do short trips on conventional bikes, mainly because they're likely to do more on the e-bike.
OK. So, if you're not in it for the workout - which is fine - then you're probably getting more exercise than a utility-oriented cyclist who is also not in it for the workout.
But don't extend those conclusions too far. This study is not about people who are, indeed, aiming for exercise

linberl

It's all relative. I no longer have a car so I use my bike for everything. I don't count the miles I spend running errands at all; that's my "commute" since I'm retired and I'm not focused on exercise then - it's a matter of time reduction so I have more time later for exercise. When I go out on my exercise ride, which runs anywhere from 8 -30 miles depending on the time I have, that is when I can extend the length of my ride due to the motor. I'm going to ride the same amount of time, at the same cadence and resistance (much higher gear when using lowest PAS level compared to analog). I just cover more miles because I go faster. It's theoretically more exercise because I am spinning a longer distance...although I do now bike to my doctor's office which is 16 miles, and I didn't do that before the motor because I did not want to arrive for an exam all sweaty and stinky, lol.

shelbyfv

Let them roll with it as long as it stays in this sub-forum

alloo

Another study! https://www.ksl.com/article/46672116...esearchers-say

MarcusT

2,164 meters
Took my e-bike here, never would have made it with a regular mtb, still, sweated and grunted like never before. Great work out, great result.
'nuf said

momsonherbike

Great view! Good job getting up there to snap the pic! Can I surmise that you've finally caught your breath?

Buglady

I must respectfully disagree; Bosch *guarantees* their batteries for 2 years or 500 charge cycles with *zero* loss of capacity, and the expected useful lifespan of Bosch power packs is 8 to 10 years. They've been making electric motors and batteries for almost a century.

Things would, of course, be rather different for a fly by night outfit on AliExpress or wherever. Enough of those could drag down the "average" e-bike battery lifespan if you took them in aggregate, I suppose.

Buglady

Wading in on the actual topic, as an actual e-bike rider and actual exercise oriented person and actual pedantic autistic person:

First, the entire reason we have scientific studies is to test whether the "everybody knows" things are actually true. Most of them aren't, because the human brain is fantastically good at finding ways to distort its own perceptions. So, in this case, "everybody knows" e-bikes are easier to ride than real bikes and therefore it is obvious that e-bike riders cannot possibly be getting as much exercise! Except... that's not what the study showed.

The study found that when people were matched for their level of fitness and the type of riding (i.e. commuting, errands, etc rather than racing), the people who rode pedal-assist e-bikes (NOT throttle or power on demand) and the ones on regular bikes were exerting themselves to a startlingly similar degree. That's the thing with pedal assist; you're **still moving** and that's the key point. Less intense effort over a longer span of time is just as effective, in exercise terms, as short bursts of intense effort.

And in a different study, which DID compare people with differing levels of fitness, the people with a lower level of fitness were more likely to *keep* riding, to ride further and more often when they had e-bikes, than the people with a higher fitness level at the start of the study who had either e-bikes or regular bikes, and their mental health outcomes were substantially better. They were having FUN.

Pedal assist bikes are an access point. My personal belief, which I would like to explore through more research, is that the current revolution in electrically-assisted bicycles will turn out to be almost as great a paradigm shift as the safety bicycle was in the era of the high-wheeler.

momsonherbike

My personal belief is the same. The shift to electric technology usage in bikes is gaining unprecedented momentum in creating a culture of accessibility to all those that want to ride extensively, not just the physically capable demanded by unassisted bicycles.

There is also the level of "ease of use" to consider as well. When a bike that is electrically enhanced becomes easier to use than an unassisted bike, no matter how many ease-of-use improvements are made to the unassisted bike, the assisted bike is ridden more often. Worry about the body failing is answered by a battery, worry about fragile components is calmed by a sturdier frame, and topography is taken down a few pegs on the Stress Checkboard.

Horse drawn/ridden transportation gave way to motorized/engines once people realized the options of speed and ease of use were being tipped in favor of the automation. Turning an engine crank and hopping aboard was so much easier and beat the time consuming task of catching/cleaning/tacking-harnessing the horse (or horses if a team was needed) before one could even start on a horse enabled journey. The care of the horse afterwards was also time consuming, plus you needed space to keep it and maintain it. A car could be parked outside and ignored when not needed. It didn't require feed whether it was used or not. While a horse could navigate natural terrain that an automated conveyance struggled with, and you could refuel by allowing a horse to graze on grass or foliage enroute, the drawbacks boiled down to "what was easier and took less time".

In the case of bikes, an unassisted bike is lighter weightwise and sells (on average if you include Walmart bikes, etc) for less, but its "ease of use" directly correlates to the physical ability of the rider. It's the proverbial horse of the modern world. The more people that see the advantage of an electrically assisted bike in ease of use, the more it will move into a larger and larger space of mainstream cycling.

It may well become the mainstream in the future.

Not to say that ebikes will supplant the unassisted bike completely - after all, there are more horses recorded now than in past centuries (almost all used recreationally), but the ebike is already expanding rapidly in all aspects of cycling (excluding racing) and is positioned to become the norm rather than than an anomaly in recreational and commuting.

2old

Probably been said and repeated many times, but exercise (to me) is individual not collective. If an individual is riding his ebike instead of his couch, he's getting more exercise. I ride about the same distances in the same quantity of time on eMTB and MTB so get less exercise on eMTB. Guess what, I'm out for fun and derive the same amount. Also, my Luna battery is in its fifth year powering a BBS02 or 1000w rear hub system twice a week or so. Qualitatively it hasn't lost any power since it's still capable of a 16 mile ride with 3,000' ascent.

linberl

I think you have to look at WHY the person is riding. I have assisted and unassisted options. When I'm running errands, as I am car-less, I may use the assist to decrease the time required and get more accomplished. In that sense, it's a bit more exercise than driving a car to do errands but that's an incidental benefit. However, I also ride my bike for exercise on exercise-specific rides. Those rides are unassisted most of the time, and I ride harder than when on errands and choose to work up a sweat. Sometimes I will decide to make an exercise ride a really long ride to enjoy the weather and scenery, and I might take along my detachable e-bike kit (friction drive) in case there's a big hill or I just go too far and need help getting back, but my intention and desire is to exercise and so I limit the use of the motor unless really needed.
I think one of the biggest issue with commercial e-bikes is the weight of the bike. They are NO fun to pedal unassisted. And many folks only have the one bike so they have no choice but to use assist to ride. My bike even with the motor kit is under 24lbs so riding is easy without power even with the motor/battery attached. If you have a 40-60lb ebike, you can't ride without assist (if you lose power, it's a real pain). We need to get the weight down on e-bikes so that riders can choose to enable the motor or not, and not be penalized by weight or drag if they choose to ride the bike analog.
An e-bike was the "gateway" bike for me to get back into riding after decades off the bike. It provided the confidence and support to a non-rider to start over with cycling and I eventually sold that dedicated e-bike and bought a traditional bike. I only added the motor kit when I sold my car.
If someone is riding an bike for transportation, it's one less car and who cares if they have a motor???
If someone is riding an e-bike for exercise, they're getting some exercise and might end up getting a regular bike eventually.
I don't think too many young, fit, healthy analog cyclists are giving up their analog bikes to use assist. It's people who would not otherwise be riding
that are using e-bikes mostly. And, for them, any riding is a good thing.