I don't get the e-bike thing. Beyond not having to pedal, what advantage is there over a normal bike? From what I've seen, the price of these things is enormous compared to that of a regular bike, and all you get for your money is...less exercise.

I don't want to get anyone riled up, I'm not here to crap on your hobby, I'm just legitimately curious as to why anyone with a reasonable level of physical fitness would choose an e-bike over a conventional bike. Is there something I'm missing?

You'll find plenty of answers on the internet. Here's one, https://www.electricbicycleblog.com/b...electric-bike/.

My thinking is the opposite: if you're a bike commuter, how can you NOT want an e-bike for your commute!

In short, with the e-bike, I ride more, I ride faster, safer, and further. I also save time not only from the faster commute, but I don't need to change into as many bike clothes.

More? Maybe some people, but I don't think I would. Faster? Almost certainly not, because you come to rely on the motor, and get lazy, and end up just coasting on the dinky motor power. Safer? I have no idea where that idea comes from. Further? Isn't the battery range on most of these things <50 miles?

You obviously don't see a need for motor assist so why even troll around in here? You aren't going to change peoples minds as well as they will not change yours. But if you ever do get a chance to try one sometime then at least do that and let that help to substantiate your opinions? Remember however that there is a wide range of ebikes and not all are created equal. Lots of times folks get caught up more in the why than the how, what and where that alternative ideas can progress. Van has some real motorized bike afficienados and more to come in the future so try and live and let live eh?

A significant number of e-bikers are using their e-bikes as a substitute for a regular bike. Assuming a regular bike was enough to meet their needs reasonably, all of the arguments about laziness and reduced exercise are correct. Let me just say this in plain terms : Exit., in this situation, you win, i concede, you are correct.

Now let me proceed to other situations:

Let's say a person travels by automobile or public transit, like the vast majority of people who can afford these modes of travel. They are not getting exercise, and they are probably spending more money per mile traveled than they would with a bicycle or an e-bike. Some of these people live 15 miles from work, some of them live in places where hills, rainfall, snowfall, or extreme temperatures are the most common reasons people cite for not riding a bicycle.

Now let's say that we invent a bicycle where many of these inconveniences are solved - their bike doesn't feel too heavy when they add rain gear and waterproof bags to their bike and a couple books or other needed items. Their out-of-shape body can handle the hills and the distance. Studded tires don't feel "too slow". They can wear clothes as heavy as they want in the winter without feeling too slow. They can take it easy if they're worried about heat stroke.

E-bikes won't make "regular people" the world over get out of their motorized, climate controlled vehicles, but they can contribute. If you drive a car or motorcycle in any situation where a good e-bike would be workable (with pedaling providing 70% of the power, a good e-bike can easily travel 100-200 miles or carry a 500 pound load on a trailer) you should reconsider your criticism about "lazy", and consider your own imperfections at the same time you look at others' imperfections.

Some folks just like to arrive at work without needing a shower. Would your prefer we drive a car instead?

I obviously don't know you but your "question" appears to be more of an attack on us as a group than genuine interest in the technology of eBikes. Different birds in a flock will often get picked on by the majority...

In my experience/opinion we have much more in common than not. Electric or not we all suffer from careless drivers. We all try handle cargo to some extent. When it's cold, hot, dry or wet - we feel it just as much as someone on a non-electric bike.

I just don't get this attitude from the "elite" crowd who think others are just too lazy or not up to the task? Maybe they are and maybe they aren't. Who made you judge, jury and executioner?

Ah, why bother? Gas is cheap - time to go fill up the F250 and look for a bike lane to crowd...

The purpose of an e-bike for me is not the exercise, it's the commute.

I have to be able to:
-Overcome a 1000 foot elevation change over 3 miles
-Not break a sweat (no changing of clothes)
-Do it in a similar time it takes to drive my car.

The exercise is a side benefit.

My enclosed trike weighs 77 pounds (110 with 3 batteries and hub motor). If a vehicle is headed for me (and this is a mindless driver tourist town) several times I barely got out of the way un-motorised, now- no problem at all (even with a trailer). Much safer.

No problem on all Stop lights/Stop signs/lights, going up hills; whatever. Full Stop.

Many any more miles than un-motorised with a full load, exercise hauling so much weight if wanted.

FLASH! These vehicles have pedals too! Accelerate, hills: power-on / cruise: power off: pedal. Batteries are low- I pedal. Pedal 200 miles = range 200 miles. Never happens but it could.

I like being comfortable, safe and not paying for gas or parking where ever I go. As for electric bike prices being "enormous compared to that of a regular bike" I guess it depends on what your comparing it to.

How about if i tell you at the top of the hill that u had to "Walk your bike up" and i just buzzed by you with my electric assist. And most bikes range <50 miles!! -are u kidding me - when was the last time u biked 50 miles or more please tell me. Oh and by the way do you compete in the Tour de France?

hmm what i like! i can ride it hard and it doesn't ask for a backrub

Well, Exit, you must first tell me what you ride, when you ride, how far you ride, why you ride. If you only ride for recreation, then, yes, an electric bike is a little overboard for a healthy 20 year old. But if a person has health problems, has large cargo to haul, needs to get somewhere quickly without so much sweat, then things are different. It always amazes me when I see bikes on cars. Why the car? Compare an electric bike to a car then it seems incredibly cheap.

It's just another dimension you can add to biking. The need to add a motive force beyond oneself is part of life's deal for some. My other bike is a horse, a darn nice Tennessee Walker I might add. Being moved without moving is the call, you either have it or you don't.

It allows me to make a commute that I wouldn't/couldn't on my regular bike. So I get more exercise than if I took the car. I pedal the whole way. Just throttling would burn through the battery pretty quickly, and it's uncomfortable to ride without pedaling. I experimented with it, and it's simply easier for me to manuever and balance while pedaling. If I wanted to just ride, I'd get a scooter or motorbike that's made for that kind of thing. Since my whole point is to be able to pedal to and from work, this option works for me.

It also saves my knees when pulling off from a stop sign or light. Gearing down doesn't quite have the same effect for me.

...My guess is that you're here to judge rather than learn, though.

Doesn't sound like you read that link.

More? Yes, because you have more energy (in your body) to go longer.

Faster? I'm always going 22-26 on the flats instead of my usual 17-21 on a regular bike.

Safer? Cars pass you slower and you're more likely to use the road rather than the sidewalk.

Further? I don't know about you, but 20 miles unassisted is a lot of riding if you're doing it every day. With the assist, I'll likely keep riding the assist beyond 20 miles. The range on my bike is 40-60 miles.

I don't feel threatened by the question as it's legitimate. I think I would have wondered the same thing in my twenties. Now that I'm in my sixties, I find that it's a great way to get outside and not be daunted by the large hills that previously put me off. I have ended up using my bike far more than before which is a good thing. Living directly on a bike trail makes it easy for me to get outside while the motor flattens the hills. I try to see how little battery I can use on trips.

After the last time one of these questions popped up, I over-reacted, so, I'm gonna try not to do so this time. As a cyclist, my bonafides in 2008 were 4400 miles riding a 37# recumbent trike, over 600 riding an e-assist solar charged velomobile that weighs 150# and can haul an additional 200# in a trailer. On the recumbent trike, I average 16 - 17 mph an an area built atop a terminal moraine (ie. it's hilly). On the e-velo I average 20 - 25 mph with the same effort (about 150 watts constant output) as on the recumbent trike. If I so desire, I can get up to 35 mph, but with a heavy load, that isn't too wise. My standard finishing leg press is 600# 3 sets of 10 reps. I was a WaDoKi karate instructor for 15 years, now retired from karate and my 'regular job'. I am an insulin dependant diabetic, to boot.

I don't ride my trikes because of physical ailments (arthritis doesn't count), and being a former sportscar racer (Alfa Romeo and Mk.1b McLaren) unicycles, bicycles, tricycles, quadracycles, etc. have never been 'something to go fast on', and even though the land speed record is held by a recumbent bike - a 70# Varna Mephisto (over 82 mph at Battle Mt., Nv. - Sam Whittingham), 82 mph is way less than 1/2 of what the Mk.1b was capable of.

I ride my recumbent trike because it is FUN, handles like a human powered go-kart! That, and the chicks dig it - from 4 to 80 y/o. I ride the electric velo because I can avoid using my car for almost all of my errands, including returning home from Lowes with 2 80# sacks of concrete mix, 6 - 5# tubs of hydraulic cement and some tools. Somehow, I never see the 'fast' kids on their Bianchi or Orbea bikes with their 'Don't I look just like Lance?" jerseys doing that! Starting off a 350# bike-trailer combo with me on it (another 240#) and getting it up to a speed where I can kick in the hubmotor is considerable effort on the flats, and there are hills I prolly would have to walk without the e-assist - not that long but 30% + grades. Some e-bikes are capable of over 60 mph, some are capable of functioning as a car, some get you to work or the train station safely and without needing a shower upon arrival, and, yes, some are for people that can no longer ride without assistance, but still want to ride and enjoy life. So - get it?

Electric Bikes are part of our Green Revolution.

Compare an ebike to a CAR. Does it make sense that a 3000lb CAR carries a 200lb person? That sounds laughable, doesn't it? But HEY, EVERYBODY DRIVES A CAR!

The efficiency of an Electric Bike as an Electric Vehicle is ASTOUNDING

Thanks to lithium battery technology and the prices dropping for it ever so slowly, we have these 55-60lb ebikes that can carry your 200lb self. What makes it even MORE efficient is that you can PEDAL if you want to. And nearly everybody DOES pedal. It just feels very strange to NOT pedal on a bicycle, you dig?

The average commute for someone in Los Angeles to work is something around 15 miles. Is a bicycle practical for riding to work everyday back and forth in a place like Los Angeles that is full of hills?

Maybe... but for most people, it's not because you WILL need to change your clothes, and when you ride back home, you will be pretty tired, and if you have to go up hills, it's going to make a lot of people shy away from even trying a commute by bicycle.

How is the electric bicycle different? You won't need a change of clothes and you WILL get to your destination faster than a regular bike because your speeds don't come to a crawl when going up hills. You can depend on CONSISTENTLY going a certain speed and easily calculating how long getting someplace will take.

FOR EXAMPLE! And this is a very REAL example because this is where I LIVE.

To go from my home to the nearest store, it's about 1.5 miles and I could get there in 5 minutes on my REGULAR bicycle and the way there is ALL downhill. To go from the market back home, it's ALL UPHILL with VERY DIFFICULT GRADES the entire way and it will take me at least 15-20 minutes to take that same route which took me just 5 minutes going down.

If I have an electric bicycle, my commute, whether I'm going downhill or uphill most of the way, will be balanced out and always be a lot more consistently faster. The uphills get flattened. This is what makes COMMUTING by ELECTRIC Bicycle ALL THE MORE AWESOME.

Good answer. Carrying lots of crap is a legit reason, as is making less people drive. I can also see how, by your logic, e-bikes could be a gateway into conventional bikes, which is also a good thing.

I already said I wasn't out to attack anyone, and was legitimately curious. Save your knee-jerk self-righteousness for stupider folk.

I haven't walked my bike up a hill since I was about 13. The last time I biked more than 50 miles was last thursday, as it was my day off.

Fair enough. Health problems and lots of cargo both seem like valid reasons to me. To be fair, though, lots of MTBers put their bikes on their car, drive up the mountain, then bomb down it. If you've ever tried pedaling a 40lb full-suspension bike up a mountain, you'll know why.

Also a good answer. If you live in an area hilly enough for regular biking to be a huuuuge pain, an e-bike seems like a good excuse to get outside anyway.

I never understood this. I understand that most people people don't ride high end BMC, Cervelo or Colnago, but a decent quality (re, not entry level) road bike from major brands still runs $1500 to $3500.

I'm a roadie first and I do several centuries per season, metric century on weekends and 20-30 miles on weeknight (time permitting). Still I've never commuted on a bike until I've tried an ebike. Now I commute on ebike exclusively during the season. The only time I use the car is to load up the road bike to go on those weekend rides - thats funny!

Spending couple of thousands to build an (high end) electric bike seems like a lot but it's nothing compared to what people spend on their road bike (including me). Heck people spend $600-700 on GPS cyclometer and $1500 on indoor trainer with flat screen monitor - whats $1000-2000 for a complete electric motor vehicle, right?

Oh, Don't get me started on weight weenies (and how much they spend to save an ounce)

Edit - about not sweating thing. I've ridden all last summer and at 85-90 degree direct sun summer heat, even using nothing but electric, you still sweat your ass off. Maybe not as much as really hard peddaling but not that much of difference. Just calling spade a spade.

Why is there a commuting section of this website and why isn't it instead on a subsection of a car or motorcycle forum? After all, a bicycle used for commuting is just a substitute for a car (faster commuting than running, less sweat, can haul cargo more easily, etc.)

I think what you are getting at is that Ebikes are more easier to compare to a motor vehicle than any other category of bicycle.

Where do we draw the line in the sand?

Have you ever rode an ebike before? Did it feel to you more like a motor vehicle or more like a bicycle?

Hi JinbaIttai,
pacificaslim has a history of trolling around here. Apparently he/she likes to get a rise from the e-cyclists. I'm not sure what the big thrill is for this poster, but I'd just ignore.

If you view a bicycle as an exercise machine then an e-bike isn't a good substitute for a bicycle, except if you're out of shape.

If you view a bicycle as a toy, well, hey, an e-bike is a lot of fun for some people.

If you view bicycles and cars as useful transportation, e-bikes have some of the advantages and disadvantages of bicycles, and some of the advantages and disadvantages of cars.

So, I have an e-bike and the conception is that I don't have to pedal.

If I get on my e-bike and don't pedal, guess where I go? Nowhere.

People that don't like e-bikes or don't understand them, (I'll bet most have never tried one), never will. They just come here to argue. It's not that they don't like E-bikes as much as they LIKE to argue.

NONE of their points are valid because they speak out of ignorance and misconception, instead of intelligence and knowledge. Their brains are in their feet and that's all they understand.

Their arguments are like, "...a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing".
<$1.00 to Bill S.>

My 2 E-trikes being green put me right in the middle of this revolution, but my 3-wheel electric microcar is way out of step- it is yellow (850 pounds with top up). I prefer the E-trikes because they have pedals.