yeah have to admit an E_bike is defo a motorbike .

Yes, I understand and agree that using a motor is a different kind of advantage, my point was, was trying to be...

If a pure bicycle is a single speed and you add 27 speeds to one for the same ride and get a 5% to 200% torque advantage that could also be considered "cheating, No? And so, one must always say the number of speeds the bike has, or one is lying about ones accomplishment compared to a "real" bicycle... No? Just like one must always say one is riding an E-Assist bike or one is lying about ones accomplishment, which I agree one must.

Never had to pedal my motorbike (had to push it sometimes), but I always have to pedal my E-Assist bicycle to get anywhere... So... There is a difference...

I'm not an engineer but to me using a lower gear going up hill is spreading the effort over more turns of the pedal thus reducing the effort required for each revolution. You go slower but it's still your power not anyone or anything else's.


Adding a motor even to assist radically changes the experience just as if you decided to hold onto a passing slow-moving motor vehicle. It may well be more fun but you still haven't cycled up that hill.

yes your using your own sweat makes a difference.
seriously think the Ebikes are great but let's face it lads it aint cycling.
i used to cycle with a guy who's in his 70's now finds the hills a killer he's also cancer surviver,i said to him why don't u buy an ebike ,he just looked at me nuff said .

Don't know about "radically", Unless you get an E-Bike with a throttle and use it without pedaling, but yes it does change the experience. Depending on why you use E-Assist, or an E-Bike...
Because you need to, can't ride a real bike...
Because it's easier...
Because it's more fun...
Because you want to ride where bicycles are allowed but you don't want to pedal...

And no you can't say you made it up the hill because you only made it part of the way once you minus the assist effort...

Yep. Unless we are talking about a race, which I do not recall RAGBRAI being, she participated in a fun ride on a bike she had to pedal, even if she was helped out. I know a guy who rode a fat tire on on Michigan's DALMAC daily century ride, should people on road bikes feel like they accomplished less because of his achievement?

They were all over the tour routes in the Netherlands, and everywhere we stayed that accommodated bikers had charging outlets in the bike storage area. They fit nearly every demographic from kids coming home from school to the elderly on organized tours. It was obvious who they were, and I couldn't have cared less that they zipped past me effortlessly. What sporting equipment others choose to spend their time using affects me in absolutely no way outside of organized competition, which I rarely find myself in.

So again, why were you on a cycle? If others were walking, weren't you cheating by taking an easier option?

If they are acting in an unsafe manner, they should be called out. I've never seen a problem with eBike riders acting in any more unsafe of a manner than any other type of bike rider. If one has a bike in which one can move forward without pedaling, I'll agree you've moved outside the realm of bicycles and they should be kept off MUPs, but I just cannot be upset by someone getting a bit of a boost to their pedaling effort. Quite the contrary in America, the few people I have seen riding them I commend for finding something that actually got them out and exercising.

Touring has nothing to do with bragging, but apparently it has a lot to do with bashing others for how they do it? In any case, it seems that your ego is the one that can't handle that others don't adhere to your definition of a bicycle.

I find people who are riding carbon bikes that cost as much as a used car with e-shifters to be a bit silly and totally contrary to the elegance and simplicity of cycling, too. Why can't you just ride a simple, basic steel bike like me? Why do you waste so much money on perceived mechanical advantages?

No, cycling is a legitimate way to do the Camino, so I wasn't 'cheating'. It's also legitimate to walk 100km to Santiago or cycle 200km. I cycled just over 1000km but because I had an accident and didn't (this year) do the last 200km by bike I don't claim to have completed it, yet.

I'd be more than willing to bet I could find people who walked it complaining that people who did it on a bike didn't go through the pains they went through, that they just blew by on their comfy bikes covering 100+km a day. I've met three people who have done it on my travels to Spain, all were non-athletic women walking many hundreds of kilometers of it.

In any case: did the church hand out certificates of completion to those on eBikes? If so, they are legitimate means of travel, as the church is the only one that gives any legitimacy tot he route to begin with.

Reading through all the posts again I think you eBike fans have made it clear:

• eBikes are motor vehicles that require pedal assistance.

Hopefully I and others have made it clear:

• bicycles are 100% human pedal-powered vehicles

Okay. Thanks for the reply. My major concern is the policy of airlines regarding the e-bike batteries. Do you have experience in this area and can you share them. Can you place your e-bike battery in checked luggage or carry=on? Just trying to deal with the practicalities.

I don't think it's the church that hands out certs. it's an organisation called 'the friends of the way of St. James'. I expect the Ebike guys had their 'passports' stamped (as I did) all the way so I've no doubt they were entitled to them.
It's a traditional Christian pilgrimage but it's my understanding that the modern mass tourism phenomena that is the Camino really started in the 1960s with the 'friends...'.

Nah, you've pretty much just made clear your inability to live and let live, and the need to bash people who you don't agree on semantics with. They are out happily riding their ebikes, enjoying life and not caring what you think, you are on a forum venting about words. One is the clear winner.

Well, 80 or not, sometimes health can be debilitating and the choice is to seek assistance or give up the one thing you are truly passionate about. Age is not measured in years, but in the ability you have to carry out everyday routines and activities. Rh, cancer, etc. necessitate modifications in general living..... never mind touring. We don't need a label, re. touring or cycling or whatever. With a bit of assist my better half can continue cycling and maybe spend a bit of time at the top of the hill waiting for me. I look forward to it.

In this you are wrong. What I have observed is that, to you, touring is about a measuring contest. You even tried to claim to have a bigger one than a 69 year old woman. Please, you are probably right, no need to post a picture, you have the biggest.

For the rest pf us touring is about pleasurable riding and interesting places on our bicycles. But if it is a measuring contest for you then you can have it, you win, you have the biggest, you are the big man. There, doesn't that make you feel better.

Back to your claim, no, e-bikes are not motorcycles, motor-bikes, or mopeds. I have had these devices and they are very different than e-bikes. They are operated differently, they feel different to ride, and they are treated differently in the law. However, I do understand that I am arguing with an ignorant person who is not interested in gaining knowledge. I see that for you this is nothing but a measuring content.

For me a discussion of e-bikes on tours would pay more attention to the technical aspects, things like daily riding distances, points of interest, and recharging while on tour. You clearly want to steer this away from touring and into a general discussion about the place of e-bikes in the cycling community.

Frankly, you are posting in the wrong sub-forum and you should know better. Or, as someone posted in this thread:
Clearly you should consider this persons advise and post in the appropriate sub-forum if that is the conversation you want to have:

As stated, I am very interested in touring on e-bikes; but you clearly want to turin this into yet another. . . overdrawn. . . discussion about the nature of e-bikes. Again, as BigAura said, this is not the place. Here you may feel you are winning because we are having different discussion and playing by different rules.

While you want to discuss the nature of e-bikes and their role in the cycling community, you will see little argument for two reasons. First, this has already been discussed, ad-nauseam, in the appropriate forum. Second, the directly address your off topic issues the respondent would need to go far-off topic, clearly, most are as willing to do that as you.

I would be more interested in knowing what the cyclists on the e-bikes, on the Santiago de Compostela Pilgrimage, were doing. I can easily see taking the e-bike to the next town. Parking it and while it was recharging, walking to the various churches in that town. That would make a lot of sense. When my daughter walked it she sometimes complained that there were things she would have done; but doing more after walking all day was just too much.

I expect to ride the Way of St. Francis next summer. This is a similar; but shorter, pilgrimage (as an aside, it would be good if there were similar pilgrimages in the US). Are there likely different levels of satisfaction in the sense of personal accomplishment by different pilgrims, almost certainly. However, I certainly hope that the pilgrimage will not be marred by the levels of acrimonious behaviors, smugness, and plain old measuring contests that threads like this tend to bring out.

Again, we do not know why that person is cycling instead of walking. They may be recovering from a major illness, this may a major milestone in their search for better fitness, they might just be too lazy to walk. In my case I have several, documentable, conditions that make walking just plain painful; not just tiring, painful. Then, after a while I just start falling down. As such, I will cycle, instead of walking Way of St. Francis. We simply do not know why a person choses to cycle instead of walk on a major pilgrimage. However, as Woody Allen put it, "80% of life is just showing up." If a measuring contest is so important that the effect is to shame other people out of showing up, then something has been done wrong.

Hmm, I'm not finding much in English on who the official organization who hands it out is, although I would assume it is a somewhat official part of the church as they hand out different completion certificates based on whether your journey is religious or not, and the religious ones carry some sort of significance in the Catholic Church if obtained in a certain way.

My point is simply you chose an easier travel method than the majority have, it seems silly to criticize others for picking an easier method than you. Especially so on a religious journey, love all

I know my daughter walked it, the route she took was about 1,600 Km.

You do have a good point, the final arbiter of whether the e-bike was a legitimate means of transportation on the pilgrimage is the church.

Looking at one of the websites for the pilgrimage, this is the only mention of e-bikes that I see. They do not seem to say it is forbidden, just ill advised for similar reasons that they consider road, and touring, bikes ill advised.
from here

I feel embarrassed, instead of getting into a pointless argument, I should have just gone and looked at the rules.

All lives are full of circumstances that are beyond our control be it physical, mental, financial, social, etc. It's the human condition. Enjoy!

You're presuming this was all on tarmac roads, it wasn't. The route is designed for walkers and so rough in places that you're taking serious risks riding it on a hybrid as I was. For me as for most (as surveys have shown) it wasn't a religious journey so when I see a young person doing it on an Ebike it shocks and concerns me that this might be the start of a trend.

Really??? Where did I do that???

My dad walked it at age 74. He said the crowds swelled toward the end as a lot of young folks just walked and partied for a couple of days. From his descriptions, it certainly wouldn't be an easy bike tour either, although he never mentioned seeing anyone doing that. But it would be a different sort of experience. Physically demanding, but avoiding the tremendous beating the feet take in walking it I might expect.

And there you have it, I'm sure that people who walk it are just as shocked and concerned as you seem to be about people who ride it on E-bicycles instead of riding regular bikes, they should be walking it like it should be done...

Cool, thanks for the link! I had completely forgotten about the certificate issuance at the end until the 100/200k requirements were brought up, and then that clicked in my mind. Its been a few years since I talked with one of the ladies that I knew that had done it, I was doing an English teaching stint in Spain and never kept in touch with her.

In that case, with an ebike not really making much of a difference (and sites advising it as ill suited for the journey anyways), it shouldn't make much of a difference. 350htrr and I are seemingly in agreement: you yourself are doing in in the less popular way that allows you to cover more ground (at least parts of the trail) much faster than a walker. I'm not implying it was easy by any means, and this topic has put something I had completely forgotten about back on my radar (so thanks for that ) but that you are indeed using a device that allows you to move faster and easier than another allowable method.

I'm sure there are probably the religious folks that have a problem with people doing it just for the fun of it, too, and worried that the religious meaning will be drowned out by adventure seekers.

The insistence that a bike has to fit YOUR definition, that one cannot say they are touring by bike if they have a battery pack that assists their pedaling. They're on two wheels, pedaling, and not in competition with you. Why else would you care so much what they label their activity?



In any case, now that a link has been provided saying there is nothing illegal with them being used, the issue is fairly closed. We can argue if we agree with the rule, but the people that hand out the completion certificates have no issues, so I fail to see why I should either

OK... I have no problem agreeing, that an E-Assist bike is "different" than a "regular bike" that is used for riding for fun, riding for work, riding for touring... But: how different is it? THAT IS the sticking point for most people I believe, (and I maybe/probably am wrong, for the "purist" among you.) What types of E-Bikes are there?.... Well. now... Let me count the ways E-Bikes are dealt with...

1; You have to pedal, and you get a % of assist type of E-Assist bike with no more than 350 Watts (in some countries in Europe its as low as 250Watts) of assist and no throttle, can assists up to 20 MPH (but in some countries it only assists to 16MPH and it cuts out)...

2; You then get to N. America, where you have to pedal but can get up to 750 Watts of assist, when ever you want it and no throttle, sounds acceptable but... or... Wait a minute...

3; You can pedal and get 750 watt of assist, or not pedal and get 750 watts of assist and use a throttle, doesn't seem to matter, it's still considered a legal bicycle in some instances... And then,

4; You can get up to 6,000 watts+, of assist, and use a throttle for "off road", IF, you are a normal CITIZEN AND FOLLOW THE "RULLES" It can still be a legal bicycle if you switch it to the legal setting manually... (or not, and you can just pretend to be a Legal E-assist bike)

5; Oh, and then there there's 750 watts with a throttle and 28MPH cut out for the electric "assist" is still a bicycle under some conditions...

And that is why people see E-Bikes just blowing by them and not even pedaling... "Illegal" use... "Irresponsible" use... Basically these E-Bikes are used as mopeds (even more like electric motorbikes that "look like E-Bikes") and are circumventing the laws... That is where the real problem lies... IMO...