I will continue agreeing with 350, and concede maybe I don't know every ebike out there. My comments, as previously mentioned, are in relation to bikes where one must do the majority of the pedaling, and you are assisted, where the assist cuts out at a certain point.

If others are talking about bikes where one has a throttle and can move the bike solely with, or where the motor is doing the bulk of the work, I'll agree that moves past my definition of bike, into something akin to a moped. I have not seen those personally, though, and am talking about the ebikes where pedaling is still the bulk of the work.

I still really couldn't care if someone on one called what they did bike touring, though.

In a couple weeks I'm heading to Switzerland for a bike tour. The bike will be powered entirely by me. If I come across someone traveling on an e-bike, I probably won't have much to say to them about bike touring. Maybe other things, but not bike touring. Same thing if I come across someone traveling by motorcycle, car or train. Nothing against other modes of travel, unless you try to equate one with the other.

Good for you, I hope you are doing it on a single speed, because anything with gears is suspect as to how much "assistance" that mechanical torque multiplying system is "helping" you accomplish the tour in hilly areas... You do know that doing any tour on anything but a single speed is a fail don't you?

No, I'll have 27 speeds. "Mechanical torque multiplying" as you call it occurs on all bikes, no matter how many gears they have. Comes from the crank arms and gear combination(s). For the Alps, fully loaded, the more gears the better, IMHO. And one wouldn't describe my route as "hilly." "Mountainous" is a better description. The challenge of conquering a mountain pass will not be met with a motor. Kind of like climbing Everest on the back of a Sherpa.

I am also enjoying on it.

So for you touring is a measuring contest?

Touring, a 'measuring contest'?


To a degree yes, but I don't see my contest with others, it's with myself mentally. Setting myself a challenge, executing it and succeeding, failing totally or partially as with this Camino.


To reiterate again, my shock wasn't seeing someone riding an Ebike it was seeing someone young and evidently fit riding one and the thought at the back of my mind that this could become the norm in the coming years. Maybe others don't find that prospect depressing but I do.

Well said!!

For 150 years bicycles have been considered a human powered vehicle. And yes people have added motors to them and it's called a motorbike or motorcycle. I have no problem with that. But your attempt to DE-HUMANZIE the bicycle with motors & batteries does offend me. Your insistence that the world conform to your arbitrary redefinition, that predates your existence by an entire lifetime, is egocentric at best and bordering on narcissism.

BS: Here's what I said:

What I find most interesting is you eBikers claim that the motors only provide a small additional assistance but that your pedaling provides most of the power. Well if this is the case, bicycles are already equipped with sufficient gears to move forward with minimal pedaling. Catrike and similar human powered vehicles are available that provide extremely low gearing and circumvent any balance issues.

The argument that you find your motorized vehicles more fun and allow you to go fast to "keep up" with others at events where others are human-powered is what I find appalling. It's this kind of poser mentality that I find a huge negative to the cycling community.

^^^^This.

I really don't care what anyone else rides or how far they ride or how much weight they carry or don't carry. It's about setting goals for myself and trying to reach those goals.

The French route is by far the most popular and more than likely the one your dad walked. I've no direct experience of it myself but the guy I was cycling with has and he says it is becoming seriously overcrowded. This was the main reason we chose the far less popular Camino de Levante which was almost deserted of peregrinos (pilgrims) till we reached Zamora, about three quarters of the way.

wow.

Yep. I direct you back to my post-number-49. "Appalling" may be hyperbole but it definitely makes me feel if the limited bicycle infrastructure becomes just another part of the motorized transportation systems that exist in abundance.

BTW: Although I tried to refrain from responding to this thread any more. I feel that I need to defend my point of view from browbeaters intent on portraying me as a hater of persons with physical disabilities, because I am not!

Different spokes for different folks. My sister is 65 and probably did 2 minutes of exercise in her entire life. She is thin and attractive. She would never buy or rent a regular bicycle to do the Katy of such on her own. But I could see her on an E bike. This makes me think I should set up a Katy trail family reunion. I'm obviously very opinionated, but that does not me right.

E-bikes give another chance to prove my curmudgeon status by sticking to a pedal bike made of steel.

Seriously, the need to take offense and complain is too strong in some folks....

There ya go, 27 gears are better for hilly terrain than just 1 gear... It's a "helper system" it helps you do the trip.

Same with E-Assist it "helps" the people (that need more help) who use it to make the trip rather than not even start...

Now when does "helping" turn into "doing", and the person just rides a motorized bicycle? That is a good question...

IMO The E-Bike laws in the USA have crossed the line and allow those types of motorized bikes, and I agree, they are not a bicycle with some assistance, they are a motorized bicycle...

What is considered a bicycle in Europe is an E-Assist with less than 350 watts and assist cuts out at 20MPH, and PAS only, no throttle... That is the type of E-Assist I also consider a bicycle... Just enough power to "help" but one MUST actually pedal about 70% of the distance/effort it take for the bicycle to get from A to B... If yu don't need or want to use that kind of a "helper" ( and that IS the operative word) than don't use it, just like if you don't want to use 27 speeds as a "helper" don't use it, ride a pure single speed bicycle...

EDIT; And then, when riding a single speed you too, can consider yourself completely off the reliance of the Sherpa's holding your hand, and always there to "help" you...

'Only slightly motorised'.......sounds a bit like 'only slightly pregnant'.

"Only 27 gears", not a "any real help at all" system... Honestly.

You make it sound like people are pressured into using E-bikes "to make the trip." But maybe instead the person needs to maybe redefine what the trip is before thinking about utilizing a motor for a bike tour.

A motor helps someone do what? Go faster than they could on any gear range under their own power. Get up hills faster and being less tired than they could on any gear range.

If the person is not in shape enough to pedal up hill or keep up with company, then the person needs to either review the gearing on their bike, train more, change the route, or just plain be slower and hope their friends understand.

As everyone else says, it is not a competition, it is not a speed contest. But touring does require planning. It does require being ready (mentally/physically) for using a bicycle as a mode of transport.

I am not saying ban E-bikes, but I think the person using it needs to define why they are doing it. I rarely (ie never) hear of someone trading in an E-bike for a human-powered-bike. If it is "because I can't bike up that hill," or "I can't ride that far", turn that around into a can-do attitude. It may take a long time, you may get tired, but train for it. Earn it.



I understand what you are saying. I think we are in the same boat and I will do the same.

Nah, you're just a hater of people not doing stuff your way.

First of all, I repeat: Switzerland is not hilly. It's mountainous. Words mean something. Same applies to so-called "e-bikes." They are not bikes at all. At best, they can be described as pedal-assisted motorbikes. Calling the activity of riding a pedal-assisted motorbike "bike touring" is like calling hiking "bike touring." Completely different activities. And on the gears question, single speed bikes are bikes just as multi-speed bikes are bikes. The important distinction between a bike and a non-bike-that-looks-like-a-bike is how it is powered.

Twenty four you don't need more.

I don't thing many people get pressured into using E-Bikes at all, if fact to me it seem the exact other way around. There's huge pressure not to use E-Bikes, and if you do, somehow you failed. It's the basic theme I get. Failed yourself, failed to ride what you actually did ride, failed the bicycling community, You are cheating, you are riding a motorized bike and not really putting in the effort you must, to be called a bicyclist... And yes, I do put in less effort, about 30% less than anyone else riding 100Km the same road the same distance at the same time, weighing the same, traveling the same speed. So what, I don't say I rode 100Km that day, I say I rode 100Km that day with some assistance, The assistance equal's out to about 30%, thus I actually only did 70Km under my own power. What is wrong with that? Riding 70Km is way better than riding nothing... JMO

Twenty seven you're in heaven.

Anyway, it's the gear range, not the number that really matters. Also, I've never seen a bike that moves, no matter how many gears it has, without pedaling (except with the help of gravity or wind, etc.). E-Bikes? Turn the throttle and go. Or however it is you make it go. Really don't ever want to find out. Push a button? Never mind, really don't want to know.