I don't get why some people don't get ebikes.

[novekili]

Because they are not bikes. And I ride bikes.

 

[MattiThundrrr]

If it normally costs me 400 calories to ride 20 miles, but an ebike means I can do it on 200 calories then potentially that's less food I have to eat (and all of the associated carbon emissions). I can well believe that an electric motor is more efficient carbon wise than feeding extra food to a human rider. Counter intuitive, perhaps even annoying, but plausible

So by this logic, e bikers eat less on days that they ride? I doubt there is any data to back this

 

[Takingabreak]

For me, I don't want anything else in my life that I have to remember to charge up. My phone and my wireless headphones are enough.

Edit - and my toothbrush and my laptop and AM I BOVVERED? I guess I am a little

 

[greencat]

So by this logic, e bikers eat less on days that they ride? I doubt there is any data to back this

It's probably that they don't need to eat as much as the equivalent person of similar stature, age etc who is riding a non-ebike the same distance. If I'm burning 400 calories riding a normal bike to ride 20 miles, and an ebiker is burning 200 - I need to consume those additional 200 calories somehow - and that has an impact on the environment too.

In some ways, it should be self evident that electric powered transport could in some circumstances be more carbon efficient that human powered. One would never attempt to power our home lighting and appliances through human power alone when there are perfectly good and low carbon sources of electricity. which are more efficient that humans at generating electricity. Ebikes might, according to current data, also meet that sweet spot on the transportation front. Add in other scenarios eg the ebike displacing car journeys because people no longer arrive at the office hot and sweaty, or are able to transport their shopping home when they'd previously take the car.

For me, I use both ebikes and normal bikes so am not ideologically wedded either way. Ebikes I use for commuting, shopping etc as being in my 50s, having a physically demanding job, living in a hilly area with regular bad weather and a chronic health condition meant something had to give. It was an ebike or getting a car or stopping work as public transport provision is appalling around here. For recreation and enhanced fitness, I use a normal bike. If my health further deteriorated, I would happily join my ebiking friend who has only one lung and use an ebike for recreation too.

What we do need to do is make sure ebikes fit into the circular economy, and are ideally as robust, modular and easy to fix as normal bikes. My first ebike packed up after 4 years, and approx 10,000 miles. Not bad for a £350 bike. It required very little other maintenance as its a single speed. It is possibly fixable, but unlike a normal bike I do not know how. It's still rideable as a normal bike and likely if I give it away, someone will figure out how to fix it. My current ebikes, one a conversion/one not are built with more standard parts which should mean I can keep them running longer.

 

[synchronicity]

Well that's fine for commuting.
But what about plain old exercise?
You want to burn more calories not less!

I don't like them because they are going to make me too lazy.
They are heavier. I very much enjoy riding lightweight bikes. That's half the fun. Not 25kg ones.
I think many ebike (only) riders are missing the whole point.

Then, they claim (and rightly so) that the the ebike motor puts out more torque (or the average torque on the drivetrain is higher let's say), leads to increased wear (because it does) and then they have to beef up the chain and sprockets accordingly, further adding to the weight!

 

[dyna-ti]

I think many ebike (only) riders are missing the whole point.

No I think they are missing the point. The point is to have fun.

I hear those mtb riders against ebikes shout out utter nonsense about fitness, and nonsense it truly is. If they were interested in fitness, they'd own a road bike, not a mountain bike.
So spouting that argument is a fallacy, and it should be called out for what it is.

 

[greencat]

I agree. You can still burn calories on an ebike. It doesn't do all of the work for you. What it does do is lower the barrier to (re)entry to cycling and enable them to have fun, especially in hilly areas like mine. It's not unusual to encounter gradients of 14% around here, and some of those hills are 1/4 to 1 mile long. Few beginner riders with no cycling fitness are going to find those fun to ride. Even experienced and fit riders will put them in the challenging category, even if they find the challenge fun.

Most of all, what it does is modulate the ride. If I'm feeling super fit, I turn down or off the assist. If I'm having a bad day health wise, I'll whack up the assist a few notches. They are also really good for recovery. After my last gut surgery, I couldn't even walk 100 yards about a week out of hospital but I was on my ebike cycling and managed 10 miles. Just being upright, feeling the breeze on my face and able to do something helped me feel I was recovering and would eventually get back to normal.

 

[muddytreker]

Theres always another perspective from your own,
to only see yours you will never get it.

 

[Aech]

The carbon footprint seems to be calculated on a per distance traveled basis. If it normally costs me 400 calories to ride 20 miles, but an ebike means I can do it on 200 calories then potentially that's less food I have to eat (and all of the associated carbon emissions). I can well believe that an electric motor is more efficient carbon wise than feeding extra food to a human rider. Counter intuitive, perhaps even annoying, but plausible.

Ah but that's conveniently ignoring a huge part of the carbon footprint, I'll accept your premise that an electric motor is more efficient in it's use of energy than a human after all the human produces plenty of waste heat as they pedal their bike but once you add in the recharging of the ebike battery and the production of the battery/motor/controller etc to the total carbon footprint I suspect the balance will favour the pure human powered bike again.

I'm not against e-whatever's but I wish we would be told the true total impact on the planet of e-this verses old-fashioned-that.

I'm currently trying to get fit again following foot surgery to try and relive the pain following an industrial accident many years ago that stopped me riding bikes for the last couple of decades, as tempting as an ebike would be given I live in an area that nothing but up and down hills for miles around, I'm using a turbo trainer instead to slowly increase the workload as riding these hills is something I can't manage yet.

One of my neighbours posts his ebike rides on strada but doesn't state he's riding an ebike, all the locals must think he's the next Eddy Merckx.

 

[dyna-ti]

Whats not to like ? (not mine)