On balance, I still am not a fan of e-bikes (previously known as ‘I just don’t get E bikes’)

[Oldskool26er]

Surely there are other threads where this has been discussed to death and revealed that the ebike argument is much more nuanced? It's like complaining about mouse shit when there's an elephant in the same room about to drop a load.

They use far less resources and energy than a car or motorbike (and I own neither of those). Mine carries all of my shopping and firewood. After major surgery and removal of a foot of small/large intestine a few years back, I no longer have the energy to cart those back on a push bike (and would actually struggle to eat/digest enough to "just eat more and pedal"). The alternative for me would be to learn to drive and buy a car.

I use a non-electric mountain bike for recreational cycling, but wouldn't hesitate to use an electric one if I was not longer fit enough or even if I was just having a bad day health wise.

As has been said over and over in numerous threads all over the internet...NOBODY including me is condeming anyone with physical or any other health issues for riding an E-bike. The reality is people with the mentioned issues are outnumbered 100 to 1 by people who just don't want to put forth the effort it takes in riding a traditional bike ...

 

[Oldskool26er]

because all of the things it takes to make an ebike are cheap to the manufacturer but expensive to the consumer. Look at an ebike, what exactly is amazing new technology that hasn't been around in other fields for many many years being refined and crafted to the point where R&D costs have been soaked away and now they are cheap as chips to make? but as it's a slightly novel use for it, the makers get to claim all of the R&D is ongoing and that's why theirs a premium. have a skeg at some of the ebikes on the market and half of them aren't even full frames anymore, Weight isn't an issue, so instead of nicely welded, carefully constructed frames we get slapped together chunks of iron with holes in the frame.

but hay, they have their place still.

Yes they have there place but not on people powered hiking or single track. They belong on motorized trails or parks with other motorized vehicles

 

[dyna-ti]

on the road the deliveroo lot seem the worst, always a crappy bike with a crappy bolt on kit, bike in poor working order, usually twist and go, no bike skill, no road sense,

Its actually worse than simply no road sense, in my experience they're a danger to themselves and others.

They ride in an utterly arrogant manner, way worse that your usual bike courier of the 90's. You can be sat at lights on a busy road with 1/2 dozen other commuters, and some prick on one of these with the big square box forces their way through, through the red light and tries to make it past the cross moving traffic.
I feel i have to take it upon myself, especially with left turning buses and trucks, to position myself to a point where the two wheeled idiot cannot filter up the left ,which is probably the most dangerous and often fatal thing an inexperienced cyclist can do.
Just because i dont want to have to deal with the sight of one of them getting crushed to death when they dont make it through in time and that gap closes to the point they're forced under the wheels.

 

[FluffyChicken]

At what point does an ebike become a motorcycle/scooter?
At what range and power?

In my city they are allowed in the bike lanes with little regulations.
Some are really fast and heavy bikes.

In the UK, everything @jonnyboy666 mentioned about 'they should just get motorbike', the Deliveroo bikers, the trail riders. These people ''are' on motorbikes.

As soon as the power is greater than 250W, which is what happens when they derestrict them, or if they have twist and go, or if assist happens over 16mph, then it becomes a motorbike in the UK. Illegal to ride on cycle infrastructure, bridleways etc, they needs insurance, license, helmets indicators etc to ride on the road.
The police don't bother too much, which is not a problem until they are in an accident.
They need to make this a more social and additional category, as they're better for commuting than a car when only one person is being moved. They also need not to be seen as e-pushbicycles in the eyes of the public.

 

[rwm1962]

I used to do a few shifts at the town centre branch of a bike shop I worked at. Got a lot of food delivery guys in to borrow a pump or needing puncture repair. Lovely fella's. But skint beyond belief. Bodged DIY conversions on the cheapest Mongoose hardtail. Brakes & tyres run down to the bone & a big issue to replace. Often borrowing the money off a friend. Most of them were from African countries where the highway code for cyclists is a little different from the UK's.

 

[jonnyboy666]

a response to a few of the comments:-

@rwm1962 Bentley Components, he does various silly top caps, not cheap but well made, and no, not all weather is nice! not even with the best kit!


@synchronicity regards what mode i use, my bike has Eco, Trail and Boost, which mode i use depends on the ride i am doing and how i feel, obvs i don't want to ride everywhere and make it easy to the point of pointless, my fitness has been dodgy this last 2 years as covid has made my shop crazy busy and i have been sacrificing my time outside of work to do extra work, as a result i felt i wanted an e bike to do the bigger rides, i still take a few weekends off to hit Wales etc, without the e bike i'd struggle to do some of the riding i want to do, or rather i just simply wouldn't enjoy it. also with my bike sometimes the more powerful modes don't actually help in the way you think they would, Eco mode gives me 25% of the motors power, spinning on the road i'm almost at the 15.5mph cut off quite easily, if i go on trail or boost then i'm in and out of the cut off and it's like the bike hits the brakes, so sitting under the cut out is better, and can make the riding more mellow. when it comes to climbs, i did coed y brenin last november, there is a big gravel climb towards the end, quite long and quite steep, one day i rode up it in eco mode after doing a big day, i span up there comfortably at a sensible speed, not flying, the next day towards the end of the ride which was shorter i came to the same hill, it started to piss down so i thought get back to the van asap, so i hit boost mode, started off fine as it helped me accelerate but then you have to sort of keep the bike at a certain speed in whatever gear that means to keep the motor in a power band, if your pedaling slows you sort of drop off the power band so it becomes harder, what i found was it was easier to spin at a slower speed in eco or a slightly slower speed in trail mode, it's almost like the boost mode was too much power and you struggle to keep with it, weird i know. the other thing that makes a difference as to the mode i pick is the terrain and mileage i want to do, hilly terrain i won't get that 110miles in eco, i think 55miles in trail but again not in a hilly area so overall i find myself using eco and then trail if i feel i want it on some hills. hope that explains it a bit for you.

@DrGooGoo as has been said there's a point where i think an e bike does become a motorbike, here the official limit is 15.5mph and 250watts, people flout that all time, the bolt on kits don't have the same restrictions as the fully built bikes and these are quite often used as cheaper than cars for commuting which make sense but again these are usually non cyclists using them, what i've found is "proper" cyclists tend to buy quality e bikes that are complete, almost like the kits are the inexperienced riders choice, but often problematic.

@rwm1962 to your point about deliveroo riders borrowing stuff, yes i think you are right, i'm not town centre based but a friend is, he has now banned e bikes from the shop, he'll do some things but refuse anything utterly crap (same as me) but when one comes in with one broken spoke, he'll insist on full respoke or he won't touch it and insist they only bring him the wheel, also he says they come in with a bike in an absolute state, want you to drop everything and fix it there and then and then want to pay nothing or very little so now he tells them to go away, he's a super busy shop with a loyal customer base who pay him to fix carbon frames, high end Di2 work, bike fitting etc that he can charge good money for so when a moody ebike rider comes in and expects to pay £10 for 3 spokes to fitted to a crap wheel that may take a lot of time to remove and refit to the bike and you're fighting rust and abuse and they want to wait while you fix it he just thinks no that customer is not viable to spend time with, to me it seems rude not to help but i agree that you can dig yourself a deep hole and that customer doesn't care how hard the job can be they still want to pay bugger all because they only get paid bugger all. problem is we can't all work for bugger all, we all have bills so if you're not making the money out of that job for the time you spend on it you have to start saying no, sad for them but still true for us.

 

[DrGooGoo]

@jonnyboy666 I agree, what you have is a true ebike. You rarely see those in my city. Most common are the FAT tire ones that look like mini dirtbikes and weigh over 100lbs. They have pedals, but I rarely see anyone pedaling.

 

[dyna-ti]

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[Imlach]

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[greencat]

On longevity/repair etc, if there's a big enough market there will be spares, repair regardless of what the manufacturer wants. Just look at the iPhone market. You can likely find multiple outlets on any high st that has someone who will repair even a ten year old phone if you really want to.

I agree on the obnoxious (sometimes unconscious/sometimes not) behaviour of some ebikers. I was chewed out by some young lad on a bike who took objection to my passing them on my fiido. It wasn't a close pass, I wasn't ripping past him - he simply didn't like the idea of someone passing him with ease at speed ie 12mph. Tough shit basically - I wasn't out there for fun, but to meet my missus who was terrified of walking home alone in the dark - and I've been riding at least a couple of decades longer than he's been alive. Some riders seem to see it as a personal affront. There's an old hypercompetitive hippy type on an ancient road bike equipped with, of all things, aero bars who is chatty enough - but always desperate to prove he can go faster. Fair enough, mate - I grew out of that kind of stuff when I was in my 20s.

Equally, I do find it rather annoying when my eMTB friends simply blast past on a technical steep climb when I'm on a normal mtb. It does feel like rubbing it in a bit and is rather disorientating - a bit like the first time you see someone talking to thin air and realising they are hands-free on a phone. Against the natural order of things, but I guess I'll get used to it.