On 05/22/2016 03:19 PM, Joe Bernard wrote:
Understood..I'm not trying to convince you that e-bikes are a thing you should like. Mine is set up with a 0-5 pedal-assist, and I would use 0 for the riding situation you described. I like this motor on this frame in the conditions I ride in, but there are scenarios - like a MUP with joggers and people pushing strollers - where it would NOT be welcome. To reiterate before this turns into a helmet-type thread: This is a thing I did with my Riv, so I hollered about it on the Riv forum. YRMV, including thinking it's perfectly awful. That's ok! Now I better hush up and go riding...
No, I think collectively we are all a very, very long way from the way helmet threads are. Positions aren't hardened here; I think many people are trying to understand whether and where these things might be of value, and where they absolutely don't belong. That's the exact opposite of the helmet situation.
The folks I know in the bike club who use them are all to some extent physically handicapped: blocked coronary arteries, damage done by previous heart attacks, or "just plain got old and tired." Those folks have managed to integrate pretty well into a group while riding a fairly busy MUP, at least for short distances (the rides in question don't stay on the path where there's a real alternative).
I have seen the occasional electrified commuter who is clearly in too much of a hurry for the trail -- even the major league pathletes don't go quite as fast as that guy with the electrified Bike Friday -- and I've heard some major complaints from club riders about a guy who brought a pedelec on a club ride and used it to effortlessly zoom to the head of the pack while they were grunting up a long steep hill; somehow they viewed that as cheating.
One of those friends with an e-bike also mentioned another issue he's noted: speed vs range. He brought the e-bike to a moderately long and not slow (not fast, either, nothing like the higher rated classes) club ride, and discovered that he couldn't keep up with a 13 mph average speed group on a 50 mile ride without having to use so much power he ran out of battery before the end of the ride, and once that happened thanks to the additional weight of the e-bike he no longer could keep up on pedal power alone. To do 50 miles, he'd have to go slower to extend the range; but the groups that ride at that slower speed also ride shorter rides, and besides he could keep up with those folks on a non-electrified bike... provided they stay away from harder, steeper climbs, which they do as a matter of course.
So, then is there a role for a pedelec on a recreational ride? Where, if anywhere, do they fit in, and under what circumstances? Some of us are still trying to understand that.
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