Posted by: heckler
See 2:28 of the video.
My girl had a near asthma attack from pedalling so hard up a 1 km long 40 degree doubletrack hill in the Alps on a E-rental hardtail fatbike (can I say anything worse?!?). A techy, steep hill climb she (nor I) would have never attempted unassisted.
We E-pedalled up to 1827 meters altitude last weekend and finished a 38 km ride that day. Not once did we skid or spin our tires and the only trail damage we did was when she spat out a lung on the climb. Assisted speed was limitted to 25 kph, a strong climbing pace, useless downhill.
Im quite sure that regular use would improve our cardio.
The only reason we did it was the rental was 1/3 the price of a Reign and a lift ticket wasn’t needed. The first taste is free....
A blanket statement like "you get a better cardio workout" simply shows a lack of understanding. Coming from Dave I find the statement to be silly as he should know better in terms of what constitutes cardio performance. There's a disconnect between the statements in the vid and what better cardio actually is. There's also a disconnect between your statements and what better cardio actually is.
Time and intensity are the two things that will allow you to improve your cardio. An e-bike allows you to ride for a longer time at a lower intensity in the same way that a slow jog can allow you to go for a longer time than a hard run. For someone who is unfit or has a low level of fitness this can be a plus, but only to a certain point. The bike itself does nothing to improve your cardio, what improves your cardio is activity time and intensity. From a riding perspective if the steep trail is too much then pick a less steep trail or a flat trail and ride a regular pedal bike for a longer distance.
I'm not totally opposed to ebikes as has been well documented in the past, buts lets not confuse how cardiovascular fitness is improved on a bicycle with ebikes magically providing a better form of fitness. There's no doubt ebikes make it easier to pedal up a hill, but that doesn't necessarily equate to an improvement in cardiovcascular fitness. It will work probably work for some as it may be the motivator that gets them outside or moving, but there's also as much of a chance of an ebike limiting how far your cardio will improve or evening decreasing it if one comes to rely on the ebike.