drivetrain wears down faster, also ppl tend to shift less and ride in smaller gears.
ebikes on the Shore
She's got a point
I was visiting a friend who purchased an ebike so I finally got to try one for a few minutes. This was one of those commuter type bikes but is like a hardtail. It's crazy. You barely have to push on the pedals and the thing rips.
An ebike would be great for shortish commutes. Don't know about getting one just to skip pedaling up Fromme.
They’re so rad around town. I have a longtail and it’s made me want an e-singlespeed for around town as well.
Off road? Not what I’m looking for from mountain bikin.
Posted by: switch
I was visiting a friend who purchased an ebike so I finally got to try one for a few minutes. This was one of those commuter type bikes but is like a hardtail. It's crazy. You barely have to push on the pedals and the thing rips.
An ebike would be great for shortish commutes. Don't know about getting one just to skip pedaling up Fromme.
Lime bikes in N Van opened my eyes. The off the line torque is ridic.
15 mins from CDN Tire to Lonsdale Quay and I doubt my heart rate passed 100. Just had to train the brain to accept that when you hit top speed, there was no point to pedaling harder.
Last edited by: Couch_Surfer on Aug. 23, 2022, 1:41 p.m., edited 2 times in total.
Posted by: tashi
They’re so rad around town. I have a longtail and it’s made me want an e-singlespeed for around town as well.
Off road? Not what I’m looking for from mountain bikin.
Ditto. In Europe this summer couldn't always find regular mountain bikes so ended up on e-mtb's a couple of days.
It was like a dirtbike, but without the ability to feather a throttle. Just the on/off of turning the cranks, so the connection to climbing traction was gone. Also the ability to crank hard on the pedals was severely capped. Lots of falling over into bushes on steep loose climbs. The extra weight was surprisingly massive, which tended to suck the fun right off the top too, especially dragging that thing up out of bushes. Full X01 $15k bikes.
Rest of the rides spent on regular bikes were as expected. Big pedalling back to back days in the Alps during a heat wave, with burning sweat in your eyes and sore muscles and then high fives, followed by well earned shit eating grins on the descents.
Long street commutes on mountain bikes back to the shop in the heat after all that pedalling was a bit hellish though. On the E-bikes it was like being on a bus ride and not a drop of sweat anywhere.
----
I used to think for places like the Alps e-bikes probably made sense, but now I'm baffled as to why anyone would drop the coin for one of those things anywhere, besides the road
Last edited by: Hepcat on Aug. 23, 2022, 3:08 p.m., edited 1 time in total.
Agreed, awesome commuter machines.
Posted by: mammal
She's got a point
Yeah she does. So many crews in Squamish this weekend they ride by kind of smugly, which is lame especially when I pass them all on the descent. If you can't do the climbing and you can't do the descending either maybe just keep quiet and stay out of the way lol. Luckily if you're at a trailhead you can hear them buzzing a long way off and if you begin promptly there is zero chance they'll catch you on the descent.
Posted by: Hepcat
Posted by: tashi
They’re so rad around town. I have a longtail and it’s made me want an e-singlespeed for around town as well.
Off road? Not what I’m looking for from mountain bikin.
Ditto. In Europe this summer couldn't always find regular mountain bikes so ended up on e-mtb's a couple of days.
It was like a dirtbike, but without the ability to feather a throttle. Just the on/off of turning the cranks, so the connection to climbing traction was gone. Also the ability to crank hard on the pedals was severely capped. Lots of falling over into bushes on steep loose climbs. The extra weight was surprisingly massive, which tended to suck the fun right off the top too, especially dragging that thing up out of bushes. Full X01 $15k bikes.
Rest of the rides spent on regular bikes were as expected. Big pedalling back to back days in the Alps during a heat wave, with burning sweat in your eyes and sore muscles and then high fives, followed by well earned shit eating grins on the descents.
Long street commutes on mountain bikes back to the shop in the heat after all that pedalling was a bit hellish though. On the E-bikes it was like being on a bus ride and not a drop of sweat anywhere.
I used to think for places like the Alps e-bikes probably made sense, but now I'm baffled as to why anyone would drop the coin for one those things anywhere, besides the road
light e-mtbs. just to take the edge off…
If only we'd been on the $20k ones instead of the $15k ones it would have been all different...
Next time I'm in the Alps if there's no mountain bikes left to rent and only e-bikes, I'll skip and go rock climbing.
Last edited by: Hepcat on Aug. 23, 2022, 4:31 p.m., edited 1 time in total.
Posted by: Couch_Surfer
Lime bikes in N Van opened my eyes. The off the line torque is ridic.
15 mins from CDN Tire to Lonsdale Quay and I doubt my heart rate passed 100. Just had to train the brain to accept that when you hit top speed, there was no point to pedaling harder.
Lol, that illustrates the main downside of legal e-bikes on the road. That journey is, like, 10 mins max on a proper road bike cruising at ~28kph...
i.e. on legal e-bikes the cut-off is too low if the terrain is mostly flat.
Posted by: SixZeroSixOne
Posted by: Couch_Surfer
Lime bikes in N Van opened my eyes. The off the line torque is ridic.
15 mins from CDN Tire to Lonsdale Quay and I doubt my heart rate passed 100. Just had to train the brain to accept that when you hit top speed, there was no point to pedaling harder.
Lol, that illustrates the main downside of legal e-bikes on the road. That journey is, like, 10 mins max on a proper road bike cruising at ~28kph...
i.e. on legal e-bikes the cut-off is too low if the terrain is mostly flat.
I think the Lime bikes are capped at 25kph?
It's low to cyclists. But seeing how oblivious the non-cyclist is, I think bumping the top speed up would get pretty spicy in a bad way.
I don't see it as an alternative to a road bike, I see it as an alternative to the bus.
IME the legal cut off is fast enough, I bumped mine up a bit which makes my top gear more useful, but it’s unnecessarily fast in most situations.
They’re faster than regular bikes around town not because how high the top speed is but how fast you get there and how much of the ride you’re at that speed. Anecdotally, the only people covering close to as much ground as I do on a cheap longtail with two children on it are fully kitted out and pinning it on a road bike.
The legal cutoff is 32km/h for class 1 e-bikes. It looks like lime bike is lower at ~25km/h. All those RAD bikes that you see ripping around have a built in software option to bump up the cutoff speed to 40km/h (which would make all of them technically illegal, but that is for another thread). Im sure its not hard to bypass any of the e-bike cutoffs with enough knowledge and desire.
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