Whatever you choose to ride, that’s awesome.
I was an e-bike hater. Mostly because I thought it somehow took away from the luster of fitness associated with riding a bike. It was cheating! You let the motor do all the work and that defeats the purpose of riding a bike.
Then I took a job that was too far to commute by pedal power alone. Even with mass transportation, the commute would be north of the 2 hour mark and still not get me there on time. The e-bike was my Hail Mary, and it was worth every penny. (Literally, I saved more money in fuel/tolls than I spent on the bike)
So what, you can ride farther, faster, carry more, and go anywhere a bike can – you still don’t get a good work out. You can. Any ride can be a workout. That snip is from one of the best rides I had last summer. I was trucking it almost the entire way and it was one of the most intense workouts I had all summer. It was on an e-bike.
Ride how you want, but an e-bike might make the Peloton blush a little.
by Smooth_Awareness_815
6 Comments
A torque sensor is the key to a superb workout.
Yeah, it really depends on the type of e-bike and how you use it.
I have a Koba ebike with a cadence sensor. It’s nothing special, goes max 20 mph, and I ride it when I don’t want to arrive sweaty somewhere. Let me assure you, I get a good workout from it.
Listen. If you’re purely riding a bike for exercise, and you intentionally want to expend as much effort as possible to accomplish that, then yeah, a regular bike is going to give you a better work out. I get why serious cyclists look down on them from that perspective.
But if you’re just trying to get from point a to point b, a bike is a bike is a bike. If I want to do a couple laps around the park for exercise, I’ll bust out my “analog” bike, but if I’m just trying to get somewhere, the e-bike is going to be faster, I’m still going to get a workout, and I won’t be (as much of) a sweaty mess when I get there
Any e-bike better than couchpotatong.
Constantly. My other favorite is “oh, it’s an ebike. No wonder”
Response: “I’ll let you borrow it loaded with the kids and you can tell me that it’s not hard”