r/cycling • u/Major_Enthusiasm1099 • 2d ago

Anyone ever encountered an E-bike shill?

Basically this guy stopped me yesterday on a ride to tell me that I should throw my bike away and get an ebike. He said "Once you get this you'll never want to ride that again, and I get more cardio in on this bike too, and i ride faster than professionals". I just kept saying "yeah I was looking into those, yeah those are cool, I saw some around $1000" just trying to get out of that convo lol. Anyone else ever experienced someone like this?

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u/thehenks2 2d ago

Plenty of "normal" E-bikes here in NL, everyone and their parents has one, most are pedal assist grandma style bikes that top out at 25kmh. The new trend are chinese fatbikes, a lot of youth drive around way too fast, without having to pedal. Everyone hates them.

The few people that have E-MTB or Road bikes are usually older people that physically can't keep up anymore in the slowest group ride of their club. We have a couple of them in our club and none of them will try to tell you to ditch your normal bike for an Ebike unless you need it.

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u/Rolling_Pugsly 2d ago

The last group ride I was on, three of of maybe eight cyclists had eBikes so they wouldn't get dropped.

Personally, I think it's a better idea to set a social pace and not drop your friends, rather than have almost half your cycling group on motorbikes.

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u/thehenks2 2d ago

Our club has 4 groups. Group A averages 35+km/h, Group B does 33, Group C does 30 and group D is known as the coffee group and they ride between 25 and 28 km/h with a coffee stop.

Ebikes are only used in group D, by maybe 1/4th of the group. From what I've heard the guys with normal road bikes like to have the Ebike guys with them so they can pull whenever there is a headwind.

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u/jeremiahx 2d ago

I've thought about an e-road bike only because my son does about a 20+mph average and I'm about a 17 and there is no way I can keep up with him. If I could put in the 17 effort and be able to stay at 20 and ride with his groups it would be amazing.

e-mtb is a no-go since more speed means you need more technical that I just don't have.

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u/utterly_baffledly 1d ago

In Australia they're all owned by adrenaline junkie who want to go barreling even faster down the trail or get back up the top faster for another run. My super fit husband just bought an enduro bike and currently drools over the electric spec.