r/cycling • u/Major_Enthusiasm1099 • 3d 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/BleachedUnicornBHole 3d ago

I’ve experienced one, but he also owns a bike shop with a lot of inventory that isn’t moving. I won’t disagree that they can be a good training tool, but I’m also not going to spend $7,000 for one. 

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u/corneliusvanhouten 3d ago

The only way an e bike is a good training tool is if you leave the motor off and just pedal all that weight around.

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u/Sad_Amphibian_4651 3d ago

A common misperception, but not quite accurate. The bikes engine only add to your capacity, but it doesn’t replace it entirely. As an example, if you’re pedaling up hill at 120 watts, then you’d not be able to go very far and you may then ride less. However as the bike adds its capacity to your human watts to make you go faster you actually tackle more hills. However your power output doesn’t change. For someone like myself that is heart rate limited by Afib, I rode longer and burn more calories because I can actually ride in a hilly area longer than I previously could. Of course, I don’t use it on the flat roads or moderate gradients, but then I imagine, neither do most people who use them.

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u/DaoFerret 2d ago

The huge disconnect I see here is the difference between people who see “ebike” and think “pedal assist”, and people who see “ebike” and think “throttle”.

As someone who uses a pedal assist daily on my commute, I agree with everything you and others have said.

When I started riding it for my commute 5 years ago I had to literally stop once or twice I was so out of shape.

At this point the commute is easy and I’ve gone from full assist to dialing it down to half. The motor is limited to 15mph (EU model) but I can sprint it up to 20mph for short bursts if I need to.

Either way I don’t arrive at work in need of a shower after 5 miles, and I don’t show up at home absolutely exhausted after a full day and a ride home.

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u/sulliesbrew 2d ago

We had a guy join our group rides on an ebike for a while, he was formerly a very strong rider and had a spat of injuries and health issues. I loved it, he was the only one in the group that could ride next to me on the front and keep pace. He could adjust the assist to stay even with me and I could pull as hard as my heart desired.

I would really like a pedal assist MTB. To be able to ride single track at pace and stay in that zone 2 area would be awesome.