What a Difference Four Years Make

[McApple]

A small town nearby hosts a bicycle-tour-day every summer; the tours range from a 100k Mountain Madness, to a 20k easy-rider. The event attracts 150+ participants and all proceeds from entrance fees goes to the local mental health clinic and food bank. I usually alternate between the 65k road tour and the 50k gravel ride.

I did my first ride four years ago, and won a prize for being the oldest participant @ 72. That year, 2021, I was also the only ebike rider. Fast forward to this year's tour, which was held yesterday, August 24: the oldest participant was over 80, and the number of ebikes, while in the minority, was probably close to 25% of the field. How times change.

 

[DDBB]

It's great seeing a wider acceptance of ebikes anywhere.

 

[6zfshdb]

I've been ebiking for 8 years now and tend to ride the same trails multiple times each season. During year one, it was rare to see another e-bike. Today, on these same trails, every other bike I pass is an e-bike. Most are seniors like myself, with some teenagers in the mix tearing up the trails. For the most part, the 20 to 50 year-olds still ride conventional bikes and many don't seem to care for the e-bike explosion.

I ride mostly in the northeastern united states though, and these observations will likely vary in other parts of the world.

 

[JimFMB]

I’m also on year eight of riding an e-bike. During my first year I would get many questions from cyclists and walkers about the bike. Times have really changed. The most frequent comment I get now is “nice bike”
Where I’m located in Florida it’s seems that the e-bikes outnumber the traditional bikes.

 

[DaveMatthews]

Chiming in on my 7th year on an ebike. Like others I seemed alone here in my area. Now ebikes are ubiquitous.
Massive acceptance.

 

[McApple]

I bought my first ebike in 2016, we had purchased a cheap ebike for my DW earlier in the year, it was a cadence sensor, and pretty much took off to 20kph with the first crank. I could barely keep up on the flats, and she would lose me in the hills, and we have a lot of hills in our area.

I purchased a 2015 Haibike X-Duro, and had to drive down to New Hampshire to pick it up; quality ebike just weren't readily available in Canada back then. I had to part with my Haibike when getting my leg over the crossbar became too much of a chore; that was a year ago, I still miss it.

 

[DDBB]

My 1st ebike was a Haibike trekking 6.0 I believe. It's a very high quality bike but suffers from the meager 250 watt Yamaha motor. I then bought a Rize bikes RX with the bafang ultra motor and finally I have the power needed to effortlessly tackle hills. That said, the quality doesn't match the Haibke. If I could morph the ultra motor onto the Haibke frame, I would

 

[McApple]

My X-Duro Trekking had a Bosch mid-drive; I think it was their Gen-1 model.

 

[DDBB]

I'll just keep the Haibike. I don't think I could sell it for much and if the Rize is broken for whatever reason, I still have a bike to ride

 

[harryS]

When we were in Florida in January of 2018 and 2019, we didn't see but one or two ebikes on the popular paved bike trails. Now I imagine there are plenty of ebikes. 2019 was the last year we did the Bike-the-Drive thing where Chicago closes off Lake Shore Drive and lets 8-10K bikers do a 30 mile ride on a sunday morning. I saw no other ebikers in those days. We're going this weekend. Hope to see a lot of bikes and ebikes.

Back home in Illinois, we ride our local bike trail daily. Today on our 20 mile ride, we saw 41 bikes coming at us or going our way, And nine were ebikes, If I count our two ebikes, that's 25%.
.