Pedelec assistive ride and non assistive road bike ride

[Don12]

Hello,
I am close to getting a pedelec commuter bike and will be using it 4 times per week for an approximate roundtrip commute of 30 miles per day. I was wondering for those of you who use a pedelec and still enjoy a non powered road or mountain ride if the pedelec helps or hurts your human powered biking experience. My pedelec commute will be for the regular reasons (avoid arriving sweaty, enjoy a cycling ride to work, get a little exercise, etc)but I am concerned it will hurt my non assistive road biking experience. Does anyone experience a loss of human power after using an assistive pedelec or in the long run does the assistance help in your totally human powered rides?

 

[slomoshun]

...Does anyone experience a loss of human power after using an assistive pedelec or in the long run does the assistance help in your totally human powered rides?

Work builds muscle and stamina, less work not so much.

 

[Barry S]

Hello,
I am close to getting a pedelec commuter bike and will be using it 4 times per week for an approximate roundtrip commute of 30 miles per day. I was wondering for those of you who use a pedelec and still enjoy a non powered road or mountain ride if the pedelec helps or hurts your human powered biking experience. My pedelec commute will be for the regular reasons (avoid arriving sweaty, enjoy a cycling ride to work, get a little exercise, etc)but I am concerned it will hurt my non assistive road biking experience. Does anyone experience a loss of human power after using an assistive pedelec or in the long run does the assistance help in your totally human powered rides?

If you're not doing any biking now, any pedaling whether assisted or not is going to enhance your health. Now, if you're already a bike commuter and are looking to move from a non-ebike to an ebike then your experience will depend on how much work you expect the ebike to do.

I plan on getting an ebike in the coming months, and in the meantime I continue to pedal unassisted for 15 miles round-trip each workday. I have the luxury of a single-user restroom at work where I can change and wipe down using bathing wipes so I don't offend my co-workers. A nearby fitness club where I could get a real shower would be wonderful, but there's none around the industrial area where I work. My ebike strategy will not be to stop pedaling, but make my ride to work a little easier and less moist and save the real sweat for the ride home. I recently met a fellow bike commuter with an ebike and he told me that he goes throttle-only to work to avoid sweating and then does pedal-only home for his workout.

 

[Dunbar]

I did big miles on road bikes with power meters before getting an e-bike (Juiced Bikes Cross Current.) My suggestion would be to get something with a torque sensor as it better mimics a ‘real’ bike feel (the electric assistance is proportional to rider input.) The e-bike experience is more like a stationary bike (lots of steady state pedaling at the same power.) You can get a good zone 1 or zone 2 type workout on an e-bike but it will be difficult to do interval training. So you could definitely get all of your base miles on the e-bike and do your interval training on the regular bikes. Don’t believe the nonsense out there that e-bikes can’t provide a good workout.

 

[Don12]

I did big miles on road bikes with power meters before getting an e-bike (Juiced Bikes Cross Current.) My suggestion would be to get something with a torque sensor as it better mimics a ‘real’ bike feel (the electric assistance is proportional to rider input.) The e-bike experience is more like a stationary bike (lots of steady state pedaling at the same power.) You can get a good zone 1 or zone 2 type workout on an e-bike but it will be difficult to do interval training. So you could definitely get all of your base miles on the e-bike and do your interval training on the regular bikes. Don’t believe the nonsense out there that e-bikes can’t provide a good workout.

Thank you both PCDoctor and Dunbar. Yes I do ride my road bike often and love hills. This is solid advice and will use my new CrossRip as more of a zone based workout (endurance). A dry(no sweat) ride to work is what I am looking for, no showers or facilities where I work.

 

[Ken M]

Hello,
I am close to getting a pedelec commuter bike and will be using it 4 times per week for an approximate roundtrip commute of 30 miles per day. I was wondering for those of you who use a pedelec and still enjoy a non powered road or mountain ride if the pedelec helps or hurts your human powered biking experience. My pedelec commute will be for the regular reasons (avoid arriving sweaty, enjoy a cycling ride to work, get a little exercise, etc)but I am concerned it will hurt my non assistive road biking experience. Does anyone experience a loss of human power after using an assistive pedelec or in the long run does the assistance help in your totally human powered rides?

I've been riding 13 miles each way on a Polaris Diesel ebike (a 25mph Pedelec with a rear hub motor that is very much like a Stromer in performance). I've lost 25 lbs in 4 months so you get any level of workout you want. I like to ride as fast as I can to keep my commute times low and love the workout I get.

I would highly suggest you get a class 3 pedelec with as much power as possible such that you could maintain high speeds without a ton of sweat but you will get a workout unless you stay below 20mph and just allow the bike to do the bulk of the work.

A technical tip that few mention. Mid drives are awesome for climbing and speeds below say 15mph but once you are riding at high speed and running on say a 44T front chain ring and an 11T rear literally 75% of the motors assistance torque is lost in the gear ratio. Rear hub motors are not as good of slow speed climbers but with the torque directly applied at the rear wheel they have a definate performance (and efficiency) advantage at high speeds (especially above 20mph). The older Bosch mid drives with the smaller front chain rings that spin as 2.5 the rider cadence do a pretty good job of reducing the losses but with the loss of some low speed climbing torque.

I have both type of eBikes and prefer the hub motor for urban mobility but it's a powerful 750W hub motor (gearless as the gear models tend to be less reliable but they can provide more torque at slow speeds).

 

[Barry S]

I've been riding 13 miles each way on a Polaris Diesel ebike (a 25mph Pedelec with a rear hub motor that is very much like a Stromer in performance). I've lost 25 lbs in 4 months so you get any level of workout you want. I like to ride as fast as I can to keep my commute times low and love the workout I get.

I would highly suggest you get a class 3 pedelec with as much power as possible such that you could maintain high speeds without a ton of sweat but you will get a workout unless you stay below 20mph and just allow the bike to do the bulk of the work.

A technical tip that few mention. Mid drives are awesome for climbing and speeds below say 15mph but once you are riding at high speed and running on say a 44T front chain ring and an 11T rear literally 75% of the motors assistance torque is lost in the gear ratio. Rear hub motors are not as good of slow speed climbers but with the torque directly applied at the rear wheel they have a definate performance (and efficiency) advantage at high speeds (especially above 20mph). The older Bosch mid drives with the smaller front chain rings that spin as 2.5 the rider cadence do a pretty good job of reducing the losses but with the loss of some low speed climbing torque.

I have both type of eBikes and prefer the hub motor for urban mobility but it's a powerful 750W hub motor (gearless as the gear models tend to be less reliable but they can provide more torque at slow speeds).

Regarding your statement that rear hub motors are poor climbers, it's my understanding that applies to Direct Drive hubs. Everything I've read indicates Geared hubs are good climbers. Is my information wrong?

 

[Don12]

I've been riding 13 miles each way on a Polaris Diesel ebike (a 25mph Pedelec with a rear hub motor that is very much like a Stromer in performance). I've lost 25 lbs in 4 months so you get any level of workout you want. I like to ride as fast as I can to keep my commute times low and love the workout I get.

I would highly suggest you get a class 3 pedelec with as much power as possible such that you could maintain high speeds without a ton of sweat but you will get a workout unless you stay below 20mph and just allow the bike to do the bulk of the work.

A technical tip that few mention. Mid drives are awesome for climbing and speeds below say 15mph but once you are riding at high speed and running on say a 44T front chain ring and an 11T rear literally 75% of the motors assistance torque is lost in the gear ratio. Rear hub motors are not as good of slow speed climbers but with the torque directly applied at the rear wheel they have a definate performance (and efficiency) advantage at high speeds (especially above 20mph). The older Bosch mid drives with the smaller front chain rings that spin as 2.5 the rider cadence do a pretty good job of reducing the losses but with the loss of some low speed climbing torque.

I have both type of eBikes and prefer the hub motor for urban mobility but it's a powerful 750W hub motor (gearless as the gear models tend to be less reliable but they can provide more torque at slow speeds).

Thanks for the advice. Yes I just don't want to get on my non electric, human powered road bike on the weekend and feel exhausted after some miles and hills because I've been using my electric assistive bike all week. I think maybe the thing to do for me, is power to off assistance and enjoy my ride home without assistance. I am definitely going class 3 and looking at the CrossFit+. Thanks again for the great advice from many knowledgeable riders on this e-bike forum.