Riding without the motor

[rob feature]

I could have sworn there was a thread about this, but I cannot find it.

That aside, work has been stressful lately, and the weather has gotten pretty nice...so I'm riding more. And the timing couldn't be any better. Starting a few weeks ago, my stress levels got so high, that the only way I could get to sleep at night was to work out for 4-5 hours per day...just wearing myself out. For some reason I took out the Allant when I should have been riding analog.

I couldn't ride slow enough with the energy I needed to burn, so I kicked the motor off. Before I knew it, I'd been riding 2 hours with no motor. On a probably 75 lb bike with all the crap on it. I did this for a few more days, then an 11-day vacation kicked in...saved by the bell.

But it sparked an epiphany. This is the time of year that I'm getting my legs back under me, and what better way to do that than to ride this thing initially with no motor...only using it to get out of a sketchy situation or get me back home when I get tired. I also want to get into bikepacking & this seems like a good way to make sure I wanna do that before committing to a heavy, bulky bike without a motor. A bikepacking simulator if you will.

I think I'm going to keep doing this whether or not I get the bikepacking thing going actually. It can be tough to get in a path workout without going too fast...people everywhere. But add 3 bikes' worth of weight onto one, and all of the sudden, you're putting in the work without hauling a$$. And I can carry the kitchen sink!

How about y'all? Anybody ride with it turned off?

 

[mschwett]

i'm a strong believer that if you're riding for pleasure, you should use the motor absolutely as little as possible. everyone can define "possible" differently. if your round trip to get to a vista is 50 miles but you only have two and half hours, then you need the motor to boost you from 15 to 20mph average. if you love riding up mountains but they're too steep where you live, then you need the motor to maintain a good pace going up a 10% grade. if you are happy riding at 15mph on flat ground, and have enough time to get wherever you feel like riding, then you really don't need a motor and frankly the experience is just as nice, if not nicer, to ride solely with leg power.

commuting and utility riding are a different story, where the goal is to get something done, maybe get a little exercise doing it, and crawling up a hill to your apartment at 4mph with 50lb of groceries is dumb.

unfortunately some e-bikes exact a major drag and weight penalty that really requires use of the motor for a pleasant experience. avoid!!

 

[spokewrench]

My Abound may weigh 90 pounds. I've run 304 miles since my last charge and the display says 69% is left.
My first 2 ebikes were single-speed, so I needed a bit of motor torque on hills. With the Abound, if 6 mph is fast enough, I climb without the motor. On a wide street with no oncoming traffic, vehicles often hang back to watch me climb. That's almost like respect!

Until I was 18, I rode English 3-speeds a lot. Hour after hour, I seemed to average about 15 mph regardless of hills. A motor would have been great when there was a headwind, though. Fifteen years later, my brother gave me one of his racers to tour the city with him. The low rolling and air drag amazed me. I thought it was not efficient for exercise because I couldn't pedal much without going too fast for safety, especially with that head-low riding posture.

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

How about y'all? Anybody ride with it turned off?

I end up riding my lightweight Vado SL in OFF about 30-40% of the time. No self-imposed rules about when to use the motor. Purely on whim — and the whim strikes often.

Can't put into words exactly what the attraction is. Heightened peace and quiet or appreciation of the natural soundscape in the absence of motor noise is certainly part of it. But there's a lot more to it than that.

The bike certainly makes a difference in my case. The agile 38 lb SL feels totally at home with the motor off. My less responsive 70 lb commuter just feels clumsier.

Once did a rolling 25-mile coast ride with the commuter off nearly all the way. Doable, but the ride's much more enjoyable on the unassisted SL.

 

[Brian-s]

Depends on how my knee is doing. Had a tibial plateau fracture and some days it will let me do our flat tow-path without assist, most days it won't let me do anything without assist

 

[indianajo]

I ride all winter with the motor unpowered. No drag, it is a geared hub motor. Battery stays in the garage under a heating pad. Weight of motor, I do not climb the 15% grades until freezing weather stops anyway. No heat in my drafty summer trailer. It's going to freeze tonight in late April, in fact.
Mainly, I bought the motor for headwinds. 30 mph in my face can make a normal 3.7 hour commute take 6 hours. TOO MUCH EXERCISE! Was really hot also the day I decided to buy a motor September 2017. Hips hurt after 4 hours, and I have tried 8 saddles without improvement.
The benefit of riding a 94 lb bike (with tools spares water & rain gear) all the time (no car), I detected a pulse irregularity this month just before sleeping. Most likely cause the cardiologist says, is blocked heart arteries. Dye test later, my problem is NOT blocked heart arteries. I've done all I needed to do to maintain my heart muscles. The electrical parts are up to the surgeon, or a pacemaker.

 

[gromike]

When I want the exercise I ride a pedal-only bike. No need for dead weight. Low gearing helps with the bad knees.

 

[gromike]

I I detected a pulse irregularity this month just before sleeping. Most likely cause the cardiologist says, is blocked heart arteries. Dye test later, my problem is NOT blocked heart arteries. I've done all I needed to do to maintain my heart muscles. The electrical parts are up to the surgeon, or a pacemaker.

Have you been checked for sleep apnea. I had problems with atrial fib, a CPAP machine ended that.

 

[Chargeride]

We've been infiltrated by healthy people.

 

[6zfshdb]

When I want exercise, I turn off the PAS on my 68# bike and pedal a few miles. After the "workout", I switch on the PAS and enjoy the scenery for the rest of the ride. This way, I can use the same bike for both exercise and enjoyment. No need to haul around two bikes. As a result, I recently sold my conventional Trek MTB's.

This may not work for everyone though, especially with a heavier bike or one that has drivetrain drag when the motor is off.

 

[E biker]

I set my PAS down to 3 from factory setting, that way I can get a little work out, but still enjoy what the bike can do if I need the boost from the motor.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Everyone of us has different needs. Due to my health condition, I must ride assisted. If I could do without the motor, I wouldn't hassle with the high cost and weight of an e-bike but rode the most beautiful traditional bicycle regardless the cost.

 

[spokewrench]

The benefit of riding a 94 lb bike (with tools spares water & rain gear) all the time (no car), I detected a pulse irregularity this month just before sleeping. Most likely cause the cardiologist says, is blocked heart arteries. Dye test later, my problem is NOT blocked heart arteries. I've done all I needed to do to maintain my heart muscles. The electrical parts are up to the surgeon, or a pacemaker.

In the 1950s, a Scandinavian heart specialist began giving heart attack victims an intravenous magnesium sulfate solution as soon as possible. Deaths in the following 6 weeks, which has been 20%, dropped to 2%. Hospitals around the world adopted it with great results. That was bad for the bottom line of a major drug company, who commissioned a worldwide study showing that magnesium sulfate did not improve survival rates but their drugs did.

Many heart specialists were outraged. The study specified a concentration much stronger than the doctor had specified. That would be like a saline solution that's too salty. More importantly, the study required all kinds of things to be done first. In some cases, it might be 20 hours before the patient got magnesium sulfate. My aunt was a nurse supervisor at a major hospital. Heart specialists there weren't fooled. They continued to keep the solution on crash carts, to be administered without delay.

Among other heart benefits, magnesium regulates electrical signals.

Around 2000, I read a big article by an endocrinologist in the Sunday paper. He said low magnesium is associated with every age-related disease in America. He said Americans were getting half as much as in 1910, and even then they weren't getting enough. About 2000, I met the 90-year-old father of a 40-year-old neighbor. The son was in such poor health that the father had come to rake his leaves. He was as fit and energetic as a bicycle racer. Once a week, he'd put Epsom salt in his bath water to absorb magnesium through his skin. I drink it in homemade mineral water, as a diet specialist recommended. Most Epsom salt is USP, meaning it's safe to consume.

 

[Chargeride]

Some riders can just lick their motor.

 

[indianajo]

Around 2000, I read a big article by an endocrinologist in the Sunday paper. He said low magnesium is associated with every age-related disease in America. He said Americans were getting half as much as in 1910, and even then they weren't getting enough. About 2000, I met the 90-year-old father of a 40-year-old neighbor. The son was in such poor health that the father had come to rake his leaves. He was as fit and energetic as a bicycle racer. Once a week, he'd put Epsom salt in his bath water to absorb magnesium through his skin. I drink it in homemade mineral water, as a diet specialist recommended. Most Epsom salt is USP, meaning it's safe to consume.

The blood test the week before the cardiology visit revealed my magnesium was 2.2 mg/dl. Just below the maximum of the normal range of 1.6-2.3 mg/dl.

 

[EMGX]

I'm not advocating for anyone buying a Qiroll friction assist motor but it could be a solution for someone who doesn't need the capability, or want the weight, of a traditional ebike but would like occasional assist. Total weight is ~3.5 pounds including battery so a typical aluminum bike can end up at ~30 pounds, it allows for the stock drive train and can be installed or removed in just a few minutes. Definitely not for everyone and I haven't found it useful on steep climbs but I used it a couple days ago on a ride with fairly long stretches of 5% to probably less than 10% grades ~30 miles with ~2000 feet of elevatin gain per Garmin Edge.

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

Some riders can just lick their motor.

Tried licking my motor on yesterday's ride but couldn't feel a difference. Maybe I'm licking it in the wrong place?
;^}

 

[spokewrench]

The blood test the week before the cardiology visit revealed my magnesium was 2.2 mg/dl. Just below the maximum of the normal range of 1.6-2.3 mg/dl.

I've read that blood level is not an indicator of adequate magnesium. The body will scavenge it from other cells to maintain the blood level. The endocrinologist said, for example, that adequate magnesium is necessary for 300 hormones. A British study of teeth found a strong inverse correlation between cavity count and magnesium content. Bones with less magnesium are weaker.

Soft drinks used to be bliss. In my teens, I'd drink them by the quart. When 2-liter bottles came out, they were the most economical form. If I bought one for a treat, it could be gone in a matter of hours. I didn't understand why one glass soon made me want another.

I may not have bought any soda in the 25 years since I started drinking magnesium. At first I did not know how magnesium had eliminated my sweet tooth. Insulin in the blood can reduce sugar to the point that you crave it. You consume sweets to raise blood sugar, but that raises the insulin level so that soon you want more sugar.

Magnesium helps the mitochondria of each cell burn sugar. Less insulin is needed. With less insulin, one can maintain a comfortable sugar level without consuming more.

Blood magnesium won't tell if you have enough. One British study found a way around it by tracking the magnesium content in the urine of classmates at a boys' school. An Epsom salt bath lets a person absorb a huge dose of magnesium. A boy got a bath every two days. It took several baths before urine levels quit rising. Until then, the body was obviously retaining some of the magnesium from the last bath. The experiment didn't yield numbers but did show that the average person would benefit from a lot more magnesium.

 

[indianajo]

I am not going to poison myself with any diet suppliement. There must be a reason adult over 50 vitamins only have 18% of minimum daily requirement of magnesium. Also a reason blood magnesium measurement has an upper limit. Another ion associated with heart stoppage in ultra-marathon trainers, potassium also tested totally normal. Several aged friends have died in their sleep from heart stoppage. One told me he had an irregular pulse, but did not trust doctors. He walked 2 miles 4 times a week on his acreage. Was found blue & cold one day by his son. I have decided to address the irregularities I heard when falling asleep by visiting and following the advice of physicians. Heart monitor confirmed pulse down to 50 with some weak beats for minutes when I am asleep. First cardiac surgeon reported I do not have his problem, artery blockage, test passed without action. Test for ablation surgery by electrical surgeon next week. Cancer does not appear in my family. Both my father & his mother smoked 60 years, no cancer. Both grandfathers smoked, one stopped after his heart attack, other died of a bad cold in 1938, no cancer. If the heart does not stop, and I don't get hit on the road by a car, I may live 30 more years. I'm having too much fun to stop. My younger brother reported Wednesday he has been on blood thinner for years due to irregular pulse. Thanks for keeping your defects secret, bro!

 

[harryS]

Walking around to the back of the big box lumber/lunchmeat store (they sell both) had me out of breath today. Rode the regular bike 4.4 miles today. Could have gone further, but It's a start.