Does getting an e-bike mean you eventually give up "conventional" bikes??

[GLJoe]

...
Will I eventually phase out the conventional bike ...?! Has this happened to anybody on here?? I'd like to do the road biking as a pure workout to increase fitness but use the KTM to go for blasts off road which have the emphasis on fun and enjoyment, not some gruelling workout like mountain biking used to be....!!!

If you want to use two wheels to explore mountainous, off road terrain. Then you generally travel more and thus get to see MUCH more using an e-bike, and the experience is generally a fair bit more pleasurable!

However I've found that while you can increase your fitness using an ebike, in general, you push yourself more, and thus get fitter on a conventional bike. I suspect that if you're (very) fit to start with, fitness will decrease if you use the ebike exclusively.
(although if you're unfit to start with, you may NEED the ebike to allow you to get out there, and that's the most important thing)

So it depends on what you want to get out of cycling.

Personally, I think having both types of bikes is the best of both worlds, then you can pick whichever one suits your purpose for that particular day. (and often I'll do something like do a hard workout or commute on a conventional bike one day, but then take the ebike the next to allow myself to do an extended recovery ride).

 

[sjpt]

I like the picture. I think I have slowed down to a typical 3mph already (used to do steady 4 or a little over, now just occasional 4); partly back issues rather than energy. Excellent you are keeping up 4 sometimes ... I hope I can in 10 years time.

Does anyone know a supplier of electric walking boots?

 

[youngoldbloke]

I think I'd still be riding a conventional bike if I could. Peripheral arterial disease has dictated the move to e-road, and I can now ride on the club leisure rides again but I'm finding the battery range a bit limiting. I'm very tempted to get back on the carbon bike and see how it goes, but suspect I'll be disappointed.

 

[flecc]

Excellent you are keeping up 4 sometimes ... I hope I can in 10 years time.

4 mph is for shorter level walks like half a mile to the local shops. After the break there I can repeat it going back until I hit the hill at the end. Then it's at least halved!

But it's increasingly dependent on how I feel from day to day, the times when I'm not up to it are becoming more frequent. There's no fighting the effects of age, the armchair always wins in the end.
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[Barrio Barranco]

I'm maybe a youngster at 50, but have collected 6 bikes over the last decade- a Carrera Vanquish, a TDF(heavy but would make a lightweight tourer) for the road, an ON-ONE Inbred I built that is my "conventional " Hard tail and looks set to share some bikepacking duties, a Carrera Fury(last nights road hack MTB) and a Claud Butler Virago I rebuilt last year both of which take turns commuting... Adds up to a fair bit of flexibility and choice and the KTM was a major jump financially, but I really don't need any more bikes (I took my GT Pantera to Tenerife last year it lives there now!)....
Sometimes having too many bikes can be detrimental to getting out- indecision etc... Road? Mountain bike?
Then there's the 4 kayaks and I usually walk our collie 7 or 8 miles a day at weekends (and once or twice 3-4 miles during the week when light after work-)This is where the KTM can help me fit 2 things in per weekend day that are leg dependent, if it's a walk/kayak that's fine as I'm on my butt for one activity!

 

[soundwave]

sell them all and get one of these

• TQ motor with 920W
• 1'050Wh battery
• €16'500 (dropper post is an option...)
• 45mph

 

[plenty]

I never had any interest in unpowered cycling, but since acquiring a pedelec last month am really enjoying it.

On the other hand I am a lifelong driving enthusiast and can foresee the pedelec supplanting the car to a certain extent. I love route planning and going for drives on pre-planned routes, and have been delighted to discover the wealth of info online on cycling routes.

 

[Andy McNish]

Depends how you use your ebike. I went for a 35 mile with a community cycle club last weekend. I use power assist just to keep my heart rate under 150. If my HR is less than that I just pedal it with the battery off. I think I used assist for all of 2 minutes total over about 2 and half hours before we got to the cafe near the end and went our separate ways.

As the ebike weighs the best part of 30kg laden with panniers etc. I probably got a bertter work out than I would have done on my unpowered MTB.

My standard 15km fitness route is also almost totally flat and about 5 minutes faster on the MTB than on my hybrid ebike.

But when I do the Tour de Manc charity cycle ride in May, 100km on a hilly route, I will defitely take the ebike!

 

[anotherkiwi]

Depends how you use your ebike. I went for a 35 mile with a community cycle club last weekend. I use power assist just to keep my heart rate under 150. If my HR is less than that I just pedal it with the battery off. I think I used assist for all of 2 minutes total over about 2 and half hours before we got to the cafe near the end and went our separate ways.

As the ebike weighs the best part of 30kg laden with panniers etc. I probably got a bertter work out than I would have done on my unpowered MTB.

My standard 15km fitness route is also almost totally flat and about 5 minutes faster on the MTB than on my hybrid ebike.

But when I do the Tour de Manc charity cycle ride in May, 100km on a hilly route, I will defitely take the ebike!

My standard "on the flat" fitness ride is 30 km (up from 27 km last year) and I hope to get back to doing it twice a week. Last year I was averaging 32 km/h at peak fitness so you can see the motor will be mostly extra weight with the cut off set to 25 km/h. I am still feeling yesterdays ride because of the hill in front of me now as I type. If you get it wrong in a car it is a first gear climb otherwise second gear.

 

[Gubbins]

Something others have told me and I am finding out for myself is that you need to keep doing it to be able to keep doing it.

As an older person ( meaning older than I used to be) I find that fitness can easily and surprisingly quickly be lost through inactivity and regaining it becomes a longer process as age increases.

In my case, as my wifes illness progressed I was unable to do much cycling or walking and for her last three months I was a total couch potato.
Moving forward I am trying hard but finding it difficult to regain my lost fitness so I walk most days, have tried running but ended up injured (twice), I ride the bike when weather permits and have ordered some home gym equipent but the road back, if there even is one, to where I was 18 months ago seems a long one.
Yesterday I did a 40 miler which is a start but although enjoyable wasnt easy and my legs are suffering a bit today so my target 100 miles per week and 60 mile single ride is still a long way off.
The phrase use it or lose it comes to mind.

 

[Jimo]

Walking?
At 81 I have difficulty walking 50 yds then near falling over with extreme lower back pain combined with breathlessness, I last cycled some 60 years ago - motorbikes ever since, I now have my Quartz e-bike and look forward to doing more riding - but who with at 81? Still, summer is coming so looking forward to it although still can’t walk any distance as breathing is assisted by 7 coronary stents only some of which seem to work.

In younger years I spent 28-1/2 as a London firefighter enjoying most of my time, now I feel almost reduced to scrap which is very annoying.

Jim

 

[flecc]

In younger years I spent 28-1/2 as a London firefighter enjoying most of my time, now I feel almost reduced to scrap which is very annoying.

Yes it is very frustrating Jim , I resent each stage of my own deterioration with age.

But try to keep your spirits up and enjoy whatever you are able to do with the e-bike. After all, 81 is just another way of expressing 18.
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[Jimo]

18? I remember it well - especially one morning peddeling to work in heavy rain, head down I was keeping rain out of my eyes when BANG - I collided with a parked lorry’s tailboard, fell to the floor then spent weeks recouperating from cuts and bruises In bed at home.......

Jim

 

[sjpt]

Our neighbour is 86 and thought her son buying her an ebike was really silly ... what was wrong with her old 'real' bike.? She went out for a ride on her new bike (with my wife on our recent electric bike), converted after about 2 miles (it took that long because the first mile was downhill).

 

[Fingers]

I was a keen and strong cyclist and only bought an e-bike originally to help with pulling a large heavily loaded trailer.

But despite that restricted e-bike use, it undermined my fitness and I found myself increasingly using the e-bike.

Only three years later I'd completely abandoned unpowered cycling due to the loss of enough fitness in my hilly area, and I owned three e-bikes.

So yes, e-biking destroyed my unpowered cycling. However I was in my late sixties then so that would have been an influence.
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I'm just having a spot of luncheon outside a pub in Central London and the amount of ebikes whizzing about is amazing.

It used to be the case you'd see one everyday or so but now it's easily 10 to 20 percent. True a lot of them are deliveroo riders but still the amount of ebikes compared to last year has grown massively.

 

[flecc]

I'm just having a spot of luncheon outside a pub in Central London and the amount of ebikes whizzing about is amazing.

It used to be the case you'd see one everyday or so but now it's easily 10 to 20 percent. True a lot of them are deliveroo riders but still the amount of ebikes compared to last year has grown massively.

The weird thing is how they are most popular in fairly flat areas, Central London is hardly the Alps of course, and a phenomenon we discussed long ago. They took off early in East Anglia which is famously flat, but in hilly areas like my North Downs they never have, I don't see any.

And the country where they are by far the most popular of all in Europe is The Netherlands which is the flattest country of all.

Bafflingly counter intuitive.

As they say in Yorkshire, There's nowt so queer as folks.
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[Jimo]

East Anglia ‘Famously Flat’? Its most definitely far from flat although not mountainous, probably depends on age of observer and one’s physical condition, flatter areas are to be found in Lincolnshire; today I went to get petrol and LPG and by the time I’d queued and paid I was totally out of breath and hardly able to re-attach myself to the car 30 ft away, a short journey later to visit Tesco and for the first time in my life my good lady wife had to push me around the store in a wheelchair!
Very degrading.....

Jim

 

[sjpt]

Don't forget the wind and the steep ramps over some road and canals in the Netherlands

 

[Barrio Barranco]

Well I'm in the Scottish Highlands, living 260m above sea level surrounded by mountains....I may be "only" 50 but I think an E- MTB for me is perfectly reasonable, with a spare battery I should be able to have a fair range in a radius from my house, and the one aspect of conventional mountain biking I hated was pushing the thing.... I need my wee van for sea kayaking but have considered selling both van and kayak as they don't get used that often (finding weekends with suitable(non-windy) weather, daylight, that the missus isn't working(dog duties) to get away is about twice a year).
As for getting a road e-bike I could see me converting one of my bikes which could be used to do a shopping run( nearest shop 8 miles) with panniers -and get rid of the van??

 

[flecc]

East Anglia ‘Famously Flat’? Its most definitely far from flat although not mountainous,

I'm thinking of Suffolk and most of Norfolk which are predominantly quite flat, as is much of Cambridgeshire.

I still maintain that East Anglia is overall one of the flatter areas of this country.
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