Should e-bikes be allowed in Cycle Tour and other Races

[Jbr]

16 minutes ago, Nick said:

Ebikes are not as fast as you think. Especially if they adhere to the max assist speeds and wattage rules.

It would be carnage if the ebikers went out first at a road race.

Agree, it's a bit of a pain and I think a frighting experience when the elite bunch has to pass slower riders. If we now have to pass 30 riders with absolutely no sense for sharing the road / riding with other riders close to them, I think this will create accidents... I know I'm making a shortcut here about e-bikers, sorry, but I do believe most of them are sunday riders like my wife, and it's a minority of them who have a solid cycling experiences and moved to e- over time for whatever reason

[Jewbacca]

I just think doing anything other than just accepting them within their parameters is creating more unnecessary problems.

Integration always seems to rile some people up irrationally. Model C schools, e-bikes, disc brakes...

There always seem to be a minority that hold onto some weird sense of 'right' instead of taking the time to see that integration, change, acceptance and embracing the inevitable is far more beneficial and better for your health.

All the whining just sounds like it's copied and pasted off a 4x4 forum where 'real cyclists' are the bike hating car drivers and the e-bikers are the cyclists who don't belong on our roads......

[The Ouzo]

they have their place, as long as the people riding them are honest with themselves and others that they had assistance.

I see far to many perfectly able people riding them.

If they stick with their factory installed speed limiters they should not pose to much of an issue from the middle of the field upwards.

[Eddy Gordo]

41 minutes ago, Jewbacca said:

The events industry is wrecked guys.

If e-bikers had to split, there would be less paying entrants, which would probably be a tipping point for some events.

Lumping them in with everyone else keeps the industry going. It allows events to generate revenue and be sustainable.

After 2 years of being dead in the water with no income, the organisers need all the revenue they can get to start digging themselves out of the proverbial hole.

There are massive, far reaching financial and logistical implications at play that far exceed your butthurtedness.

Embrace the change, don't fight it. It's happening whether you like it or not and for now it NEEDS to happen.

This, goes for every small to medium business out there. We for example are fighting daily. Getting stock is a major issue, customers dont realise this. Shortage of supply, lack of manufacturing etc. Instead people spread rumours as apposed to support local business. Slightly off topic, but I agree about the generating of revenue. Things are far worse than what we realise.

[Eldron]

7 minutes ago, Jewbacca said:

I just think doing anything other than just accepting them within their parameters is creating more unnecessary problems.

Integration always seems to rile some people up irrationally. Model C schools, e-bikes, disc brakes...

There always seem to be a minority that hold onto some weird sense of 'right' instead of taking the time to see that integration, change, acceptance and embracing the inevitable is far more beneficial and better for your health.

All the whining just sounds like it's copied and pasted off a 4x4 forum where 'real cyclists' are the bike hating car drivers and the e-bikers are the cyclists who don't belong on our roads......

Mixing motors into a human powered race creates inequality not equality.

 

[W Smith]

3 hours ago, MongooseMan said:

You sound very concerned about what other people are doing, when what they are doing has no effect on you.

Maybe you should think about that a while.

Best post on this topic.

[Eldron]

14 minutes ago, ouzo said:

they have their place, as long as the people riding them are honest with themselves and others that they had assistance.

I see far to many perfectly able people riding them.

If they stick with their factory installed speed limiters they should not pose to much of an issue from the middle of the field upwards.

In many ways they are self regulating. 25kph will only really help you uphill where wind resistance doesn't really matter so sitting behind an ebike won't affect the outcome too much.

The only place I see actual conflict would be bloc headwinds (especially towards the end of a race 🙂)

I just don't understand the need - there are generally short/medium and long races - if you aren't fit enough to ride the long ride the short or medium. Work towards a goal - jumping on an ebike to finish your first 100km makes the effort meaningless.

[droo]

It's happening, get used to it.

 

Personally - I don't see the point of riding a funride on an ebike, I would feel zero sense of achievement. But I'm not going to try and tell everyone they can't do it, they may have their reasons. Just don't be a knob when passing on climbs and we can all be friends.

 

All the ebikers will do to me is make me feel a bit better about my efforts knowing that barring a crash I should beat all of them on a road bike I've had since I was 16.

[Eddy Gordo]

I keep getting, you need an ebike........ this when I mtb. When I mtb I am chilled, its my time out, I am solely there to enjoy the descents. I walk the steeper parts of the climbs and cant be bothered. When I ride my roadbike its a different ball game all together. I have some pretty good segment times, mixing in the top 5 and top 10 on strava. Anyway, I finally got one of my riding buddies to get a road bike. One ride in and he cant keep up, complaining the entire ride and this was just a 20km ride with boyes drive as one of the climbs. When we mtb he has the biggest mouth as to why I should buy an ebike. 

Other ebikers also like to push the reasoning, but ask them if they can still ride their bike when the battery is flat, or it develops a problem silences them right up.

Let the ebikers be its just another cycling segment, eventually they will adjust events suitably.

[Skubarra]

1 hour ago, Nick said:

Is the problem in this scenario really the ebiker though?

Not sure what you mean?

[DIPSLICK]

being number #57885 out of 80k does not bother me if an E-bike comes in before me, I like the fact that E-bikes get traditional NON cyclist out there "riding"

what I dont like is "cyclists" who are going faster than their skill allows, and in races that means they will get frustrated and take risks they shouldnt  indangering others

so completely different batches, in fact they should pull away last or seperate E_bike specific races 

saying the above I am yet to ride with an E-biker not trying to  out ride normal cyclists

 

[Nick]

1 minute ago, Skubarra said:

Not sure what you mean?

Riders can choose who they draft. Is it the ebiker to blame if others decide that they feel it acceptable to draft?

[ChrisH]

3 hours ago, Longbarn Killer said:

I don't consider an eBike a bicycle and therefore I do not believe they should be allowed in any cycle events. 

What is the challenge of doing an event if you allow a motor to assist you?

 

What is the challenge of doing an event if you have pedals and a chain to help you? Stick to the original bicycle design if you want purity. 
 

[RobbyB]

The term Race means "competition" - a contest of "Speed".

As a child you learn to compete with the aim to win (but not so much in today's world it would seem!!!) It makes NO DIFFERENCE whether I am leading the race or whether I am "mid-pack" or whether I'm a tail-ender - I'm still competing and would like it to feel like a "fair" race.

I don’t enter a race to have people who are not on an equal footing as me (for example: by taking performance enhancing drugs / riding a bike with a motor on it etc.) compete against me! My ROAG seeding puts me with riders who are similar in speed over the distance and I get a GREAT experience in competing against riders who are similar in speed to me.  This, to me, is what I ENJOY about participating in a race.

I'm also competing against myself - to see if I can better my time for this race from the year previous.

I have no problem with e-Bike riders entering races but please let them go first so that they don’t crush the spirits of riders slogging up a steep hill and having the "mosquito" brigade (some e-bikes unfortunately sound like a pesky mosquito sneaking up on you in the middle of the night - I experienced this in the Wartburg Race (KZN) a few weeks ago) pass them on the hills.

These same e-bike riders also stopped at the last two water tables (after having just passed me before their first stop) and so overtook me THREE times.

So in my conclusion - it's just very ANNOYING to have to interact with these e-bike competitors during a race so I would appreciate it if organisers could make a plan to separate different bike types and give all competitors the feeling that they are competing on an equal footing…

 

[BTW Jewbacca- it has nothing to do with not accepting E-Bikes…

It has nothing to do with "integration" - (I had to laugh at that one)…

It has nothing to do with a small superior minority…

It has nothing to do with embracing the inevitable…

 

It is all to do with the Race Experience and a bike with a motor should be separated from human powered bikes in a race. Unfortunately there are a likely minority who don’t like racing and try to put down cyclists who don’t want the race experience to be tarnished.

(As my grandfather would say - Put that in your pipe and smoke it!)

Edited February 22, 2022 by RobbyB
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[ChrisH]

 

[Pieterlab1]