Deristricted E Bikes

[W Smith]

18 hours ago, saggy said:

and sadly when that day comes (and it can happen in the blink of an eye, I know this from personal experience), everyone will assume that you just riding it because you lazy!

 

 

Absolutely correct. In my case an unexpected heart related condition surfaced after 38 years of cycling.Thankfully an ebike allowes me to carry on cycling.

[saggy]

1 hour ago, W Smith said:

Absolutely correct. In my case an unexpected heart related condition surfaced after 38 years of cycling.Thankfully an ebike allowes me to carry on cycling.

very similar to me, One day I was training for the ironman and running ultra marathons .... 2 weeks later I was in hospital getting a internal defibrillator inserted into my chest.

My cardiologist told me (and still does) that I should take up golf or bowls. But I figure an ebike is a good compromise

 

[Pieterlab1]

I'm not old. 

I have no underlying conditions.

I am not lazy.

My eyesight is 100%.

I am fit.

My wife hasn't left me. Yet.

I ride ebikes because I love the speed!

[saggy]

15 hours ago, love2fly said:

My sister in law got an e-bike in order to keep up with her very fit husband which allows her to ride with him which would otherwise be impossible and she wouldn't ride and he'd be solo on his 90km rides ...

I still shake my head when an e-bike with a similar or more fit guy flies past me at (an unrestricted) 50kmhr on a climb ....mIm due to try an e-bike just for the fun of it in a few weeks but can confidently say that when I'm too old and **** to ride my Amish bikes I will ride a smokey 2 stroke off road bike....😎

and this is the kind of comment that gets to me ..... because you would shake your head at me

Im 50 years old and still look very fit and healty (if I may say so myself  )

[love2fly]

15 minutes ago, saggy said:

and this is the kind of comment that gets to me ..... because you would shake your head at me

Im 50 years old and still look very fit and healty (if I may say so myself  )

I'm sorry if it gets to you, I just dont understand it.....to elaborate, I'm not talking about someone who looks fit, the most recent was up a medium climb at a pace that would have dropped a road pro....I'm merely not understanding, NOT criticizing. My apologies if I got to you, that was not my intention.

[DuncanDoughnuts]

22 hours ago, Paul Ruinaard said:

have ridden a bike with a limiter and the thing is it isnt gradual - its a switch. So you need the assistance to be a glide path not a cliff. You hit the cliff on a way up a jump I agree it could be a dramatic Flying W nose wheelie if you are lucky enough to actually land it

But according to the judgemental folk on this forum, Ebikers are fat, lazy and have no skills and no right to enjoy the outdoors on one, so to even suggest that one could actually hit a jump is blasphemy.

I better go inform folks like Fabian Barel and Nicola Vouilloz , In fact every Professional EWS-E rider that they fat and lazy, and what's the point of of riding a uphill power stage when you have a motor

OK- Rant over. 

I will continue to ride my ebike and my Alanloge and you can think what you want. It's my life, you don't know my story and I don't care to have to explain myself. 

Back to the Main topic ... Unrestricted on public trails, I don't agree with. 

Riding ebikes I do ... It's gotten me back into the sport. and I'll continue to do so for as long as it brings me enjoyment.  

Edited February 14 by DuncanDoughnuts

[LazyTrailRider]

Here is Steve’s take:

 

[Paul Ruinaard]

5 hours ago, Pieterlab1 said:

I'm not old. 

I have no underlying conditions.

I am not lazy.

My eyesight is 100%.

I am fit.

My wife hasn't left me. Yet.

I ride ebikes because I love the speed!

especially uphill

[ChrisF]

9 hours ago, mazambaan said:

This reminds why I got an ebike. I was a 6 to 10 hour a week, Sani mid pack rider but approaching my three score years and ten I found that, on a pushbike, a 30km, 450m of climbing too 3 hours and left me weary for the day. On longer rides (eg. out of Die Hel), companions were having to wait half an hour or more for me. A solid climb up to a downhill trail at say Giba blue was a once off only and many short, steep technical (rocky zig zags that need momentum) climbs I used to enjoy left me shattered and had to be finished on foot.

ebike rewinds 15 years and I can ride more or less wherever I like, up hill and down dale (except in the rain, my ebike is sensitive like that).

 

Going off topic now .... 

 

Trans Augrabies has a number of shallow water crossings .... the front wheel picks up the water and there is a constant "rain" onto the battery .... WITH sand ....

 

The drainage holes quickly blocks up, then the water collects and the the system shuts down ....  (pretty much like what can happen in a long rainy ride)

 

 

Colour coded water proof down-tube protector velcro-ed in place stops this 100%

 

 

If I could find colour coded velcro you would not even see it.

 

 

Okay, the controls would still be exposed in heavy rain .... sure you can find a work around for this .... if you really wanted to ride ....

[ChrisF]

6 hours ago, love2fly said:

I'm sorry if it gets to you, I just dont understand it.....to elaborate, I'm not talking about someone who looks fit, the most recent was up a medium climb at a pace that would have dropped a road pro....I'm merely not understanding, NOT criticizing. My apologies if I got to you, that was not my intention.

 

@KB280DT 

 

We were riding in December, coming back along Addelery we were doing that nasty litlle climb towards Spes Bona.  @KB280DT had "slowed down" by now, as this was towards the end of our ride ... Next moment an ebike BLASTS pass us ....

 

I burst out laughing .... and commented about "those blerrie ebike racers...."  .... this while I was idling along on my ebike with my amish buddy.

 

 

WHY did that gent "race" up that hill ?

 

WHO CARES !?!?

 

 

I have done the same up Odendaal so many times.  Call it training for the end of 99er.  Call it hill repeat .... call it high intensity .... call it what ever you want .....

 

 

Fact is on an e-ASSIST bike you only "blast" up there when YOU are putting down some watts to begin with !!  On a typical Odendaal race I am in zone 5 for most of that climb .... I am getting a workout .... while the onlooker sees something completely different.

 

 

HOWEVER .... I very seldom "blast" past other riders.  As e-bikers we need to remember that rider at 10km/h is sweating bullets up Odendaal .... no matter my zone 5 heart rate, it is between rude and demoralising to just "blast" past such a rider.

 

I was properly reminded of this at Durbie Dash.  Between Klipheuwel and Adderly I properly blasted up a hill, to stop at the top, get the camera out and take photos of a friend .....  I blasted past two other riders on the way up - OUCH !!  They gave me a verbal lashing ....   (I appologised when they passed me taking photos)

 

[splat]

1st world problems:

https://ebiketips.road.cc/content/news/dutch-police-have-a-roadside-device-for-identifying-illegally-fast-and-powerful-e-bikes

[Pieterlab1]

6 hours ago, Paul Ruinaard said:

especially uphill

Exactly!

[V18]

All this back and forth on whether or not ebikes are for the lazy among us. I AM lazy. And if I had the cash to have another bike, it would be an ebike trailbike...For LAZY reasons. Sure I can train more on my IDT and join 5am rides in the area on my roadie to level up myself. But I don't. I like my bit of inslaap. And that's kind of ok for my total life effort right now. Is it as healthy as being in peak condition? No. Certainly not. But it suits my lifestyle and current mental/physical load. 

I suspect many ebikers in the sub pro level are in a similar mindset as the one I have projected now. 

If my current lekker amish trailsled gets stolen...an ebike would replace it. I'd have to be damn careful though to not slip into a lifelong dependancy papte. Akin to "juicing" I guess.

Viva ebikes! 

#notaslegitasbeingfit

[Paul Ruinaard]

8 hours ago, V18 said:

All this back and forth on whether or not ebikes are for the lazy among us. I AM lazy. And if I had the cash to have another bike, it would be an ebike trailbike...For LAZY reasons. Sure I can train more on my IDT and join 5am rides in the area on my roadie to level up myself. But I don't. I like my bit of inslaap. And that's kind of ok for my total life effort right now. Is it as healthy as being in peak condition? No. Certainly not. But it suits my lifestyle and current mental/physical load. 

I suspect many ebikers in the sub pro level are in a similar mindset as the one I have projected now. 

If my current lekker amish trailsled gets stolen...an ebike would replace it. I'd have to be damn careful though to not slip into a lifelong dependancy papte. Akin to "juicing" I guess.

Viva ebikes! 

#notaslegitasbeingfit

Ed Zackery. Well said that man!

21 cycle tours, 13 x 94.7s, Epic, Sanis, Jocks, Hells of the north (many of these multiples). Some with some crazy fast times for an oke built for the front row of a rugby scrum. 

Who knows how many results on crazy other races over the last 25 years where we just pitched up and rode.

I love cycling and i love the feeling of being out on a bike. 

Now I just want to enjoy riding my bike at this age and enjoy the company of mates. An ebike allows me to get my less than fit fat self to the front of a bunch, pull them into a headwind for a bit so i feel like i contribute, pace nicely up a climb and generally enjoy feeling like i am able to ride with the fast guys again, and enjoy the camaraderie of a good hard fast ride without spending the three months prior on a trainer and eating chicken salads, or the afternoon after the ride comatose on the couch.

I will cite the Dricus amendment:

"Hulle weet nie wat ons weet nie"

 

 

[Shebeen]

Amazed that some people still don't get it.

STILL

I first saw an ebike in Amsterdam, when a woman in a business suit overtook me and my mate in a park without hardly pedalling. He laughed at the look on my face and said, get used to it. He raced cyclocross semi competitvely, and this was 15 years ago.

 

people who ride ebikes are cyclists. it's got nothing to do with your age or fitness. They are cyclists, and they are keepig the bikeshops busy too now it seems.

 

they are going nowhere. we have had this conversation in other threads. get over it.

 

This thread is about derestricted Ebikes, if you want to moan about them existing, or who buys/rides them then go here to flog the horse with a 0BPM heartrate

 

 

 

Edited February 15 by Shebeen

[BuffsVintageBikes]

Best of all, the people with e-bikes don't give a continental f&^k what others think about their e-bike habits, they're just loving their bikes. It's just the amish riders that are stuck-up about it and have a bug to bare 🤣

We recently bought one for my wife after she rented one on a trip to Tuscany and really enjoyed it. Now she hits the trails with me every second morning and she's loving it. Her dual-susp Anthem has been hanging in the rafters for the past 5 years, untouched because it's too much of a mountain to climb (literally & figuratively) to get fit enough to ride with me. Now she doesn't need to stress about that. How's that not a good thing?

After breaking my collarbone and damaging my knee in an accident in Oct last year, I used the same e-bike for my knee rehabilitation. It allowed me to still get out and enjoy my favourite trails without placing full load on the knee. I'm now converted and see one on the horizon for me as well in the not to distance future.

They're freaking great at what they do and that's get people off couches and onto saddles. Sounds like a win to me 🤙

Ain't no way I'm de-restricting that bike either.  I'm already struggling to keep up with her in the mountains, I have no intention of making my life harder 😅