Deristricted E Bikes

[Super Sywurm]

Why not say that e-bikers should ride with the Motor GP guys, rather than the mountain bike guys?

Food for fought.🫣

[ChrisF]

3 hours ago, DuncanDoughnuts said:

45km/h on road bike ? oh my I feel cheated now. I want a E-road bike now

 

Hiehie ....

 

if you have the need for adrenaline then you know where to get your 45km/h MTB ..... pun intended ....

 

 

 

 

 

 

PS - The European and our SANS rules does NOT distinguish between types of pedal assist ebikes - 250W maximum assist, and 25km/h maximum assist speed.

[ChrisF]

8 minutes ago, Super Sywurm said:

Why not say that e-bikers should ride with the Motor GP guys, rather than the mountain bike guys?

Food for fought.🫣

 

Hey watchit .... "pedal assist e-bikes" dont have a throttle .....  🤣

 

 

O-wait, that only applies to some legally imported and compliant e-bikes .....

 

 

 

 

 

Now how many start chute inspectors would know that the "throttle lever" of an e-MOPED is operated by the LEFT thumb ....  Most bikers might think it is a dropper post lever, or a shock lock-out ....

[ChrisF]

1 hour ago, Heinrich Hattingh said:

Not sure what "racing" is being done here. It's taking part in an event with lots of people, coming in 1st or 350th doesn't matter, they just want to have fun. People want to take part in adventure sporting events and get outside. Racing happens for the analogue chaps at all the "marathon" events and at specific E-bike national and world championships for those on e-bikes. 

Anyway, the debate about ebikes and chaps not liking it is old. It's not a fad, it's not even the future of mountain biking, it is mountain biking. 

 

As correct as you are, the odd ebiker starts in the top groups, then drags his buddies into contention for the serious racing .....  THIS is what the OP was asking about.

 

As long as WE (yes, I am an ebiker) start 30 minutes back, then the potential impact of an ebiker to the real race results is omitted.

 

 

 

As you rightly say - I race against three people .... me, myself and I.  Improving my previous race time, improving a particular segment, these are my personal goals.

[mecheng89]

1 hour ago, DuncanDoughnuts said:

Ebiking is not Mountainbiking, it's a whole new sport. 

its the same as when Mountain-bikes came on the scene and the road bikers scoffed and turned there noses up (cycling in general is full of elitists ) Ebiking is a whole new sport and it is in the process of finding its feet. One day it will be classified as  different class of riding and racing on its own. 

There are many teething problems and they will eventually be sorted and once the numbers grow enough there will be events that are ebike specific and there wont be the cross contamination that some of the elitist on here are moaning about. 

 

But totally off topic now...

De-restricting ebikes is uncool. Just like some drugs

Tell me which drugs are cool. 

[mecheng89]

Friday loading............

[The itch]

i did a bit of scratching around https://www.2oceansvibe.com/2020/06/05/if-your-e-bike-goes-faster-than-45km-h-you-might-need-a-license/

on another note , if event organisers ignore the dedicated EBike category and deristriction inspections , do they open themselves up to being sued by spectators or participants who are injured by a rider using an derestricted ebike.

[sirmoun10goat]

Who cares if the bike is chipped? Battery size is the issue. A chipped bike vs a standard bike on a 500w battery both have the same power to deploy over the same distance. 

A bigger battery or spare battery is a bigger benefit. 

Edited February 7 by sirmoun10goat

[ChrisF]

1 hour ago, mecheng89 said:

Barreries charging...........

 

Fixed it for you 👍

[Ian Blomeyer]

I ride a e mountian bike. It got me out the office and living a healthy life.  I do want to ride races one day. I don't get what all the fuss is about chipping a e bike. I find I can only pedal up to about 30kmph and I run out of gears. So how is chipping going to change the gearing. Surely it's about the gearing. Also I have Turbo mode. That only gets more power to the back wheel to a point where you can't pedal any more. Am I missing something.  When I rode my old normal bike I got 80kmph down a hill it had 3 gears in front and 7 at the back. My Specialized e bike has 1 in front and 12 at the back.  No where near the same gearing for top speed. 

[zeerpuD1]

Ian, you got it perfectly right. I have an e-bike, normal MTB and road bike. I ride all of them at certain times. There is no way that an e bike can keep up with a road bike for long. Maybe on the uphills (6% +) I tried it in our group ride. The gearing just isn’t up to it. As you mentioned that even if the bike is derestricted you can only pedal so fast. My bike cuts out at 32km/h witch is good enough for me. Even if the cut off speed were 40km/h I want to see who can do that for any extended time. The bike weighs at least 10kg more than a normal bike so you have to take that into account as well. As some mentioned you can put it in turbo and go as fast as you can… till the battery dies on you, then good luck. My bike “died” on my twice during a “race” and I had to pedal a very heavy bike for more than 20km. No fun at all. So why do people complain. You get really stupid people on all kinds of bikes, not just e-bikes

[Me rida my bicycle]

I don't care about the speed of your e-mtb. On the trails your speed is determined by your skill, going 40kph with no skills you will move much quicker in the helicopter to hospital, that's if you have medical. 

[mazambaan]

15 hours ago, sirmoun10goat said:

Who cares if the bike is chipped? Battery size is the issue. A chipped bike vs a standard bike on a 500w battery both have the same power to deploy over the same distance. 

A bigger battery or spare battery is a bigger benefit. 

Purely theoretical but is it only the presence of pedals that make it an actual e bicycle? I am thinking of the latest in e motorbikes overlapping with ebikes. Latest lower end ebikes (Giant) have 800W batteries.

But separately the ebike category on strava seems to be becoming competitive all on its own; for climbs nogal (may as well be on a motorbike). I would be more impressed if there were "boss of the berg" sections for the downhills; maybe there are?

Disclaimer; I ride a tatty old ebike.

[DuncanDoughnuts]

7 hours ago, mazambaan said:

 

But separately the ebike category on strava seems to be becoming competitive all on its own; for climbs nogal (may as well be on a motorbike).

Just that comment makes me realise that you have no idea....

[mazambaan]

16 hours ago, DuncanDoughnuts said:

Just that comment makes me realise that you have no idea....

Pray elaborate or is there some kind of cool ebike code I am not aware of? I ride with some of these guys (and I ride a dirt bike) so I just cannot see the point of riding an ebike on max power up non-technical single track / jeep track; the novelty wears off quickly as there is (IMHO) little skill just pedaling.

[ChrisF]

4 hours ago, mazambaan said:

Pray elaborate or is there some kind of cool ebike code I am not aware of? I ride with some of these guys (and I ride a dirt bike) so I just cannot see the point of riding an ebike on max power up non-technical single track / jeep track; the novelty wears off quickly as there is (IMHO) little skill just pedaling.

 

Different strokes for different folkes ....

 

More to the point - the ride of the day has a huge impact on when, and how often, you use higher power settings on an ebike.

 

For the purpose of illustration:

- 250W maximum assist

- 500W.h battery

 

Now if you truly used full boost then you will drain the battery in 2 hours (seriously over simplified, but close enough for this purpose)

 

Now if you are doing a few laps of a trail and you USE your ebike as a "chair lift", hey why not use the boost ?  If it is the fun factor that gets you to feel young, GO FOR IT !

 

Doing a 50km MTB ride the game changes totally.  Now battery conservation has to be part of your thinking ..... Are you keeping the juice for the head wind, or are you keeping it for a particular climb ?  Rest of the time you are going to be in Eco-mode.

 

Long rides on tar .... whole different approach.  You only use the boost when absolutely needed.

 

Road racing, yet another approach.  I take a spare battery, and I know just how hard I can push it to complete the route as fast as possible ... but the strategy changes fast if the wind comes into play.  Also something which often happen in races - I use a slightly higher power setting, thus getting up to speed quicker, and maintaining speed up slight inclines better.  BUT, due to the pace of these events I spend a LOT of the flats above the speed-assist limiter, thus not using any battery for long stretches ... suddenly a long climb and I use a higher assist level and can see the battery dropping faster .... it becomes a little mind game to see just how hard you can push it, and not drag a lead sled back the last 10 km ....

 

 

A lot more to it than just up the power and GO .....  the large number of ebikes running out of juice on the CTCT confirms this.

 

 

 

 

And YES - I have also maxed the motor to get a KOM on a hill climb.  Vines and Views 2023 I put in the hours and worked towards the Skaapkop hillclimb.  On the day I stretched my first battery as far as possible, swopping out 10km before the hill climb.  Last 3km I sat up and slowed down, getting my breathing and heart rate down. 50m before the climb it was FULL BLAST !!  e-bike in full turbo, and my in max heart rate as well !!  I blasted up there and got the KOM..... well, until two school kids blasted the field off the mountain 🤣  IF I do V&V2024 I most certainly WILL practice even harder, and try to beat MY OWN time.   (my time was logged as an ebike before the prize giving)