Reasons why E bikes are actually better than presented here
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My knees like the support of E-bikes, after having argued against them for more than a decade for similar reasons to yours.
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I also take them when I am exhausted, since I can tune in some support if I need it.
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My friend with MS does use her E-bike and when that isn’t possible her electrical wheelchair.
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I use the bike even for hilly and steep routes since then I can add a bit power
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I have more control over when I get to some points, meaning that I ride the bike more (since I can add/reduce the power that is supplied by the motor)
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long trecks and tours are much easier with a group of five when everyone got E-bikes (as long as no wheel gets hurt). In our case that involved kids who we normally had to curate routes for very well. Now we have an ease of use that wasn’t there before.
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the overall product quality of the E-bike is higher and that means it is much easier to ride and the components do last longer than what I would’ve bought instead. The maintenance though is slightly more expensive.
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driving in cities is much less a problem since I am not angry having to stop in front of signals and also getting speed is much faster, meaning I can cut a few minutes from most distances
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transporting heavy things is actually much easier (this includes material from shops, food, but also bike trailers for kids
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I feel much more save with E-bikes next to cars. For various reasons, one is that the base speed I got is good and when I use a short muscle power burst I can get the 28-33km/h that are at tempo 30 zones usual. Couldn’t ride that speed the whole distance though.
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I just use the bike much more than my non E-bike during similar times and get more distance covered with it.
That’s not really an argument against e-bikes though, it’s an argument for lowering the maximum speed they’re allowed to reach using assistance from the motor.
What difference does it make if e-bikes are restricted to a speed that the average “analog” bike can easily do though?
The problem here is if you live in a place with hills and want bike paths to be major transportation pathways that serve double-digit percentages of the population, you need to.
Grandma is not cycling unpowered for 10 min up a 10 degree incline to get to the shops, even if she can in principle do that. As long as speed limits are enforced, it’s fine to have a motor.
TIL that bicycles can’t go faster than 20mph.
Car accidents are famously a negligible cause of death amongst teenagers
I commute in my child crusher™ gigatruck that somehow has a worse mpg than if I were to chug diesel and walk the same distance by foot
ebikes are ‘gay’ or something idk
“Bikes are unsafe” says Mike of the Ford company, known for its “ChildCrusher ™” trucks.
Look.
Just because pedestrian deaths went up 70% between 2010 and 2021, much of which is attributed to light trucks, and just because trucks have gotten significantly larger and more geared towards NOT doing the things they were designed for, that doesn’t mean Mike here is a clueless jackass who is also complicit in making life more unsafe for pedestrian-wait
