E-bikes and exercise intensity

[mtechnica]

if you output the same amount of power you’ll get the same workout no matter what bike... lol...

[Dave]

The new Cannondale looks interesting, but I'll bet the price is really high. I could see using minimal or no assist on the easier parts of my ride and cheating on the toughest hills. I often get reminded how slow I've become when a serious rider half my age goes way faster up a big hill. I'd love to keep up.

I'd be able to ride quite a bit farther with a little assist. Most of my routes are tough, so l limit the length of most rides to 40 miles.

The real conclusion to the e-bike test should have been that it's up to the rider to decide how hard to work. I always use a heart rate monitor to insure that I'm not loafing or over doing it. A power meter would just be a reminder of how low my power output is for a given heart rate.

[Tony]

Originally Posted by benb

Read the study.. it is pretty thin.

They had the riders ride a fixed course it sounds like it was just 5.5 miles... on average it took them 38 minutes on the conventional bike and 26 on the eBikes. (8.8mph on the bikes vs 12.9mph on the eBikes) . 700ft of elevation gain so pretty good actually.. longest climb was 5% for 1 mile.

They used the old 220-age thing to estimate heart rates. Average HR on the bikes was 155 vs 145 for bike:eBike respectively.

It does sound like they had a good mix of riders based on age & fitness.

I think this would be much better if they:
- Did a lot more miles
- Did it on road or something where technical limitations were taken out of the equation

Wrestling the eBike if it weighs 50lbs through an actual real mountain bike trail would make the difference in effort a lot higher I think. You can't tell what they were actually riding through though.. buffed & flat would be very different than rolling/hilly/mountainous and rock/rooty/technical here.

My HR doesn't go crazy MTBing anyway unless things get really steep. If I run my HR/power up towards threshold too much it's a great recipe for a crash cause I won't have enough in reserve to ride smoothly, etc..

While demoing an ebike here in Auburn CA where many trails are rocky, technical I found the weight to be beneficial in some areas, felt more planted, less effort. Have you rode one?
Several friends including myself are waiting for refinement before purchasing, maybe next year.

[benb]

I've rode eBikes in the past but not for the past few years... I haven't tried any of the new wave of fancy ones.. certainly never tried anything with the high performance we're starting to see.

Let's be clear here.. this a single study with a small sample size that sounds like it only tested one day on one course! It has not been tested or duplicated anywhere else yet. It's not that meaningful from a scientific standpoint. There could be big flaws in it.

The really disappointing thing about the test is they could have done so much better just by fitting Garmins or Wahoos + Power meters to the bikes and using something like Training Peaks to mine more insight out of the data.

I wonder if another factor in this particular test has to do with a lot of time spent descending and that the course sounds like it kept speeds well below the speeds where the eBikes stop assisting (20mph).

[benb]

Originally Posted by Tony

While demoing an ebike here in Auburn CA where many trails are rocky, technical I found the weight to be beneficial in some areas, felt more planted, less effort.

Demoing.. could have been that the eBike was better setup for your weight. Also the total weight of the eBike is so high it reduces the % of the system that the rider contributes.. I think that makes it easier to get the suspension in the sweet spot assuming we're talking suspended mountain bikes.

Motorcycles always felt like they had wide sweet spots compared to mountain bikes to me.

[Mark McM]

Originally Posted by jamesdak

I saw that study mentioned locally yesterday too. Isn't power a lot more accurate than HR to study exertion? We sure hear that on these bike forums all the time.

Maybe on a road bike (or riding on generally smooth terrain), but not necessarily for riding technical off-road terrain. Riding an off-road motorcycle through technical terrain can be a work out, even if the rider is supplying no power to the drivetrain.

Which gets to another point: This study essentially tested recreational eMTB riding on off-road terrain, which is quite a bit different from utility riding on pavement, so I don't think you can extrapolate the results to all types of e-bikes. Afterall, much of the enjoyment of eMTB riding is from the speeds you can attain and maintain over terrain, so it should be surprising that the main difference wasn't the power the riders applied, but the speeds they rode. In a way, adding a motor to the eMTB might be analogous to riding lightweight or aerodynamic bikes - riders usually don't get lightweight or aerodynamic bikes so they can work less, they get them so they can go faster for the same amount of work.

[redir]

I would be surprised to hear any 'real' cyclist say that riding an eBike is just as hard as riding their push bikes. I've ridden quite a few eBikes, man they are fun! But that 'study' is plain and simple BS. The eBikes I have ridden all you do is push on pedal and off ya go... Gimme a break

[Tony]

Originally Posted by benb

Demoing.. could have been that the eBike was better setup for your weight. Also the total weight of the eBike is so high it reduces the % of the system that the rider contributes.. I think that makes it easier to get the suspension in the sweet spot assuming we're talking suspended mountain bikes.

Motorcycles always felt like they had wide sweet spots compared to mountain bikes to me.

The bike I demoed was a specialized turbo levo. The shop setup the suspension for me and it did feel dialed in, maybe the weight did help in that area.
The bike I'm looking at and most likely will purchase is the YT decoy. https://us.yt-industries.com/detail/...Category/73537

[fa63]

Originally Posted by redir

I would be surprised to hear any 'real' cyclist say that riding an eBike is just as hard as riding their push bikes. I've ridden quite a few eBikes, man they are fun! But that 'study' is plain and simple BS. The eBikes I have ridden all you do is push on pedal and off ya go... Gimme a break

Not really; if you push just as hard on the e-bike (and you can do that), you just go a lot faster as that study indicated.

[Tony]

Originally Posted by fa63

Not really; if you push just as hard on the e-bike (and you can do that), you just go a lot faster as that study indicated.

We sometimes do a shop loop that has two long climbs, one on asphalt other on fire road. That day I demoed seemed like I got the same workout just so much faster. Did tow a couple folks
I could have done the shop loop three times in the time it takes to do it once.

[Mark McM]

Originally Posted by fa63

Not really; if you push just as hard on the e-bike (and you can do that), you just go a lot faster as that study indicated.

There is an old saying that has been around since long before the ebike was invented. This saying has been attributed to multiple people, although probably nobody knows who originated it. It is about the affects of training and physical condition, although it is probably analogous to ebikes:

"Training doesn't make riding any easier - you just go faster."

[Tony]

Benb, here is the same spot I was referring to when I said "rocky, technical" starting at 5:45.
This video is one of our local rider on a ebike.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1Sg3bcBdxE&t=423s

[joosttx]

I know a few racers and serious cyclists who use them as a computer on their recovery days. This allows them get to work fast without going over their recovery threshold

[Duende]

These studies will help sell more ebikes. Mission accomplished.

[72gmc]

"If you work just as hard, you'll work just as hard" is not really worthy of an article unless you need a reason to write a headline that misrepresents the study. I'd be interested to know which donor(s) funded the internal grant at BYU that made this study possible.