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Comment by anitil | Hacker News Reader

This article is ... odd. Some of the wording doesn't make a lot of sense. An example: " (Time of year not weather indication were not cited).".

From what I can gather, 60 participants were given an electric bike for 10 weeks, and around 50% later went on to buy the bike they were given. Usage was 60% at the beginning, dropping to 28% by the end.

So half or greater of the people who purchased a bike weren't even using it.

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My employer did similar trial (I ended up buying the bike and now I do around 30% commute by bike).

I don't think you can expect high percentage from people that are not obsessed with cycling - and those already use regular bike. E.g. I need to be home early 2 days/week to drive my kids to classes, sometimes I need to go to grocery store after the work, on some days there's dentist, weather, etc. So the drop in the usage is expected.

why would someone who is obsessed with cycling be interested in buying an electric bike?

All the cycling nuts I know consider them to be heresy...

I'm a fairly serious cyclist (currently own 5 bikes) and the two I use most are my cyclocross bike and my electric bike.

Most of the cycling nuts who consider them heresy are weekend warriors who've never ridden a daily 14 mile commute in the winter.

There's your lycra brigade guys who will always think adding $1,000 worth of electric drive gear to a $500 bike is cheating, but spending $10,000 on an ultra-light carbon fiber frame with ultra-low-rolling-resistance tyres is totally legitimate.

But then there's also people who start off with an electric bike and love how convenient, cheap and easy they are. I have a couple of friends who've got e-bikes and use them as regular transport.

There's a pretty large difference between shaving 250 grams off your bike weight, versus replacing all your pedalling with an electric motor =).

One will get you banned from the Tour de France - the other will not...

I confess I'm one of the lycra brigade people (they're not all guys!), and have spent money on trying to save those couple of extra grams.

However, for me, I like cycling also for the exercise benefits - and using an electric monitor would remove all those benefits.

Although for somebody who doesn't want to pedal - I think they're great! You get many of the benefits, without arriving as sweaty.

Nitpick: shaving 250 grams off your bike weight _can_ get you banned from the Tour de France.

UCI regulations state a minimum weight for a bicycle of 6.8 kilos (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racing_bicycle#UCI_rules)

Fair point =).

Fortunately, I don't race in UCI events, haha.

My understanding was that the rule is around safety - i.e. they didn't want people pushing the limits at the risk of failure. There's calls for it to be scrapped, now that we know more about the limits of carbon fibre.

An electric bike doesn't have to mean no pedaling - they can just offer enough assistance to make a long or hilly commute doable, or just make an average commute doable daily by a non-athletic person.

Even if you are cycling for the exercise benefits, you could do the same exercise and just do more. My usual mtb rute include a large climb and downhill after, with the electric bike I could do 2 climbs with 2 downhills. Someone said, with the e-bike instead of having fun just going downhill, you have fun uphill and downhill.

I didn't mean to imply that all serious cyclists were male, and I should also draw the distinction between 'serious cyclists' and 'lycra brigade' - the latter (in the sense that I'm using it) refers to the groups of usually-overweight usually-over-50 usually-male cyclists who dress up in racing gear to ride their $10k bikes a few hundred meters down to the local coffee shop to scoff donuts. :P

If you're actually competing against other cyclists then I do understand the desire for fancy expensive bikes. If you're cycling for fun or fitness, though, it always struck me as being like paying extra for the high tech light-weight dumbells...

Contrariwise, those e-bikes which are rigged up to make you pedal a little bit so you feel like you're doing exercise strike me as pose-y. Just get an electric motorbike and be done with it. :P

Right =).

I am a guy, btw, but I'm trying to get my wife (and hopefully daughter) into cycling. So anything I can do to break that stereotype is awesome. But I saw your smiley face, and I get the joke =).

My wife's first bike was some monstrosity from Kmart (a discount big-box store in Australia). It was heavy (> 12kg), and a burden to ride. It seriously discouraged my wife from riding.

However, the next one I got her was much lighter, and I hope make it easier for her to get started.

To be honest, I never considered electric bikes much, but I might bring it up with her next time.

Personally - I cycle to commute - so lightness is good - but I also do it for exercise, so I do want to pedal. And if you want added weight - it's not hard - just pack some extra water in your backpack =). But you can't go the other way (i.e. shed weight, if you bought a heavy bike).

On the contrary. My household is cycling obsessed and we bought a 250W electric commuter this year. It won't displace our carbon fibre / titanium race machines, but it is tremendous fun to ride around casually or to commute on.

They are comparatively expensive, though. I expect to see a drop in price as popularity grows, since bicycle manufacturing is a volume game.

I picked up my RadRover a year ago for ~$1,300. Considering the price of 'serious' bikes, it's quite cheap. A motor hides the dual sins of fat tires and heavy frames quite well!

A person who likes biking might get one for friends/SO/family seniors who might join but don't bike regularly. Or to use when you have a kid or 30 kg of groceries in the trailer.

(An obsessed person probably doesn't have non-biking friends/SO...)

I'm a cycling nut and I quite like electric bikes, although I've never tried one.

One of my best rides ever was racing an electric bike up a local 8km climb. I was fitter and my bike was lighter, but he had a motor. Everytime the road got steep I'd catch him up but then on the flatter parts his weight wasn't a hindrance and all I could do was draft. It was awesome.

I don't like seeing eBike times on Strava though.

I'm pretty much a regular biker and have lots of friends who are also cycling (mountainbike as well as road bike). Some years ago the opinion about ebikes was really somewhat negative. But I felt that this has changed, and ebikes are now mostly seen as something positive.

I personally think they are a great alternative for commuting. E.g. they allow for making a boring 20km single-way commute without getting exhausted, and saving the energy for any other activity/sports which might be more interesting for their user. They also make cycling more accessible for older and handicapped users. All those factors reduce the usage of cars where they are not really needed, which is a good thing.

There are still some fears around ebikes in the mountainbike community. E.g. that they make hard trails high up in the mountain too easily accessible for people without the required fitness and cycling skills. Which could cause them problems for getting down again without crashes. Another fear is that the increased trail usage and speed through ebikes might cause these to wear out faster.

So, you've been riding with a group of friends for decades, and your health is deteriorating so you can't keep up with them anymore. Do you:

- drop out of the group and stop cycling?

- every outing, require them to drop down to your speed?

- get a bike that gives you some assistance, so that you can keep up with them?

Similarly, if your speed drops due to age, do you stop making those regular rides to a friend or your favorite cafe, or do you get a bike that helps you a bit?

I know at least a couple of people how are pretty serious about biking (as in fairly regularly take part in amateur road and mountain bike races), but who also ride electric bikes for their daily commute since they are so easy and convenient and you get to work without having broken a sweat.

You can use it occasionally. I have colleagues who only cycle to work once per week. That's still a 20% reduction in traffic and will probably still bring health benefits.

The usage refers to the trial only. Here's the quote from the original article [1]:

"Usage of the e-Bikes for commuting remained high for the duration of the Albany trial, peaking at 60 per cent in the first week, before dropping to 28 per cent by week nine.

But the uptake in cycling was sustained even after the trial finished.

One in two participants enjoyed riding their e-Bike so much they purchased it once the trial finished. "

[1] http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/electric-bike-trial-in-per...

I guess usage might have gone up after the trial finished, but it seems unlikely to me. I could be wrong though - they were willing to part with cash.

I cycle almost every day, I just feel this piece is over stating the effect.

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