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Comment by taneq | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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).

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