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Comment by victorhooi | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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).

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.

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