I'm always confused by people of working age who ride bikes like this. What's the attraction of a more expensive and heavier bike that's no faster than pedaling yourself?
We recently bought our first home and this meant we had to move a little further away resulting in my current 25 km commute. The 90 minute bus trip is exhausting and you arrive at work and return home groggy.
On my ebike I can get to work in 50 minutes and still feel like I’ve exercised without depleting too much energy.
I sweat more than most people unfortunately, and I live in a moderately hilly city (300ft hills all around the area) that is very humid and hot in the summer. I absolutely love biking to work, the store, etc, but it's uncomfortable and embarrassing to be drenched with sweat after a 10 minute bike ride.
I've never seen an e-bike rider who was not whooping ass.
They usually go at least 40 km/h, which most pedal cyclists can barely reach, let alone sustain, and the e-cyclists can keep up the pace going up hills.
E-bikes are pedal-assist, which means you get the combined wattage from your legs and the motor. You have more combined wattage than a Tour de France competitor.
2000 is table stakes for quality ebikes.
- A bike is not annually thousands. A good quality bike will last you a decade or more. Not with $0 maintenance, but not hundreds per year.
- Commute times on a bike are shorter than the bus. I'm not even talking e-bike now. Due to traffic congestion effects (that hardly affect bicycles at all), you can beat even automobile commuting on a plain human-powered bike. With the e-bike in the equation, it can be no contest. You can go 40-50 km/h for most of the commute, and zip around bumper-to-bumper traffic like it's not there.
- Convenience: hop on it and go anywhere you want, at any time. No waiting. E.g. go out for lunch in the middle of the workday.
- Transit is a good place to catch viruses from people. Complete non-starter in this pandemic.
- Transit is a good place to be assaulted, robbed and exposed to cigarette smoke.
- The bike offers freedom from irritating and depressing exposure to people from socially incompatible classes. (Well almost; there are some drivers out there: but you're not sitting next to them for 30 minutes.)
It takes less effort to cycle, and so you can get faster speeds easier - my Vanmook would get it 30kmph with medium effort effort on flat roads, but then i can coast on that for a bit as it slows down (its not maintaining this speed through a motor). But you still have to cycle - it's not a motorbike.