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Comment by cjohansson | Hacker News Reader

Regular bikes have the benefit that they improve your health, it's not exhaustive once you get a better stamina. E-bikes are a bad product I think in todays society

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E-bikes are not bad at all. For a lot of people normal bikes are not an option because they are lazy or don't have the physical fitness. It's much better if they get e-bikes instead of cars for everyone involved.

I have switched from a normal bike to an ebike. My yearly mileage went from 1000 to 1800. I still use my old non powered bike for short trips.

I’ll use the ebike when I’m tired so I end up using it a lot more.

You can turn them off the power then your riding around with 30 extra pounds if you need more workout...

Exactly this--I have a bike rack and saddle bags for the ebike. I will get groceries with it. With my regular peddle bike I took it out way less. It is replacing car trips for me now.

You get just as much exercise with an electric bike—you just go faster, and changes in grade are effectively flattened.

In addition to the anecdotes provided by the others, studies are finding a positive health benefit as well. Here's a couple of examples.

https://ijbnpa.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12966-017...

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22005715/

You can control the amount of pedal assist. My heart rate still hits about what it does for a light jog. I’m losing weight too, all without really breaking a sweat.

I'm an almost-exclusive cyclist, and don't own an e-bike, but e-bikes are an absolutely great product. They lower the entry barrier to people who are not that fit, need to carry kids/stuff, or just don't feel like turning every trip into a workout. Plus the more cyclists on the road, the safer it is for everyone else.

The worst thing about eBikes is that they can let people ride beyond their ability. Just because you can ride at 25+ mph on a mixed use path doesn't mean that you should ride that fast when you're sharing the path with walkers, joggers, and other cyclists on conventional bikes.

On a conventional bike, it takes some training (and thus, skill) before you can ride 25+ mph for any length of time, but you can take an eBike out on your first ride and ride that fast.

E-bikes also improve your health compared to cars.

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