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Comment by Turskarama | Hacker News Reader

>I don’t consider it a workout

You might be surprised. The amount of exercise you get while "cheating" on an ebike is way more than people think, especially if you don't get one powerful enough to basically classify as a motorbike. I'm Australian, and here the power output is limited to 250 watts which means it's really just an assist rather than the main power plant (which is still the rider). Riding it uses significantly more energy than walking does since I like to go fast, so it's still very much legitimate exercise.

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I sometimes use a class 1 electric mountain bike (250w, assist only while pedaling) and that is a fantastic workout...provided you are riding 10-15% grades uphill and (for the upper body) going down something similarly steep.

A throttle powered class 3 ebike on a flat paved path is going to be a different story. Likely less of a workout than a walk. Much better than a car though, for both the body and the planet.

Of course, assuming terrain allows options, one could alter their route to get a better workout. Reducing the assist would be an option too.

basically you get to choose how hard you want to work out, but at about 250w-500w boost, you will maintain about 130bpm, which will burn 400+ calories per hour. It's a pretty decent work out while still being quite pleasurable.

And you get a hill you don't like, you just use max assist and go up without sweating.

250 watts is significant. That is about what a Tour de France rider will average on a typical stage.

Pro cyclists average about 500w and can go much higher over short periods.

source for thar 500w avg watts in tdf? name and year?

I think 500 is a bit high, especially for an average. Much of the time they’re in a peloton, which will drop the average a lot. Peak can go way higher but it’s for far shorter bursts.

“During a normal stage of the Tour de France, pro riders can pump out around 230-250 watts on average, which equates to burning about 900 calories per hour. But on some of the harder stages they can average over 300 watts, or 1,100 calories per hour. Tadej Pogačar has a Functional Threshold Power – an estimate of the power he can sustain for around one hour – of around 415 watts. But for explosive one-hour attacks on big climbs, some Tour riders have been known to exceed an average of 500 watts. And in the final stages of a sprint finish, sprinters can hit maximal efforts of over 1,500 watts.”

https://www.alpecincycling.com/en/pro-peloton/from-body-fat-...

They most certainly do not.

Here is Ted King in the 2014 TDF (random stage). Weighted average power: 205 watts. Actual average power: 134 watts.

https://www.strava.com/activities/164960157/overview

Aussie pedal-elec regulations mean they only help you up to 25kmph, over that and you are just pedal power. Which is to say, the full 250watts is only ever used when taking off or going up hills in practice.

Even without this though, the end result is usually the rider puts out nearly as much power and just goes faster.

An assist won't be as much exercise as no assist, but it's still exercise.

That’s just not true. Once the max assist speed on an eBike is reached, the motor will stop assisting. So you can barely pedal and use max effort from the assist, but if your meat motor is getting you to 75% max assist speed the motor is only going to push 25%. This notion that the assist will push the meat motor faster is not based in reality.

Yes, I was talking about the case where there is no max speed limit.

Who sells that legally? Let’s at least keep the conversations honest. If you circumvent things to an illegal situation, that’s on you. For the vast majority of people that won’t, you’re making it out to be something it’s not

In Australia it's illegal but in many parts of the world it is perfectly legal.

They do way more than 250w and on a significantly lighter bike.

Mostly aerodynamics that matter, the weight is a bit of a factor when climbing.

It affects acceleration too.

In the states, at least mine, the limit it's 750 watts. Mine has four steps of pedal assist and a throttle, I only bump it up to level 2 PA when I'm on a long but only somewhat slope-y uphill. Crack out the throttle only for real climbs. It's a heavy bike and in the cargo category (about 60lbs) but I use it for pretty much 100% of my errands. I only take my car out to travel over 45ish minutes away or when I'm going somewhere where i'll be coming home after dark.

I have a 250W ebike as well (and in AU); the effort putting into it is really only token. If you want to go over the 25km/hr legal limit, then it becomes a workout (as the motor cuts out entirely at that point, and you're left pedalling a heavy, inefficient bike)

The effort required to pedal a 25kmh limited 250w e-bike at 35kmh (or even 30) compared to a carbon road bike at the same speed is ridiculous.

I really wish they allowed for a very token level of assist to help counter the extra weight of the system, ideally as a curved reduction down to a minimum of eg 10% of the available assist as speed increases past the assistance speed limit (or even starting at a lower speed, eg 20 kmh, thus gently increasing the pedaling effort from an earlier point).

I'm not advocating that they should be as easy, given that the extra weight of the bike makes them harder to stop and less maneuverable, however something in between would be great.

Strong riders are more often than not experienced and thus competent riders, making them safer, however ebikes removes this "barrier" altogether - even a complete noob can go very fast, without the competence - therefore I'm all for a revised (analogue trail off) speed limit system in the interest of safety.

Yeah, agree with every point there. When I find some time I'm planning to reprogram my controller (there's an open source alternative firmware!) to try to do exactly this (not technically legal, but most delivery ebikes in the city have a throttle button and zoom past at 30km/hr+, so I'm in good company :)

This has been dubbed ‘the gym of life’: https://youtube.com/watch?v=KPUlgSRn6e0

I have a 1000 W ebike and my Apple Watch still shows me averaging about 130 bpm heart rate on a quick grocery run.

1000W? You must just glide up hills. My cargo bike is 750W, and on some of the hills I still have to stand up and get it to make it up when I’m loaded with cargo. If I’m dead heading it up the hill, it’s a nice comfy sit down.

Yeah, it's definitely not a problem going 25 km/h uphill, 25 km/h being what it's electronically limited to because of the law.

mine is 750w too and my fat ass is a challenge on some of the steeper hills around my place in seattle.

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