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From: AMuzi <am@yellowjersey.org>
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.tech
Subject: Re: e-bikes are low powered motorcycles, not bicycles
Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2024 08:52:27 -0500
Organization: Yellow Jersey, Ltd.
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On 4/21/2024 6:52 AM, Wolfgang Strobl wrote:
> Am Thu, 18 Apr 2024 21:04:42 GMT schrieb Roger Merriman
> <roger@sarlet.com>:
> 
>> Wolfgang Strobl <news5@mystrobl.de> wrote:
> ...
>>> But thats beside the point. The point being,  giving a weak person the
>>> peak power and the endurace of a world class athlete is just a fancy way
>>> of describing the substitution of muscle power by motor power.
>>>
>>> Your wrong about the fact, too, and I've already mentioned that in
>>> earlier discussions. You ignore that humans have a power curve much
>>> different from a motor, even when accounting for that bicycle simulation
>>> done by its controller.  And you convently ignore that most humans
>>> aren't professional competetive cyclists.
> 
>> No I didn’t professional cyclists produce way more power both peak and
>> continuous,
> 
> So you are doing it again: you conveniently ignore that most humans
> aren't top level professional competive cyclists, by talking about what
> professional cyclists do and by ignoring what ordinary people can do and
> what these people do with e-bikes on the one hand, and with real
> bicycles, on the other hand.  But let's talk about that distraction, for
> a moment and lets mention in passing that some competetive professional
> offroad motorcyclists need more strength and endurance than your average
> cyclist on his bike.
> 
> <https://theselvedgeyard.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/steve-mcqueen-husqvarna-011.jpg>
>    
> 
>> some beyond 2000 watts some just under, which is comfortably
>> above what a E bike can produce.
> 
> So now you are not only equating your average cyclist to word class
> athletes, you are now cherry picking the best of the best in that group?
> "`Curiouser and curiouser!' cried Alice."
> 
> But perhaps you are just confused about what a human power curve tells
> about how much power ordinary people can deliver over what time  span.
> 
> In reality, a TdF athlete only spends about 140 W while riding in the
> peleton. Event the leader at the front rarely exceeds 245 W there.
> 
> Source:
> <https://www.tour-magazin.de/profi-radsport/tour-de-france/tour-de-france-verstehen-wattleistungen-im-check-welche-leistung-bringen-die-profis-aufs-pedal/>
> 
> 
> | 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 Pogacar 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.
> 
> from
> <https://www.alpecincycling.com/en/pro-peloton/from-body-fat-to-power-output-anatomy-of-a-tour-de-france-rider/>
> 
> 
> Sprinters sometimes accelerate to 65-70 km/h - once, in the final
> sprint, after they had saved their strength for most of the time with
> the support of helpers.  600 W in addition to your own 136 W (plus 340
> percent, remember?) is more than enough to accelerate an e-bike in no
> time to 25 km/h.
> 
> My back-of-the-envelope calculation using 136 W and +600W shows an about
> fivefold power advantage for the e-bike.  Not much, you think, cars come
> with 50 to 250 hp, making not that much difference on the road? Think
> again.
> 
> When I look at my power curve over the the past 12 months, that roughly
> amounts to sustained power over five seconds vs. sustained power over
> one hour, a factor of 720!
>   
> A 70 kg cyclist on a 10 kg bicycle needs about 14 seconds in order to
> accelerate to 25 km/h. Adding a generous 10 kg for motor and batteries
> reduces that to less than three seconds, the actual quotient is  <21%.
> percent.
> 
> To conclude this observation, which distracts from the actual point,
> even old and weak, but healthy cyclists are able to produce 140 W or,
> say, 2.2 W/kg for less than a half a minute, but people rarely do more,
> when it isn't necessary.
> 
> You don't need 250 W, even for riding a heavy dutch type bicycle, 140 W
> is enough for doing 22 km/h.
> 
> But what do I notice when looking at how average people actually use
> their e-bikes on flat ground? Those people ride their e-bikes with about
> 22 km/h, too!
> 
> Adding another 500 $ or € to the cost of a better e-bike (say, 2500 €)
> is al lot more attractive than adding the same amount to a 500 €
> bicycle. Now that many modern e-bikes have got more power, lighter
> frames and better gears, people _still_ ride their e-bikes with about
> 22-23 km/h, just to not trigger the speed limiter.
> 
> Unlike cyclists, e-bikers are not motivated or forced to adapt their
> speed to circumstances such as wind, incline or ground conditions. Why
> should you pedal more than 70 watts at a 4% hill, going 22 km/h? Easily
> done on a 25 km/h e-bike restricted to 250 W on paper.  How many
> ordinary people (not doing cycling as a sport) do you know who can
> sustain > 304 W for hours?
> 
> Doing the same calculation on the lower end (flat ground) or the upper
> end (say, 20% grades) gives similar results, less than <40 W on flat
> ground, even 12 % with 22 km/h is doable, needing 175 W human power plus
> 600 W from the motor.
> 
> Are you able to ride longer 12 % grade uphill with a speed of 22 km/h? I
> guess not.
> 
> Of course, your average utility or leisure cyclist couldn't and wouldn't
> do that, either, not even when switching to an e-bike. He or she would
> do what I'd do (and actually tried as an experiment, as you perhaps
> remember from my previous answer to your question), I'd reduce the
> 120-130 W I'd need for riding 4-5 km/h uphill to those 90 W I can
> sustain for hours, let the motor add 340% ~ 306 W, doing an easily
> ridden 12 km/h there.
> 
> But that's me. From looking at what people do who _are_ into ebikes I
> conclude that people are even more lazy, when given the choice they paid
> real money for. They reduce their speed to what they can do without
> having to learn to ride really slow, they slow down to about 8 km/h, now
> needing about 230 W only for those 12 %, spending  50-60 W human power
> plus 170-180 W from the motor.
> 
> Just what they spend when going for a walk, even under extreme
> circumstances.
> 
> Usually, e-bikes do what people usually do with motor vehicles, their
> cruising speed is limited mostly by regulations, not by the limits of
> their own endurance, muscle strength or cardio fitness. Motorists use
> all the power their motor and external energy source delivers, within
> the regulatory limits.
> 
> Cylists, are lazy too, even more so, because they have to. Ten colories
> spent on needlessly accelerating and then braking are ten calories lost
> and not available when the gained speed could have been used for just
> rooling with speed for a while.
> 
> Riding at your limit without overdoing is, getting strength and
> endurance is an art.  But even without all that sport science training
> methods, just _using_ your own power when all you have is that power,
> for getting around on a bicycle far and fast enough will get you more
> strength and endurance, on the long run.  This makes cycling more
> usefull and more enjoyable, at the same time.
> 
> Adding a strong motor to a bicycle, as it is done with e-bikes limited
> to 25 km/h, eliminates most of that.  Arguing "but this still is
> cycling!!" is like selling electric wheelchairs to healthy people and
> pointing to the Paralympics to justify it.
> 

"looking at what people do who _are_ into ebikes I conclude 
that people are even more lazy..."

That's what I see as well.  Your post is well considered as 
an observer of the actual situation now.
-- 
Andrew Muzi
am@yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971