E-Bike Musings

I’ve been exploring e-bikes a bit lately. I’ve been looking at the technology and some of the systems that are available to me as a small manufacturer. I’ve also dipped into some forums, started some chats and participated in some conversations. I find the attitude towards e-bikes really perplexing, and I wanted to try and get a better idea of what people (not just cyclists) feel about e-bikes and why they (e-bikes, not people) appear to be so divisive. I’m not sure that I’m really any more enlightened than I was before though! The fact that writing a piece about e-bikes is even something worth doing or has any merit puzzles me. What is it about e-bikes that makes people want to have an opinion, specifically an opinion on something that doesn’t have to impact or affect them in any way at all?

I think it’s pretty safe to say that there are a lot of people out there who think e-bikes are a bad thing. I suspect that a majority of those people consider themselves ‘real’ cyclists and have come to the conclusion that e-bikes aren’t real bikes, and somehow these new contraptions are a threat to traditional cycling. It seems to me that these anti-fans have a loud voice which exaggerates the ill-feeling and negative sentiment. The sort of comments I’ve seen over the past few weeks when digging deeper into this include statements like: ‘e-bikes are cheating’, ‘they give real cyclists a bad name’, ‘they ruin MTB trails’, they’re dangerous’, ’they’re too expensive’.

The ‘cheating’ thing, I find interesting. I’d asked on a forum what would need to happen to convince someone that an e-bike might be useful for them if they previously held a negative attitude towards them. One commentator said something along the lines of: ‘I commute to work on a regular bike and have a really steep hill at the end of the ride, an e-bike would really help at this point, but it would feel like cheating.’ Cheating who? I don’t think I really understand this. I get the fact that for a lot of people, riding their bike is often a way to push themselves physically, to get stronger, to get fitter. But if you’re just commuting to work, is it cheating? And who are you cheating? I can’t think of many other daily things we participate in where we’d rather have a harder, less efficient (yes, I know that’s going to be controversial) way of completing a task. Manual washing machines, because ones with a motor are too easy and would be considered cheating? I don’t think so. But bikes seem to elicit totally different attitudes in this respect.

Through all the conversations I’ve had, it’s become apparent that much of the negativity stems from the concept that it’s an either-or situation. You’re either an e-bike rider or a regular bike rider. The notion that it also seems to be a one-way street is prevalent. Lots of people saying things like they’re not ready to give up on regular cycling yet to get an e-bike. Like there’s some sort of natural progression from riding a regular bike to having to give that up for an e-bike. Riding an e-bike is ‘giving up’ somehow. It’s an odd situation, and I don’t really know where that comes from. Perhaps it feels like there needs to be an admission of weakness to embrace e-bikes, and many of us are not ready for this yet?

Perhaps if we spend more time talking about e-bikes as an addition to regular riding rather than a replacement, we might look on them more favourably. From a personal point of view, I’m not sure that I would choose an e-bike to ride as a regular recreational activity. I’m fit enough to ride a regular bike, and I don’t often ride with others, so not being able to keep up is never a concern for me. When it comes to riding bikes for riding bikes’ sake, I don’t think an e-bike would work for me. But there are a number of situations where an e-bike would make sense to me. I live at the top of a hill out in the countryside, and riding a regular bike to get my food shopping doesn’t appeal. It would be about an 8-mile round trip, which isn’t a lot, but loading up my bike with bags of food and slogging 4 miles back up the hill in the rain (I live in Scotland, so it will be raining) isn’t something that appeals to me. I do think that if I had an e-bike capable of carrying small to medium-sized loads, then I would probably replace a number of car journeys with bike journeys. And that’s kinda my point, having an e-bike wouldn’t really change my regular cycling at all, it would get me out of the car more and on a bike more, so that’s got to be a good thing, no?

The upshot of all this is that to start 2026, I’m going to add an e-bike to the models I currently build. I’ll be keeping things simple to begin with. It’ll be pretty burly, big comfy tyres, flat bars. Shimano motor system. External battery for ease of charging, security and storage. I won’t be straying too far from my favourite transmission system, so it’ll be a Rohloff/Beltdrive bike (with a regular derailleur option). Load carrying capability front and rear with regular pannier racks. I’m not new to building e-bikes, I do a lot of design and prototype work for other brands, so I already have a good idea of what I like and don’t like and what works and what doesn’t. I’m sure this project will evolve though, so if you have any ideas, suggestions or comments, please let me know.