What drew you to ebikes in the first place? What keeps you riding an ebike?

[Django]

I hope that this stays on topic.

For me, it was an opportunity for me and my wife to ride together. Ebikes are a great equalizer and by using different assist levels it has allowed us to ride in a more compatible manner. It has also brought back her love for cycling and it provides a satisfying experience for both of us.

We are both retired, so we don’t have a commute and living in rural New hampshire makes a bicycle impractical as a mode of transportation for a good part of the year. Most of our rides are for fitness, sightseeing and just enjoyment.

For a long time I wrongly rejected the idea of electric assisted bicycles, and I still ride my road and my gravel bike, but the ebike and especially riding with my wife has become my preference. My reasons for riding an ebike have evolved, but the the primary reason remains, (quality time with my wife).

 

[pagheca]

just the average slope of roads here (20%+...) for the first letter, my love for riding for the remaining five.

 

[Smaug]

For me, it was a couple of things:

1. I wanted to be able to bike commute without arriving sweaty,
2. I wanted hills and headwinds not to kick my butt so much.

Mission accomplished on both fronts. However, now I realize I am not as strong as I could be if I had just done regular biking, so now I’m dabbling in that as well.

Edit: What keeps me riding? Well, it NEVER gets old, not having to arrive somewhere sweaty. Two more things I discovered were the speed and gas savings. I can get to work as fast on an eBike as my car, and now I don't take my car for most local drives. (bigger grocery trips are the exception)

 

[neutron]

I wanted another activity in retirement besides golfing and target shooting. I live right next to a rail trail so the ebike made sense to me. Wife was totally against me getting the ebike but finally gave in.

 

["A"]

I grew up in country that have bicycles & 2-wheel vehicles outnumber cars.
Before I was big enough to ride an adult sized bicycle, my older sister already handed me down her adult-size bicycle for me to practice.
My oldest sister (17) was operating scooter that carried me (7) and my middle sister (12) zooming in traffic among thousands of other families on scooters.

I started converting MTB to ebikes for friends back in 2014, quickly got into high speed (35-45 mph) converted ebikes for fun.
Speeding around gets old quickly, not to mention that they are unsafe in urban, congested traffic pattern.

2017, I started using ebikes for commuting & transporting large volume of items in NYC metro.
For the convenience of not paying for gas, parking, and ability to filter in traffic, riding through parks and riding against traffic flow on one-way streets; ebikes just turn into the ideal solo transport for the congested urban traffic pattern.
During COVID, I provided my ebikes to friends & employees who didn't feel safe commuting on public transport, good number of them still use their ebikes regularly or daily as alternative to riding the subway or crowded buses.
I witnessed the transformation of NYC metro traffic pattern change with the promoted usage of bicycles & ebikes around the Big Apple.
I can say that for myself, I feel safer with more bicycles & ebikes mixed in cars & trucks in city traffic; drivers pay more attention to bicycles & ebikes these days. More bike lanes, more presence of cyclist in general help reduce the concept of "only car & truck belong on public roads".

IME, ebikes are for convenience & utility; fitness & able to enjoy the outdoors are just bonus.

 

[Snoop]

A couple years ago, my best friend bought one of those foldable ebikes and let me take it for a ride. I was just thrilled with the throttle and didn’t even touch the pedals. When I bought my own ebike (Pace 500) it was really just for fun. I never would have thought I would love it so much that I would ride it every day and commute spring through fall. The other weird thing is that while the fun throttle is what sold me on it, I essentially never touch the thing.

What was essentially just a fun purchase turned out to be something which has become part of my daily lifestyle and has afforded me opportunities which have significantly added to my enjoyment of life.

 

[biknut]

By 2013 I had devolved from motorcycles to gas powered motor bicycles. Then I found out about an electric bicycle that would go 50 mph, and had 50 miles range, called a Stealth Bomber. Now almost 10 years, and 24,000 miles later, it's turned out to be my favorite bike of all time. It started out looking like this, and evolved into this.

 

[JerryB]

For me.....it was for exercise......I have a new knee and hip.......I love riding but need a little extra help on hills. I ride in PA 1 most of the time.....5 to 7 miles most evenings......got to keep them new parts moving!

 

[Django]

I added to the title. I think that the second part is as important as the first.

 

[Smaug]

I added to the title. I think that the second part is as important as the first.

I edited my original post accordingly.

 

[Granny Gump]

I hope that this stays on topic.

For me, it was an opportunity for me and my wife to ride together. Ebikes are a great equalizer and by using different assist levels it has allowed us to ride in a more compatible manner. It has also brought back her love for cycling and it provides a satisfying experience for both of us.

We are both retired, so we don’t have a commute and living in rural New hampshire makes a bicycle impractical as a mode of transportation for a good part of the year. Most of our rides are for fitness, sightseeing and just enjoyment.

For a long time I wrongly rejected the idea of electric assisted bicycles, and I still ride my road and my gravel bike, but the ebike and especially riding with my wife has become my preference. My reasons for riding an ebike have evolved, but the the primary reason remains, (quality time with my wife).

I managed to injure both knees in the past few years. Freak accidents...one tore my ACL. I am a retired woman but still loved recreational biking ( and did 3 RAGBRAI's after 50) but that ACL had me afraid to get back on my nearly new Salsa. The kids convinced me that I am not too old to keep riding, so I got an Aventon Soltera at our LBS. I absolutely love it and hardly use the PAS. It sure is a blessing in flattening out steep hills. It has given me the confidence to get out and enjoy some rides and I look forward to many more. (My) husband has had both knees replaced, but still powers on with his Cannondale touring.

 

[pagheca]

Congratulation @Granny Gump!

That's actually true also for me. I ran marathons till a few years ago and then, the usual degradation of (one of the) knee. At least e-biking was a good substitute for "heavy" hiking in a place where the hub of my front wheel is often at the same altitude of my butt...

 

[Smaug]

I managed to injure both knees in the past few years. Freak accidents...one tore my ACL. I am a retired woman but still loved recreational biking ( and did 3 RAGBRAI's after 50) but that ACL had me afraid to get back on my nearly new Salsa. The kids convinced me that I am not too old to keep riding, so I got an Aventon Soltera at our LBS. I absolutely love it and hardly use the PAS. It sure is a blessing in flattening out steep hills. It has given me the confidence to get out and enjoy some rides and I look forward to many more. (My) husband has had both knees replaced, but still powers on with his Cannondale touring.

I think he’ll join us soon enough, hehehe.

 

[Battery Powered]

Our friends purchased ebikes and posted some really cool rides on my wife's FB page. We are full time RVers and can go a lot of fun places to ride. With the ebikes we can do 30 mile rides, the old pedal bikes maybe 8 miles.
What keeps us riding is all the trails to explore, where we are now we can ride them into town to grocery shop or eat out and lots of trails. We also enjoy night rides on the carriage roads of Acadia. One trip north we did the Virginia Creeper, no one was there so we got to ride up and then down the trail.

 

[Mysery]

Curiosity, bliss.

 

[PedegoScot]

Although I’m 67, I’m still doing a UPS route every day and walking 16000 to 20000 steps! I really enjoy biking but don’t need it that much for the exercise. E- biking is my answer!

 

[eBikeCrafter]

I live in the mountains and am not as young as I used to be. An electric bike put fun back into riding again. I had motorcycles up until about 15 years ago, so I also missed 2 wheeled motorized transportation. All things considered the ebike has scratched the itch and is a blast to ride. I also use it to commute to work once and a while.

 

[Reclyndrider]

Gave up biking, cause old age and knees. Then the e-bike came along, so I converted my Vision recumbent with a bbso2 and boy, it was fun.
Even though I only ride trails I decided to get an Ice trike, cause safer. Converted it with a bbso3. I love biking again.

 

[kartlyons]

Compare to the bike, E-bike and E-scooter can give you better experience for short distance commuting.

 

[Detectorguy]

I go metal detecting for a hobby, and thought riding a e bike could give me a opportunity to get more exercise while saving a $ 20 bucks on gas daily.