The viewpoint of another biker who adopted an ebike:
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I always want to ask someone who belittles ebikes, particularly pedal assist ebikes, do you ride single speed or fixed gear only? Aren’t gears cheating?
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I don’t think of an E-Bike as cheating and if it keeps you peddling when you would otherwise be jumping in your car then it is a great thing. To a purest it is motorcycling not bicycling.
As to gearing all modern bikes take advantage of gearing even if just a single speed. Crank sprocket is some amount larger than the wheel sprocket most of the time. Unless you wish to ride a front wheel drive high wheel bike called a Penny-farthing. In short there is no cheating to bike gearing because the law of Work = Force x Distance applies and the same energy is expended if you turn the crank easy 5 times or hard 1 time to go the same distance. When it gets to steep to peddle and you get off and push on a hill you are still moving the same weight rider and bike the same distance up the hill. My touring bake has extremely low gearing and the ratio (gear inch) relates back to the size wheel you would have to cover the same ground with a Penny-farthing. My lowest gear is the same as directly driving an 18” wheel my highest gear is like having a 100” wheel. As close as I can figure walking pushing a bike would equate to about a 10 gear inch. I have tried lower than 18 gear inch but found going any lower it I was peddling about as fast as I could and not going fast enough to keep balanced. For me below 18 GI it was better to walk and push. Recumbent trikes often have even lower gears and you can crawl along 1-2 MPH if you like.
What gearing really does for me is allow a steady cadence at a higher speed and take the load a mashing cadence would put on my joints.
A good case could be made that bikes in general are cheating, as they are way more efficient than walking, but then again walking is more efficient than crawling. Shoes also likely improve walking so wearing shoes by someone not into shoes would be a type of cheating.
We used to do a lot of cross-country skiing and we often ended up at a downhill ski lodge and had to ski back up the hill to get out of there and the only suitable snow to do that was under the lifts. The riders on the lifts used to comment and throw french-fries at us and we used to yell back they were cheating riding up to the top.
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I couldn’t agree more. You make excellent points.
I guess the purists are the ones I have a problem with, whether it is the Grant Peterson disciples, I love my Rivendell Atlantis, or the spandex clad weekend warrior who thinks if you’re not racing you’re not riding. Get out on your bike, or more appropriately for this forum your Pelican, and enjoy, in whatever way you want, the pedal or paddle.
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I see what you mean…the Campy pedal comes to a point in the front where those platform pedals are symmetric. I really wanted to like the Campys…to keep my bikes 100% Campy…but they just weren’t as good as the Look/Time pedals of the era.
From about 2006 to 2013 I commuted daily from Deep Cove in North Vancouver to Burnaby Mountain in … Burnaby. About 50km a day. I did this on self-built e-bikes and I learned a few things along the way:
- The first bike I converted was my hybrid commuter; 700 wheels, scissor brakes. Terrible idea. Between the hub motor and the battery, the bike itself is much heavier, so I was constantly fixing flats, replacing spokes, trueing wheels, and replacing brake pads.
- The second bike I converted was a secondhand Norco Bigfoot; 9-inch hydraulic brakes, strong frame, good front suspension, strong rims. It was much better, but fitting a big enough battery crowded things.
- The final version was the Bigfoot with an Xtracycle extension that turned it into a longbike. This worked really well, and I did the majority of my commuting years on it. A side effect of the assist was that I spent all my time in the upper gears, so the rear clusters wore out quite rapidly.
If you build your own from a kit, get a rear-drive unit, not a front drive unit. I’ve used both, and the front-drive units are terrible when traction gets iffy. Rear drive units are more of a pain in the butt, but they’re worth the extra trouble.
When a bike is motorized, it’s heavier and faster, so you’ll hit bumps harder, and wear out brakes faster. I used to buy the best tires I could, the best tubes I could, and used tire liners; I still occasionally got pinch flats. If I was to do it all over again now, I’d just spend the $3000-$5000 to get a good quality e-bike and not try to build my own. I got really, really good at working on bikes, but I’ll happily never do that again.
I could never have commuted all those years without it. On the days when I felt like garbage I could just let the motor do more of the work, on the days when I felt good, I could get a good workout. It was ideal.
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I’m way more biker than kayaker. There’s a guy who bikes with us who is built for football. Big, big guy but he likes to bike. How does he keep up with us? He rides an E bike. It’s not like a motorcycle. He has to pedal it but it has 4 levels of assist ranging from pretty hard to very easy. It’s a major name like Trek. I’ll ask him for details and pass it along. Best of luck.
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OK, I got a reply regarding the e bike. He rides a Trek HP Domane +
Not at all sure if his model is right for you but Trek has been around a long while.
From the look of your photo I’m thinking you might not want a bike with a straight top tube. Maybe you’ll need something to step through.
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Thanks. Since my right leg is partially functioning ,I agree
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That’s how I feel about my Vitus (still hot!)
BUT I just got a Cube e-bike for the hills in my village because my truck is too big
If you ever have fly, make sure your battery disconnects. Cube is in America 
as well as Europe and we wanted to be able to get replacement parts.
We just met this older couple in Austria (both radiologists) riding e-bikes across Europe with their dog.
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Really do love the lines of vintage cromoly bikes! Your Vitus is beautiful too!
Also, love the scenery of your riding locale.
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Since we’re talking ebikes and vintage steel, here’s a shot from yesterday’s ride. My wife’s ebike and my steel Rivendell Atlantis (not old, but old school
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Nice, mid drive motor. Is the battery external, or built into the frame?
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It’s in the rear rack. It’s not visible under the panniers.
One more thought on e-bikes.
If you are used to a carbon fibre road bike, you might not love it because these bikes are very heavy. I’m 19 years 
older than my husband and he rides very aggressively. I haven’t wrecked it but I’m very aware of the pressure to ride beyond my ability, especially down hill. I could easily wipe out a pedestrian so I’m not exactly loving it for more than a quick run to the market.
I’m hoping to ride it more this summer on the trails around the lakes where it is less steep.
I really love my carbon fiber LOOK so much more but our hill is very very steep.
Found this to be an interesting story:
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I was sent in the summer of 1985 for several months of training at my Pittsburgh employer’s main office in Lititz, PA, 4 hours drive east and in the middle of Amish farm country. In fact they put me up in a motel that was surrounded by the farms. on a rolling road across from the only other sign of the “English” world, a convenience store. I brought my bicycle so I had something to do in the evenings. From my tiny patio outside the motel room I could watch the comings and goings of the Amish around me including watching them harvest hay and build a barn. The pragmatic Amish elders had recently approved rollerblades as suitably “plain” and most of the younger men and boys I saw out on the roads were blading gracefully up and down the hilly roads, often with a shovel or hayfork slung over one shoulder. They were required to paint black over the gaudy colors and logos on the skates, but they did make sense for efficient travel between the farms and fields.
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Pragmaticsm and a bit of localism help with self-reliance and resilience. May also contribute to less impact on the environment for all of us.
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Speaking of Amish transport and rendering forms of transport “plain”, some years ago when I was regularly driving winding roads through Amish country in central PA I often followed their horsedrawn buggies. On one occasion the carriage ahead of me for over a mile had a large canoe lashed to the roof, painted entirely flat black. No bow and stern lines, so I kept my distance