14 ms·

Study shows e-bike riders get more exercise than cyclists

53 points by kensai 7y ago

dijit 7y ago
I guess it really strongly depends on if the person just used an e-bike to replace their ordinary cycling habits. I can see how it being easier causes people to take the bike out more than the would ordinarily.
- jstanley 7y ago
  I own an ebike, and I use it for journeys that I wouldn't even consider taking an ordinary bike on. To be honest, I don't even think I'd ride an ordinary bike to the top of my road. It's a bit of a hill, and riding a bicycle up a hill without electric assistance is extremely unpleasant. Ordinary cycling is just too tiring for non-cyclists to want to do. An ebike makes it workable.
  - StavrosK 7y ago
    But who is a cyclist if not somebody who uses a bicycle, thus making your statement tautological? I hadn't ridden a bike in years before I decided to use it for my commute, and now I love it. I cycle 10km when going out to the bar, and I love the exercise. I put on headphones and listen to an audio book and it's my favorite thing to do. Granted, my city is built along a carless waterfront, so it's ideal for cycling, but I don't think cycling is too tiring. Maybe some people just don't like the effort, though.
  - tlb 7y ago
    Going uphill is my favorite kind of biking. Uphill, your speed is linearly proportional to your effort. On a flat road, it's proportional to the cube root of effort. So it's more motivating to work hard going uphill. A more forward posture (which you get with dropped handlebars) and clip-in pedals help.
    - closeparen 7y ago
      >So it's more motivating to work hard going uphill. This is a feature in a sport, but a bug in a transportation method.
  - pizza234 7y ago
    > Ordinary cycling is just too tiring for non-cyclists to want to do. An ebike makes it workable. Although geography is a requirement for non-assisted cycling (ie. no big hills), it's ultimately a cultural matter. Northern european countries largerly use bikes; there is no distinction between "cyclist" and "non-cyclist". Southern european countries, geographical factors being equal, use the bicycles much less.
- smartician 7y ago
  Bingo. "Travel-related activities of e-bikers who switched from cycling decreased by around 200 MET min/wk., while those switching from private motorized vehicle and public transport gained around 550 and 800 MET min/wk. respectively."
- acdha 7y ago
  I have a cargo e-bike (Yuba Boda Boda) for taking my son to daycare (8mi each way, plenty of hills and stops) and if the records from my Apple Watch are at all accurate, it’s basically canceling out the extra weight of the burlier bike and passenger: heart rate stays in the same territory, travel time is about the same, etc. compared to my road bike (roughly 100lbs lighter). For my wife, this was the difference between biking every day or not - her commute is a little longer and better served by transit so the hills on the way home after a long day were a disincentive.
  - Obi_Juan_Kenobi 7y ago
    What I've seen for heartrate profiles and whatnot (sorry, can't find a link easily), ebike riding gives you a more steady heart-rate that, on average, is quite similar to 'analog' cycling. Intuitively, this makes sense; most people don't mind spinning the pedals with some moderate effort. What is discouraging is frequent start/stops and riding up hills or into headwinds. But, given the choice between pedaling and not, most people have no issue putting some work in.
    - acdha 7y ago
      One thing we have heard a lot is that it boosts confidence if there’s a stretch where you have to share the road and prefer to be going 20 in a 25 zone rather than 10-15. I think there’s a risk about riding too fast for your experience level but slow bikes inspire a LOT of bad driving in my experience.
intopieces 7y ago
I like electrek, but the editorializing here on their “take” is quite cringeworthy. I recommend skipping it.
- analog31 7y ago
  Disclosure: I ride a conventional bike. I thought the gratuitous, divisive jabs against conventional cyclists were over the top. If e-bikes are a good idea, which I think they are, they should stand on their own merits as a technology. Amusingly, with the proliferation of e-bikes, I actually find myself on the defensive about riding a conventional bike. People ask me why I haven't switched yet.
  - intopieces 7y ago
    As an e-bike rider, whole heartedly agree. Getting people out of cars and onto any form of pedal power is a net benefit, there’s no reason to be divisive.
    - rhinoceraptor 7y ago
      The only thing I worry about is people with poor bike handling skills getting an e-bike that suddenly lets them ride as fast as a pro cyclist with little effort. If you watch people getting on rented bikes at a tourist destination, you see a lot of wobbly riding. Plus the fat comfort seats that people use make it even harder to control a bike.
    - tonyedgecombe 7y ago
      As an e-bike rider I've lost count of the number of times I've been told I'm cheating.
  - allana 7y ago
    Pedal power ftw! If you enjoy your current bike, don't switch. A good light bike can be quite a bit more enjoyable to ride than an eBike, I think eBikes really just enable super-commuting by bike for those of us with weak calves.
  - 7y ago
_nalply 7y ago
This is true for me. Since I have a e-mountain bike (a e-bike designed for offroad cycling), I sometimes bike up hills where I live just for fun and I would never have thought I would do this. The electrical support is awesome and a hell of fun. Then back at home I discover myself sweaty and tired. I turn off the motor when biking around in the city (which is flat) so I don't get used to the boost. This is a trick I play on myself so I don't lose the fun.
Freak_NL 7y ago
> The survey took place from November 2014 to January 2017 in seven European cities: Antwerp (Belgium), Barcelona (Spain), London (United Kingdom), Örebro (Sweden), Rome (Italy), Vienna (Austria) and Zurich (Switzerland). (From the linked study.) This leaves out the Netherlands and Denmark, two countries with a well-established habit of riding bicycles and world-leading, exemplary infrastructure that focuses on cyclist and pedestrian safety. I would love to know what the increasing popularity of e-bikes does here in the Netherlands, because as a casual observer it seems to me that a lot of people who use them hardly pedal at all; depending on battery power for what seems like the biggest part of the load. While there are indubitably a good number of folk (elderly in particular) who can now stay mobile using e-bikes in a manner that stimulates using your muscles for much longer, I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that there is a large group of people who uses e-bikes to stop using quite as much energy as well — to the detriment of their health. I.e., most people in developed countries don't meet the daily minimum of exercise; the Dutch habit of riding bicycles for almost anything that doesn't require distances over 10km keeps a lot of people on the healthy side of that requirement. E-bike are attractive, because parking cars and mopeds is much more bothersome; bicycle racks are everywhere.
- avar 7y ago
  > [...]it seems to me that a lot of people who use [E-bikes] hardly pedal at all; depending on battery power for what seems like the biggest part of the load. As an immigrant to The Netherlands it seems to me the Dutch hardly pedal at all; depending on the flatness of the terrain to most of the work for them :) That's a bit snarky, but I think there's a lot of truth to it. One reason the Netherlands and Denmark are so disproportionately bicycle friendly is their natural terrain and climate. E-Bikes serve as an equalizer in that regard and encourage bicycle use. More people can now bike on days where it would otherwise be too hot or rainy (arrive soaked in sweat), too windy (ditto), or where the destination is too far away to arrive in a reasonable time on a non-assisted bicycle. Those people would otherwise have used some motorized form of transport.
- allana 7y ago
  eBikes open up that 10+km space, making my 12km commute each way take only 25 minutes (versus 19 to 45 minutes driving depending on time of day). I also get to bike alongside the canal as part of my commute, whereas before it was a mere glimpse through the buildings and trees from the roadside. I would not be biking without my eBike, Seattle's hills are too extreme for people who don't have strong chevrolegs.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Mirioron 7y ago
Speaking about cycling. Something I don't understand about bikes and e-bikes is their price. Why are they so incredibly expensive? How come economies of scale haven't made them dirt cheap?
- analog31 7y ago
  You can get a basic bike at a big-box store, or online, for between 100 and 200 bucks. If you attend to basic maintenance from the git-go, you can have a functioning bike.
  - adrianN 7y ago
    As any smaller bicycle shop will tell you, these are not bikes, they're "bike shaped objects" and fairly dangerous due to the poor manufacturing. They're also really hard to ride due to their weight and high friction parts. You can get a decent bike for maybe 500€, in my experience. If you don't have enough money for that, you're far better of buying a used bike.
    - rhinoceraptor 7y ago
      I definitely second this. Big box store bikes are generally very low quality, plus they’re assembled by people who work there, so they probably lack proper bike mechanic experience. If you look closely you’ll see they may have the brakes incorrectly installed, the forks backwards, etc.
      - analog31 7y ago
        Indeed, final assembly is an issue with bikes, and a better shop will hopefully do a better job. Bikes are never fully assembled or tested before being shipped to the dealer or consumer. As a result, assembly and adjustment are beyond the control of the factory. This is true of virtually all bikes. My $500 bike was adjusted by the shop before I rode it home. In my view, the practicality and enjoyment of cycling is vastly improved by having some basic maintenance skills, to the point where I consider it to be a pre-requisite.
Manfred 7y ago
> As it turned out, electric bicycle riders ended up slightly edging out pedal bike cyclists in terms of total exercise each week. There was no correction for selection bias so you can’t make any assumptions. For example; it’s likely that e-bike riders are older and have more spare time. How much would a regular cyclist exercise with the same spare time?
- edejong 7y ago
  Article: "Users who reported any use of non-electric bicycle (including city bike, mountain bike or bike-sharing) but not e-bike were categorized as cyclists, those who did not report any bicycle use, as non-cyclists." Aha! So, we're comparing mountain bikers and bike-sharers with e-bikes (which belong in the category of electrified city bikes). That alone should raise some informed eyebrows.
  - FridgeSeal 7y ago
    Kind of tells me they don’t understand how much effort and energy goes into mountain biking either. I can only going mountain biking on weekends, but it’s far from a low effort activity, I’d be willing to bet that I expend more energy and get more exercise than someone who trundles around the city on an e-bike.
- edejong 7y ago
  Another problematic bias from the article: "Respondents stating that they used an e-bike were categorized as e-bikers, independent of whether they also used a conventional bicycle." So, since belonging to a group of bicycle use (leisure, sports, commute) is additive in the amount of exercise one receives, the e-bike group is automatically larger than the non-e-bike group. How does this pass peer review?
  - overkalix 7y ago
    Actually, even though the authors classified as e-bikers those that combine both modes of transportation, the sample they end up with is: - 365 e-bikers (2/3 of them from Antwerp and Zürich, only 20 from Barcelona, only 5 from London, only 18 from Örebro). - 7212 cyclists. - 1758 non-cyclists. There are other things far more eyebrow-raising than the skewed sample. > Categorical travel frequency data was converted into an average number of days per month. > Trip distance was derived by selecting the fastest route returned by the Google Maps API > Distances for multimodal trips were assigned to the main mode using the following hierarchy: public transport, car, e-bike, bicycle, walking > Physical activity from active travel modes was almost the same in e-bikers and cyclists (1735 vs. 1656 MET min/wk., respectively)
deleted 7y ago
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allenrb 7y ago
E-bikes are a funny thing. Living in Seattle, they were everywhere. Having now moved to the flatlands of Chicago, I see more Ferraris than e-bikes. I’m a “conventional” cyclist but totally get the appeal of electricity in hilly terrain. Not everyone enjoys that kind of battle. Having said that, the two (soon to be three) days I cycle the 30 mile round-trip to work leave me feeling great. Would recommend to anyone. Combined with riding Metra (our commuter trains) the other days, traffic becomes a spectator sport.
hannob 7y ago
Looks like a pretty classic correlation != causation issue. Yeah, may be true what they found. But may also be not very relevant. It absoltely doesn't say that getting an e-bike will make you exercise more. Here's a theory what might be going on: E-Bikes are relatively expensive. So if you buy an E-Bike you're probably relatively determined to actually use it. There are on the other hand plenty of people that own a cheap bike and use it very rarely. There's no real reason not to do a proper study on the question: Take a reasonably large number of volunteers, randomly assign them to "we give you a fancy bike" or "we give you a fancy e-bike" group and then measure their exercise and health levels. There are situations where doing such a randomized trial is unethical or pracitcally impossible. Here it really is not. If someone's doing a study with observational data where you could do a randomized trial you should be skeptical.
- dmurray 7y ago
  Your trial sounds expensive, maybe 50 times as expensive as the version where you just talk to people, for the same statistical power. So that's at least one reason not to do it. And you still end up measuring something different from what you want. Just as in your theory about people committing to use their e-bike more when they've spent a lot of money on it, people behave differently when you give them things for free.
  - hannob 7y ago
    > Your trial sounds expensive, maybe 50 times as expensive as the version where you just talk to people, for the same statistical power. It is, especially if you do it with proper statistical power. Though I'm deeply convinced that it would do science a lot of good to do fewer more expensive, but meaningful trials instead of more meaningless ones. Your concern is somewhat valid, as you can't "blind" the test, but by using similarly priced bikes you could at least cancel out a price bias. Still there might be a "new tech" bias towards e-bikes. But then we're at "this is the best we can do" and there are limitations of how good we can study things. The study quoted above is not even near trying to do that.
- usrusr 7y ago
  "E-Bikes are relatively expensive. So if you buy an E-Bike you're probably relatively determined to actually use it." Seems like you have the blueprint for the "perfect" counter-study: compare e-bikers only to people who spent about as much on a conventional bicycle and you select for moderate fitness nerds who will routinely output more power than e-bike and e-biker together and spend many hours per week training. The results will go through the roof in favor of conventional bikes! Utterly skewed, but nominally apples to apples.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
GhostVII 7y ago
> But if you ride a pedal-assist e-bike, which is pretty much the only type of e-bike that is legal across Europe, then you can take comfort in knowing that you’re likely getting just as much exercise than if you were on a pedal bike Pretty sure that isn't implied by the study. Even if e-bikers get more exercise than cyclists, that doesn't mean switching to an e-bike causes you to get more exercise, the study didn't show causation. I ride recreationally, for a fixed amount of time. If I switched to an e-bike, I would just work less hard during that time, and get less exercise.

53 points by kensai 7y ago

I guess it really strongly depends on if the person just used an e-bike to replace their ordinary cycling habits. I can see how it being easier causes people to take the bike out more than the would ordinarily.

jstanley 7y ago
I own an ebike, and I use it for journeys that I wouldn't even consider taking an ordinary bike on. To be honest, I don't even think I'd ride an ordinary bike to the top of my road. It's a bit of a hill, and riding a bicycle up a hill without electric assistance is extremely unpleasant. Ordinary cycling is just too tiring for non-cyclists to want to do. An ebike makes it workable.
- StavrosK 7y ago
  But who is a cyclist if not somebody who uses a bicycle, thus making your statement tautological? I hadn't ridden a bike in years before I decided to use it for my commute, and now I love it. I cycle 10km when going out to the bar, and I love the exercise. I put on headphones and listen to an audio book and it's my favorite thing to do. Granted, my city is built along a carless waterfront, so it's ideal for cycling, but I don't think cycling is too tiring. Maybe some people just don't like the effort, though.
- tlb 7y ago
  Going uphill is my favorite kind of biking. Uphill, your speed is linearly proportional to your effort. On a flat road, it's proportional to the cube root of effort. So it's more motivating to work hard going uphill. A more forward posture (which you get with dropped handlebars) and clip-in pedals help.
  - closeparen 7y ago
    >So it's more motivating to work hard going uphill. This is a feature in a sport, but a bug in a transportation method.
- pizza234 7y ago
  > Ordinary cycling is just too tiring for non-cyclists to want to do. An ebike makes it workable. Although geography is a requirement for non-assisted cycling (ie. no big hills), it's ultimately a cultural matter. Northern european countries largerly use bikes; there is no distinction between "cyclist" and "non-cyclist". Southern european countries, geographical factors being equal, use the bicycles much less.
smartician 7y ago
Bingo. "Travel-related activities of e-bikers who switched from cycling decreased by around 200 MET min/wk., while those switching from private motorized vehicle and public transport gained around 550 and 800 MET min/wk. respectively."
acdha 7y ago
I have a cargo e-bike (Yuba Boda Boda) for taking my son to daycare (8mi each way, plenty of hills and stops) and if the records from my Apple Watch are at all accurate, it’s basically canceling out the extra weight of the burlier bike and passenger: heart rate stays in the same territory, travel time is about the same, etc. compared to my road bike (roughly 100lbs lighter). For my wife, this was the difference between biking every day or not - her commute is a little longer and better served by transit so the hills on the way home after a long day were a disincentive.
- Obi_Juan_Kenobi 7y ago
  What I've seen for heartrate profiles and whatnot (sorry, can't find a link easily), ebike riding gives you a more steady heart-rate that, on average, is quite similar to 'analog' cycling. Intuitively, this makes sense; most people don't mind spinning the pedals with some moderate effort. What is discouraging is frequent start/stops and riding up hills or into headwinds. But, given the choice between pedaling and not, most people have no issue putting some work in.
  - acdha 7y ago
    One thing we have heard a lot is that it boosts confidence if there’s a stretch where you have to share the road and prefer to be going 20 in a 25 zone rather than 10-15. I think there’s a risk about riding too fast for your experience level but slow bikes inspire a LOT of bad driving in my experience.

intopieces 7y ago

I like electrek, but the editorializing here on their “take” is quite cringeworthy. I recommend skipping it.

analog31 7y ago
Disclosure: I ride a conventional bike. I thought the gratuitous, divisive jabs against conventional cyclists were over the top. If e-bikes are a good idea, which I think they are, they should stand on their own merits as a technology. Amusingly, with the proliferation of e-bikes, I actually find myself on the defensive about riding a conventional bike. People ask me why I haven't switched yet.
- intopieces 7y ago
  As an e-bike rider, whole heartedly agree. Getting people out of cars and onto any form of pedal power is a net benefit, there’s no reason to be divisive.
  - rhinoceraptor 7y ago
    The only thing I worry about is people with poor bike handling skills getting an e-bike that suddenly lets them ride as fast as a pro cyclist with little effort. If you watch people getting on rented bikes at a tourist destination, you see a lot of wobbly riding. Plus the fat comfort seats that people use make it even harder to control a bike.
  - tonyedgecombe 7y ago
    As an e-bike rider I've lost count of the number of times I've been told I'm cheating.
- allana 7y ago
  Pedal power ftw! If you enjoy your current bike, don't switch. A good light bike can be quite a bit more enjoyable to ride than an eBike, I think eBikes really just enable super-commuting by bike for those of us with weak calves.
- 7y ago

_nalply 7y ago

This is true for me. Since I have a e-mountain bike (a e-bike designed for offroad cycling), I sometimes bike up hills where I live just for fun and I would never have thought I would do this. The electrical support is awesome and a hell of fun. Then back at home I discover myself sweaty and tired. I turn off the motor when biking around in the city (which is flat) so I don't get used to the boost. This is a trick I play on myself so I don't lose the fun.

Freak_NL 7y ago

> The survey took place from November 2014 to January 2017 in seven European cities: Antwerp (Belgium), Barcelona (Spain), London (United Kingdom), Örebro (Sweden), Rome (Italy), Vienna (Austria) and Zurich (Switzerland). (From the linked study.) This leaves out the Netherlands and Denmark, two countries with a well-established habit of riding bicycles and world-leading, exemplary infrastructure that focuses on cyclist and pedestrian safety. I would love to know what the increasing popularity of e-bikes does here in the Netherlands, because as a casual observer it seems to me that a lot of people who use them hardly pedal at all; depending on battery power for what seems like the biggest part of the load. While there are indubitably a good number of folk (elderly in particular) who can now stay mobile using e-bikes in a manner that stimulates using your muscles for much longer, I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that there is a large group of people who uses e-bikes to stop using quite as much energy as well — to the detriment of their health. I.e., most people in developed countries don't meet the daily minimum of exercise; the Dutch habit of riding bicycles for almost anything that doesn't require distances over 10km keeps a lot of people on the healthy side of that requirement. E-bike are attractive, because parking cars and mopeds is much more bothersome; bicycle racks are everywhere.

avar 7y ago
> [...]it seems to me that a lot of people who use [E-bikes] hardly pedal at all; depending on battery power for what seems like the biggest part of the load. As an immigrant to The Netherlands it seems to me the Dutch hardly pedal at all; depending on the flatness of the terrain to most of the work for them :) That's a bit snarky, but I think there's a lot of truth to it. One reason the Netherlands and Denmark are so disproportionately bicycle friendly is their natural terrain and climate. E-Bikes serve as an equalizer in that regard and encourage bicycle use. More people can now bike on days where it would otherwise be too hot or rainy (arrive soaked in sweat), too windy (ditto), or where the destination is too far away to arrive in a reasonable time on a non-assisted bicycle. Those people would otherwise have used some motorized form of transport.
allana 7y ago
eBikes open up that 10+km space, making my 12km commute each way take only 25 minutes (versus 19 to 45 minutes driving depending on time of day). I also get to bike alongside the canal as part of my commute, whereas before it was a mere glimpse through the buildings and trees from the roadside. I would not be biking without my eBike, Seattle's hills are too extreme for people who don't have strong chevrolegs.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

Mirioron 7y ago

Speaking about cycling. Something I don't understand about bikes and e-bikes is their price. Why are they so incredibly expensive? How come economies of scale haven't made them dirt cheap?

analog31 7y ago
You can get a basic bike at a big-box store, or online, for between 100 and 200 bucks. If you attend to basic maintenance from the git-go, you can have a functioning bike.
- adrianN 7y ago
  As any smaller bicycle shop will tell you, these are not bikes, they're "bike shaped objects" and fairly dangerous due to the poor manufacturing. They're also really hard to ride due to their weight and high friction parts. You can get a decent bike for maybe 500€, in my experience. If you don't have enough money for that, you're far better of buying a used bike.
  - rhinoceraptor 7y ago
    I definitely second this. Big box store bikes are generally very low quality, plus they’re assembled by people who work there, so they probably lack proper bike mechanic experience. If you look closely you’ll see they may have the brakes incorrectly installed, the forks backwards, etc.
    - analog31 7y ago
      Indeed, final assembly is an issue with bikes, and a better shop will hopefully do a better job. Bikes are never fully assembled or tested before being shipped to the dealer or consumer. As a result, assembly and adjustment are beyond the control of the factory. This is true of virtually all bikes. My $500 bike was adjusted by the shop before I rode it home. In my view, the practicality and enjoyment of cycling is vastly improved by having some basic maintenance skills, to the point where I consider it to be a pre-requisite.

Manfred 7y ago

> As it turned out, electric bicycle riders ended up slightly edging out pedal bike cyclists in terms of total exercise each week. There was no correction for selection bias so you can’t make any assumptions. For example; it’s likely that e-bike riders are older and have more spare time. How much would a regular cyclist exercise with the same spare time?

edejong 7y ago
Article: "Users who reported any use of non-electric bicycle (including city bike, mountain bike or bike-sharing) but not e-bike were categorized as cyclists, those who did not report any bicycle use, as non-cyclists." Aha! So, we're comparing mountain bikers and bike-sharers with e-bikes (which belong in the category of electrified city bikes). That alone should raise some informed eyebrows.
- FridgeSeal 7y ago
  Kind of tells me they don’t understand how much effort and energy goes into mountain biking either. I can only going mountain biking on weekends, but it’s far from a low effort activity, I’d be willing to bet that I expend more energy and get more exercise than someone who trundles around the city on an e-bike.
edejong 7y ago
Another problematic bias from the article: "Respondents stating that they used an e-bike were categorized as e-bikers, independent of whether they also used a conventional bicycle." So, since belonging to a group of bicycle use (leisure, sports, commute) is additive in the amount of exercise one receives, the e-bike group is automatically larger than the non-e-bike group. How does this pass peer review?
- overkalix 7y ago
  Actually, even though the authors classified as e-bikers those that combine both modes of transportation, the sample they end up with is: - 365 e-bikers (2/3 of them from Antwerp and Zürich, only 20 from Barcelona, only 5 from London, only 18 from Örebro). - 7212 cyclists. - 1758 non-cyclists. There are other things far more eyebrow-raising than the skewed sample. > Categorical travel frequency data was converted into an average number of days per month. > Trip distance was derived by selecting the fastest route returned by the Google Maps API > Distances for multimodal trips were assigned to the main mode using the following hierarchy: public transport, car, e-bike, bicycle, walking > Physical activity from active travel modes was almost the same in e-bikers and cyclists (1735 vs. 1656 MET min/wk., respectively)

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

allenrb 7y ago

E-bikes are a funny thing. Living in Seattle, they were everywhere. Having now moved to the flatlands of Chicago, I see more Ferraris than e-bikes. I’m a “conventional” cyclist but totally get the appeal of electricity in hilly terrain. Not everyone enjoys that kind of battle. Having said that, the two (soon to be three) days I cycle the 30 mile round-trip to work leave me feeling great. Would recommend to anyone. Combined with riding Metra (our commuter trains) the other days, traffic becomes a spectator sport.

hannob 7y ago

Looks like a pretty classic correlation != causation issue. Yeah, may be true what they found. But may also be not very relevant. It absoltely doesn't say that getting an e-bike will make you exercise more. Here's a theory what might be going on: E-Bikes are relatively expensive. So if you buy an E-Bike you're probably relatively determined to actually use it. There are on the other hand plenty of people that own a cheap bike and use it very rarely. There's no real reason not to do a proper study on the question: Take a reasonably large number of volunteers, randomly assign them to "we give you a fancy bike" or "we give you a fancy e-bike" group and then measure their exercise and health levels. There are situations where doing such a randomized trial is unethical or pracitcally impossible. Here it really is not. If someone's doing a study with observational data where you could do a randomized trial you should be skeptical.

dmurray 7y ago
Your trial sounds expensive, maybe 50 times as expensive as the version where you just talk to people, for the same statistical power. So that's at least one reason not to do it. And you still end up measuring something different from what you want. Just as in your theory about people committing to use their e-bike more when they've spent a lot of money on it, people behave differently when you give them things for free.
- hannob 7y ago
  > Your trial sounds expensive, maybe 50 times as expensive as the version where you just talk to people, for the same statistical power. It is, especially if you do it with proper statistical power. Though I'm deeply convinced that it would do science a lot of good to do fewer more expensive, but meaningful trials instead of more meaningless ones. Your concern is somewhat valid, as you can't "blind" the test, but by using similarly priced bikes you could at least cancel out a price bias. Still there might be a "new tech" bias towards e-bikes. But then we're at "this is the best we can do" and there are limitations of how good we can study things. The study quoted above is not even near trying to do that.
usrusr 7y ago
"E-Bikes are relatively expensive. So if you buy an E-Bike you're probably relatively determined to actually use it." Seems like you have the blueprint for the "perfect" counter-study: compare e-bikers only to people who spent about as much on a conventional bicycle and you select for moderate fitness nerds who will routinely output more power than e-bike and e-biker together and spend many hours per week training. The results will go through the roof in favor of conventional bikes! Utterly skewed, but nominally apples to apples.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

GhostVII 7y ago

> But if you ride a pedal-assist e-bike, which is pretty much the only type of e-bike that is legal across Europe, then you can take comfort in knowing that you’re likely getting just as much exercise than if you were on a pedal bike Pretty sure that isn't implied by the study. Even if e-bikers get more exercise than cyclists, that doesn't mean switching to an e-bike causes you to get more exercise, the study didn't show causation. I ride recreationally, for a fixed amount of time. If I switched to an e-bike, I would just work less hard during that time, and get less exercise.