Ebikes catching publicity

Simon Cowell broke his back riding an ebike. Kind of surprised we haven’t seen more of this with the older generation being the targeted market for these. I have personally test rode a few and found them to be pretty darn fast for an older person to ride.

This is probably less about age and more about ability (or lack there of). No idea what he has for skills on a bike, but my gut says he’s possibly not the best bike handler out there.

Ebikes come in a couple of flavors with related speed limits on the assist. The fast ones can get a person up to a high speed with little effort. If a person isn’t familiar with handling a bike at those speeds, it can be an issue, regardless of age.

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My thoughts exactly. Most of the intended market should probably keep it at a lower level, but I’m sure the temptation is there for many to crank it up. And bike handling definitely comes into play along with terrain.

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My dad recently got a specialized creo and is loving it. He’s been riding for decades, but now that he’s a few years into his 70s he was starting to dread any routes with non-trivial hills. He’s on trainerroad and his ftp is a solid 195, but he’s big like me (6’4" 200lb) and getting up hills would push him too far into the red to recover from easily.

We haven’t been able to go for a ride together yet (stupid COVID), but I’m expecting the other benefit will be that we can do real rides together again.

Of course the folks who are buying a creo might not be your standard ebike buyers.

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There was/is a discussion like this here in NL. Statistic shows incidents with e-bikes increasing (although this might simply be due to increased abundance). One idea floated was training courses for elderly buying e-bikes.

Anecdotally I can sometimes see old folks on e-bikes blasting through tight corners, much faster than I would on my race bike :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

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Simon’s bike

Looks like a generic Chinese bike with higher quality components which is something you don’t see often?

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Didn’t another popular figure wipe out on an e-bike recently? Hmmm…can’t quite remember his name… :thinking::grin:

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Who?

probs 1000W motor?
nobbly bobblies on tarmac?
recipe for disaster!

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A lot of those generic Chinese ones have throttles too so you don’t even have to pedal

Here there are 2 typs of ebike where i am. Normal ones max 25km/h and the unrestricted ones up to about 40km/h. Many of the fast ones come with roadbike tires and many ride them also on gravel road and are unexpirienced riders…

We all know 40km/h is fast, ride that on gravel and do a corner i guess thats a problem Right there.

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These shoes, that saddle positioning and no helmet.
Keep on walking or ask someone who knows trielt about riding a bike!

We rented e-bikes (Scott) a few weeks ago, and it was great cruising the rollers along Lake Tahoe. My wife and twenty year old daughters were able to keep up at 18-20mph (29-32kph). Everyone loved it!!!

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