Though they’ve been embraced by nearly every major bike manufacturer and have all but saturated every corner of the U.S. cycling market, the debate over whether electric bikes are cheating is alive and well.
Bicycling has long been a sport with an elitist bend; tradition is sacred and it’s a staunchly held belief among many that you must suffer — at least a little — on the bike in order for your experience and effort to count. E-bikes don’t mesh well with that ethos, as if adding a little help to a person’s own pedaling somehow degrades the simple pleasure or utility of riding a bike.
Sound melodramatic? It absolutely is. Cycling is a sport full of people confusing endorphin highs with philosophical enlightenment; people who’d rather indulge in a morning of self-flagellation via bicycle than go to therapy.
But that view of e-bikes is slowly changing. In Europe, where e-bike sales are quickly encroaching on sales of traditional bicycles, e-bikes have gained considerable traction as an alternative transportation solution and as a more inclusive way to get more people of more backgrounds and fitness levels interested in the sport. There’s strong signs that the U.S. bike market is just a few steps behind. In 2020, fueled by the COVID-19 bike boom and a renewed interest in getting outside, e-bike sales in the U.S. grew 145 percent and outpaced traditional bike sales which were up 65 percent, according to market research figures published in the New York Times.
Many industry insiders all-too familiar with the bike industry’s boom-bust cycles are holding out hope that e-bikes, and the non-cycling public’s interest in them, hold the keys to a more economically sustainable future.
It would seem that e-bikes are here to stay.
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