Are Electric Bikes CHEATING? EBikes Have Pedal Assist, Is That Cheating? E Bicycle Controversy

Are electric bikes cheating? Stick around to hear my thoughts. Hey, everyone, I'm Dustin. I have nearly 20 years of experience in the bike and e-bike industry and, today, we're going to talk about: are electric bikes cheating? Before we get into it, hit the subscribe button below, and stay in touch with us here at sixthreezero. Be the first to know about all the new content we're putting out, giveaways we do, and of course, new product releases. Also, if you want to check out all the e-bikes from sixthreezero, and standard bikes if you don't want to cheat, you can find them on our website, sixthreezero.com, which is linked in the description below. All right, so I am in a lot of forums for e-bikes, a lot of groups, and I always see this chatter that people are riding their e-bike somewhere and somebody on a two-wheel bike without a motor is yelling at them, "Hey, that's cheating."

There's a lot of... Sometimes I hear there's animosity between non-e-bikes and regular e-bikes, and there just seems to be this general vibe going around that e-bikes are cheating. Now, e-bike riders don't feel that way, but there's a lot of other people that feel that way. Now, sixthreezero started in 2005 and we started as a regular bike company. We've evolved now into doing electric bikes while we still do regular bikes, and that is true for a lot of bike brands that are out there. Major bike brands, Trek, Specialized, and Giant, all of them offer regular bikes and e-bikes. I think the reality of electric bikes is they serve their purpose, they offer something different to people that regular bikes don't, and are they cheating? The answer is no. Now, again, if you're racing somebody one-on-one and you're trying to tackle the same course and one guy all of a sudden has an e-bike and the other guy has a regular bike, and the e-bike wins, yeah, that would be cheating, right?

He has a distinct advantage to beat him in that race. The idea of an electric bike and what's so great about them is that they're offering something different to a rider that maybe wasn't getting what they needed out of a standard two-wheel bike, and I have a few points specifically around that. Number one is the senior market. Seniors are benefiting from electric bikes because it's increasing the length of time in which they can be on a bicycle. For a lot of seniors maybe that have lost the muscle in their legs or have been dealing with joint issues, they lost the ability to power a two-wheel or even a three-wheel bike under their power. Now with e-bikes, it's given them the ability to continue to ride and just get a little bit of assistance from the bike as they see fit, so they can be out there experiencing nature and still getting exercise.

The other thing I'll say, too, is if you're in the gym, and I use this example in many of my other videos, I'll give you two scenarios. If you're in the gym and there's a pull-up machine, I always like to reference, where you do pull-ups and it can give you assistance on your legs, is that person cheating by using that? If they can't do a pull-up and the only way for them to train and get better at doing a pull-up is to use that machine, then that's the way they're going to do a pull-up to build that muscle, to build that strength, and that's what a lot of riders use e-bikes for as well, or if you're in the gym and you need a spotter to help you lift heavier weight and to do more.

An e-bike is that very thing, right? It's almost a spotter for someone who needs it, whether it be for going up hills, whether it be just general flat ground to get your muscles going, to get exercise. For that contingency of riders out there that couldn't have been cycling otherwise, it's incredible. The other thing, too, is it's allowing people to go farther than they've ever ridden before, so maybe your max ride before was 10 miles, now you can do 20 miles. Is it cheating? Not really, because you wouldn't have gone 20 miles before, so now it's just something that's allowing you to expand and do something different.

I'm also seeing a lot of younger riders utilizing e-bikes. Now, I don't recommend anyone under the age of 16 rides an electric bike, because there are general rules of the road you must know in order to be operating an electric bike, but I'm also seeing e-bikes provide transportation, because prior, if people couldn't get to their destination fast enough or easy enough, they wouldn't opt for two wheels as their mode of transportation. Now with e-bikes, more people, especially younger people, are opting to use their two-wheel e-bikes to get them where they need to go. Is it cheating? No, because I don't think they would've done that otherwise. Without the e-bike, they wouldn't have been riding it all over the place, going to places that they couldn't go prior, tackling certain hills that they couldn't go on prior. This brings me back to another point just about adults, or anybody, a lot of hills that people are now riding on with their e-bike, they would've never been able to ride on a regular bike.

Now, of course, if you're a hardcore cyclist, you can go out there and you want the challenge of tackling major hills, but if you're a recreational cyclist, you don't want to deal with having to be completely out of breath just to go up a hill to a friend's house or something. An e-bike just takes off that edge a little bit, makes it a little bit easier, and now makes it more enticing for you to take your bike out versus thinking, "You know what? I'm just going to drive now." The net gain of people on two wheels is far more beneficial than saying people are cheating because, in my mind, it's more people in the saddle, riding bikes than ever were before versus not. I don't know, the people that maybe haven't experienced e-bikes before or still are sticking to the tried-and-true manual bike, or putting up resistance to it, but I think you can have both in your garage at the same time.

You can have your regular bike, you can have your e-bike. If you don't have the leg strength to ride a regular bike, then don't. Stick to e-bikes and don't feel bad about it, don't feel like it's cheating. Now, with that said, are there people who are abusing e-bikes and riding around town at high speeds where they shouldn't and doing things they shouldn't? Yes. Now, are they cheaters? Not necessarily, because they're using the e-bikes for different purposes, and they're going much faster than I think e-bikes were intended to go in a lot of situations, but I think those are the riders out there giving electric bikes a bad name in certain communities.

When people are not obeying traffic, and are cutting people off, there's a lot of accidents occurring, things of that nature, but that's a small portion of the e-bike riders that exist out there. What I see on a whole is happier people, people losing weight, people getting exercise, and so much of a greater benefit. In my mind, if you're on an e-bike, you're not a cheater. You know what? You're doing something different. An e-bike is not a regular bike, a regular bike is not an e-bike. They've got their use cases, and their benefits, and you can either be a person that can enjoy them both, or you can just enjoy your regular bike or you can just enjoy your e-bike. Just remember, if you ride a two-wheel regular bike, it's not the same as riding an e-bike. Different people, different reasons, different products. Not the one and the same, can't call them cheaters in my mind. If you have any other thoughts on the topic, please pop them below in the comments section or reach out to us by email, at theteam@sixthreezero.com or call us at 310-982-2877.

Check out all of our e-bikes on our website, sixthreezero.com, and if you don't know what you're looking for in the e-bike market, take our proprietary body fit quiz. Our algorithm will recommend the perfect e-bike for you, based on your body and riding habits. We also have a 30-day test ride on your e-bike policy. If you don't love it in the first 30 days, send it back, no questions asked. We also have a one-year warranty where we'll take care of all the parts and labor to ensure you are up and riding in that first year no matter what. Lastly, we have a Facebook group called "The sixthreezero Pedalers," with thousands of members in there. Join that, ask questions in advance of purchasing, and see how others like their e-bike. Then, when you have your e-bike, post in the group, and make friends, it's tons of fun. Lastly, we have an app also in both app stores, Android and Apple. Download it, track your rides on the app, and compete on the leaderboard, it's tons of fun. Thanks for sticking around and don't forget, it's your journey, your experience. Enjoy the ride.