what (if any) cycling competitions do you think you could win? if you and only you were allowed the motor and not constrained by equipment rules.
(assume you can change batteries anywhere a normal racer can get a water bottle)
Think you could beat nino?
Or win a one day hilly road race?
does anyone think they have the skills but not the fitness to take on the Enduro guys with an e-DH bike?
Fattie with swamp tyres for a northern european CX race?
This should be interesting.
DH/Enduro - no chance, where's the advantage unless the enduro stage has a significant climb in it?
XC - nope, they'll be climbing near enough on the limiter of the motors anyway. Fancy chasing Nino up a technical climb with an extra 5kg strapped tot he bike?
Road - nope, even an average club roadie will be doing 17-20mph on the flat bits so unless it's a hillclimb, and a really steep one at that there's no chance.
CX - maybe, it's been done, albeit by someone who would probably have podiumed anyway.
You’d win the race to the bottom 🙂
CX – maybe, it’s been done, albeit by someone who would probably have podiumed anyway.
Going to assume there wasn’t much shouldering involved? Full mud and full dry I’d imagine an ebike would still get spanked
If you had unlimited money, you could build your own course specifically designed to emphasize the advantage of the e-bike and put up enough prize money that everyone else would be happy to race for second place and not tell you you're a pathetic ****er to your face. If you can swap batteries each lap, XC races with steep climbs so you can always use the full e-power, but descents that don't require much skill or bravery. I think probably rolling descents, with a short, straight descent, then a tight turn, followed by a steep climb. This will make everyone burn off energy under brakes at the bottom of each descent, but you have e-power to help on each climb. I've never thought about it in terms of using an e-bike, but I've often pondered what sort of course I could design to make myself less uncompetitive against pros - how to minimize the advantage of bike skills and fitness. Only thing I could think of was that you have to drink a pint every lap - all the pro athletes I've met are really lame when it comes to slamming back drinks.
how to minimize the advantage of bike skills and fitness. Only thing I could think of was that you have to drink a pint every lap – all the pro athletes I’ve met are really lame when it comes to slamming back drinks.
In my experience they've very good at the drinking part, it's what happens afterwards that's the problem 🤣
Not to a win but a mass start race (something like Mountain Mayhem or Stathpeffer) would probably be the sort of thing that an ebike would punt me furthest up the field. On turbo the whole way around with a fresh battery to pick up after every lap.
Yeah maybe something like a mass-start endurance event, where the ebike advantage would also give you a bike strength / tyre durability advantage as well as out and out power. So some kind of physically challenging course but on component & tyre-wrecking terrain where on an ebike you could happily run dual ply tyres etc while others would have to compromise more for weight over a tiring distance?
There was a vid of a junior world cup contender in XC getting spanked by an average joe on an XC course... the WCup rider was proper quick, but the Ebikes advantages were just too huge.
XC – nope, they’ll be climbing near enough on the limiter of the motors anyway. Fancy chasing Nino up a technical climb with an extra 5kg strapped tot he bike?
Yeah, i'm not sure on this one. I know the top xc guys are fast but course dependent i reckon an ebike on turbo would pull out some big gaps on the steeper sections. Sometimes see Julien Absalon riding up the climbs next to Ferrand-Prevot and (admittedly he's a beast) he's cruising and that's on the faster, more wide open climbs near the finish straight. Clearly depends on how fit the guy on the ebike is to be able to keep a decent output on the flat >15mph sections.