tahustvedt said:
They onle E-bike related annoyance I have experienced is when people ask if it has regen in downhills, and when I say no they go on explaining to me the incredible amounts of energy I would save if I just had regen.
I get this too a lot. Usually this is pretty easy to solve just by asking: and those great hills are...exactly where? There is not much hills around here on the coastline.
With a velomobile everybody just asks: does it have a motor? Ten times every day. People run behind you to catch you to ask this, they shout it middle of an intersection, etc. 7-year old kids and women ask this a lot. Actually they are most often middle-aged women who ask, i don"t know why. Five year old toddlers who have just learned to speak, voicing out mutterings of their parents.
Now, i don"t basically mind to answer to that 1000th time, but their reaction to my answer is why i have started just to become deaf to that question occasionally.
They don"t say with a word that they think you are "cheater", but they often give this speechless expression like they have just caught you using dope on olympic games or something.
When they ask that question they just want to know are you a "honorable, pure cyclist"
Last spring when i rode few hundred kilometres without a motor, and answered "no", people started to bat my back. "Yeah, man. That"s the way it should be...no motor..."
So i am occasionally deaf if people ask me something these days. That possibly makes me appear slightly ignorant at times, but that"s the price to pay of your peace of mind.
E-biking really makes those sociological underlying value undertows visible.