I've been riding my Bomber with a bicycle riding group that rides once a week on Tuesdays. Most of the people in this group are young inner city bicyclers. Many of them are, I assume a lot like the author of this article. It wouldn't surprise if more than half of them don't own a car. I found them on Face Book.
The first time I showed up to ride I was somewhat apprehensive about how they would accept having, not only an eBike riding along, but especially an uber eBike like mine.
Well to make a long story short, it turned out not to be an issue, and the main reason I'm pretty sure, is because of the way I ride my bike. I rode with them two nights ago. I prefer to ride near the back of the pack. I don't show off, and in fact, I act like I can barely keep up. I always pedal even though I don't have to.
These people are casual riders of mixed gender, on nice bicycles, but they're not spandexers. They keep a reasonably slow pace of about 8 to 15 mph. On this Tuesday's ride, about 8 miles into a 12 mile ride, one of the riders rode up next to me, and started a conversation. He ask, does that have a motor? I answered yes. Then he ask me a surprising question, when do you use it lol? I actually had been using it the whole time, but he couldn't tell. I explained my bike weighs 100 lb, and I couldn't keep up with their pace for very long if I didn't use the motor a little bit to help me. Plus the fact that the starting point is 17 miles from my house. He had this funny on his face, and I was half expecting some kind of derogatory comment, but after what seemed like a long pregnant pause he said, "that's cool as s#$t".
It probably wouldn't have been that way five years ago, but that's where we're at now. So far I haven't heard one disparaging word, but I'm sure that mainly has to do with the way I ride when I'm with their group.
I wonder what they'd think if they saw me riding the 20 miles home from the end of their ride at 45 mph lol.
