Ray Brown, co-founder of the NEBN (Northwest Electric Bicycle Network) is participating in the Snohomish County bike to work challenge. However, he wanted to make sure the sponsors would be cool with his homebuilt hybrid electric bicycle.
They gave him their blessing and left it to his discretion as to how he wanted to log his miles. He's decided to log half of them based on a rough guess that without electric assist he would probably ride half as far as he typically does on his commute to work.
Following is a quote from the email exchange:
For the record, it is actually not the 'pedal assist' type but rather the 'throttle control' type with a separate drive system. I would expect this question to come up as well if not already so will share some thoughts. I didn't like the pedal assist, after trying a couple of them at Electrical Vehicles NW. (I instead bought one of his EZee bikes with throttle control as my first ebike) It just wasn't making sense to force me to pedal all the time and tie up the same drive system. Throttle control means I can do interval training, or if I feel poorly or get a cramp or something I can take a rest for a bit and still not be late to work (really important). I believe it's also more reliable in case the electric system fails on a pedal assist. As I would expect from most e-bikers, I ride for both exercise and environment, so pedal relatively hard most of the time.
In the future sponsors might consider creating a separate category for hybrid electric bicycles. This had to be done for drag racing because electric cars were kicking everyone's butt.
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