Riding Your Ebike with Cyclists on Regular Bikes

By Stan Purdum

As more long-time bike enthusiasts are extending their years of cycling by moving to ebikes, it’s increasingly common on group rides to find ebikers mixed in with those on regular bikes. In my experience, most riders of non-electric bikes are willing to accommodate ebikers in their group or event rides, but I’m convinced ebikers should do what they can to fit in without expecting the group to change its dynamics, speed or range.

After more than 40 years as a serious cyclist, I am now riding an ebike almost exclusively. At least once a week, I ride with a couple of friends, both about 10 years younger than I am, who ride regular bikes, and do so at a strong average speed. We typically ride 60-65 miles, and sometimes more.

I only met my new friends, Rich and Jeff, a few months ago, but they have welcomed me and my steed to join them. Neither knew much about ebikes, but they have learned about them from me and are aware of one primary limitation: range, which is constrained by how much charge the ebike battery can hold. But when they invited me to join their rides, I was determined to keep my ebike’s features and limitations from negatively impacting our weekly treks.

So far, I think I’ve done pretty well at that, so I’m offering the following suggestions not to brag, but in hope that they may be useful to you if you adopt an electric-assist bike and want to integrate smoothly with groups of riders on non-electric bikes.

First, I actively avoid being “king of the mountain.” Although our rides typically include lots of climbs, and my ebike makes it possible for me to be the first one to the top, I believe it’s bad form for me to trounce my companions on every steep upslope. This is especially the case since they are climbing using the pure power of their own muscles while I am supplementing my efforts with electric power.

Thus, when encountering a hill, I sometimes bleed off a little of my speed or shift to a lower gear or a lower assist level to remain in the pack but not beat it up the hill. There are occasional exceptions, where, for example, if I happen to be in the lead at the moment we first meet a climb, I may be the first one up, just as one or the other of my friends may be the first to the top on other climbs. And neither of them has ever complained when I hit the top first, but it feels more respectful of their efforts to keep my surges uphill to a minimum. 

Second, I keep my battery range from being a group limitation. My ebike came with a battery in the downtube, which in ideal conditions (flat terrain with no opposing wind and using the lowest assist level), provides about an 80-mile range. But since “ideal conditions” are seldom the reality, and the lowest assist level yields a slower speed than many cyclists want to ride, I added a range-extender battery which adds 50% more range. Experimentation taught me that with the two batteries, I could achieve about 75 miles of range in hilly terrain even while using the middle assist level, which matches the speed my friends typically ride. Since our weekly ride is usually 65-70 miles, I can match both their speed and their distance. 

The only way my range limits affect riding with my friends is that when they know in advance that they want to do a longer ride, they tell me, and I arrange to meet them at some point into the ride. By lopping off some of the beginning and ending miles, I can ride the heart of the journey with them without asking them to trim the route to accommodate my range limitations.

Third, I work at not interrupting the ride with mechanical issues that are primarily ebike problems. I’m not talking about mechanicals that are common to all bikes. On one ride, for example, the three of us stopped together so Jeff could fix a flat tire. Later, on that same ride, we all stopped together so I could fix a flat. But my steed, being an ebike, is only one of the three bikes that has a single chain ring (Rich rides a double and Jeff a triple.) Single rings, having no derailleur, are susceptible to dropping the chain. And this happened to me on two consecutive rides. The guys paused the ride while I put my chain back on, but after the second occurrence, I was determined to find a fix quickly. I’d have wanted to do this even if I were only riding alone, but with it interrupting the ride for others, I was doubly determined.

After trying a couple of fixes that didn’t improve things, I found a Reddit page devoted to my model ebike, where several participants discussed this problem and the primary recommendation was to swap out the Praxis chain ring for a “drop-stop” ring from Wolf Tooth. I ordered one and installed it, and I have not dropped my chain since.

Obviously, if I were riding with a slower group of riders, I’d want to take additional steps not to outpace them, but my overall learning is that an ebike rider, can, with a little thought and effort, have a place on rides where other cyclists are on regular bikes, without making them wish the ebiker had stayed home.

How about you? If you ride a regular bike, and there are ebikers on your rides, do you have any peeves about how they interact with the group? Are there things you appreciate about how they ride with the group? If you ride an ebike, what do you do to fit in smoothly with the riders on regular bikes? Use the comments section below to tell us.

Stan Purdum has ridden several long-distance bike trips, including an across-America ride recounted in his book Roll Around Heaven All Day, and a trek on U.S. 62, from Niagara Falls, New York, to El Paso, Texas, the subject of his book Playing in Traffic. Stan, a freelance writer and editor, lives in Ohio. See more at www.StanPurdum.com.