I have both, an unassisted road bike and a commuter ebike. Both are a workout and do provide good exercise.
I find I tend to ride at 80-100% on my road bike as I love its speed, but I have trouble slowing down and getting a more balanced, zone 2 workout. The ebike provides that.
Plus, they are so much fun.
I have an unpowered hybrid and an electric fatbike: I like the ebike but I love my regular bike. The ebike is for when I need to get somewhere relatively close relatively quickly or I’m recovering from a more demanding bike ride.
I snapped the derailleur hanger on my eBike and had to drive my analog one for a week. I was expecting it to be a huge workout after so long time not riding it, but it wasn’t. I’m just as fit despite having been exclusively driving an ebike for a year. My theory is that you’re putting in about as much effort into pedaling both, but because of the assist, with ebike you’ll just drive faster and further. My ebike is also 10kg heavier and because of the 4.8" tires I need to fight the steering much more.
Yeah, I had a similar experience when I dropped my ebike off for service: I switched gears a lot more but it really wasn’t that difficult. Started riding my regular bike more often after that.
I rode the same five-mile route, with a 40ft elevation gain
I tracked the same ride with Strava with no heart-rate monitor
in order to compare the calorie burn rate using the data provided by my Apple Watch. This is strictly based on heart rate, without specifying an activity, so that the fitness tracker wouldn’t make any assumptions about anything.
The methodology used is just awful.
