crunchysteve

250 watts is 1/3 of the grunt of your average home handyman hammer drill. It's about the maximum average an unathletic human can squeeze into the pedals of a bicycle, continuously during a ride. It's two and a half old fashioned light bulbs. That's the power output of the 3-phase electric motor in the front wheel of my e-converted touring bicycle. It's also the absolute maximum power legal on Australian roads for an e-bike, and then, only in pedal-assist configuration.

Yet, in Australia it's perfectly legal to sell any power rated bicycle motor. You can buy 3 kilowatt motors in bicycle wheels. Legally. The only place you can legally use one of these behemoths or any bicycle motor above 250 watts, is on private property with the land owner's permission. Basically a farm, with the farmer's permission, or a privately owned mountain bike park where they allow high powered machines. Say the local council or the national parks department in your state runs your mountain bike park - you can't use a motor bigger than 250w there. It's the law.

The reason this law exists was made very plain to me yesterday on my first proper ride of my pedelec converted touring bike. IT'S LIKE A FUCKING SPACE-X ROCKET! It's like having Cadel Evans, no, Jens Voigt as stoker on a tandem! Well, both Cadel and Jens could put out 700+ watts at the top of their careers for sprint and hilltop bursts, but doubling my impaired heart, peak power felt like having their help on a second set of pedals! Why would ANYBODY think they need 500w plus?!

I was thinking about a 350w kit for my dutch-style cargo bike, legal will be fine. A legal, 250 watts will be totally adequate, thank you very much!

So, yesterday's loaded shakedown run. Every second Sunday, I blat up to splodgenoodles' place and, on the following Sunday, I blat back home. I've had to forego the bike a lot in the last 3 and a half years because my "widow maker" heart attack left me with heart failure. It's been a slow road, hit me with a brick, but it's taken until this year to admit that heart failure is a disability and, just like a person with a spinal injury needs a wheelchair for mobility, I need e-assist to continue the passion of my life - riding a bicycle. I'm not bomb-proof, I'm not invincible, time is catching up with me and I should feel NO shame for using an accessibility tool like an electric wheel. In fact, it would be outright ablist and offensive to not adopt some battery powered assistance. Mein GOTT! The ride was easy AND I got exercise! This is totally counter-intuitive, right?

The fortnightly northbound commute is relatively flat into the city but has some moderate hills after crossing Flinders St and averages about one in six or seven, steeper in places, less so elsewhere. There's often a light headwind on equinoxial sunny days, too, and yesterday was no exception. I started out with a boost of 1, approximately 20% of the motor's maximum 40Nm of torque. I had my mojo back, my breathing was easy, my chest didn't feel tight within the first 2 "kliks." It's undulant, it still felt that way, I still felt the work I had to do, but 8 Nm of assistance was like a nice tailwind.

I bumped up to a boost of 2 for my first significant rise, a short, sharp incline about a kilometre from home, then back to 1 when it levelled out. It's like having my front gears back, but without losing velocity like a lower cog does. Then there's about 3km of mostly downhill and flat again, before 2 "kliks" of undulance. Toorak to Botanical Gardens has the steepest hills on this run and did have to click all the way through, as the gradient rose, to the full 250w and 40Nm.

AT 22KM/H!!! ON AN ASPHALT WALL!!!

Then it was a nice, cruisy cruise down through Botanical Gardens to the Arts Centre and the CBD. I was in love already! I had a good sweat on, I was feeling 3 years of inadequate stamina riding in my legs, but not in my chest! My breathing was in the aerobic zone, but my heart was under my 130BPM limit and I wasn't dizzy from exertion. Heart failure is medicated with blood pressure meds, I stand up quickly, I fall down. I ride to hard, I fall off. The pedelec assist was taking the tops off my exercise without letting me "slack off." This was really surprising me. I'm still really puzzled by it when I reflect on what 50 years of cycling has taught me about biomechanics.

Then the main climbing started, eased off for a few blocks and started until the end of my trip. Steep bursts alongside a railway cut, click up through the numbers on the control panel. Level off, back off. A bit of gravel, click up to 2, with a short sharp mountain bike 3m climb, click, click, click to the full 40Nm. Only change in technique, put the weight a little further forward because this experiment is front wheel drive. The bike ate this and wanted seconds. Concrete bike path, eroded gravel mews lane, cobbles a few residential streets and I arrived breathing like a bike ride before my heart attack. Slightly dizzy, that's a fact of my life, now, but no real need for 2 recovery days. I even went for a 2k walk today!

Yesterday was nearly 1/3 of a touring day's distance, 28km out of 90km to 100km, what I used to ride days on end for 2 weeks at a time. Done cold, no training for it, working the e-system hard, and I still felt like I'd had a rewarding exercise session. Best of all, hammering the assist on every hill, from the start, I still had probably another 28km in the bike's battery! 24 at least! 50km range?! Wow!

I still get angry at younger people using e-bikes like toy motor bikes. The pure bicycle is the most energy efficient human invention ever! Five times more energy efficient than walking the same distance and 4 times faster than walking, yet better cardio than running and the most life extending exercise you can do, according to science. An ebike is a "wheelchair" for my mojo - I need it to maintain the mobility I have cherished all my life. I survived a heart attack because I was a regular daily commuter - that is the medical opinion of the cardiologist who stented me!

An infarction of the left anterior descending coronary artery is literally a widow maker. It has been a harder recovery road to walk than cancer. If you want to avoid or survive one of these, ride a bike, start as young as you can, start now. You DON'T need an e-bike, I only do because family genetics have played 3 cruel tricks on my health, adult onset type 1 diabetes, colorectal cancer and heart failure. I have survived all three because I used a bicycle for transport, not sport. And now, I plan to live a long, full cycling life with a little electricity to put back what my LAD infarc took away.

To able bodied, young ebike riders, I say, "You do not need an e-bike, you just need to love riding." Ride to work every day, not fast, just comfortably, like the Dutch do. Take the long way home and kick up a gear to get your fitness, and your head clear. Save the e-bike for when health robs you and, if you're lucky, riding instead of driving will keep you healthier and alive for longer. Riding non-electric, solely for transport and leisure, literally saved my life 3 and a half years ago. Using an ebike all that time may well not have. But it truly is saving my soul from death inside right now.