Here are a few examples where e-bikes make a lot of sense:
- Terrain, try a cycling commute in San Francisco US or Granada Spain. E-bikes bring the Netherlands to everywhere else that is not pancake flat.
- Range increase, a lot of people will not leap into a cycling commute because it may not be a reasonable cycling distance for an everyday commute. E-bikes extend what is reasonable.
- Sweat free commute, cyclist love their gear but most people can't be assed to put on spandex to get to work. An e-bike means that you can be wearing office clothes because you are not going to be breaking a sweat.
Spandex and fancy bikes are the territory of wielrenners (lit. ‘wheel-runners’), the rest of us use simple city bikes, and you’re not really going to break a sweat on those.
- Owning bicycles - Using bicycles for recreation and practical uses - Repairing our own bicycles
Because we do not wear spandex or own racing/mountain bikes.
See Casually Explained's video about this: https://youtu.be/5EE8m8mmq1k
My understanding is that this could not have happened in Europe. The (ostensible) reason for the suits were on access for disabled people[1], which (if I understand correctly) is typically not solved through adversarial means in Europe.
1: Another favorite is for environmental reasons. The government's environmental review board can approve a project, but then a concerned citizen can sue claiming they didn't do it correctly. This can delay a construction project for years.
I always wonder if people aren't confusing racing with bicycling. Granted I live in moderate climate but we have our hot days too, generally it's not that hot yet early in the morning, but in that case I could dress appropriately with shorts for the bike ride and change into work clothing after.
According to my phone I generally do a pretty leisurely 12-13 km/h (7.5-8 mph) on my upright (ie. normal) bike and could keep that up for hours without breaking a sweat. Bicycling is really very efficient.
Looking at the way bicycling is experienced in London, and I think many US cities too, I see people dressed in full racing gear and doing 25+ km/h (15 mph+) on race bikes, which makes no sense to me for a city like that: you're sharing the street with dense car traffic, meaning any miscommunication easily turns into a nasty accident at those speeds; on race bikes you're hunched over and have less information about what's happening around you, just due to being lower and the anatomy of how your body turns to look around; and yes your body has to actually work to keep those speeds up.
> Physical activity gains from active travel are similar in e-bikers and cyclists.
In my personal life I exert myself equally on both my pedal bike and ebike- but on the ebike I take longer trips or carry more stuff, like groceries.