Electric bikes are engineered from the outset with motor power to supplement, not replace, leg power.
Having said that, and depending on the make and model of the electric bike, there are situations in which the motor can do all the work for brief periods.
Which Electric Bikes allow you to Use the Motor only, Without Pedalling?
Some electric bikes, like many models available from MeloYelo, come with a throttle, either a lever on the handlebars or a twist throttle. In some cases, you can activate these throttles to get moving from a standstill – for instance, if you want to move quickly after stopping at a traffic light. In other cases, the throttle can only be activated once you have reached a speed of 6 kilometres/hour, but if you’re already moving at 6km/hour, the throttle can keep you moving without pedalling.
Why Can’t a Throttle be Used all the Time?
There are two reasons for this:
- It will drain your battery quickly, limiting the distance you can travel before you run out of power.
- It places undue strain on the motor, which may result in the motor overheating and causing damage.
What is the Horsepower of an Electric Bike Motor?
Most European e-bike brands have 250-watt motors because that is the legal limit in Europe. 250 watts is one-third of a horsepower.
Most of the Asian brands of e-bikes have 300-watt motors – that’s 4/10 of a horsepower.
Either way, you can see that electric bike motors are small when measured in terms of horsepower.
Another way to look at this is to compare the power of an electric bike motor with the power in your legs.
Most of us can generate around 200 watts of power from our legs, and we can do that for longer periods. So, the power in an electric bike motor is only around 50% greater than the power that’s in your legs!
Are Some Electric Bikes Easier to Pedal than Others?
Yes. There are two questions here. With pedal assist set to zero, in other words, set so that no motor power is provided, how easy is it to pedal the bike? Some motors create resistance, making it harder to pedal the bike, while others, like the Bafang M400 motor, for example, do not create any resistance. A review of Consumer NZ about the Bafang M400 motor says, “Pedaling is very easy when the system is off”.
The second part of the question is whether some motors are easier on the legs than others when using a combination of leg power and motor power. The answer is YES. There are two different kinds of speed sensors in electric motors: Torque sensors and cadence sensors.
A torque sensor measures how much pressure your legs are applying to the pedals and then rewards the rider with more motor output if they are applying more leg pressure.
A cadence sensor senses rotations per minute of the crank arm and amplifies that. The higher the level of pedal assist you’re using, the more amplification the cadence sensor gives you, which means that in higher levels of pedal assist, the motor will be doing the majority of work, meaning pedalling is easier. The drawback to this is that it creates a higher drain on the battery, and hence, if you have a motor fitted with a cadence sensor and you’re letting the motor do much or most of the work, then you won’t be able to cover the same distance as a rider whose motor has a torque sensor.
Conclusion
If you’re asking, “Do I have to pedal an e-bike?” it may be fair to assume that you’re concerned about having to pedal and that if you do have to pedal, you want that to be as easy as possible.
If this sounds like you, then our recommendation would be as follows:
- Make sure you buy an electric bike that has a throttle. This rules out European brands because none of them come with throttles. However, brands like MeloYelo offer a number of different models that come with throttles.
- Consider a motor with a cadence sensor, not a torque sensor, controlling its power output. The MeloYelo Townee is a good example of a bike with a thumb throttle that can deliver motor power from a standstill and a cadence sensor controlling its power output.
