Here’s my reality check (from my slightly biased stance) on E-Bike & Audaxing from someone who’s ridden seven Audaxes on an Orbea Gain.
First off, and it has been said before, but I’ll say it again, you still have to peddle, you still have to use the gears and you still huff & puff up the hills (well I do anyway). The motor on the Gain is a relatively low powered assistance and if you want to cycle any distance you have to put in most of the effort yourself. You can’t put your feet up and let the motor do the work for you.
Range. At best you’re looking at 60miles, 80miles tops if you’re very economical with the power assistance, off or minimal on the flat & undulating section, keep the assistance for hills and even then cautiously. Throw in a hilly course, use the power a lot and you’ll half the above figure.
In theory you could take your charger with you, (an extra 2 or 3kg in your saddle bag) and if the café will let you, recharge as you have a cuppa. However, at 4 hours to recharge from flat you’re going to add an awful lot of time to your overall ride time and no way is the power assistance going to make up for that. Ah, you say, you could carry spare battery; A, not on the Gain the battery isn’t removable and B, they’re heavy, C, of the bikes I’ve seen that you can remove the battery, they’re very heavy, not suitable for Audaxes and often the E-bike equivalent of a BSO, and D, that would be plain cheating, (just as it would be if you got a friend with a support car to meet you part way if you were riding regular bike).
Speed. With legit e-biks the powered assistance cuts off at 15.5mph. Any faster than that and it’s your power only. The motor has switched off.
Weight. My Gain weighs 13.5kg (that’s only a fraction more than a Dawes Galaxy) before I’ve added my kit because it has a relatively low powered motor and low capacity battery. Yes, you can get higher torque motors and bigger batteries, but they weight a ton. 25 to 30kg isn’t unheard of for that type of bike, but that extra weight makes them very difficult to ride without the power assistance and the extra weight drains the heavier battery even faster. Something about laws of diminishing returns.
Given the above simple battery range is going to stop anyone riding anything more than a 100k Audax, and even then you’ll be scrapping the bottom of the barrel if it’s a hilly course. Range will come as technology improves and AUK will have to reassess as it does, but at the moment I think the current rules are fare. Allow E-Bike to take part, but not to collect any AAA points or be eligible for any mileage claims.
I’d only ever done one audax before I got my Gain, as I said I’ve done seven since I got it. At the end of the day, it’s bums on seats we want, not an argument as to whether you are a Little or Big Endian.
My question is, would I be unwelcome riding BP's ? Should I ask each organizer in advance? Should I just enter in the normal way and get on with it?
Short answer to this question; You'll be made very welcome. No one has ever raised so much as an eyebrow when I've turned up on my Gain. I don't boast the fact it's an E-Bike, but I don't deny it if someone asks. When they do it's then twenty question about the bike and jokes if they can draft behind me or if I've got a tow rope with me.