Add multiple categories for e-bikes depending on how much battery/power assist they provide

[Kermizzay]

Is there already a way to specify if you ride a Light eMTB or a regular eMTB?

It makes quite a difference if you climb a hill with 90Nm of support or with only 55Nm.

Would it make sense after all to have separate categories for them?

[Jane]

Hello @Kermizzay 

Thanks for posting about this.  Just to confirm - when you say Nm you mean newton-metres of torque, correct?  We don't have a way to distinguish that on Strava.  You can however adjust the weight your bike on your Gear page:

https://www.strava.com/settings/gear

so one potential workaround would be set e-bikes with more assist to less weight.  

[Kermizzay]

Hi Jane! Thx for the response!
Yes I meant Newton Meters 🙂 But setting the weight lighter for the bike doesn't really change the fact, that you have more support on climbs with a stronger motor. It's more likely the opposite of what should be done. Per ex. a Bosh CX bike with 85Nm with 25kg (+rider weight per ex 75kg=100kg in total) does not have the same power relations as per example a TQ HRP-50 bike with 50Nm around 18kg (+rider weight per ex 75kg=93kg in total). If you know wht I mean 🙂

[Jane]

Hi again @Kermizzay 

Just to clarify what you are suggesting - is your idea that we split our current e-bike activity into two different activity types?  Athletes could choose "light" for e-bikes that provide more assistance and "heavy" for e-bikes with less assistance?  

[Kermizzay]

Hey Jane
If ebikers would only have to specify the weight and power support of their bike and this could be somehow be taken in account in the listing, then that would probably only affect the calories and the average performance in watts in the end. So maybe yes, it could make sense to have a separate category for light ebikes per ex from 50 to 60Nm and everything above is a regular ebike... But that's probably a nut to ckrack for your engineers 😉

[Jane]

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[Markie64]

This is becoming big issue. My bike provides up to 240 watts assist, but I see riders taking course KOM on a 850 watt assist and recently a 2,500 watt assist bike ( really a motorbike). As a minimum I think there should be a category for 250 watts or less as baseline as this is EU law for a road ebike, anything over should be off-road or in a diiferent higher category 

[Lestermeachem]

I agree wholeheartedly. I have a Whyte Gosford with the Fazua Evation system. This provides a max torque of 55nm. I live in West Wales surrounded by hills. I can never get into the segment leaderboards as they are populated by people with e-bikes of a much higher power.

I would suggest three categories. Light assist, mid assist and high assist.

[Jan_Mantau]

E-Bike segments are just for fun, with the exception for technical segments there is no way they will ever be fair for everyone with the whole load of different motor powers and speed limiters. Having two groups or ten wouldn't change it. I would say we live with it how it is and don't add unnecessary complications.

[Capital_singer]

I think it's too much to create separate leader boards for different types of bikes, we could end up with 5 seperate boards.  but if the bike type and assist level used for the segment was visible on the riders ride then that would be a good compromise.