Include ebikes in challenges

[serpollet]

I agree that recording an ebike activity as a powered human is incorrect because it distorts the ranking of segments.But the challenges are personal and do not concern others.Why then make ebikes ineligible for challenges?Personally,i use equal parts of a human road bike and an e gravel bike with as much energy expenditure in one case as in the other.Not being able to count my electric outings in my challenges will lead me to forget about it.Or not to declare them as electric.

[sburstall]

I agree.  With ebikes (aka mopeds), the amount of work needed to get to the same speed is quite low.  I've seen many ebikes go as fast as mopeds (up to 20 miles an hour).  Ebikes should be eliminated from the list.

[CreakyCrank]

@serpollet : It sounds like you want ebikes to be able to participate in challenges that are competing against non-ebikes (if I understand correctly).  The problem is that there are leaderboards in the challenges, and you (on an ebike) would unfairly be gaining an advantage over the human-powered people on that leaderboard.  Perhaps having a separate leaderboard on challenges for ebikes could be a solution? So that you could still participate in a challenge, but only compete against other ebikes in that challenge.  I could support a separate leaderboard approach, but would be against having to measure my human-powered activities against those on ebikes.

[MMurph]

"But the challenges are personal and do not concern others..."

Fine, if someone rides an E-bike and wants to challenge themselves, I have no issue with that. However, if it involves any leaderboard (segment or Official Strava Challenges) then I think it is a mistake to include E-bikes times/results. Keep "full human effort" exercise challenges and leaderboards separated.   After all, Strava is/was  a physical exercise tracker.

[Sunny415]

Thanks for posting here, @serpollet! This is a fantastic point to explore, and I hope more athletes post their thoughts here.

Some of the comments in this thread raise a valid point, many pedal-poweredcycling challenges include leaderboards, which many athletes value for motivation and training goals. As noted, this experience is negatively impacted when assisted activities, like e-bike rides, are included, as comparing their human-powered efforts to motor-assisted efforts can feel rather deflating. There are also, periodically, other challenges in the gallery where e-bike challenges do qualify, though, they tend to be multisport challenges with time-based goals. Do these challenges work for e-bike riders?

If not, we invite you and all interested athletes to add your thoughts about what e-bike riders would like to see from e-bike-eligible challenges on Strava.

• What types of challenges motivate e-bike riders? Single activity challenges? Cumulative challenges? Streak challenges?
• Do e-bike riders value distance goals for challenges over activity-time-based goals? Are elevation-based goals of interest? Something else?
• What level of difficulty are e-bike riders looking for from cycling challenges? For pedal-powered cycling challenges, there are several tiers to accommodate multiple levels of ability. Are e-bike riders looking for a wide range of difficulty levels?
• Do e-bike riders want to compare efforts on a leaderboard, or is tracking personal progress and goal completion more valuable? Some athletes value the challenge badge–if they earn the badge, they've hit their monthly goal, for example. Does comparing motor-assisted efforts on a leaderboard provide value?
• Anything else?

We would love to hear your thoughts, thanks for sharing!

[Stifensore]

I'd like to see separate segment and leader boards for e-bikes.  I ride just as hard (based on heart rate and power) on my e-bike as my road and mountain bikes (I just ride further and faster) so it would be motivating to see leaderboards for e-bike riders.  If these already exist,  how do I create e-bike only segments and view the leaderboards?

[N00DlesHead]

Agreed.  I'd like to see a challenge of say RIDE 400KM THIS MONTH and do it using an ebike.  No chance I could do it on my mountain bike, but my pedal assist ebike I could try.  Furthest ride I've done on it to date is about 31km, it's not like they go forever, neither do I.  Being disabled things like this are quite motivation to get out, hardly my fault an ebike makes it easier to get out.

[anchskier]

@Stifensore - Yes, there already are e-bike segments with their own leaderboards.  They have been around for years.  If you upload your activity and mark it as an e-bike ride, you may see some segments that others have created.  If you don't, or at least don't see ones you would like to see, then you can create them yourself.  You would do this just like someone would create a "regular" segment.  Open the activity in a web browser (can't do it on a mobile app yet), look down the segment section.  At the bottom, there should be a link that says, "Create a new segment".  Click on that and follow the directions. 

[davidtapper1989]

@Sunny415 please consider duplicating the monthly cycle challenges for e-bikers. Either creating an "all-comers" distance challenge or just the same as the normal cycles except for e-bikers.

[Sunny415]

@davidtapper1989 Thanks for calling this out, this has been a request I have been raising for some time as an e-bike rider myself. There are a lot of things to balance though, including the possibility of oversaturating the challenge gallery, expanding challenge leaderboard functionality to not dilute leaderboards between human-powered and motor-assisted efforts, and other priorities in product development initiatives. I can't make any promises, though, you can trust that we will continue to surface this request, and I recommend that athletes continue to upvote the original post up top and keep adding comments here too. 

[Pizzabrötchen]

Electric assist is becoming more and more popular and common in any type of bicycles. And the types of bicycles also are manifold. Three-wheelers, cargos, velomobile, tandem, four-wheelers/Podbike, etc. 

Myself riding an electric assisted (assist limit 25 km/h) Velomobile several days a week 40km one-way commuting to work. Rare like a unicorn in my area... 🦄😉  Enjoy to compare and compete. How and with whom shall I compare when all these types are separated and kept apart?

Suggest strava expands all lists of KOMs, Leaderboards etc. by a category column. This way all can ride as cycles - assisted or not, aerodynamic or not - and compare, taking into account the specifics and differences.

[charlychedderto]

I agree with Sunny415.  The simple solution would be duplicating the monthly cycle challenges for e-bikers. Either creating an "all-comers" distance challenge or just the same as the normal cycles except for e-bikers.    I know a lot of none e-bike riders dislike e-bikes.  But for us that use e-bikes because we can no longer ride non-ebikes because of physical issues, it sucks that we can not participate in challenges.     If you duplicate them, then find let e-bikes be with e-bikes.       In the end, e-bikes are not going away.  They are only growing in popularity.   This reminds me of back in the day when mountain bikes had to fight for rights against hikers.       

Also, not having an e-bike specific challenges just make people mark e-bike rides as non-ebike rides so they can be in challenges also and just muddies the results when there are leaderboards.

[charlychedderto]

To continue this, you allow "Virtual rides" are you telling me people do just set their trainer to super easy and participate?      By not just making a change to have specific challenges, you are just setting Stava to be gamed by people.   Nobody wins that way.

[erinely]

I would also like to note that a class 2 e-bike (throttle assist, can move forward without peddling) is not the same as a class 1 or class 3 e-bike which are peddle assist and you must peddle for the assist to work.

I would also like to see all the monthly challenges duplicated for E-bikes, as others have mentioned, I ride just as hard on my e-bike as I do on my analog bike.  

I agree with this: The simple solution would be duplicating the monthly cycle challenges for e-bikers. 

and this is also true: By not just making a change to have specific challenges, you are just setting Stava to be gamed by people. 

The other problem is ride segments, if I want segments on my rides I have to go to every E-bike ride I have logged and create segments, this is incredibly frustrating and takes forever.  There should be some way to program to create the same segments for E-bike riders and log them separate from the analog bike rides for leaderboards, etc.

Personally I don't care about the leader boards, I'm only interested in my own performance against my own rides.  This is the main reason I won't subscribe to Strava because it does not work for me as an occasional E-bike rider.

[TomJay]

Bumping this up again.

There's really no good reason not to include e-bikes in Bike/Mountain Bike distance and elevation challenges.

Right now, if emtb riders want to compete in monthly challenges, they are forced to basically mark their e-rides as standard MTB ride, which creates even more mess in segment efforts, needlessly, I might add.

Please, add e-mtb eligibility to ride challenges, it will not affect leaderboards what so evenr, becuse leaderboards are already mixed with road, mtb, gravel and they are vastly dominated by road bikes already