Buzz
I’m a big fan of e-bikes—they introduce newcomers to cycling, reduce car traffic, and most importantly, they’re so much fun. But do they really count as exercise? And if they do, just how much of a workout do you actually get on an e-bike?
E-bikes, or electric bikes, resemble standard bicycles but come equipped with a motor and battery to assist with pedaling. This extra boost helps you climb hills effortlessly or speed up an otherwise relaxed ride. If you're curious about the experience, check out my review of the Propella 7S, the e-bike I used to explore whether an e-bike ride truly qualifies as exercise.
The answer depends on how you define 'exercise': Traditional bikes generally offer a more intense workout in terms of calories burned and physical effort compared to e-bikes. However, research shows that e-cyclists often get as much, or even slightly more, overall exercise compared to people who ride only non-assisted bicycles because e-bikers tend to ride more frequently and cover longer distances.
How many more calories do you burn riding a traditional bike compared to an e-bike?
It’s obvious that a bike ride takes less effort with an electric motor helping your pedaling, but the exact amount of energy saved is less clear. E-bikes still require you to pedal to keep moving, and sometimes the calorie burn is more surprising than expected. As with anything related to calorie burning, calculating how much an e-bike is 'cheating' is tricky, so I decided to conduct an informal experiment to get a rough idea.
I used the same bike—a Propella 7S, a basic class 1 e-bike with no throttle—and tested three different assist levels to compare the calorie burn using data from my Apple Watch. This data is based purely on heart rate, without specifying the activity, so my fitness tracker wouldn’t make any assumptions.
I rode a five-mile route with a 40ft elevation gain three times at an average speed of 13mph—once with no assist, once with moderate assist, and once with the maximum assistance my bike could provide.
There are plenty of factors that influence how many calories you burn during a bike ride—wind speed, temperature, the rider’s size and fitness level, gearing, and the bike itself, to name a few. So, this is just a general guide to give a ballpark figure, rather than a precise calculation.
Calories burned on a non-assisted ride: 270
I was surprised by the number of calories my Apple Watch recorded for this just-under-30-minute ride, but I’m on the heavier side, and riding an e-bike with no assist means pushing a pretty heavy bike. I tracked the same ride with Strava without a heart-rate monitor, set to 'outdoor bike riding,' and ended up with a similar result: 263 calories.
I also rode the same route with my 'analog' bike—an old hardtail mountain bike from the 1990s, standing in for a 'regular bike'—and found I burned 284 calories according to my Apple Watch, and 293 calories according to Strava.
Calories burned with mid-level assistance: 143
The Propella offers six levels of power, including 'no assist,' so I set it to 'level 2' for moderate assistance. At this setting, my Apple Watch recorded 143 calories burned, about half of what I burned on the non-assisted ride. Strava confirmed this result: With the activity set to 'e-bike ride' and no heart rate monitor, Strava estimated I burned 128 calories. (I received similar results with the fully assisted ride—Strava’s e-bike estimates seem to assume a mid-level assist.)
This is purely anecdotal, but the ride felt like it took half the effort compared to an unassisted ride. E-bikes with lower-level assistance typically help 'smooth out' the acceleration phase, giving extra power when you’re accelerating, and then providing small boosts to maintain a steady cruising speed, which makes it easier to start but requires some effort to keep moving.
Calories burned with maximum assistance: 97
At the highest level of pedal assistance, my Apple Watch showed that it took fewer than 100 calories to ride an e-bike for five miles.
I would have guessed around 50 calories. At the maximum assistance level, riding requires very little effort. Pedaling is essentially just turning the crank once and letting the motor take over, then coasting to avoid going too fast. Most of my half-hour ride was spent focusing on not gaining too much speed. If I hadn't been trying to maintain a slow pace, I would have pedaled more, burned more calories, and gone on a longer ride.
And that’s the upside of e-bikes and exercise: Even if they offer less fitness benefit in a strict, mile-by-mile, laboratory-style comparison, people don’t ride that way in the real world.
Comparing 'metabolic equivalent task minutes' between traditional cyclists and e-cyclists
Researchers from the University of Zurich conducted a survey of 10,000 cyclists for a study published in *Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives* and found that e-cyclists and traditional cyclists engage in a comparable amount of moderate-intensity physical activity per week. This isn’t because the intensity is the same for both, but because e-cyclists tend to ride more frequently.
In line with my personal experience of 'wanting to ride farther,' e-cyclists reported longer trips on average compared to non-assisted cyclists—9.4 km versus 8.4 km—and also traveled farther each day—8.0 km per person per day, versus 5.3 km. While riding an e-bike with assistance requires less effort, people tend to ride longer, leading to a similar overall physical outcome.
The study also examined people who switched from one form of transportation to another. As expected, those who moved from cars, motorcycles, or public transportation to e-bikes saw an increase in physical activity. Those who switched from traditional bikes to e-bikes experienced a slight decrease in total fitness, but this was offset by a significant increase in total distance traveled and time spent riding e-bikes.
In short: Don’t listen to fitness purists who criticize e-bikes. The most effective exercise is the one you actually do, and if you enjoy riding an e-bike (and really, who doesn’t?), keep riding—it’s a far better workout than just sitting on the couch.
