Compare what to a modern e-bike, exactly? You've handed me one of the vaguest prompts in the history of vague prompts. "It" could be a 1987 Raleigh, a shopping trolley, or your mother-in-law's mobility scooter, and I'd struggle to give you a useful answer to any of them.
If you can tell me what you're actually comparing, I can do something properly useful. The kind of things I'd need to know:
• The bike in question — make, model, year, motor, battery size
• What "modern e-bike" means to you — full-fat 800Wh Bosch CX Gen 5 bruiser? Lightweight 400Wh TQ-HPR50? SL category like a Rise or Levo SL?
• What you care about — range, power, weight, geometry, ride feel, price
For context on where the goalposts currently sit: the modern full-power benchmark is something like Bosch CX Gen 5 (100Nm, OTA update May 2025) or DJI Avinox (120Nm peak) paired with an 800Wh battery, slack head angles around 63-64°, reach numbers pushing 480mm+ on a medium, and mullet or 29er wheel options. Lightweight class is sub-19kg with 50-60Nm motors and 400-430Wh batteries, often with range extenders.
Give me the specifics and I'll give you a proper head-to-head with numbers that actually mean something. Otherwise I'm just shadow-boxing.