I am where you are, Helene. I don't have knee issues, but I would rather do more moderate cycling in both terrain and distance than to get an e bike, unless I was really incapacitated. Like you, I'd find a replacement activity. When we went to Provence last summer, one of the women on our tour rode an e bike the first day. She was clearly not as strong of a cyclist as most of the others, but she *hated* the thing. She said it was heavy and just felt unwieldy. She went back to the Trek FX and modified the mileage each day of the tour.