My original post was simply to say that I did not think cycle shops should sell so called E-bikes!
On this specific point, I posted this before the previous thread was lost...
It is of course entirely up to any business what they sell, and those decisions will include the commercial implications. I'm not naive enough to think that every shop only deals in the products they enthusiastically support. It's equally true that we as consumers are free to choose where to shop, I've always based my decisions on the retailers ability to supply what I want, not whatever else they're selling.
As a kid in the 70's the two local bike dealers were hardware shops, they probably didn't stock any high end bikes, but one of them had an excellent reputation as a wheelbuilder, popular with all types of cyclist. Although such hardware shops have largely disappeared, I don't think it was unusual and and everyone accepts that the likes of Wilco's sell bike parts.
In the days before cycling became primarily a leisure activity in the UK, there was a lot of crossover between powered and unpowered bikes, both in manufacture and retail. Digging around in Derby history, I think it was only Mercian that were exclusively a cycling shop. This 1960 advert from the local CTC magazine is typical
