The E-Bike Lovers Thread

Hey everybody.... over here a second.

@Mikie is out in the desert off the grid. Let's get this long-awaited thread rolling while he is away!

Post your love of motorized bicycles and how they enrich our lives and the greater mt bike community.

I'll start.











Wait....


I got nothin'

 

EeeeeEeeEEEEEeeeeEeeEeeeChickenNuggets!EEeeeeeeeeeEeeeEeeeeeeeeeEeeeeeEEEEeEbikes!

 

My neighbors are 70, they ride their E bikes to Ojai to Barts and back. It works for them.

 

Perfect application. I have absolutely no problems with e-bikes on streets and paved trails, nor e-mtbs for people with substantial physical limitations.

Go for it!


(I should have named this thread "The E MtB lovers thread" - my bad.)

 

E-bikes are everywhere on the street here in China. It's the tool of choice for food delivery drivers and small parcel express. Moms and dads take their kids to school and even the PD tools around on them.
I have yet to see an e-bike disguised as a Mtn bike. The ones I see are obvious and ubiquitous.
Keep E-bikes real. Like really on the street!

 

Sneaking this in at 1:00 in the morning. I already get a motorized fix being an off roader. BUT,, a nice E-bike would be fun for nightriding on the more remote trails, and only with other E-ers. with lights that would fry an egg.

I keep trying to delete this post but I can't figure it out

 

I hope I will be able to ride Mountainbikes for a long time, but if at some point, I won't be able to, an E-Bike would definitely be a good alternative to picking up bowling.

 

My Shuttle is a blast up on the trails of SkyPark. It's nice to have fresh legs on the downhills. My buddy (also on an E) and I got 11 loops in by 1m the other day. Honestly...I didn't know how fun it was to Ebike till I got one!!!

 

And doesn't China use alot of coal to generate electricity???

 

We really should bite our tongues because one day one or more of us may have no choice but to accept the assistance of an e-bike to get up the hill. They certainly do have their place with those who have a disability.

What pisses me off is seeing them riding through areas where it is clearly posted that they are not allowed.

 

I'd love to get an e-cargo bike as a car replacement vehicle. My wife has other thoughts though...

 

I give electrified bye cycles credit for newfound affirmation that human power is an essential component of my recreation and entertainment goals.

I will no sooner ride a motorized bicycle for recreation than I will be winched up a cliff once I’m unable or unwilling to try anymore. I’ll just stop doing it. Happily.

Maybe if people actually got off their lazy asses and away from their soul sucking careers during their prime years they would not feel so compelled to try to convince themselves that they are living the good life as a decrepit old F (or outright lazy excuse-maker) with assistance gadgetry, filling up new landfills with the spent excesses of consumption.

The transition from capable to not capable is not like a toggle switch. Your body doesn’t work that way. Your mind does. Convenience seekers will look for any excuse to spend money to make things easier. Like getting on a ski lift. If that’s your bag, power to you, but that is not the spirit this MTB site was built on. And no matter what anyone says, a bicycle can never have a motor.

 

More than half the riders in Cheeseboro these days are on ebikes. It's clearly posted at every entrance that they are not allowed. Last weekend I had one come up behind me while going through the mustard at the top of Palo. As soon as there was room he blew past me like I was standing still. Being a Specialized I'm guessing he hit turbo mode.

 

It's an interesting argument - and a core sticking point to people who argue that you shouldn't be allowed to summit Everest while using supplemental oxygen. Even the use of Sherpas (particularly if you are short-roped to one) is considered suspect to some. Even WITH oxygen, it is far from safe. However once it was shown that it was possible to summit without it... should it be allowed?

Summiting Everest is no longer the accomplishment it once was. People are living off the borrowed glory of climbers who went before - and accomplished much greater feats because they didn't have the support or the technology available today.

P.S. Did you see that they are introducing competitive rock-climbing in the next Olympics? Kinda flies in the face of what I get out of nature... but some people are "destination" people and some people are "journey" people.

 

It kinda pisses me off seeing anyone on a two wheeled device riding through areas where they are not supposed to be. That phenomenon is not e-bike specific. Nor is riding like an inconsiderate moron.

And in the spirit of of this thread, and the intentions of Herz , it's fun to poke the bear sometimes, and play devil's advocate, haters gone hate, no real reason to discuss here. And we all know these discussions don't go well, lot's of passionate emotional responses, and besides it's kinda banned here.

Honestly I'm ambivalent to 'em. I don't need one yet, but I could have used one a year or two ago. Glad I got past that without one, but some day, hopefully long into the future, a motor of some sort will be required on my 2 wheeled device. Or I'll have to stop the adventures I love.

 

Hmmmm, not sure how I feel about this. The cool thing about Sky Park is it does not have a chairlift, so you do have to ride up the hill - thus it's the fun of ski area mt biking, but the exercise of actual mt biking. My hypocrisy comes into play when I have no problem with those who ride chairlifts either for mt biking or for skiing. I see chairlift-assisted DH as a completely different sport from the cross country versions of them - especially in skiing. I don't see riding a chairlift to ski as a lazy man's way to enjoy skiing, and I don't feel like skiing was intended to be a climbing sport. (Cue arguments about the origins of skiing by Norsemen hunting reindeer or winter transportation in the Alps).

I have no doubt that motorbikes are fun to ride uphill. Not sure why that makes me bristle with indignation.

 

Your points on assistance are well taken, Greg. I and other have dissected the less obvious aspects of “assistance” in many past conversations like this.

I don’t take Sagarmatha any more seriously than Mammoth or any privately-owned hill. The rules are what the ministry of tourism says they are (no soloing, WTF?). The old rebuke is: okay, try it without a car, the roads, and all those other “conveniences” (equipment, clothes, etc) if one is so concerned about truly doing it on ones own. So from that angle, people like me are hypocrites.

So I suppose we make our own rules as to what constitutes assistance or support. Which is good. But that freedom is trending in the direction of convenience more and more (as you illustrated well) and to my thinking, that is moving away from the entire reason we unplug in the BC to begin with. I know you get it...

 

Yeah, I don't know the answer. It is all relative - and depends upon your perspective. I couldn't summit Everest with or without oxygen... but when they start talking about the possibility of high-altitiude helicopter rides to the top, part of me inside dies

From a REAL post:

 

It can indeed be a toggle switch, though. If you lost the lower half of both of your legs tomorrow, you'd stop riding forever? As tough as you are, I'd find that hard to believe if that was your choice. I would think that you would be riding (at a lower risk level) even more (on your e-bike) to "stay active" and to get out and enjoy Mother Earth.

This sort of misfortune is happening every day to those who were perfectly capable just moments before. My point is that there is a place for the e-bike and I think you agree in this case.

 

WOW!!! I can't say that I seen a single e-bike there yet. I don't ride it nearly as much as you do but it is one of my go-to places to ride when I have the time needed to drive out there and enjoy it.

 

By the way... I would put myself into the e-bike curious crowd. Not sure that I would want/need one myself, but if I can do ANYTHING to get my wife to ride with me... anywhere... that would be awesome!

I assume e-bikes will eventually go the way of mopeds (for those of you old enough to remember the moped craze)... or drones... or hoverboards. They are currently the "in" thing. People ride them a couple of times for the novelty... and then they go into the back corner of the garage never again to see the light of day. For the people who get them for the utility, they are just a little easier than a moped, but more or less the same thing. The long-term market is probably about 10-20% of the "fad" market.

The heavy-set dudes that passed me on Harding a couple of weeks ago, I don't expect to see on the trails again. The way they were preparing for the ride, and the crazy enthusiasm when they reached Four Corners, leads me to believe that biking is not a common occurrence in their lives. If it is not a common occurrence, I'm convinced that the presence or absence of e-bike technology has very little to do with it.

 

if ebikes were not shameful, articles like this would be unnecessary:
https://www.electricbike.com/stealth/
I’m going to qualify that some, as I don’t believe an electric motor on a two wheeled vehicle is inherently shameful, but if you are trying to hide your motor, that’s a red flag...

 

Disability is fine, it's when you're healthy I have a problem with

 

You appear to not know me well, brother snake. I vehemently disagree.

No relationship between losing capability and ceasing human powered activities exists in my thinking. I see it the way I have always: adjust and continue. There is no place for BC electric propulsion in my goals. And to think that someone faced with such a challenge will opt for motor assistance? You must be projecting

Anyone can justify adding a motor. Just looks at your post.




How did this poor guy get to the top? Not with a motor.

 

An extremely sad article in the current edition of Bicycling Magazine (online)

E-bikes remain a subject of controversy in mountain biking circles. You may not be able to take one on your favorite singletrack right now, as most non-motorized trails prohibit them. However, things have been tilting in a more permissive direction. Most recently, IMBA, the sport’s largest public advocacy group, shifted its stance to support allowing access for some pedal-assist e-bikes (those that top out at 20 mph) on some trails. With every major manufacturer making e-mountain bikes, more access is likely only a matter of time. “In a few years, people will realize that electric mountain bikes have no more trail impact than a regular mountain bike,” Benjamin says.

I'd take up kayaking. The whole reason I mountain bike is because my legs told me they no longer liked my cross-country running

 

My two cents...I increasingly gravitate toward the mantra: “the enemy of good is perfect.” (Kinda aka the Nirvana Fallacy...my tombstone is gonna say: “Compared to what????”).

I was pretty squarely in the Ebikes are garbage camp up till maybe a couple months ago. Starting to shift my perspective a bit maybe.

Seems to me (YMMV) that many of those out on pedal assist bikes/mopeds/whatever semantic designation one desires would not be nearly as likely to get much exercise and/or outdoor recreation without these. Additionally, pedal assist riding is significantly more exercise than nothing. It actually can be a very large amount of exercise, depending on how the modes are used and how hard you hammer. EMBN has done some interesting videos comparing heart rates etc for pretty conditioned riders showing just this.

Some of the EWS pros are using them to train because they get better cardio going up by hammering and can get many more downhill laps in a given timeframe.

I have traditionally been all about exercise, to the point of not preferring doing lifts at Whistler or Summit without doing a couple hours of regular riding first, but as the time constraints of a busy career, four kids (one very significant special needs), etc continue to mount, the idea of using one of these (only where legal of course) is at times appealing. Now I pretty much only allow myself to do max of two hour rides early in the mornings (often more like 1:15-1:30) but hammering as hard as I can). Greer and Exploration/Skypark seem to offer the best bang for buck around here in that context.

My wife is super cool about letting me get out and do this and probably wouldn’t be opposed to doing some longer rides, but I am trying to be as family integrated as possible. Pretty tempting to use those two hours and get 30-50 percent more mileage in...especially when I used to pretty regularly go on 3-5 hour rides on weekends.

The trail access issue/slippery slope/fodder for EcoNazis is definitely a big one, and probably the main one holding me back at this point. (Aside from already having too many bikes...in my defense, at my size, I grab em when I find ones that fit, which is extremely rare.). Seems like Europe is doing a good job balancing all this, though, and they are mostly raging Socialists/Lefties

 

Don't they already have kayaking in artificial waves?

 

Let’s hear it for the EcoNazis!

 

Worst/best sports team mascot name ever!

 

Every time I see eBikes at SkyPark it is a fattie who would greatly benefit from actually pedaling. 11 runs is not too impressive ... did the battery die?