E-mtb electric mountain bikes

Slight change of plan. There were a few upgrades we’d have made to the second hand bike
Install shimano brakes - all my bikes use shimano so bleeding is easier and only one type of pad needed, plus my wife doesn’t like the feel of sram brakes
Go to Sram transmission groupset as it works when shifting under load. on an electric bike even when soft pedalling the bike is supporting, so if you are putting in 100 watts the drivetrain is getting 200 watts
Cushcore inserts
Shorter cranks
Range extender

My wife is eligible for cycle to work. Bike shop are willing to swap brakes, install Cushcore, swap to shorter cranks on the new the levo sl expert spec. With cycle scheme the saving works out as costing less than upgrading the 2nd hand bike with upgrades.

Have fun.

Bike shop are willing to install Cushcore

May God have mercy on their souls

Nothing against emtb, especially as they get lighter. But tbh, I enjoy riding up hill. And I don't like the notion of needing to charge something that -for me - is supposed to get me huffing and puffing out in nature whilst not thinking about much else.

I do have an ebullitt and find that when I want to go fast I still get sweaty. I don't really ever get that "collapse at the top" winded though, which for a cargo bike is perfectly perfect.

I can get my heart rate as high on the emtb as a non assisted mtb. But I can cover more ground and do more fun stuff and am more inclined to session bits on the emtb. It’s great for sessioning technical descents because I can do more attempts and am not out of breath so am in a less excited state so better able to learn and develop skills.

More miles = more smiles

This video helped convince me that an emtb still enables you to get a good workout.

https://youtu.be/vAi4wVkhNj0?si=x4oeW0BlJwy3oa9a

Yeah personally I've been mtbing for so long that I have no need or desire to work on skills. I just don't care anymore... and I'm competent enough that short of riding every single day and risking broken bones and what not, I'll never get any better.

Again I just don't mind pedaling up hills. I like the technicality of steep switch backs and getting up and over shit.

Nothing against an emtb and I'd ride one today if given the opportunity. But I'd never commit to it over straight pedaling. I just don't like the concept and I like simplicity of unassisted pedaling.

In the city - especially for kid hauling and other cargo shit - ebikes are incredibly convenient and I love it. I ride my ebullitt several times a week.

Wife’s bike arrives tomorrow. I think this is the bike purchase that excites me the most. She doesn’t ride often and frequently the barrier to getting her out is that she feels she won’t be fit enough or will run out of steam before the end. This has only happened once but it was on a long off road day in wales when we first started riding together.

Her excitement at the prospect of a bike that will give that assistance is huge. The app can even be told how far and how much climbing is being planned for a ride and you can set how much power should be left for the end just in case. The app will then determine how much support to give for the ride.

She returns from a business trip on Wednesday evening and fingers crossed will have kept the diary clear so we can go and ride the Forest of Dean on Friday morning.

Awk it’s no that hard to put them in once you’ve done it a couple of times.

Just did a week riding in Scotland on a regular bike, while everyone else had both normal and eebs with them. Never again. In the time it took me to push up to one trail, they rode the whole mountain down and back up again.

So I ordered a Norco Range VLT, which should be arriving tomorrow, and then I can embrace the fact I'm getting older*

*I rode for 5 days without crashing and hurting myself, only to pull a muscle in my back getting up for a piss in the night 👍

Welcome to the dark side, it's more fun

Probably I’ll get shot down in flames given the thread so maybe I should pre-empt this post with saying that I’m not anti ebike at all but, I’ve heard this “I get as good a workout, I just ride further” argument but I noticed at Glentress at the weekend, all the e-bikers are wrapped right up, jackets, trousers, gloves, buffs under helmets whereas I, riding a non e bike, was in shorts and short sleeves, dripping sweat on the climbs, that has to be indicative of something right?

I also got stuck behind an old dude at one point who was pulling away, but not by much, on climbs, on flat I was catching him back up and on descents I was right up his arse. Made me wonder if the rise of e-bikes is getting inexperienced riders out into territory and terrain where they otherwise wouldn’t find themselves?

I reckon some of the diversion stuff at Glentress has been put together by someone who has thought “everyone’s on an ebike so this’ll be fine” which kind of bugs me but otherwise I’m very much ‘you do you and I’ll do me’ about them. I do realise that the popularity of them is making places like Glentress busier and that that means there’s more money to get reinvested in trail building and upkeep which benefits e-bikers and non e-bikers alike so I’m (generally) happy to share the trail with them.

This is at the riders discretion how much effort they put in. I was out today, burned 800 calories in 90 mins of riding. Average heart rate 138, maximum 168, and I was taking it gently, mainly in trail mode on a lightweight or half fat emtb.

I have posted another video on a similar topic in this thread, but this one also talks about effort on emtbs too. https://youtu.be/2GI8a6TBqgE?si=mp2VGrPCgt839Z6N

Have you actually ridden and emtb?

The guys I was with there this week were in t-shirts, and blowing out their arses at the top of Feed the Pony, despite being on e-bikes. They just got to ride it twice, whereas I only got to ride it once.

Have you actually ridden and emtb?

Nah I haven’t.

I dunno, the time may well come when it’s of interest to me, just that time ain’t right now.

And I wasn’t meaning to sound judgmental of these riders in their jackets and long trousers, they were having their fun, I was having mine. It was just something that I noticed.

they were having their fun, I was having mine

That's all that matters, and the main reason I've always preferred MTB; everyone's just there to have a good day!

Fair enough. I guess it was just the mode or whatever that these people I saw were on.

When I get over taken by an ebike at a trail centre I don’t really have a “that person is cheating” feeling bit I do feel like I would feel that using one for an ‘out in the hills’ ride might feel a bit like that.

I’m really a bit of a retro grouch with cycling (as in sure many on here are). It’s only in the last year that I’ve had a bike with modern geometry and suspension and only in the last few months that I’ve owned a derailleur that wasn’t made 30 years ago so I think it might just be that the complexity of an e-bike puts me off more than any concerns about effort/cheating etc.

I wore shorts as opposed to trousers today and regretted it. It reminded me of how good my technical mtb trousers are at breathing and saving me getting covered in mud. I had hoped the trails would have dried out but after the ride I was covered in wet slop. If I have worn trousers I can get out of them and not smear mud all over my car from my legs.

I had been sceptical about wearing trousers but they are a so much better than I expected them to be.

Um, ok, congratulations on your cool trousers?

Wrong thread for my observations I guess.

As an aside, eMTBs have been a real boon for bike shops, especially those in and around areas of MTB action. Locally (S.Wales) a lot of the shops are stocking many more eMTBs on the shop floor than analog. Speaking to friends that are bike shop owners it has been a real growth area over the last few years post Covid even with the quite substantial ticket prices.

We are now seeing over 50% emtbs at the Forest of Dean. They open up riding to a wider range of people.

It appears the arguments about emtbs are similar to the ones about disc brakes on road bikes a few years ago. The market is changing and there are benefits to the consumers. Until I tried and bought one, I made all the same comments about them being unnecessarily complicated, a hindrance to fitness, a sign of defeat and it was infuriating to be overtaken on climbs by some noob who would only hold you up on the next descent!

I bumped into a couple of friends yesterday who had been riding, they had been debating riding analog or electric, had decided on the latter and then used the day to session quite a few sections of trail. Being able to boost mode back up meant they got more sessions in and weren’t gasping for breath and having to wait for heart rate to decrease before having another attempt. The brain can’t learn well in states of high anxiety so being able to calmly repeat sections aids the training process.

I can see how my own ftp hasn’t changed significantly (it’s got higher) since I bought the emtb. My resting heart rate has remained consistent and highest heart rate is around 180bpm which isn’t too bad for someone who turns fifty in a few months.

After a knee injury I got an eMTB for "pre-hab and re-hab" about 6 years ago. If you are compromised by injury/age/health, an ebike almost makes those compromises go away. Magic.

Now my knee is repaired, I still use the ebike a lot. You can enjoy the trendy "Zone 2 only" rides out and about in the undulating countryside, instead of on a trainer.

Looking around at the local woods on Sunday, vast majority of the middle aged white men were riding mopeds. Thoreau meets Wall-E in nylon pyjamas.

I liked it when the woods weren't full of cunts. Then it was rich fit cunts, now it's all the rich fat cunts too.