Viewing 15 posts - 81 through 95 (of 95 total)
  • Chasing an E-bike at Swinley today. Blimey!
  • thebatesbristol
    Free Member

    Sounds like trail centres doing their job! Keeping all the ‘lesser mortals’ – the unfit, the unskilled in one nice place so us proper riders can get out and enjoy mountain biking in great locations without all the hoypoloi getting in our ways.

    I hear Bedgbury is amazing on an e-bike, pure adrenaline…

    Don’t miss Thetford either…

    mcj78
    Free Member

    Well, let’s be honest – most of the mega epic natural legendary XC proper real hardcore manly mountain stuff you so desire can usually be tackled quite easily on a cx bike… places like GT were attracting plenty of “real” mountain bikers before they were revamped as trail centres

    epicsteve
    Free Member

    Taking the injury angle out of the question, wasn’t there an article recently with someone riding the full trail network at GT on a single charge – 70-odd miles or something?

    If it’s the article I’m thinking of it was a pretty light & fit female rider so I expect 70 miles at GT on a single charge wouldn’t be likely for most eBike riders. Having said that, in my unfit days I struggle to get to the top of the red (and it took ages) and certainly wouldn’t have wanted to do it twice in a day – whereas doing two loops of the red on an ebike is likely to be viable for most people. I’m fortunate to be in the position where I could also solve the problem by losing some weight and improving my fitness, but for people with more permanent fitness issues I can certainly see the benefit of an eBike.

    I see surprisingly few of them around London though – possibly because it’s pretty flat anyway – and haven’t seen any when out cycling in the lanes in Essex yet. The cycling club I’m in has quite a few older riders and while I don’t think anyone has an eBike yet I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them are considering one.

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    taxi25
    Free Member

    “The cycling club I’m in has quite a few older riders and while I don’t think anyone has an eBike yet I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them are considering one.”

    Is that a road or MTB club ? I’d be surprised if many road clubs would welcome ebikes on a club run. Maybe some would if the riders were old long time club members, but I’d still be surprised.

    epicsteve
    Free Member

    Is that a road or MTB club ? I’d be surprised if many road clubs would welcome ebikes on a club run. Maybe some would if the riders were old long time club members, but I’d still be surprised.

    It’s mainly a road club and I think eBike riders would be welcome on the bronze/social group ride. Not likely they’d be able to ride with any of the other groups though as I can’t see an eBike being able to keep up unless the rider was fit enough not to need an eBike.

    mcj78
    Free Member

    epicsteve
    If it’s the article I’m thinking of it was a pretty light & fit female rider so I expect 70 miles at GT on a single charge wouldn’t be likely for most eBike riders. Having said that, in my unfit days I struggle to get to the top of the red (and it took ages) and certainly wouldn’t have wanted to do it twice in a day – whereas doing two loops of the red on an ebike is likely to be viable for most people. I’m fortunate to be in the position where I could also solve the problem by losing some weight and improving my fitness, but for people with more permanent fitness issues I can certainly see the benefit of an eBike.

    Yeah that sounds like the one – I could do a couple of laps or a big mixture of the black / red / blue without too much hassle & not much in the way of a break in between, but i’d not be planning on walking up many stairs the next day 😆

    I remember after the article was published a few folk were saying “well, I can do that without an e-bike” kinda missing the point that 95%+ of riders couldn’t, but might like to with a bit of help on the climbs.

    brassneck
    Full Member

    What are ebikes like on the fun bits? They’ve always looked like an easier way to get a crap bike to the top of a hill to me, which begs the question why would I bother? i’m assuming the likes of Specialized and Cube can put something half decent together component/suspension wise, but doesn’t weight take the pop and bounce out of the ride back down?

    (Disclaimer – I only ride hardtails as the terrain around ere is tame enough to need encouragement with under-biking, and it’s likely that’s where this thought springs from)

    Denis99
    Free Member

    I have ridden both an e fat bike hardtail, and a full suss ebike quite a bit.

    Have to say that the descending isn’t as much fun as a well sorted hardtail or full suss in my opinion.
    You can feel the extra weight and they don’t handle as well in my experience.

    It’s not that they are terrible, just not as good, it’s a bit more considered, and jumping off stuff with a 21 kgs bike isn’t for me.

    For me the better fun was to be had on the climbs, the climb became more enjoyable as it was ridden like a good bit of “flat” Singletrack

    tomhoward
    Full Member

    They weigh the same as DH bikes did 10 years ago. Similar geo too.

    Jumping DH bikes isn’t a new thing, I notice the weight, but only as my other bikes are all sub 30lbs now.

    Thing is, mine is 27.5×3 tyres so I’m not sure if the monster truck feeling is from that, or the extra weight. Prob a combo of the two.

    chvck
    Free Member

    For me and my bike this isn’t the case. I’ve got a fair few descent PR’s (including some steep, tech ones) on my ebike. I don’t really notice the weight of mine downhill tbh, it jumps and corners well. I don’t really know how this can be the case given that you’d think a 20 kilo bike would be pretty terrible for it. It does have a really low BB though, I get loads of pedal strikes on it.

    Thing is, mine is 27.5×3 tyres so I’m not sure if the monster truck feeling is from that, or the extra weight. Prob a combo of the two.

    I took those off mine as I found the monster truck thing too and wanted to try get rid of it. Running 27.5×2.6 now and, for me, it’s much better.

    tomhoward
    Full Member

    Think I’m going to give 29er wheels a go 😀

    Denis99
    Free Member

    Yep, I got some interesting descent times, but on reflection they were better at handling the flatter pedals bits faster ( in my experience).

    The actual fast downhill bits were a little more considered.

    Also managed to “beach” the bottom bracket / motor on some rocks, not as much clearance as I would have liked.

    As I said further up the thread, I’m a fan, but I believe that they need more development to refine them.
    Weight, reliability and handling . The Specialized Bike looks good, might get a demo ride , but again it uses properity battery which locks you in Specialized.

    29er full suss looks to be the way to go with the ebike.

    chvck
    Free Member

    I do suspect that if I got on the non-motor version of my bike (the stumpjumper?) that it probably would be even faster on the steep stuff and very nimble to ride.

    29er full suss looks to be the way to go with the ebike.

    I’m only 27.5 because that’s what it came with and I didn’t want to pay for new wheels. In an ideal world I think I’d run 29×2.6 rather than 27.5.

    zippykona
    Full Member

    Will advances in ebikes cross over into helping wheel chair users?
    Helped a bloke up a slight incline today and I got thinking that a bit of electrical assistance would have been a good thing for him.

    smokey_jo
    Full Member

    Will advances in ebikes cross over into helping wheel chair users?
    Helped a bloke up a slight incline today and I got thinking that a bit of electrical assistance would have been a good thing for him.

    They already have

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