Nice responses fella’s, well done.

“you’re manipulating that law to allow use powered bikes for another purpose.”

Yes manipulating it to fetch my shopping on a bicycle.

It seems to me that the ebike likerz are the ones who get a bit frothy and overwrought with their protestations that all is fine and dandy. Just telling others to shut up and stop whining isn’t going to make our legitimate reservations evaporate.

I totally get that they’re good for shifting loads, commuting, aiding those with mobility or fitness issues, etc. However, it’ll take a lot to convince me that for everyday riders/MTBers they’re anything other than rather pointless and expensive N+1 toys. Bit like normal bikes, but a bit sh***er.

I’m against the mass adoption of E-bikes for the following reasons (although i support there use by people with genuine physical disabilities who otherwise couldn’t ride a mountain bike)

1) ANYONE can be a dick on a bike, but chances are, an E-bike allows them to be a bigger dick. Once you start to augment pure human power, people who would never ride a bike because they are too lazy will start to ride in places they shouldn’t be, and as we know, in modern society, it only takes one bad penny to tar every legitimate and considerate rider with the same brush.

Which leads to next point, namely:

2) It’ll only take one incident, no doubt blown out of proportion, and almost certainly mis-reported, invoving an E-bike in something like a National Park to give the more militant NIMBYS who seek to limit access to our countryside, enough ammunition to blow the doors clean off any “we’d like to ride anywhere” plee from the mountain bike community. It won’t matter what the actual truth behind that spark of an incident actually was or wasn’t, for powerful and numerically large groups like the Ramblers and Land Owners Associations, the groups that actually wield the true power in our countryside, to claim “All mountain bikers are a menace” or something equally Daily Mail, and for lots of generally pretty stupid or ill-informed people to support those views.

Pedantry, about if E-bikes are PedalBikes or Motorbikes, or if power/speed limited ones are ok or not, or if so-and-so much power is legal or not will, all become the irrelevances they actually are, and lead to a one way path to more restrictions on our hobby. We, as well informed and expert enthusiasts can argue till we are blue in the face about the ins and outs of E-bikes, but it won;t matter. The die will be set by the majority and the majority is ill informed, biased often rather stupid, and critically, in ignorance of the real truth.

I’ve seen it happen before btw. In the early 1990s i watched my chosen hobby of off-roading being systematically regulated out of existence by that aforementioned majority. The truth of the matter was easily pushed aside by catchy headlines and memorable soundbites like “Off roaders are DESTROYING our countryside”, when what they really meant is “some tracks could be slightly muddy in winter after having been driven over, mostly by large farm machinery with 6 foot tall tyres” By the mid 1990’s popular opinion had decimated our age old system of byways, and resulted in the loss of thousands of miles of byways, most of which are now lost due to underuse / overgrowth.

Meanwhile in Scotland maxtorque.

A fellow off roader and also mtber I’m perfectly happy that en mass 4x4s are banned from the country side

Private muddy tracks only 🙂

^^ proving my point brilliantly about people not seeing the full , truthful picture, but cherry picking the exciting / salacious bits of the story….

The 1990s English green lane restrictions were not about “blanket banning of en-mass, access all areas usage” because that was never the situation. It was about a small majority of, often it has to be said Ramblers, not wanting to share ANY of THEIR access with others. The fact that they already had sole rights to around 98% of English permissive access didn’t stop them for a minute….

Despite being probably more popular than ever, us MTBer are a minority. We are massively out-numbered by walkers, horse riders and critically, carry little sway with the still omnipotent power that is the established land owners. Although the situation has improved over the last few years, thanks to tireless work by a few ambassadors of our sport, and the realisation that MTBs can be a good source of income, the damage done by a single “yobs on electric motorcyles destroy beauty spot” type headline could take years to mitigate.

Sorry how does my Scottish experience back up your English experience

You lot had it. The minority **** it up and you lost it

We never had it and our land access rights are intact for non combustion engines vehicles …..

This would all be valid if electric bikes were powerful enough to damage trails, which they aren’t, or went faster than normal bikes downhill, which they don’t. So, your arguments aren’t valid.

Did you not actually read anything he wrote?

As I said before luke and you know it
I’ll outperform my e bike on any point to point any day of the week.

It’s the ability to use street clothes and not arrive sweaty that draws me. I have no interest in spreading the gnar on mine. It spans 3 post codes for a start 🙂

Almost no legal green lanes ever in Scotland. However bikes have been used by the mountaineers to get into the remote areas for many a year – so here we would have the MCofS on the same side as the MTBers.

Have any of the nay sayers actually ridden and e bike? I have – a reasonably competent mtb. If you ride hard uphill on it using a lot of boost you will use your battery in a few miles. The weight makes them rubbish for jumping and so on.Its impossible to chew up the trails on one any more than you would on a non ebike. I see far more trail damage done by mtbers riding on wet trails, skidding round corners, building jumps etc.

You are simply inventing an issue that does not exist.

This would all be valid if electric bikes were powerful enough to damage trails, which they aren’t, or went faster than normal bikes downhill, which they don’t. So, your arguments aren’t valid.

In your opinion.

There are those whose job it is to look after land access who aren’t so sure, so stop trying to shut down the discussion.

Also you are still trying to ignore the fact that it’s hard to tell a legal bike from an illegal is & that is wilfully doing an ostrich.

However, it’ll take a lot to convince me that for everyday riders/MTBers they’re anything other than rather pointless and expensive N+1 toys. Bit like normal bikes, but a bit sh***er.

Even if you 100% right about that Tom, that would mean they pose little threat to anything other than the bank balance of the buyer 😉

The truth is they are coming (well…already here) and you cant stop it, you don’t have to like it, you don’t have to embrace it, you don’t even have to change any of your opinions, but we will have to deal with it, so the more educated about their actual operation and impact we are the better.

I don’t doubt that people will be watching very carefully the impact they have on local trails, and relationships with other users, but the optimistic part of me thinks that the doom mongering is blown out of all proportion, mostly because the physical/damage side of it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, but the perception side of it and the impact on how bikers are viewed by others is real though. Hopefully in the long run all it will actually lead to is more people riding bikes, and sadly a small percentage of people are nobbers, so we will have to deal with them too, but overall I think it’ll be OK.

I’m prepared to be wrong, I’ve been wrong before but only time will tell.

Also you are still trying to ignore the fact that it’s hard to tell a legal bike from an illegal

That is a genuine concern, and I think the only way you could possibly tackle that is at source, by (somehow) making it either very difficult or impossible to do the modification, but that would need co-op from the entire supply chain, which won’t be easy when for some of them it would impact their profits. The horse may have bolted on this one already…

IMBA E BIKES DATA

“Field Study Hypotheses and Initial Results

IMBA developed these hypotheses for this small initial field study, conducted at one site, with one set of environmental conditions:

Physical impacts to trails from eMTBs will likely fall somewhere between those caused by mountain bikes and motorcycles.
We expect that eMTBs may lead to more soil displacement under certain conditions, such as through turns, including bermed turns; on ascents and descents; and where there are abrupt changes in trail conditions.
Initial observations suggest good support for the field study hypotheses. We saw some differences between the impacts of eMTBs and mountain bikes, particularly at turns and grade changes. However, for the most part, the soil impacts observed in this study were not greatly different from those of mountain bikes, and were much less than those associated with motorcycle use.

The results of the land manager survey and social impacts analysis are still being compiled; full study results will be released in early 2016.”

I’m fully aware that the US has different issues with access to us but their studies & input should not be disregarded.

As I’ve said more than once on this thread:

I’VE NOTHING AGAINST E-BIKES, but to wilfully disregard their potential for trail conflict & damage is IMHO a rather one-sided take on things..

All they’ve posted there is ‘we think it’ll be more than a normal bike but less than a motorbike’. No shit Sherlock…

They also say that the expect type 1 bikes (legal ebikes here, but restricted to 20mph, rather than 15.5 we have here) to be similar to normal bikes.

Hardly damning…

All they’ve posted there is ‘we think it’ll be more than a normal bike but less than a motorbike’. No shit Sherlock…

So we agree they do have the potential to be more damaging.

Hardly damning

I wasn’t trying to be.

Erosion per mile ridden, no.
Erosion per ride, possibly, if you ride more because of the assistance. Which would happen if someone got fitter anyway

Not because of plumes of dirt flying out the back, because they simply don’t happen, and I’ve really tried.

I’ve tried to do a ‘burnout/roost’ on my levo, front brake on and put as much power through the pedals as I can muster, plus the full 250w fury from the motor. Nothing, even on loose gravel

How unmanly.

Erosion per mile ridden, no.
Erosion per ride, possibly, if you ride more because of the assistance. Which would happen if someone got fitter anyway

The IMBA report says this though:

“We saw some differences between the impacts of eMTBs and mountain bikes, particularly at turns and grade changes”

& that’s regardless of how far you’ve ridden or how fit you are. It’s all about what the bike itself actually DOES.

People keep saying they can go twice the distance on their laZebikes – that’s twice the erosion.

I’ve ordered one, despite being pretty sure that I qualify as disabled (who decides what level of disability is OK?) enough can I expect looks of disgust on the trails?

Dullards.

futon river crossing – Member
People keep saying they can go twice the distance on their laZebikes – that’s twice the erosion

Best argument EVER.

Topic of the OP : Messner’s ‘Murder of the impossible’? Maybe.

That’s the only thing I think might be a shame. But in the end, to carry on that link, bolted climbs have got to a technical level that trad routes may not match and trad has other difficulties. Both have followers that are respected. Trails and climbs might develop in a similar way.

It’s all good, ride what you like.

Maxtorque

Your thoughts & warning about the bigger picture were spot on.

Linking this to real life experience from the world of motorcross bikes and land access is what people should be taking from this thread

On the basis that seasoned bikers cannot agree whether the trail may be subject to more damage from additional grip/torque in certain more fragile conditions which way do you think the Peak District guys who destroyed Rushup Edge will go?

Perception becomes reality

pop larkin – On the basis that seasoned bikers cannot agree whether the trail may be subject to more damage from additional grip/torque in certain more fragile conditions which way do you think the Peak District guys who destroyed Rushup Edge will go?

Perception becomes reality

They already don’t know their arse from their elbow so I don’t thing adding a forearm into the equation will make much difference.

pop larkin – Member
On the basis that seasoned bikers cannot agree whether the trail may be subject to more damage from additional grip/torque in certain more fragile conditions which way do you think the Peak District guys who destroyed Rushup Edge will go?

Perception becomes reality

Except that’s a totally different law, different application and different matter… loveing the hate in this thread.

@mrlebowski – what you quoted below is misleading, particularly for this discussion about the UK.

IMBA E BIKES DATA

“Field Study Hypotheses and Initial Results

IMBA developed these hypotheses for this small initial field study, conducted at one site, with one set of environmental conditions:

Physical impacts to trails from eMTBs will likely fall somewhere between those caused by mountain bikes and motorcycles.
We expect that eMTBs may lead to more soil displacement under certain conditions, such as through turns, including bermed turns; on ascents and descents; and where there are abrupt changes in trail conditions.
Initial observations suggest good support for the field study hypotheses. We saw some differences between the impacts of eMTBs and mountain bikes, particularly at turns and grade changes. However, for the most part, the soil impacts observed in this study were not greatly different from those of mountain bikes, and were much less than those associated with motorcycle use.

The results of the land manager survey and social impacts analysis are still being compiled; full study results will be released in early 2016.”

The UK has a limit on legal e-bike power. Reading this bit of the same IMBA report, mainly the 3rd point –

that says pedal-assist bikes with a 20mph max are similar to normal bikes, suggests there’s nothing to be concerned about. UK/EU limit is 15.5mph.

Gravity and brake use or being a bit roost-happy present more potential threat to natural trails and could cause more erosion than simply adding a 250W motor and 6kg to a bike.

I fear, jameso, your reasonable representation of facts will be wasted here.

So, back to the same points- no more erosion than a normal bike. So why will there be conflict over legal e-bikes?

I really dont see how rorting around in a barely silenced v8 landrover can be compared to riding a bicycle with a light pedal assist.
Yes in the 90’s that was me & my mates,we were dicks, and I can see why 4×4 in the countryside is not a good idea in our small overcrowded island.
The ramblers are always going to hate when they see a group of bikes regardless of whether they are powered or not, they wont make a distinction.

munrobiker – Member
I fear, jameso, your reasonable representation of facts will be wasted here.

So, back to the same points- no more erosion than a normal bike. So why will there be conflict over legal e-bikes?

I’m not saying people who ride ebikes are idiots, or bad people or fat and should be banned but they are all fat bad idiotic people and should be banned, just look at motorbikes.

The above is FACT and your opinion counts for nothing. case closed

oldtalent – The ramblers are always going to hate when they see a group of bikes regardless of whether they are powered or not, they wont make a distinction.

I genuinely think walkers hate bikes far less than cyclists hate bikes right now. The venom on this thread far out strips anything I’ve come across in person from any other usergroup.

I’m pretty neutral really with some reservations tbh but its the attitude of the ebike advocates thats puts me off most, you really do come across as unpleasant lot.

I dipped my toe into the darkside the other night – just to see what our lycra clad brethren are making of the whole E-Bike onslaught

Much the same as us – but without the land access or trail erosion arguments

Their forums are full of people arguing whether they are bicycles or mopeds and whether it is still cycling or not

I find it really interesting to see such a defined & angry line between the pro and anti e-bike people in our chosen disciplines

The Podge- I’m not seeing where I said I hated e-bikes my point is that the perception issue of additional erosion may just add fuel to the trail access debate

@podge you say theres venom in this thread but most of seems to come from
you, “case closed” etc.

What makes you think you decide when a discusion is closed?

its the attitude of the ebike advocates thats puts me off most, you really do come across as unpleasant lot

I’m similarly neutral on the whole subject and yet I feel exactly the opposite way.

If you are not racist, sexist, have problems with religion etc,. then you may be missing out and feel you need to have a thing you can hate and fear

eBikes seem to be providing that.