[Closed] “In ten years, there will no more MTB’s without electric motors.”

I spent around five hours in the Surrey Hills yesterday and in that time I estimate I spent around four hours dragging myself up hills and about one going down. I'm pretty fit and regularly do 100+ mile road sportives but can see the time when an e-bike will appeal, especially when the technology improves further and the price comes down.

I don't really see the difference between using an e-bike or an uplift to tell you the truth. It's all mechanical assistance so you can do more of the good bits and less of the bad. Technical climbs are one thing but boring fire roads just to get you back to square one are another.

If ebikes make cycling more accessible then so be it. For the vast majority of the population what we might consider a gentle trail feels like a mountain and is a turn off.

I gave my neighbour my old rockhopper, he doesn't ride it much as he gets out of puff going up a <3% gradient on the road outside the house, let alone doing anything remotely off road.

I suspect had I given him an ebike he would be using it a damn site more.

ebikes will always be heavier and light bikes feel so much nicer
ebikes will be more expensive for a given weight

There will always be a market for the pure, non electric cycling experience both on and off road.

Look at it this way, have gears resulted in the demise of single speed and fixed wheel bikes? Has suspension rendered hard tails and rigid bikes redundant off road? Of course not.

Ebikes will attract more people to cycling but think about why people cycle... There are as many reasons as there are types of bikes and that will continue to be the case, ebikes or not.

They are coming but the nay-sayers needn't worry about them taking over as in sporting and competition terms people want to see who's the best cyclist not who can steer an ebike the best.

National champs, WC, even regional XC, Enduro etc will all be human powered in terms of rank of achievement. There may be a category for ebikes but it will always come with an asterisk or carry less prestige than the 'elite' class results.

Certain high achieving ebike riders may pick up sponsorship from ebike manufacturers but I can't see the mainstream sponsors deviating from elite level human powered cyclists.

If ebikes make cycling more accessible then so be it. For the vast majority of the population what we might consider a gentle trail feels like a mountain and is a turn off.

I gave my neighbour my old rockhopper, he doesn't ride it much as he gets out of puff going up a <3% gradient on the road outside the house, let alone doing anything remotely off road.

I suspect had I given him an ebike he would be using it a damn site more.

ebikes will always be heavier and light bikes feel so much nicer
ebikes will be more expensive for a given weight

There will always be a market for the pure, non electric cycling experience both on and off road.

Look at it this way, have gears resulted in the demise of single speed and fixed wheel bikes? Has suspension rendered hard tails and rigid bikes redundant off road? Of course not.

Ebikes will attract more people to cycling but think about why people cycle... There are as many reasons as there are types of bikes and that will continue to be the case, ebikes or not.

Very true. I wonder how long it will be before we see a "I started on an e-bike but graduated to non-assisted" thread on STW?

I was thinking a bit more about this on a ride yesterday. It's pretty common for people to want lighter/more sus/etc to be able to kep up with mates on group rides. I hadn't appreciated how that may start a swing toward e-mtbs. A group of guys more into downs than ups, like a bit of banter about who's first/last, pretty normal MTB group really. One gets an e-mtb to help on the climbs and it goes from there. If it works that way for MTBs, it could happen with road bikes.
Assuming batteries will be a fair bit lighter/more capacity in 5years or so, and the drive system optimised for climb-assist to leave a fairly normal bike the rest of the time.. maybe. Either that or (more likely) it becomes another genre thing that splits or defines riding groups.

Look at it this way, have gears resulted in the demise of single speed and fixed wheel bikes? Has suspension rendered hard tails and rigid bikes redundant off road? Of course not.

Very true. I wonder how long it will be before we see a "I started on an e-bike but graduated to non-assisted" thread on STW?

I can point you to a long thread just like this on a motorbike forum.

A fella called EddieJ started on an ebike, did about a year... then moved to 1 ride ebike, 1 manual, then onto completely manual and now putting in regular Wiggle 40km rides etc on a standard machine.

In 10 years time the technology will be so good that, particularly for batteries, that I doubt you'd see much of a hindrance with having an e-bike. It'll just make you feel faster

You might like that, you might not.

They'll be plenty who do, and fair play to them. I think they're a great idea, I've not been on one but it'll make cycling more accessible to more people, which will improve things all round I think

It's all been tried before. Blow-air Mountain Biking didn't catch on so I don't expect E-Mountain Biking will either.

It's a great opportunity for the manufacturers, all those lovely new standards to foist on us. They must be salivating.

[quote=benp1 ]In 10 years time the technology will be so good that, particularly for batteries, that I doubt you'd see much of a hindrance with having an e-bike. It'll just make you feel faster
You might like that, you might not.

This battery thing needs to be addressed. Lots of people seem to be assuming that there's going to be some magic in the next 10 years resulting in batteries halving in weight (or even more based on statements like the one above). It appears that high end ones are already using LiIon batteries. The technology in those hasn't changed fundamentally in well over 10 years (I started using them for my bike lights over 10 years ago - the energy density in what I was using then is only about 10% less than the current state of the art). There isn't anything else on the horizon which is suddenly going to transform things - if there was anything likely to be readily available in 10 years time it would have already got plenty of publicity at the research stages. So the answer is that the battery on an e-bike in 10 years is likely to be at best 10 or 20% lighter than it is today.

Of course there is also the possibility of efficiency improvements in other parts of the system, but then similar arguments apply - electric motors are very mature technology and it seems e-bikes have already got to the point where they're using what is close to state of the art. Against which you also have to balance the call for greater range - people seem to be assuming this will somehow also improve by orders of magnitude.

This is all of course ignoring the issue that plenty of us are perfectly happy pedalling our bikes around - I don't think the single-speed (or suspension etc.) analogy is a very good one as that doesn't change the fundamental principle involved (OK so I'm even more of a freak, and think even single-speeders are too easy 😉 ). Sure there is a market for e-bikes and they will get a lot more mainstream than they are now - I could even see them having more than 50% of the market, but suggesting that there will be no bikes without it is marketing puff.

On a separate but tech related point - What about regen technology from braking? like on cars

Ah, sorry, meant to mention that. It's certainly a possibility, but don't think it will be a complete game changer. Given the control problems it's going to be difficult to integrate without causing traction issues (remember cars already have stuff like ABS, which has been tried on bikes and discarded as impractical). Though the bigger issue is that you don't actually use the brakes on a bike anything as much as you might think - if we're talking about off-road, then a lot of energy is lost due to the terrain. You'll certainly get a lot lower proportion back than on a normal road vehicle. I'd be surprised if somebody doesn't try it, but not sure whether it will even be worth it.

benp1 - Member

On a separate but tech related point - What about regen technology from braking? like on cars

Suspension might work better.

This battery thing needs to be addressed. Lots of people seem to be assuming that there's going to be some magic in the next 10 years resulting in batteries halving in weight (or even more based on statements like the one above). It appears that high end ones are already using LiIon batteries. The technology in those hasn't changed fundamentally in well over 10 years (I started using them for my bike lights over 10 years ago - the energy density in what I was using then is only about 10% less than the current state of the art). There isn't anything else on the horizon which is suddenly going to transform things - if there was anything likely to be readily available in 10 years time it would have already got plenty of publicity at the research stages. So the answer is that the battery on an e-bike in 10 years is likely to be at best 10 or 20% lighter than it is today.

I'm not sure I agree with that aracer. There are a lot of companies and research facilities pumping an awful lot of money into battery research. They wouldn't be doing that if there were no possibility of considerable breakthroughs in terms of efficiency and power. Electric vehicles of all sorts are currently limited by lithium ion cells and there promises to be big rewards for anyone who cracks this problem.

It may not happen in the short-term but the way technology generally advances I'm pretty sure there will be a major breakthrough in the next ten years. Obviously filter-through for general consumer items like mobile phones etc. will take longer but it will come in time.

I think the thing with battereis (as I understand them, most definatly not a battery expert) is we are already at the end of the period table with lithium being the smallest metal element. A lot of the improvment in bettereies over the past few years has been the movment ot Li based batteries. So any improvments will only be limited to better implimentation of what we have rather than being able to mov up the peroidc table as we hve done prevously.

[quote=forzafkawi ]There are a lot of companies and research facilities pumping an awful lot of money into battery research. They wouldn't be doing that if there were no possibility of considerable breakthroughs in terms of efficiency and power.

They were 10 and 20 years ago. A 10% improvement in efficiency takes an awful lot of research and is worth a lot of money.

It may not happen in the short-term but the way technology generally advances I'm pretty sure there will be a major breakthrough in the next ten years.

You're basing your confidence on Moore's law type technological advances? Unfortunately not all technology is the same - some is very mature and has run up against physical limits. Maybe you're a better fortune teller than me but then you also seem to be suggesting something coming out of research labs in the next 10 years. Based on what we do know at the moment of any published research there isn't anything which is going to halve the weight of a typical battery on an e-bike in the next 10 years - which is what people are suggesting.

Ha ha, that blow air video is awesome. Not sure why Warner didn't take it off-road, but it looks awesome. You know that feeling when you get a massive tail-wind on a run? On every run! Awesome.

Can't see battery tech being good enough any time soon, though we keep hearing about graphene batteries, so maybe that'll be a game changer. We are due a game changer with batteries.

Mind you, if it's all about energy density, petrol has pretty good stats. Can an engine be built light enough for 10-20 bhp?

Anyway, blow-air. Just awesome.

Warner's a right boy eh?!....that blow air thing looks more fun than ebikes, where do I sign?

We were promised jetpacks....

There'll obviously be an increase in ebike sales, but to suggest they'll be the predominant form of mtb in 10, 15, 20 years is just not going to happen. The whole ethos of cycling is that its self wholly self propelled. The majority just don't want to make it easier, the idea is that it a bit hard. The quick fix an ebike gives an able bodied person is just that a "quick fix". I don't or any cyclist I've spoken to see it as anything other than a novelty with no real or lasting benefit to cycling as a sport.

[quote=taxi25 ] I don't or any cyclist I've spoken to see it as anything other than a novelty with no real or lasting benefit to cycling as a sport.
Assuming you see cycling as a "sport" and not a past-time of course...

I don't own an e-bike because they don't handle well enough (I presume) due to the weight. And I can't afford one.

I'm not sure I wouldn't buy one if the two issues above were properly sorted. Think of it this way a 2 hour 20 mile ride becomes a 2 hour 30 mile ride. You work just as hard, but travel faster and travel further. What's not to like

I think the above is far more in-keeping with how most people ride - for fun rather than to beast themselves - and you can still beast yourself anyway. You just get more of the fun stuff while you're at it.

Lots of people live in places where there's not that much fun stuff anyway, but using the motor to get through the dull stuff makes better rides accessible.