[Closed] E-bike as your only mountain bike?

Yes I only have a Whyte E160, for the peddling, I find a long hill, even tarmac, peddle as hard as you can using a high cadence for as long as you can. You can use them to maintain fitness by working hard and riding fast.
Once you get to max speed on the flat it’s like riding with the brakes on as you lose assistance so this can also be used to increase your work rate.

Yes and no.
Depends in your group.

I am a new dad and have limited t riding time, bought an ebike last Feb and have riden it on 90% of my rides since then. It has allowed my to turn what would of been a 6 hour ride into around 3/4 hours and sometimes less, I now can ride from my door to my local woods 8 Miles and still be fit for the trails before riding home. I never did that on the non ebike.

However, you'll find it difficult to ever ride with your non ebike friends again, it is possible but it's tricky.

For that reason I have kept my old non ebike for days out with them and also to take my daughter out on just around the local parks.

If you have the space and financially can afford to keep it, then I would personally

One thing to add too, have ing now riden my whyte e180 for a year I thought my fitness would still be good, as your still peddling and it is only assisting you.... How I was wrong! I have recently starting to ride with another non ebike and new to mtb group on my peddler, they blew my out of the water fitness wise! I was really surprised how little cardio/pedal fitness I had in comparison to before.

Depends on what you want to do and how much time you have, i have both, but more often than not, the ebike is chosen as i can get more done in the time, i can recover faster and i can vary what i need for that day, but i do prefer riding the normal bike, if i have the time i prefer to use that one.

If i could live with only one, the ebike is probably the one that gives me the greater range of use and time savings.

The real answer is up to you though, what do you want to do with the MTB, do you want to be flat out doing as much as possible in limited timescales, or are you looking to just enjoy the time in the saddle, which can easily be planned on a normal bike?

“But I think I’ll miss pedalling.”

You have to pedal ebikes! I pedal mine as hard as my hardtail, often harder, it just goes faster when it’s helping. I ride it turned off too and am often pedalling it hard beyond the 15.5 mph cut-off.

I wouldn’t just have an eMTB for the same reason I wouldn’t just have one MTB nowadays - something always breaks at some point so I need a back-up. However, I don’t ride road bikes and I commute on my MTBs, so they’re transport as well as fun (often combining the two).

If you’re using the e-mtb to ride stuff that was previously impossible for you, due to steepness/number of repeat runs/whatever, then if that’s all you can envisage yourself doing in future I don’t think that you’d miss a “normal” bike. I don’t think that you’d lose much (if any) fitness either.

But if you’re just riding where and how you previously did then maybe the novelty will wear off and you’ll be looking for a bit of honesty again.
I think that you get the most out of an e-mtb when you look at it as almost a separate discipline - like riding a trials bike for example.
Look at Chris Akrigg if you need inspiration...

You definitely have to pedal an ebike but it's more about the effort you put in as well. If you let the bike do the work and just go marginally faster up hill to achieve more runs (assuming youre doing the winch and plummet style riding) then your fitness will drop but if you're pushing on and applying the same effort than on a regular bike your fitness will improve due to the greater weight of the bike. With mine I tried to go round as fast as I can so I'm pushing all the way.

That being said your question was would I have one as my only bike? No. I went through 5 motors and 4 batteries on my Kenevo. 1 motor lasted half an hour and failed on the exact same climb it had previously. Apparently Specialized send 90% of their replacement motors to the UK market, according to my local Spesh dealer anyway. Basically the UK dirt and grime is hard on all ebikes. Got to the point where I just didn't trust it when taking it out any more.

I'm now waiting on a Trek Rail so hopefully I have more success with that.

No. It’s not the same experience. I miss beating the climbs myself and the agility of a normal bike on tighter singletrack and downhills.

One thing to add too, have ing now riden my whyte e180 for a year I thought my fitness would still be good, as your still peddling and it is only assisting you…. How I was wrong! I have recently starting to ride with another non ebike and new to mtb group on my peddler, they blew my out of the water fitness wise! I was really surprised how little cardio/pedal fitness I had in comparison to before.

but if you’re pushing on and applying the same effort than on a regular bike your fitness will improve due to the greater weight of the bike.

This does not compute - if you are applying the same effort, you are applying the same effort and that is the factor impacting your fitness. If I ride my heavy commute road bike at 250Watts for an hour I get the same fitness benefit I would get from applying 250 watts on my light road bike, or my mtb come to that.

“ This does not compute – if you are applying the same effort, you are applying the same effort and that is the factor impacting your fitness.”

I presume that was referring to descending on an ebike. I swap between my Zero AM hardtail and my Levo - the latter is almost exactly twice the weight of the former. If you try to ride the descents with similar intensity the Levo requires a lot more strength, especially on tighter twistier trails - so much more leverage needed to manhandle such a big heavy bike.

Yes sorry I didn't explain that very well but luckily chiefgrooveguru was here to help. The twisting and turning on an ebike gives a vastly superior workout to your core and upper body.

I think I'd want a spare bike, a basic/old hardtail, for the times the ebike is in for service or issues, especially with the pandemic situation parts supply. But sounds like you can get your fix on the road bike if you'd be MTB-less for a period.

I just have an e-mtb now, my normal mtb's never go used once i bought the e-mtb

If you just ride an e-mtb and no other type of bike and you run it in Turbo/dont put the effort in your fitness will drop off (as i found out)

Now i just ride my road bike for fitness and the e-mtb is purely for fun

No from me.

As above, they're different. One isn't a straight substitution for the other.

The simplest way I'd put it and pretty unanimously agreed between a few of us who have had ebikes and gotten way past the initial novelty, is that it's just different and if you were to compare the two, it's quality versus quantity.

But OP, what's the harm in getting an ebike to give it a go and find out for yourself? Will easily sell it on.

I've just done this.

I'm in a similar position, two young kids, not much time for riding, can't justify owning too many bikes.

Seems to pedal fine with motor off, and i've done a few rides with normal bikes with it switched off (can always remove battery to make it lighter) so I can't see me missing out on too much, but too early to tell really.
Great for a quick 60 - 90 minute blast which is most of my biking, and I've done loads more exploring of new trails even in that time as it's no problem to just boost it back to the top.

Im quite enjoying hte HT as a change to teh ebike at present.

my big full suss though has been given to he wife as i`m rarely going to use it.

i, 100%, dont get as knackered, cardio wise, on teh eeb but i get achy shoulders and arms and legs from wrestling the badboy. much like when i go to BPW or similar. i do much more actual riding on the eeb.

No, not the only bike if I can help it.

Paired rides with my partner, yes, solo rides I hope not. If I'm honest, the bike is a bit meh... I just leave it in the lowest setting and work the gears or turn it off.

Yes, that was me pushing it up a hill out of stubbornness.

No. It’s not the same experience. I miss beating the climbs myself and the agility of a normal bike on tighter singletrack and downhills.

In the near future there will be a place for you on RetroBike 😆

By choice, no. By necessity, yes. I'm Still working hard (my mate has a bigger battery in his, so I have to leave mine in eco most of the time or I'll run out 😁).
I'm Also doing more and longer rides, so it's not all bad.

I’ve done loads more exploring of new trails even in that time as it’s no problem to just boost it back to the top.

They are absolutely brilliant for this.

In the near future there will be a place for you on RetroBike 😆

Erm... Could not possibly comment. 😁

“ Seems to pedal fine with motor off, and i’ve done a few rides with normal bikes with it switched off”

Finally, someone else doing this!

I swear my old 27.5 full-sus was only quicker uphill once the gradient was sufficient for the weight to outweigh the rolling advantage of the Levo’s 29” wheels.

I’m more confident on the Levo than any other bike I’ve had - it’s just so stable, and I’ve got enough strength and weight to manhandle it just fine.

I’d ride my hardtail more if time allowed but with three small children (one a toddler) and my own business to run, time is tight. I just started extending my homeward commute to take in two fun and fairly steep trails. My direct route is 2.7 miles with 350’ climbing, takes about 11 minutes. This diversion takes it to just over 6 miles with almost 1200’ of climbing and is still only half an hour total.

The only real issue I have with the Levo is that it needs to be ridden fast to feel good on my local trails - the big wheels and loads of suspension just smoothes things out so much. I can have a lot of fun on my gnarly hardtail when going a lot slower, whilst the Levo just feels bored unless I’m pushing on a bit.

achy shoulders and arms and legs from wrestling the badboy

It’s definitely harder on the upper body. I ache more there after a ride than I would normally.

There’s no point having two bikes as I don’t have the time to justify it.

Personally, I think you would need two. A 'manual' and an Ebike. Theres bound to be a time when the ebike is off the road, and then you can haul down the trusty steed and get to where you need to go. And its not really a point of justifying over time wise, you could easily say or use the same argument that you cant justify the time to have one bike.
I mean you can only ride one at a time 😆 Or a time the spouse or friend might want to accompany you on a jaunt but have no bike of their own.

That said, the first reason of the ebike off the road seems a sensible reason, given the number of threads and comments about duff motors,wiring,batteries and controllers in non functioning state.

I'm aiming to have two. An ebike and a standard mtb, for the reasons above.