But nobody’s going to spend £1000’s on a ebike because of a niggling injury or they’ve just had a baby are they.

Don’t be so sure. As I said above I currently have a ‘niggling injury’ that means I can’t ride beyond a pootle to the shops. As my social life is based around riding with others it’s seriously effecting my quality of life now. It wouldn’t take much longer before I’ll be looking longingly at our savings account!

eBikes are very common in Austria.
Anything that gets people onto a bike can only be a good thing.

They have charging stations everywhere. Here’s one outside Spar.

Binners, I think one of the main concerns is when they link into the Skynet mainframe and gain self awareness.
I want your clothes, your boots and your electrically assisted pedal bike.

Are Acme Rocket Powered Roller Skates banned from ‘our’ trails too then? I’ve just bloody brought a pairr too!!!

Depends of your BMI I think… 😉

Is this a good time to announce that ive just bought an ebike ?

You need to tell us your BMI.

So which machine have you bought to rip up the trails, and destroy cycling forever then? 😉

They see you pedalling up hills really fast
They hatin’

it’s odd I thought that people who couldn’t ride and minced down the trails breaking hard before corners and causing large sections of breaking bumps or straight lining corners were screwing trails up. Instead it appears that it’s stealth ebike riders climbing up said descents chewing them up ….. interesting

The article in the new magazine is interesting – nice balanced take on it. I’d love to have a go on one of those full-sus beasts (have only ridden a Kalkhoff urban-type bike with little wheels).

So which machine have you bought to rip up the trails, and destroy cycling forever then?

Cube Stereo Race Nyon (satnav)

The pikes are awsome when I’m ripping up San Marino

You’re all going to love the feature on them in the new issue of Singletrack, out this week (yes, there’s a magazine…)

As several people have pointed out, the bikes you’re allowed in the UK are pedal-assist, and limited to 25kph and 250W. So far, no one that we’ve lent them to has come back and said ‘I don’t see the point’. They’re probably not for most of us – perhaps yet – but if you’re not as fit as your riding pals and the alternative is giving up, or you’re older and you’d like to ride with your friends, then they can have a place. As Binners, the new e-bike disciple says, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it 🙂

but if you’re not as fit as your riding pals the fat biffa, wheezing slowly upwards, while dropping off the back and holding everyone else up, and the alternative is giving up, or you’re older and you’d like to ride with your friends, then they can have a place.

FTFY. Very diplomatically put though Chipps. 😀

Great article BTW

As several people have pointed out, the bikes you’re allowed in the UK are pedal-assist, and limited to 25kph and 250W

Bikes you are allowed on the road, I don’t see whats stopping people from buying non road legal models.

They are as easy to modify as an electric rc car as well, are trail centres going to start measuring power output and looking for throttles?

Pfft! I’ve moved on already…..

I am jealous of womp though – that looks awesome!!! 😀

I’ll come clean, although I bought the bike it’s mainly for the wife to use, I’ve taken it out a few times and It’s great, I was just as knackered as when I’m unassisted (if not more so as it urges you to really go for it on the climbs)

It’s no electric motorbike that’s for sure (They really are awsome!) but it really is hard to dislike and don’t blame anyone for using one (as long as they don’t upload it to strava !!! Grrrrrrrrrrr)

Stravas mostly for cockwombles (although you seem nice 😛 ), so if Strava falls victim to them then I might just come round to liking e-bikes,

I’m not sure I see the rational argument tbh.

Like them or not, these things exist and they’re very close relatives. It’s way past time to consider infanticide as a solution.

With a few exceptions (actual trail centres on private land come to mind) the closest a mountain bike trail comes to being private is illegally carved into someone else’s woods and hidden/kept secret. We need to share stuff and don’t like it when others don’t want to share with us. Grow up. Taking the “no no no” line is just going to guarantee getting marginalised in the future.

For the record I’m not terribly interested in bikes I don’t solely power myself, but don’t really see the problem here. If these things get super modded they will be incapable of use on the tight techy singletrack I prefer and end up in trail centres. If the modding apocalypse doesn’t happen then no problem. Win either way, so far as I can see.

Isn’t riding a bike meant to be challenging?

Yeah, but that doesn’t stop us from upgrading our bikes to make them better/easier to ride faster. Lighter, with the best suspension we can afford coupled with grippy tyres. Who decides just how challenging it is?

I can’t imagine there’s much of a sense of achievement after a 3 hour off road ride with an electric bike.

You have a very poor imagination or aren’t very experienced with other forms two wheeled transport. Ten minutes on an MX bike would either change your mind or put you in hospital.

Whether human, battery or engine powered, two wheels is always good in my book.

“Whether human, battery or engine powered, two wheels is always good in my book.”

Exactly, well said that man.

I’ve just added an oxidrive kit to my kaffenback, and I’m fat.
[waits for forum to implode]
Ulcerative Colitis, kids and a knackered knee which has had 2 ops on in the last 5 years has severely limited my ability to ride my bike, bimbiling round slowly with the kids was fine but ‘proper’ rides we’re out.
Now I can ride with friends and keep up, I’m still a sweaty mess at the end of the ride but my knee hasn’t exploded on the hills. Hopefully over time as fitness and strength improve I’ll be able to turn the assistance down and possibly refit the standard wheel eventually.
Without the conversion the bike would have sat unused in the garage and I’d just be getting fatter and depressed.

Just done an online HP to Watts conversion out of interest.
For all of the people who say they are just electric motorbikes:

My petrol Gas Gas EC300 puts out about 40Kw
An ebike puts out about 0.25Kw (when the user also puts in a lot of effort)

So pretty much identical, except the motorbike puts out 160 x the power.

I fitted a speed dongle to the Electric bike last night and took a run out over Rivi. it makes a nice improvement but certainly does not magically turn the bike into a MX bike.

There are 4.5 kwatt e-bikes kicking about…..

they will get more powerful as batteries improve

if Strava falls victim to them then I might just come round to liking e-bikes,

I put my Strava on 😀

I am now top 5 on the mahoosive, brutal climb out of Tod. I’d have KOM no problem, as banged it on the top setting. But I stopped to wait for everyone, suspecting that I was already on the verge of being lynched!

As I said in the feature, many of these criticisms were aimed at suspension in the early days “It’s cheating”, “It ruins the feel of the trail – it has no soul”, “Why would I want to make my bike heavier?”, “It lets the unskilled rider go as fast as us more-skilled riders”.

e-bikes aren’t for most of us, yet. But for some riders, they absolutely are. And hearing the co-founder of IMBA talking about them with affection was very interesting. Just because he’s 70-odd doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to go out mountain biking.

Would love a go on one of those cubes on the local trails. I’m not lazy and very much of the ‘earn your turns’ mindset but for a short time constrained blast I assume I could get up the climbs a lot faster and as a result enjoy more of the downhill biased stuff in the same time period. Would also be very interested to try a decent road focussed one on my 28 mile commute, albeit I suspect the speed limiter rather scuppers them in all but the most hilly areas for road.

well I had a go on Chipp’s test e-fat bike at the Dyfi and it was a right laugh

I’m 50 and fittish at the moment but for how much longer?

My mum’s just won an eBike holiday touring Austrian mountains!
I wish it was me! 😀

i like the fact that e-bikes/pedalecs enable people to get out when they otherwise might not be able to. for the elderly they give them more freedom. one guy i knows commutes 35km each way five days a week on his (saves him having to own a car, gets to work quicker… not sure i’d fancy over 300km a week commuting on my SS).

the problem i have with them is that it enables people to roar along the paths at speeds they otherwise would not.

and when you are sweating a gut on a climb and some chirpy fella waves hello… grrr.

and i’ve already seen people get into trouble as their skill set and battery had run out of reserves. the GF and i encountered one couple trying to push their bikes down a trail as they couldn’t ride it. in a few sections there are fallen trees. they couldn’t get the bikes over the trees and they couldn’t turn back as the batteries were dead.
they may well still be there. :/

i like them as a means of transport, not as a “toy”. i don’t see them as bikes. more a moped.

but then i’m not one for uplifts and not that keen on using the lifts all day long…. nd that goes for winter sports, too.
is swimming still swimming when you have a propellor on your back?

i see it a bit like high jumpers using springs to help them gain height.

quite impressed when I tried one today for the first time.