ebike or not?

I would have a think before stumping out for a spare, we have never needed one but could if needed take it off Katie’s bike if she isn’t with us. We though about the extender for the Levo SL but glad we didn’t get one as its not been required.
We have the ability to charge in the camper, during the day so the solar keeps the leisure batteries topped up but have never had to on a weekend away.

I think a spare battery is a little cheaper than a camper and solar system for a weekend away
charging option. 😉

Ive said before with my old Rail I can comfortably get over 2k meters of climbing in (albeit in lower power modes) which ultimately means 2k of vert back down again. At pace, i’m pretty cooked mentally at that point – so wouldn’t really feel the need to go and do more.

I’m fairly sure playing with the assistance levels on my new Levo I can get close to 3k of vert with a 700Wh battery, which is more than enough for a days riding.

The Bosch BMS is pretty good in my experience (which makes up for the absolutely turd user experience of their controllers).

Probably right, although both the Levo and the camper have had loads of use since we got them. The inverter was fitted so we could run the coffee machine. The solar was a must for the time we spend off grid.

Can eek out 7000ft with a mix of eco and tour, if keeping up with people in emtb, its a proper work out, ruined by the end of it.

Two batteries means 8000ft+ in emtb without worrying about range, no queuing at BPW and sitting in a stinky slow bus!

Aye, I love an uplift day, but I’d rather miss out on the whole bus part!.

We though about the extender for the Levo SL but glad we didn’t get one as its not been required.

I don’t use my extender that much, the regular SL battery, at 320Wh is good for around 3 hrs of regular xc riding (nobeer – to put into perspective, I can go round Burma Rd clockwise, picking up the Carrbridge trails and a bit of High Burnside and back to Aviemore with about 5% remaining) but I do pop it on for full day rides or ones that I’m not sure of, to avoid any worry. I do also have a Creo SL road bike and the battery serves both bikes, so was a good option for me, as it lets me extend regular road rides from about 60 ish to closer to 100 miles if required.

Aye, tbh I don’t really want an extender, as I generally like my bottle cage and that’s their mount point.

That’s good really, seeing as there isn’t a range extender available for the Rail.

Considering the Bosch hardware has existed for several years it’s a bit disappointing that Trek didn’t accommodate dual batteries like Scott and Orbea.

That’a sealed the deal then! haha!.

I’ll give it a few months riding first, see how I get on, pretty sure I won’t bother.

What do you do work wise?.

Fire Fighter. I’m not suggesting you can’t keep fit on ebikes but I imagine you’d need to ride further and for longer to get the same result. I just don’t have the time to ride more atm.

“ Fire Fighter. I’m not suggesting you can’t keep fit on ebikes but I imagine you’d need to ride further and for longer to get the same result. I just don’t have the time to ride more atm.”

It depends on your attitude but from how I ride I’d say it’s the opposite. You can push harder on climbs on an ebike knowing that if your legs/lungs give out you can let the motor help more. You can do more descents in less time and you’re manhandling a heavier bike so it’s better for that kind of throwing a bike about strength endurance. You can go for a ride when you’re worn out from work/life and let the motor do more.

If you want to do chilled pootling I think eMTBs are easier than normal MTBs but if you’re pushing hard then I think it’s the reverse.

BS. They are no effort to ride up a hill. The only tiredness you get is from the upper body workout because they weigh a lot. Why can’t you put the same effort in on a normal bike?

For the same saddle time a normal bike will leave you more tired. You can ride further but don’t pretend you’re more knackered on a eeb.

Proof is in how fatter the embn presenters are compared the gmbn guys.

“ BS. They are no effort to ride up a hill. The only tiredness you get is from the upper body workout because they weigh a lot. Why can’t you put the same effort in on a normal bike?

For the same saddle time a normal bike will leave you more tired. You can ride further but don’t pretend you’re more knackered on a eeb.”

If you choose to put no effort in on an ebike then that’s your choice. It’s the same as those people I’ve seen at the gym who put no more effort into the rowing machine than I do walking downhill to the shops. When I get on a rowing machine I row as hard as I can even though the bloody thing doesn’t go anywhere!

Maybe if you don’t own an ebike and try one you think you’re meant to use the motor to go uphill at the same speed but with less effort – when the truth is you can pedal harder for less time, pedal super easy for more time or anything in between. Your choice!

If some ebikers are fat and unfit then that’s their choice. I want to be able to ride normal bikes as fast as usual, and be functionally strong in other ways. That’s my choice. It’s not about the ebike.

makes no sense. buy an ebike and pedal it harder than a normal bike

BS. They are no effort to ride up a hill

Ooft, we’ve got a live one!.

With the rise of Emtbs, I can only imagine what the trail centre of the future will look like, once all those svelte, beautiful mountain bikers we all see all the time have been pushed out forever.
;)

It’s like all those fat MX riders, MotoGP riders you see.

They only put the skinnies on GMBN cos the vain roadies wouldn’t watch it otherwise! 🙈🤣

makes no sense. buy an ebike and pedal it harder than a normal bike

Or put the same amount of effort in as a normal bike & do the same ride in half the time, or do twice the number of trails in the same amount of time…

Yes you can put minimal effort in. Which you can also do on a normal bike to be fair.

Yep, next time you see someone pootling along on a bike, BLOODY SHOUT THEM THAT THEYRE DOING IT WRONG! 🤣

“makes no sense. buy an ebike and pedal it harder than a normal bike”

Surely I’m not the only MTBer that pedals harder up shorter climbs?

All I can add to the fitness debate is that as a long covid recoveree and slightly reluctant e-biker, I’ve found lifting it over stiles an excellent upper body workout. Oh, and when I started riding my cross bike again, the first thing I noticed was that without a motor, you can really feel the dead spot in the pedal stroke.

It’s been great for my mental health though and a good way of easing back into proper riding ;-)

I ride mine like I ride a normal bike, quite often people will say look he is sweating buckets must be unfit on that ebike 😂

Use the motor like additional gears and ride it hard. I don’t get when I see others out in full jackets and trousers I’m in shorts and T-shirt as normal.

I like the fact I can session stuff and I’ve found it breaks the mental link to the legs, so one week I will do 25 miles of trails on the emtb and then the following week slower I will do the same on the non emtb. It’s a mental thing pushing past my legs and my head saying I’ve done enough.

Oh, and on the fitness side of things. Interesting that e-bikes apparently feel easier to ride in terms of exertion than they actually are:

https://www.mbr.co.uk/news/ebike-effort-versus-regular-bike-392756

‘Despite this measurement, participants’ perceived exertion while riding the eMTB was low. In other words, riders didn’t think they ere working as hard as they really were whilst on the ebike.

Though heart rate, energy expenditure, oxygen consumption, and intensity was generally lower compared with a conventional bike, e-bike use still produced moderate physical activity in comparable settings.’

Oh, and on the fitness side of things. Interesting that e-bikes apparently feel easier to ride in terms of exertion than they actually are:

https://www.mbr.co.uk/news/ebike-effort-versus-regular-bike-392756

Pros & cons of ebikes aside, “Study says an e-bike ride is 94% as hard as a regular bike ride” is a *terrible* conclusion from “average heart rate during eMTB use was 93.6% of average heart rate during conventional mountain bike use.”

Original paper: https://formative.jmir.org/2019/3/e13643/

Limitations section is pretty revealing.

The thing about any analysis of ebikes as an exercise tool is that you need to consider that the motor assistance isn’t fixed. The control systems work by multiplying your torque according to the mode it’s in, but there is a limit to max peak torque and max continuous power (ie torque x revs) and above 15.5mph you get no assistance at all. On short rides if you’re pedalling hard you will spend a lot of time above the speed cut-out and if you’re a decent pedaller there’s no way the max support mode will be able to multiply your torque as much as for less strong riders.

I don’t need three MTBs and I wanted a hardtail more than a second full-sus so my Levo has to fill the role of my old full-sus which means riding it with the power off when I’m with mates on normal bikes, so sometimes my cheaty bike is actually a handicap (in the golf or horse sense) bike.

It would be interesting to use a power meter to compare actual work done.

“It would be interesting to use a power meter to compare actual work done.”

I occasionally think about that – but know that if I bring actual data to a forum discussion, it’ll escalate into a quasi-religious battle where facts matter far less than illogical fears of ebikes!

BS. They are no effort to ride up a hill. The only tiredness you get is from the upper body workout because they weigh a lo

It all depends how you ride. I tend to ride mine in turbo and pedal hard on climbs. get to the top puffing and sweeating but in half the time

I could also do this with little effort in the same time as a non e bike

Bought a broken ebike on ebay yesterday to cannabalise for bits for my town bike. Mostly for the Alfine 7 speed, Hub dynamo, Magura HS11 and fancy German lights. It seems a shame to part out a 2018 bike which is cosmetically great, LCD suggests it’s only covered 1100 miles but although the battery charges, it isn’t recognised by the bike as having charge, and I’m told it was making horrible noises. Get a good long warranty if you’re buying one.

It would be interesting to use a power meter to compare actual work done.

I think Bosch Gen 4 do this?
I’m sure one screen on my Kiox shows “My Power”.

Found this in the Bosch app

If you choose to put no effort in on an ebike then that’s your choice. It’s the same as those people I’ve seen at the gym who put no more effort into the rowing machine than I do walking downhill to the shops

Yes. Exactly that. I compare it to a spin class. There’s always that one person who leaves the class with hair and make up in perfect order, no sweat and then others (me) who leave as a sweaty mess with a puddle on the floor in front of the bike…same class, same bike, different effort.

Yes, you can cruise on an ebike (and that is definitely the case if riding with non ebikers- if you go at their pace) and often the case if you’re on a social ride, but you can also get some descent workouts on them.

I’m quite addicted to technical climbs on my ebike and those are great for making you blow out yer a*se/sweat out your eyeballs.

Aye, techy climbs are one of the things I’m really looking forward to when the bike arrives!.

I just can’t square the ethical argument. On two big fronts.

Maybe it comes from being a climber – or even from my work – but the sense that you should bring yourself up to the level of the challenge, rather than demand the challenge be made easier for you is pretty much ingrained. If you want to go further, just get fitter. If you want to clean that technical climb – learn to ride your bike better.

Secondly, and much more importantly, you are contributing towards the energy crisis and the erosion of the environment on so many more levels. I’m not suggesting that imported taiwanese carbon bike frames are anything ethical, but they don’t require me to plug them in daily. And generally, they don’t destroy the trails I ride.

On another thread a respondent was talking about buying a petrol generator to carry to trail centres and plug his bike into whilst he ate lunch. And as much as you can post the odd eBike recycling project where they make a Bluetooth speaker that nobody buys, lithium extraction is nasty business.

On all fronts, it just comes across as a move that smacks of a lack of consideration for anyone else or anything but your own immediate pleasure. Which I have no respect for.

My only exemption is e-commuter bikes, which offload energy production from an ICE to the national grid.

On another thread a respondent was talking about buying a petrol generator to carry to trail centres and plug his bike into whilst he ate lunch.

If that was me, i was actually kidding :D i didn’t even take the ebike that day. I rode a manual.

Despite owning an ebike, it never gets ridden. I’ve done 2 rides with mates where it was, all on Ebikes, so needed the extra go in me. Don’t get me wrong, they were great days out, but i still actively dislike riding the ebike… basically everything about it is counter to what i like, want and need from a ride. From the noise of the motor, to the assistance, to the weight and handling… Meh… if ebike were my only option, i’d take up golf.

And generally, they don’t destroy the trails I ride.

Your trails are, in the main, a result of erosion.

On all fronts, it just comes across as a move that smacks of a lack of consideration for anyone else or anything but your own immediate pleasure. Which I have no respect for.

I’ll start a thread about ‘what fun car’ in a bit, I can gaurantee you not one soul will mention any of your concerns, but mention an ebike and the high priests will be out in force. Bizarre.

if ebike were my only option, i’d take up golf.

If I had your local riding, I’d be on the first tee with you old boy! :-)

I just can’t square the ethical argument.

I trust you didn’t access this forum via any means which has a detrimental impact to the environment and are currently using recycled paper to do so.

If I had your local riding, I’d be on the first tee with you old boy!

Aye, i hear that one :)