For the past couple of years we have had a lad who was an early adopter with an E-Bike who regularly rode with us on our twice weekly rides. In fact he had been riding regularly with some of our crew for the past 20 years. Lately though he has been coming out less and less, instead prefering to ride with some other lads who have E-bikes (that also rode with us now and then). And now another of our regular group has gone E and is riding with them. I see this as a rapidly accelerating pattern in the next couple of years, since, once a certain critical mass is achieved, those left on normal bikes will become the social outcasts, forcing more pressure on them to buy into the E-bike scene.

And why wouldn’t you?

Fun on the ups as well as the downs
More downs per day as you can get back up more quickly
The technology is only going in one direction making E-bikes lighter, and the batteries lasting longer

I note on the Singletrack website that just about all the major brands are now offering E-bikes. If I were in the market for a new bike with 4-6K in my pocket, I think it would be a no brainer. I can see high end “normal” bike sales plummeting in the next couple of years.

I would rather it wasn’t so, but fear that human nature (laziness and a desire for instant gratification) will see that my prediction is right. After all, look how quickly the motorcar replaced the horse, or how soon 26″ wheels were made more or less obsolete.

Tell me I am wrong, please.

those left on normal bikes will become the social outcasts

already there, e-bikes can’t claim that victory!

I don’t think e-bikes will take over from non e-bikes, I think they’ll settle into being another category of bike that people will choose between when buying, based on the type of riding, where they ride, who they ride with etc.

Just like the FS bike didn’t kill off hardtails.

On the flip side, on a regular shop ride I do, there’s occasionally a single e-bike out of 10 or so bikes total.

I’m 57 and find pedaling uphill very difficult nowadays. I think that quite a few users on this site may be in a similar position. Currently I ride a bespoke niche bike from a decade ago that is a total joy even now but is pretty much obsolete. Finding rims, tyres, forks and so on is becoming increasingly difficult.

I am financially secure so I genuinely think that my next bike will be an E. I love riding but it is becoming physically more and more difficult. If an E bike allows me to have the fun and frolics I may well do so.

There will always be some that will only want a human powered bike. It’s a fundamental red line to them.

It’s not the same as suspension, or electric shifting etc IMO. Adding electric power to a bike will always be a fundamental change too far for some and a great bonus for others.

I do see a divergence coming over the years though. Where bikes incorporating electric power go off on a different tangent to “push bikes” and attract people that might never have really thought of purchasing a human powered bike as an adult. It’s going to revolutionise commuting which is a great thing for everyone.

None of the above is bad in my opinion. As long as riders that want non ebikes can still buy them easily enough and the same for ebike riders, its all good.

Hopefully we’ll see more of the in between types like the EZesty. Lower weight and power, a normal bike that gives you a little boost up the hills.

I genuinely ceased caring with the introduction of 650b.
It became obvious that we were all just being played.

I miss the lie of being part of some fictional collective.

Rusty Spanner

Subscriber
I genuinely ceased caring with the introduction of 650b.
It became obvious that we were all just being played.

I think many would agree that 650 was a deeply cynical move by the industry. Hell, it’s partly why I went straight from 26 to 29 as at least there was a genuine, measurable difference in “performance” between the two. Both good and bad, mind.

That said,I don’t think the wheel size debate is a good analogy for push bike vs ebike. Ebikes really do introduce something new to the mix whether you like them or not.

I think with e-bikes becoming a popular commuting tool (which is a good thing) but bridging the gap between human powered and mechanically propelled, they’ll be the reason we’ll all end up with bikes being registered, licenced and insured

As the powers that be have already proven, they are unable to differentiate between nuances of technology and more than willing to press on with unworkable schemes based on nothing more than whimsy.

I’ll wait for affordable jetpacks thanks.

And why wouldn’t you?

I can see the appeal, but for me one of the big attractions of bikes is the mechanical simplicity and the fact that it’s me providing the power.

I very rarely ride in groups, so if everyone else gets an ebike I’ll still be quite happy with my normal bike.

Edit: I should add that I’m not anti e-bike. On my (rural) commute, for several years I never saw another regular cyclist. In the last year or so I’ve been passing a regular e-bike commuter, and I saw a second e-bike rider the other day. Neither look like ‘cyclists’ which means they have presumably exchanged driving for e-biking, and that’s awesome.

They’re just too bloody expensive for me at the minute….

once a certain critical mass is achieved, those left on normal bikes will become the social outcasts, forcing more pressure on them to buy into the E-bike scene.

And why wouldn’t you?

Fun on the ups as well as the downs
More downs per day as you can get back up more quickly
The technology is only going in one direction making E-bikes lighter, and the batteries lasting longer

I said a while back that I think MTB will be a powered thing not to far in the future. Not entirely, but in the eyes of many. May be wrong but basically cycling is physically hard as well as the enjoyable side or practical need and now there’s an option to reduce the hard part. People tend to take that option in every area of life. The tipping point is a way off based on price but wait til there’s a good FS E-MTB under £2k.

Why wouldn’t you? Some just don’t ride only for the downs and find the physical test of climbing is as rewarding as the downs are fun. Some also think e-bikes just aren’t nice things in the way an old steel Kona is lovely and there’s a product aesthetic side to all this for many.

I genuinely ceased caring with the introduction of 650b.

It was great to have good rims for disc road bike options though.

Yes its great. The price of normal bikes will fall as they wont have a motor. Which means highend bikes will be much more affordable than the equivalent ebike version.

Mtbing for me over the last 33 years has always been about the challenge, never wanted to water it down and make it easier. Hopefully will now get more bang for buck in the sport i love.

Yes its great. The price of normal bikes will fall as they wont have a motor. Which means highend bikes will be much more affordable than the equivalent ebike version.

Aye, cos that’s how it works. 🙄

In reality, they’ll be more expensive, less demand, less manufactured, more expensive.

Bring on the e-volution, **** it, the roadies sneer at us anyway, give em some proper sand for their fannies.

Dunno, but I think we may be reaching it for E-bike threads. Different strokes for different folks and all that. I think most normal bikes are ridiculously priced so the E variants can jog on. One of the reasons that I personally like pedal bikes is because I’m the engine. If I had a long commute or wanted to go up hill quicker I’d get a motorcycle. Nothing against E-bikes though. If it gets more people off their arses and exercising that can only be a good thing.

As previously written here; if e bikes are the norm then licensing/tax will be introduced not long after.

I certainly see the benefits of e bikes. My biggest reluctance is based on the costs involved. The high initial pay out and the resulting costs of taking it to a bike shop to fix because it’s just so hi tech by then … I like cheap simplicity.

* I also avoid electric gears

The recent negative article about them in the times or telegraph, I forget which, is interesting.

Just thinking out loud, I wonder how and when the first e-bike/pedestrian accident will be reported, and whether it and subsequent collisions will perhaps trigger a change of rules from the policy makers. Perhaps there’s a possible future where e-bikes are restricted to the road and trail centres, whilst convention bicycles get greater access freedoms as per Scotland and hopefully Wales?

E-road bikes are now coming in too, I noticed from idly flipping through a magazine in WHS recently – MTBers might be resistant to change (whether we agree with it or not) but the roadies will be foaming at the mouth! 🙂

I genuinely ceased caring with the introduction of 650b.
It became obvious that we were all just being played.

Agree wholeheartedly.

Just thinking out loud, I wonder how and when the first e-bike/pedestrian accident will be reported, and whether it and subsequent collisions will perhaps trigger a change of rules from the policy makers.

Why would it be an issue? E bikes don’t have higher top speeds, they just go faster up climbs. I spend a lot of my rides going 15mph or more on my normal bike.

And why wouldn’t you?

Because you’re not a lazy bastard? 😉

An ebike for the road for a long commute/slog back from the shops with a full load is on my wish list. Still don’t have the real urge for an emtb yet, but I have liked the two I’ve ridden.

We have had Powerfly 9 for a while now, it is a fantastic bike and there isn’t much I can’t get up on it and it descends really well. But I actually prefer riding the normal bikes even when going out on my own. Yeah I can get further and climb more on it but that just puts me at a point where I’m thinking any remaining charge to get back without the battery being completely flat.

I ride with a few people on ebikes and I’ll still take a normal bike out of preference. If all my fitter friends were to get ebikes then I may have to think about bike choice for doing enduro laps on big hills.

So no I don’t think tipping point has been reached yet and I don’t think it will be for a while yet.

And why wouldn’t you?

For me, I like climbing and the physical challenge it provides. Most of my favourite trails are up hill and not down, and if I don’t finish a ride on my hands and knees then I feel I’ve missed out.
If the ups are just a wayto get to the downs then go for it, but it’s not for me.

Outside the rarified atmosphere of STW are many thousands of people who have neither the money or the desire to spend it on £500 of bike let alone several thousands so let’s just keep some perspective.

I genuinely ceased caring with the introduction of 650b.
It became obvious that we were all just being played.

Agree wholeheartedly.

We were all getting played wayyyyy before that

Interest free ebike loans, in Scotland anyway, not sure about the other side of the wall.

https://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/scotland/grants-loans/ebike-loan

Lately though he has been coming out less and less

Could be they are just riding less and less. My experience of friends with ebikes is they’ve fallen out of love with cycling, and ebikes let them focus on what was fun for them. As they loose fitness on an ebike, it continues to becomes harder and they enjoy it even less, and ride less. Ebike death spiral.

And why wouldn’t you?

Exercise. If you think you put in as much effort on an ebike perhaps you’ve missed the point of them. I find the need to get out and keep fitness topped up a great motivator to get out on the bike more. If I didn’t have this I’d ride less.

I don’t really mind what other people do and I don’t think we’ve reached peak ebike, but for me I enjoy self powering, climbing and sometimes burying myself in the effort. I think what I object to is the assertion we are all aspiring to powered assistance – if that were true for me I’d still be riding motorbikes.

They’re just too bloody expensive for me at the minute….

And thats the tipping point, certainly as far as e-mtb’s go. The majority can’t or wont spend anything like what a good e-mtb costs. Commuter type things are a lot cheaper and make sense for personal tranport so people are more likely to buy those.
And to molegrips, e-bikes are routinely modified to make them faster, when someone gets taken out by one of those and its a slow news day just watch the hysterical reaction it gets from or media 🙁

In the near future as E bikes get older I think the cost of repairs will start to appear on these pages. Most will have been bought by diverting some of the household budget into an interest free finance deal. What’s going to happen when E bike owners have to ask senior management for several hundred pounds for a new battery or motor that’s gone fizz. Lots of E bikes stuck in sheds and the old bike brought back into service.

I was at Llandegla this week. If anywhere was the spiritual home of E-bikes it should be there – a long slog up followed by mainly down. But I saw very few. Perhaps one or two but most people still pedalling or pushing to the top.

So I don’t think the pedalling is dead yet.

Interesting aside all the E-bikers were male!

My view is that if there is a tipping point, all that will happen is the two sports (cycling and e-biking) will become more separated. No reason why they can’t co-exist in the same way that motor boating and yachting co-exist. Personally I think this is a good thing as it’d allow access rights to become more nuanced.

I have zero interest at present in an e-bike despite being able to afford it, I’m sure a lot of others feel the same way – one of the things I enjoy about cycling is the exercise and the fact it keeps me healthy, moving to e-biking would mitigate both of those for me (this won’t be true for all of course). I guess that view would change in the future should I develop some health ailment.

As batteries get better I think the third variant will become popular, that is, e-mtb with no pedals, or rather, an electric motorbike.

I wonder how and when the first e-bike/pedestrian accident will be reported

Are we forgetting the woman who ran out in front of one and subsequently died? here

Nicely worded post from the OP, hard to argue with it.
And it backs up my desire to keep them as a separate entity from mountain biking.
Also thinking on the same lines as crasher50 – repair isn’t like normal bikes, can’t hike it onto the repair stand and fix pretty much all problems. So more expensive to buy and more expensive to maintain. I also havne’t got the disposable income to buy and run one, so even though it’s tougher at my age and health condition(!) I’ll stick with the real bikes.

The exercise is an intrinsic part of cycling for me so for the moment e-bikes aren’t for me. Having said that I watched a video recently of a race between the presenter on an e-bike and a world class XC rider and the presenter certainly put a lot of effort into it. (the e-bike won BTW)

If I lived and commuted in a town or city I’d see an e-bike as an ideal utility bike, yes they are limited to 15mph in assist mode but how much faster is the average urban journey by car?

Not sure about access rights becoming more nuanced – it’s hard enough with the limited selection we have!

I think for me and a number of the people I ride with (not all of them), eMTBs are just not really an attraction.

I can see why people would want one, for a variety of reasons, but it’s clearly a different pursuit, and people of equal ability won’t use eMTBs and MTBs together for obvious reasons.

I like both the physical challenge and the challenge of choosing the right bits for what you’re doing – ebikes take away both of those by compensating with excess power. That’s not the solution to a human powered vehicle problem. Unless it’s carrying some cargo (I have seriously considered dumping the car and getting an e-cargo bike, could get the kids around easily and at a decent speed, pick up huge amounts of shopping, and negligible running costs and environmental damage compared to a car).

I don’t think there will be a tipping point. Ive lost more riding buddies to Zwift than e-bikes!

Went out for a ride with the roadies last night, 50miles, 2000ft at 17.7mph. The fun of that is in trying your hardest to hang onto a back wheel and occasionally doing a turn at the front to inflict a bit if pain in return. The complete antithesis of an e-bike.

Same with the mtb group, there’s 3 groups riding, painfully slow, slow and painfully fast. The first two I can see a few people getting e-bikes, maybe. I think they like the idea of getting fitter but don’t commit to it. The latter group I suspect would point and laugh, and like the roadies a lot of the fun is in trying to beat the rest of the group.

And why wouldn’t you?
…………….If I were in the market for a new bike with 4-6K in my pocket, I think it would be a no brainer. I can see high end “normal” bike sales plummeting

I hate to break this to you, but that’s 4 months wages (5 after tax!).

I suspect the average kenevo owner is probably the time poor money rich guy who bought an s-works enduro last time around.

The other market is probably DH/Enduro riders. If you lived in Peebles or S.Wales (or anywhere else with a big hill and a DH scene) then all of a sudden it opens up the idea of going for a ride after work rather than just one or two runs.

It’s the guys rising them round Swinley I just don’t get. I’m sure some are old/injured/disabled, but the majority are just a bit fat! If anyone thinks pedaling an e-bike is going to be some sort of training, just look arround the lookout car park.

can’t co-exist in the same way that motor boating and yachting co-exist

It’s a good analogy, sailors hate motorboats for just about every reason possible, and motorboaters just assume sailors cant afford an engine.

I can see high end “normal” bike sales plummeting in the next couple of years.

I don’t see why that should be the case TBH. Apart from the motor, all the other components stay the same. so the cost difference in producing a  non powered frame, or one that can accommodate a battery and motor can’t be massive, and there’s always going to be a market for human powered bikes. Remember that the market you’re talking about (high end MTBs) is pretty small anyway, you may loose a few older folk to e-MTB, but there’s always younger riders for whom e-MTB just won’t be attractive.

I don’t think I’m as pessimistic as the OP (and I don’t think there’s reason to be) , and I can see eMTB and regular bikes happily co-existing. In the 30 or so years I’ve been riding mountain bikes, I don’t think there’s never been a point where there doesn’t seem to be some existential threat of wholesale change to the MTB world, whether that’s access rights or standards arguments, or gearboxes or e-bikes, and after all that time, I’m still riding essentially the same sort of bike, over the same sort of terrain, having as much fun as I always have. I can’t see that stopping soon.