Like many things in our modern existence it would appear that ebikes are somewhat polarising.
I was in Wales last year and had a last minute visit to Bike Park Wales. The uplift was full so a friend of mine said: “Why don’t you hire an ebike?”
Good idea I thought, so I did. The bloke in the shop said, “I hope you brought your wallet!” Seeing as I couldn’t fit a bike in my carry-on I reassured him I was safe from the temptations of an electric motor.
So off I pottered on my hired Trek Powerfly. A 5k climb up the fire trail at 25km/h, just under the speed at which the motor dropped out. And then down the hill I came and I repeated this 5 times.
No way on earth I would have ridden up that hill, 25km in total, five times on a pedal power bike.
Amusingly I got the usual sighs and eye rolling, joshing that I was a jibber for using an ebike. But apparently if I had put the bike on a trailer and sat in the van while it towed my bike up the hill five times I would have been a dyed in the wool mountain biker!
But the electric worm had inveigled its way into my little brain.
I’m a mediocre mountain biker, I do it for fun and exercise, I don’t plan – and couldn’t – to win any races. I rarely venture beyond 25kms.
And then I discovered when I got a new helmet that I’d had it for five years. Which meant I’d had my bike for five years. And my birthday was coming up. So it was inevitable really, I mean what’s a man going to do?
I bought a Merida e160 all mountain dual suspension mountain bike. It cost close to 3 grand (AUD) more than the direct replacement not epower bike would have cost me. That feels a bit steep I have to say and they’ve put the prices up for next year’s model. The weight is considerable at 22/23kg. But it’s all low down at least.
I’ve done about 350km’s so far. It has three modes, all of which you have to pedal in, I ride 99% of the time in eco mode, the next level up is slightly unhinged if quite amusing. I can get about 50-60km on single track and big uphills kill the battery much quicker.
I love it. I’d love it more if the Australian government didn’t mandate that the assist drops out at 25km/h – although I gather there might be ways around that… ahem…
What ebikes do is enable. If you’re limited for time you’ll get more track in that time. If you see a trail that’s new down a hill, but you don’t want to come back up if you’re wrong – no issue. If you’re injured, turn the boost up, if you’re riding with faster riders you can stay with them. If you’re riding in 30 degree heat you’re not going to get heat stroke.
What they don’t do is suddenly improve your talent. Somewhat irritatingly. I’ve ridden a couple of times with a much more talented friend and downhill I still can’t see which way he went. Even on the flat if it’s twisty I’ll struggle to hold him, especially if up around the 25km/h mark. (He confessed after he was pedalling like hell to stay up there though!)
Transport is a possible issue too – can’t be taken on planes. Make sure your car rack is up to it. And if the battery does run flat, you can still ride home – but seeing as the battery will give up at the end of a 50km ride you might be a bit more knackered getting your 22kg bike home!
Better still is that like all these things with electro-trickery on board – they’re only going to get better with time. And likely in 3 years time you’ll deserve a new bike and they’ll be even shinier…
So final point is that I’m talking about MTB, I still don’t quite understand why you’d put a motor in a road bike, but then I don’t quite understand why anyone gets on a road bike…