Electric Bike Thread

[mtngirl79]

Yeah well, if I could afford a plane ticket and the time off work right now I would come over there and shred the shit out of those trails on my cheap steel hardtail.

I dont believe your trails are that gnarly...

Especially when the trend just about everywhere has been to build ride arounds and make trails more beginner/family friendly.

I really dont think you live in a weird, super gnarly anomaly.

[ill-advised strategy]

Or man this is a beautiful view. It was so worth the 5000ft climb to get here. Not another person anywhere, and just a ribbon of single track and a small dirt patch around the perfect rock to sit and have lunch for impact. Wildlife, wildflowers..

And off you ride, down about 3500ft before rejoining the masses..

Once it's easy to get there the place is full of people, fully impacted, the small patch of dirt is now bigger than a house. Cigarette butts mix with the dusty pebbles.

There are awesome places you can drive a car to. Others you can drive 4wheeler jeeps. Motorcycles, dirt bikes. Some you can only walk.

That's ok. Everyone cannot have everything and everything cannot be easy.

You're inherently better than those other people so that place should be reserved for people of your caliber.

geez that's not elitist at all

I get it, I don't want to be spending every time I'm at the beach picking up cig butts, and bumping elbows with 50 people in the lineup where I surf, so I get it. I get it. I try to curb those elitist instincts though, because it's everyone's space. I also find it difficult when people are slobs in the outdoors. But I don't think pedal-assist mountain bikes are really the same level of sensory insult as some of the things you're comparing them with. So far, I just see a guy riding and go "shit, that guy's in better shape than he looks" and then realize it's an ebike....or some tracks on a sandy spot where a normal bike would have a tough time maintaining momentum. It's not even close to the experience of hearing the dirtbike from across the canyon and seeing a bunch of roostruts everywhere.

[Bunion 2020]

Ban all carbon frames! Ban all sidpension! Ban all 11+speed drivetrains!

Making mtb too easy!!

Still polishing on that asshole quotient I see.

You conveniently skip over the whole motors things.

If E-cycle advocates want to try and shift the argument that is up to them.

I agree that on the surface E-cycles are less noisy than a 2 or 4 Stroke ICE, pollute some what less and are different animals when it comes to power bands. That does not change the fact that they still have a motor.

I find it offensive that Bicycle Companies are now trying to expand their line by piggybacking onto an existing type of non-motorized recreation by blurring the lines over what is a Bicycle.

In my opinion E-cycle advocates need to form their own Orgs and lobby for their own access. For mountain bikers there is no upside in having them as allies. Any areas that will be open to them will also be open to Mtn Bikes. The opposite will not be true and could cause further losses of access..

[ill-advised strategy]

I really dont think you live in a weird, super gnarly anomaly.

I rode all that stuff all last year on a cheap steel hardtail. Wrecking wheels. Wrecking my body. Riding super slow in sections where the flow of the trail was built for a lot more speed. Not "impossible"...just not enjoyable. Trails full of rocks and roots, not built for that kind of bike. You wouldn't die, but your bike and body would take a beating.

But I guess that's kind of the big divide in values here: you want to take a beating...that's something you value. Other people don't. Those differences aren't a big deal until one group starts forcing the other one to comply with their view.

[buttahflake]

Yeah well, if I could afford a plane ticket and the time off work right now I would come over there and shred the shit out of those trails on my cheap steel hardtail.

I dont believe your trails are that gnarly...

Especially when the trend just about everywhere has been to build ride arounds and make trails more beginner/family friendly.

I really dont think you live in a weird, super gnarly anomaly.

You better win this race, coming up. Just sayin’

Go on now

[ill-advised strategy]

I agree that on the surface E-cycles are less noisy than a 2 or 4 Stroke ICE, pollute some what less and are different animals when it comes to power bands. That does not change the fact that they still have a motor.
.

A CR500 can do 0-60 faster than any motorcycle I've ever ridden. A good rider can send hundred foot airs without any issue. My CR500 was the fastest, most violent machine I've ever operated....you literally couldn't ride it without tearing the shit out of everything because it was so violently powerful. If some guy hits a tree with that, out on a trail, and the thing lays over and the exhaust starts a grass fire and the thing spills gas and oil into the stream and getting the 300 lb machine and the injured rider out of the woods is a huge ordeal, that's what the non-moto regs are trying to deal with. It's not even close to the same thing as a bicycle that's been made easier to pedal by a silent electric motor. It's not even close.

You guys continue to vastly underestimate the difference between a dirtbike and a pedal-assist bicycle.

[mtngirl79]

You better win this race, coming up. Just sayin’

Go on now

Its not about winning a race. It's about riding the trails. I wont win the race. I'm pretty sure of that. I'll ride the trails, tho. I wont cry I need an ebike because the trails are too hard.

I ride a steel hardtail. Nobody else I ride with rides a hardtail.

Some trails are hard enough that they arent fun, or too hard all together.

I don't complain about those trails. I dont want them to make them easier so I can ride them. I just dont ride them.. yet.

[buttahflake]

Its not about winning a race. It's about riding the trails. I wont win the race. I'm pretty sure of that. I'll ride the trails, tho. I wont cry I need an ebike because the trails are too hard.

I ride a steel hardtail. Nobody else I ride with rides a hardtail.

Some trails are hard enough that they arent fun, or too hard all together.

I don't complain about those trails. I dont want them to make them easier so I can ride them. I just dont ride them.. yet.

Shut up

[mtngirl79]

I rode all that stuff all last year on a cheap steel hardtail. Wrecking wheels. Wrecking my body. Riding super slow in sections where the flow of the trail was built for a lot more speed. Not "impossible"...just not enjoyable. Trails full of rocks and roots, not built for that kind of bike. You wouldn't die, but your bike and body would take a beating.

But I guess that's kind of the big divide in values here: you want to take a beating...that's something you value. Other people don't. Those differences aren't a big deal until one group starts forcing the other one to comply with their view.

This is your local trail system. Are you telling me all those green and blue trails are too hard?

Not a lot of videos linked on trailforks but these pictures of Gorge-ous make me think it would be a blast on a hardtail... they call it a single black.

[mtngirl79]

You're inherently better than those other people so that place should be reserved for people of your caliber.

geez that's not elitist at all

I'm just one of the people willing to put forth the effort to get to that particular spot. If you arent willing to put forth the effort, then you wont get there.

Lots of places I haven't put forth the effort for yet, and a lot I probably never will.

It's not elitist.

[ill-advised strategy]

This is your local trail system. Are you telling me all those green and blue trails are too hard?

I told you many, many things and that was not one of the things.

Yes, I'm telling you they're "harder" for people of average means and average fitness to go enjoy than what was there prior to the mtb takeover of those areas. You don't care, because your pov of cycling is an elitist pov that doesn't consider people of average means and average fitness worthy of enjoyable access. They have to do it the hard way because that's how you like to do it.

Not made for cheap bikes:


But, this has been an exercise in people just vastly missing my points:

Wife and I saw a cop on an ebike last week, he was riding a really loaded-up fat tire bike pretty easily up a hill and I said hey there's an ebike. Wife says "no, that guy's just in really good shape. I saw him earlier, his legs are huge."
And it could have been either, who knows.....but the point is that if that guy was riding a motorcycle we damn sure wouldn't have thought "hey maybe that's just a really fast loud bicycle with no pedals".

[mtngirl79]

I can't find that trail on the map.

Are you saying that eliminating motors made the trail system not accessible to average people?

Is it all the trails that are too hard?

I guess I dont get it. Mountain biking is hard. It's always been hard. That's just the way it is.

I dont see how that is elitist.

This trail looks super fun and I dont see why you couldn't ride a hard tail on it. I think the guy in front is on a hardtail actually.

[ill-advised strategy]

Are you saying that eliminating motors made the trail system not accessible to average people?

I'm saying it used to be enjoyable for everyone, now one group has taken it over and excluded the other.

Could they theoretically access the trail system on foot or by way of huffing and puffing and crashing around with an affordable bike? Yes. So "access" really wasn't my point. It's not like the people who used to 4wheel these areas just switched to bicycles and granola and spinach and changed their basic personalities and got super healthy. They were just banned and they do other stuff now....so the carbon club has their area to themselves, with no peasants in the way.

Here is more footage and some level of discussion:


They say "tight-knit vibrant community"....I live here and see it's based on income. There's a tight-knit vibrant community at the yacht club and the golf resort too. There wasn't really a need for those same people to take over our forest trails too....but that's what they do.
Amazing, they're welcoming and friendly to other rich people from a bike magazine who come up here to publicize their land-grab trail system. Are they welcoming and friendly to their neighbor on a Honda? Nope, call the sheriff on that guy....he needs some granola and spinach and a big $ fine, then he can move to another town nearby that isn't trying to be Little Boulder of the North.


That brunet guy talking like some authority figure was a little neighborhood kid when I was riding my first mountain bikes around here in the 80s and early to mid 90s. I don't remember seeing him out there, and I would remember that. There were endless 2 track dirt roads and hunting trails anyone could ride on a bike or anything else. They wanted to turn all the 2 tracks and hunting trails into bmx type stuff as mountain bikes got better, and they wanted it all for themselves so they put chains and boulders on old trail entrances until they grew over and everyone else just gave up. I only really notice this because I was gone while it happened and I came back and it was like that Pretenders song. Pretty much everyone who was here for it all doesn't see it because it happened gradually.


It's fun to ride the 2 main DH trails. I still walk my DH bike up there.
It would be more fun to pedal an ebike up than to walk the DH bike up. I can't afford any of it really. I've sold the trail bike because all the riding here for that bike involved hard-pedaling I can't do now with my spine. I could likely ride that stuff if it didn't involve hard pedaling. My parents are the same way, they stopped riding trails when this whole "trail system" took it all over and turned it into bmx tracks for carbon fs bikes. People are dicks about my walking the dh bike up, they subtly imply I should be "going big" because it's such a ridiculous bike....but that's what I could afford, because the only affordable bikes are absurd DH oriented 50 pounders and steel hardtails. I had one of the hardest crashes of my life, including motorcycle crashes on pavement, including many hard fast ski crashes, including bus crashes, trying to ride the cheap steel hardtail on trails built for full susp bikes. So that's what I get here I guess. I'm one of the few normal-income, normal-fitness people out there. The supposedly uber-welcoming "bike community" here is oddly passive-aggressive about my being there. Cheap pickup truck? Cheap bicycle...no jersey? who is this interloper?!? Whatever. As I said, if it was like what you described I'd probably think about it differently....but it's not.

[Bunion 2020]

that's what the non-moto regs are trying to deal with

Really? I had no idea you speak for the Montana Wilderness Association or Alliance For the Wild Rockies and all their hair splitting about mechanized equipment and its place in wilderness and proposed Wilderness areas was so easily distilled down to your one example.

Look, I respect what you have to say but,

it's not even close to the same thing as a bicycle that's been made easier to pedal by a silent electric motor. It's not even close.

You guys continue to vastly underestimating the difference between a dirtbike and a pedal-assist bicycle.

1. I am not saying it IS anything close to a CR-500.

2. I think you may have meant over estimate and.

3. When the land agencies say a place is non-motorized they mean exactly that, small, silent or otherwise.

I think E-cycles have their place, friends who are pretty hard core riders have used them in Europe and had a blast. They were on trails that are open to E-cycles.

Today I rode a mellow 19 mile ride that starts at a trail head that is one of the 3 most popular access points in Bozeman. On a weekend there are all the user groups represented, once you get about 5 miles in you usually don't see many people. The area is well signed with plenty of tips on how to get along and it is non-motorized. There are still user conflicts.

Add in E-cycles and I think bikes would no longer be welcome inside of 3 years.

[mtngirl79]

I'm saying it used to be enjoyable for everyone, now one group has taken it over and excluded the other.

Could they theoretically access the trail system on foot or by way of huffing and puffing and crashing around with an affordable bike? Yes. So "access" really wasn't my point. It's not like the people who used to 4wheel these areas just switched to bicycles and granola and spinach and changed their basic personalities and got super healthy. They were just banned and they do other stuff now....so the carbon club has their area to themselves, with no peasants in the way.

Here is more footage and some level of discussion:


They say "tight-knit vibrant community"....I live here and see it's based on income. There's a tight-knit vibrant community at the yacht club and the golf resort too. There wasn't really a need for those same people to take over our forest trails too....but that's what they do.
Amazing, they're welcoming and friendly to other rich people from a bike magazine who come up here to publicize their land-grab trail system. Are they welcoming and friendly to their neighbor on a Honda? Nope, call the sheriff on that guy....he needs some granola and spinach and a big $ fine, then he can move to another town nearby that isn't trying to be Little Boulder of the North.


That brunet guy talking like some authority figure was a little neighborhood kid when I was riding my first mountain bikes around here in the 80s and early to mid 90s. I don't remember seeing him out there, and I would remember that. There were endless 2 track dirt roads and hunting trails anyone could ride on a bike or anything else. They wanted to turn all the 2 tracks and hunting trails into bmx type stuff as mountain bikes got better, and they wanted it all for themselves so they put chains and boulders on old trail entrances until they grew over and everyone else just gave up. I only really notice this because I was gone while it happened and I came back and it was like that Pretenders song. Pretty much everyone who was here for it all doesn't see it because it happened gradually.


It's fun to ride the 2 main DH trails. I still walk my DH bike up there.
It would be more fun to pedal an ebike up than to walk the DH bike up. I can't afford any of it really. I've sold the trail bike because all the riding here for that bike involved hard-pedaling I can't do now with my spine. I could likely ride that stuff if it didn't involve hard pedaling. My parents are the same way, they stopped riding trails when this whole "trail system" took it all over and turned it into bmx tracks for carbon fs bikes. People are dicks about my walking the dh bike up, they subtly imply I should be "going big" because it's such a ridiculous bike....but that's what I could afford, because the only affordable bikes are absurd DH oriented 50 pounders and steel hardtails. I had one of the hardest crashes of my life, including motorcycle crashes on pavement, including many hard fast ski crashes, including bus crashes, trying to ride the cheap steel hardtail on trails built for full susp bikes. So that's what I get here I guess. I'm one of the few normal-income, normal-fitness people out there. The supposedly uber-welcoming "bike community" here is oddly passive-aggressive about my being there. Cheap pickup truck? Cheap bicycle...no jersey? who is this interloper?!? Whatever. As I said, if it was like what you described I'd probably think about it differently....but it's not.

That place looks rad!

Seriously, though, who owns the land that those trail systems are on?

There use to be a lot of moto use of Galby, but the place was trashed. Mountain bikers did take over... they convinced the land owners to allow them to stay versus kicking everyone out...

Anything goes land doesnt work as well as it use to. Increasing populations, increasing liabilities, increasing capabilities of machines...

A quick Google did show quite a few ORV areas nearby...

[toast2266]

...

https://media.giphy.com/media/CbezwsaSQNilG/giphy.webp

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

[grinch]

Ditch the helmet bud. What a pussy

[Banh Mi]

tearing the shit out of everything

Oh man. I cant wait to ride next week.


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[muted]

The granola mafia keeps it for their little Carbon Fiber Owners Club..

Ha! Great quote. I definitely see your point. The elitism creep has definitely sucked a lot of the soul out of MTBing, but it is a lot more fun overall these days.

Bikers in the 90s were masochists and strongly opinionated, that's why I liked them. It has gone soft with the easier trails, easier bikes, and all that, but I've gone soft too I guess. Lotta people back in the day were fueled by anger and depression and need an outlet like suffering on a bike, these days they are fueled by Luna Bars and having "No Bad Days". Still a bunch of masochists out there hating on ebikes though, for sure. On the flip side of this, MTB is not all dominated by males which is good. You'd never see two women biking together and now thankfully they are all over.

/norealpointhere

[reckless toboggan]

Ditch the helmet bud. What a pussy

Bwaaaahahahaha.

What a terrible video.

1. It's the fastest growth segment, it's the only thing keeping local mountain bike shops open.

The same thing was said of:
- 29
- then 650b
- then fatbikes
- then boost
- then wide tires (2.8 to 4.0)
- then super boost

2. It can only mean more trail access and more trails for mountain bikers.

- not if trail managers and hiker/equestrian users close trails because motorized pretend to pedal eMopeds are illegally accessing trails designated non-motorized trails.

They claim to be "laying out a few facts". Then they fail to give any facts other than year over year growth number for the last two years [emoji849] (again, industry shills have used this useless and disingenuous claim previously for fatbikes, 29, 650b, etc etc etc) and give nothing but their opinion on what pretend to pedal bikes are going to do in the future as far as sales, longevity, and trail access. Then they throw out the same old "grow the sport" pablum, and then toss out a disclaimer that they don't really ride pretend to pedal bikes all that much in order to try to save face with any mountain bikers who actually follow their revenue generating YouTube channel.

[grinch]

I think they were just using countries that employed common sense at how that’s proven to work
#longlivetheimperialsystem

[XXX-er]

I've gone soft too I guess.

thats what she said

but do you know they got pills for that now days and as my buddy the recovering MD tells me "they hand them , out like candy"

[grinch]

There’s some spray on in the NSFW thread

[HankScorpio]

Bwaaaahahahaha.

What a terrible video.

1. It's the fastest growth segment, it's the only thing keeping local mountain bike shops open.

The same thing was said of:
- 29
- then 650b
- then fatbikes
- then boost
- then wide tires (2.8 to 4.0)
- then super boost

2. It can only mean more trail access and more trails for mountain bikers.

- not if trail managers and hiker/equestrian users close trails because motorized pretend to pedal eMopeds are illegally accessing trails designated non-motorized trails.

They claim to be "laying out a few facts". Then they fail to give any facts other than year over year growth number for the last two years [emoji849] (again, industry shills have used this useless and disingenuous claim previously for fatbikes, 29, 650b, etc etc etc) and give nothing but their opinion on what pretend to pedal bikes are going to do in the future as far as sales, longevity, and trail access. Then they throw out the same old "grow the sport" pablum, and then toss out a disclaimer that they don't really ride pretend to pedal bikes all that much in order to try to save face with any mountain bikers who actually follow their revenue generating YouTube channel.

I can be convinced of anything if spoken to me in that dreamy Australian accent.

[reckless toboggan]

I can be convinced of anything if spoken to me in that dreamy Australian accent.

Criminals. Every single one of em.