It's all a thought experiment at this point but it will be interesting to see where riding-bikes-in-the-woods is at in ten years.
If I had had to put money down a few years back I would have bet that the kind of e~machines that would catch on would be the ones that provided just enough assistance to make climbing easier while still feeling like riding a bike (Levo SL style).
Then a couple of years ago, last year even, I would have bet that more and more and more juice (Turbo Levo) would have been demanded until basically everyone was riding crank-throttle battery-powered mini-motos. I mean, at some point swap them for pegs and have at it. It's crazy with the big motors how many riders rarely even shift. Working in a shop it's crazy (MTB and commuter) how many e~bikes have totally worn out high gears while their low cogs are totally untouched fresh (the opposite of meat-powered bikes).
Then I talked to a fair number of folks with those almost-mini-motos and other than when they go screaming by me up fireroads they're pedaling around in the significantly detuned modes when they're actually riding on proper singletrack or else the e~rigs are too hard to handle. Like not even using MTB-Mode locally. So now I wonder if there's another generation of product coming that will add ~100-ish watts, a much smaller battery, and look like a regular mountain bike (Levo SL-SL-SL). Plenty of room in the 34.9 seat tube and stash boxes on some current carbon and now aluminum bikes to hide a much smaller setup.
...
For all the back and forth, I don't think actual people-powered mountain bikes are going anywhere. Just look at [Rivendell](https://www.rivbike.com/) \- Grant has found enough like-minded riders to sell his bikes for years the way he wants them to be. It's actually pretty cool to see what's left standing (thriving) after the mainstream moves on.
Dec. 30, 2021, 9:21 a.m. - Andrew Major
It's all a thought experiment at this point but it will be interesting to see where riding-bikes-in-the-woods is at in ten years. If I had had to put money down a few years back I would have bet that the kind of e~machines that would catch on would be the ones that provided just enough assistance to make climbing easier while still feeling like riding a bike (Levo SL style). Then a couple of years ago, last year even, I would have bet that more and more and more juice (Turbo Levo) would have been demanded until basically everyone was riding crank-throttle battery-powered mini-motos. I mean, at some point swap them for pegs and have at it. It's crazy with the big motors how many riders rarely even shift. Working in a shop it's crazy (MTB and commuter) how many e~bikes have totally worn out high gears while their low cogs are totally untouched fresh (the opposite of meat-powered bikes). Then I talked to a fair number of folks with those almost-mini-motos and other than when they go screaming by me up fireroads they're pedaling around in the significantly detuned modes when they're actually riding on proper singletrack or else the e~rigs are too hard to handle. Like not even using MTB-Mode locally. So now I wonder if there's another generation of product coming that will add ~100-ish watts, a much smaller battery, and look like a regular mountain bike (Levo SL-SL-SL). Plenty of room in the 34.9 seat tube and stash boxes on some current carbon and now aluminum bikes to hide a much smaller setup. ... For all the back and forth, I don't think actual people-powered mountain bikes are going anywhere. Just look at [Rivendell](https://www.rivbike.com/) \- Grant has found enough like-minded riders to sell his bikes for years the way he wants them to be. It's actually pretty cool to see what's left standing (thriving) after the mainstream moves on.