E-Bikes- They work!

Posted by: luckbox

How long do we have until acoustic bikes are obsolete? (as you stated in the first post) Do you have sales information for BC? I really feel like it's not working out like they've planned around here.

E-bikes have their place somewhere for some people, but telling a group of mountain bikers that they all need motors will certainly spark some online controversy. I can come up with situations where I'd like to buy one, but none where the acoustics are obsolete.

After some research, it looks like the bike I rode was only 250W and 25km/h maximum, which would explain for a lot of my experience. Seems like a slippery slope searching for more and more power/top speed on multi-use single track trails.

I was told that I needed to ride one before making any criticism. I did ride one. Now I have to rent one for a week? I liked all of the bikes (mountain, road, dirt, sport, and supermoto) that I've owned on my first ride.

250 watts is what I am talking about, the cut off of speed is different in europe it is 25km/hr in north america it is 32km/hr, speed is not an issue as we all travel faster than that throughout our rides now. You dont have to rent one but you also can't make a proper conclusion on anything without actually spending time on something. Again I bet you loved your bike the more you road it in the first month, and there were things you might have been unsure of that settled out, or you adapted to, is the point I was trying to make.

Posted by: ReductiMat

Posted by: norona

Posted by: Ddean

Too funny

Norona says that if you haven’t ridden an ebike that you can’t comment because you don’t know. 

Then when people who have ridden them outline their experience, he says they’re wrong. 

Then Norona comes out with his own theories that ebikes cause no more wear, likely less, than regular bikes and with some amazing hypothetical numbers as to how many “riders” might be on Sproatt due to ebikes versus no ebikes.

I am funny!

You can comment but your not commenting on facts, but on opinion and ego

Again if you ride one in a parking lot, does that mean you know how it would work? Would you not agree that the latest bike you rode got better, felt better and performed better the more time you spent on it in the first 7 days to a month?

Prove to me that they create more damage, when you have never ridden one. How they do it, and prove they do, it is easy, right? Facts Right, Studies? I don't have facts or studies but only real life facts, I dont care about trail damage unless it is vindictive and unnecessary, because in real life all riders slide, skid, and damage the trails, fast riders, slow riders, light riders and heavy riders all do damage, then they are rebuilt, repaired and changed. 

I definitely don't know how many riders will increase due to e-bikes, my guess is a lot, what I meant from my statement is that if there are 20,000 mountain bike riders in the province, there is not instantly going to be 20,000 new riders because of e-bikes, because many of the ebike riders will come out of the mountain biking pool that exists, and any new riders that start riding now, not everyone of them will bike an e-bike. So the numbers on Into the Mystic will not double, remember I would say the majority of riders on e-bikes now in the province were already mountain bikers, I dont personally know anyone who just started the sport and bought and e-bike although that will happen for sure.

You are saying that if everyone went from normal bikes to e-bikes, the number of laps done will stay the same.

No, but it won't matter. And you won't notice it. Also I did three laps of the route i mentioned, doing one more lap of somewhere over there and at the end the third lap was not needed. It is kind of like when I sled ski, some days you hit 15,000- 20,000 vert and its only 2 pm, we could do more but mostly we are satisfied and go home. There is a fun limit, I am very lucky I play all day every day and you won't do 10 laps of fromme every day, you might try and see how many you will do one day but you will just ride further in the hour or 2 you have at the end or beginning of the day. Racers ride the most so if we are so concerned then we should stop racers, but you dont notice their extra laps, and an ebike will be different to every level of rider, I like riding up super tech climbs, now I do steep ones on the ebike, many won't want to do that. My buddy who has one prefers climbing the normal routes and hitting hard trails. So each person will  be different just like now.

Posted by: trumpstinyhands

Posted by: T-mack

Now if these bikes came with smaller batteries that only lasted an hour or 2 I could see the market for them being way larger.

I've always thought the same. But as always in life, stuff gets marketed due to 'features', power, turbo(!), etc rather than actually looking at who wants to ride them (generally not Norona type people). If the bike weighed under 40lb and could get an unfit rider up high at a similar speed to a healthy rider then there probably wouldn't be so much resistance to them. Instead we have all this Turbo crap and bikes that weigh as much as a Banshee Scream with a Monster T. Progress eh!

Well check this out, however I will say this will be entry level, once you ride this for a while and compare it to a current ebike you will wish you had the more powerful one. 

https://youtu.be/s9YpAstmjig

Posted by: norona

Posted by: ReductiMat

Posted by: norona

Posted by: Ddean

Too funny

Norona says that if you haven’t ridden an ebike that you can’t comment because you don’t know. 

Then when people who have ridden them outline their experience, he says they’re wrong. 

Then Norona comes out with his own theories that ebikes cause no more wear, likely less, than regular bikes and with some amazing hypothetical numbers as to how many “riders” might be on Sproatt due to ebikes versus no ebikes.

I am funny!

You can comment but your not commenting on facts, but on opinion and ego

Again if you ride one in a parking lot, does that mean you know how it would work? Would you not agree that the latest bike you rode got better, felt better and performed better the more time you spent on it in the first 7 days to a month?

Prove to me that they create more damage, when you have never ridden one. How they do it, and prove they do, it is easy, right? Facts Right, Studies? I don't have facts or studies but only real life facts, I dont care about trail damage unless it is vindictive and unnecessary, because in real life all riders slide, skid, and damage the trails, fast riders, slow riders, light riders and heavy riders all do damage, then they are rebuilt, repaired and changed. 

I definitely don't know how many riders will increase due to e-bikes, my guess is a lot, what I meant from my statement is that if there are 20,000 mountain bike riders in the province, there is not instantly going to be 20,000 new riders because of e-bikes, because many of the ebike riders will come out of the mountain biking pool that exists, and any new riders that start riding now, not everyone of them will bike an e-bike. So the numbers on Into the Mystic will not double, remember I would say the majority of riders on e-bikes now in the province were already mountain bikers, I dont personally know anyone who just started the sport and bought and e-bike although that will happen for sure.

You are saying that if everyone went from normal bikes to e-bikes, the number of laps done will stay the same.

No, but it won't matter. And you won't notice it. Also I did three laps of the route i mentioned, doing one more lap of somewhere over there and at the end the third lap was not needed. It is kind of like when I sled ski, some days you hit 15,000- 20,000 vert and its only 2 pm, we could do more but mostly we are satisfied and go home. There is a fun limit, I am very lucky I play all day every day and you won't do 10 laps of fromme every day, you might try and see how many you will do one day but you will just ride further in the hour or 2 you have at the end or beginning of the day. Racers ride the most so if we are so concerned then we should stop racers, but you dont notice their extra laps, and an ebike will be different to every level of rider, I like riding up super tech climbs, now I do steep ones on the ebike, many won't want to do that. My buddy who has one prefers climbing the normal routes and hitting hard trails. So each person will  be different just like now.

So if we all went e-bike, you are saying more laps will be done.

You are also saying more laps won’t matter because I won’t notice it. 

Is that in relation to trail wear between my lap 3 and lap 4? 

Or is it in the aggregate from the builders point of view of (Average rides per year) * (Percent of extra laps because we have e-bikes now)?

Remember, the plural of anecdote is not data.

Posted by: T-mack

Anyone that wants to do multiple laps of Seymour is going to be fit and will probably want to stay that way ie. Still want to push themselves etc. So these people won't buy an E-bike anyway.

Just a few things. Firstly this statement is just plain wrong as evidences by the thread author Norona who according to his website used to be a super mountainbiker and has hung up his real bike for an electric monstrosity.

Secondly, let's agree to stop calling real bikes "acoustic." Lets call things as they are "real bikes" and..."E-mopeds."

Finally, as for trail wear, one only need look at Whitewater Ski Resort in Nelson to understand this. Whitewater has old school slow two or three person lifts exclusively. Everyone assumes it is because they are a small little Resort that can't afford a high speed quad. This couldn't be further from the truth. Whitewater is known for their powder and they realize that when you get fresh pow at a place like Whistler it is skied out by 11 because they have the power to get so many people to the top of the run so fast. Although it takes a little longer to get to the top at Whitewater, you have an amazing run every run until the end of the day. E-mopeds are a "Whistler approach" to getting up the mountain.

If everyone rode the way Norona's is on his E-moped we would have to do two to three times more trail maintenance guaranteed.

I’m going to run ebike tours up Into the Mystic for the average tourist stopping at Whis. $100/. I’ll have those ebikes paid off in no time. 

Legit alpine adventure. Grizzly bears. Alpine lakes. Angry mountain bikers, maybe even furious mountain bikers. Group of 10 starting every hour on the hour - probably enough time to get 4 groups off a day. Don’t delay, sign up for the early bird discount!!!

THIS IS THE FUTURE. THIS IS THE PROBLEM

So once we all have ebikes, then what? Mark my words, more powerful motors are coming. Not just more range but faster too.

Posted by: andy-eunson

So once we all have ebikes, then what? Mark my words, more powerful motors are coming. Not just more range but faster too.

Such a slippery slope. I don't know where the line in the sand is, but the bike industry seems to think what they are pushing with the "pendelec label" is ok. Once the bikes cease to be bicycles and more like dirt bikes there will be major conflict between trail user groups here on the shore. Not going to be a positive end result, sure hope it doesn't come to that.....

Out of curiosity, who is going to fix an E-moped when it breaks? Bike mechanics can barely fix my regular cable derailleured bike.

Have at it everyone! Go get your super duper E-moped. I'm sure they are very reliable and last a really long time. Considering I pay as much to have my mountain bike fixed as I do my car, you won't be at all shocked when you take it in for service.

Posted by: Brocklanders

Posted by: andy-eunson

So once we all have ebikes, then what? Mark my words, more powerful motors are coming. Not just more range but faster too.

Such a slippery slope. I don't know where the line in the sand is, but the bike industry seems to think what they are pushing with the "pendelec label" is ok. Once the bikes cease to be bicycles and more like dirt bikes there will be major conflict between trail user groups here on the shore. Not going to be a positive end result, sure hope it doesn't come to that.....

I did a little regulation checking last night. In BC and other provinces the power limit is 500 Watts. I wasn’t able to download the regulatory acts but I am pretty sure the regulations only apply for ebike use on roads.

https://www.icbc.com/vehicle-registration/specialty-vehicles/Low-powered-vehicles/Pages/Electric-bikes.aspx

And a throttle is allowed. Max speed without pedalling is 32kph on the flats so with pedaling more speed. Again, that is for use on roads. Off road? No regulations as far as I can tell.

Any claims of "only 250w" is hogwash. 

http://www.ebikes.ca/learn/power-ratings.html

https://ebike-mtb.com/en/all-2019-haibike-flyon-models-with-tq-motor-at-a-glance/

630w with 120nm of torque. The motor in this can be had with the same "250w" claim on it, yet still rated to 120nm of torque, or with a claim of 920w.

So now loop back to that top link...claimed outputs are kinda meaningless and all motors put out more than the claim. The "speed limited" is all software. 

Go have a good about de-restricting the e-bikes. Options available for most all models. Now Dave is going to chime in saying "that's breaking the law", yep breaking the law. Why isn't this an issue when someone want to put a turbo on their mountain sled? Or pipes on their woods moto? Well it's because these are understood to be motorized and you can do whatever you want to make that motor more powerful. The ONLY reason laws exist on an electric bicycle is a stop gap to attempt to allow them to play nice with human power bicycles and integrate with human powered bicycles. 

It's motorized and thus should be treated separate from non-motorized bicycles. Once we're all in agreement here then we can look at what trail networks should or shouldn't allow this new class of electric motorized bicycle.

Spicy Sports in Whistler brands themselves as having 'e-bike certified mechanics'. I don't think the difference in repairs would be too much of a learning curve for mechanics. Batteries will eventually fade, but they are simply replaced and not repaired.

The 250W e-bike that I demo'd climbed faster than I could ever imagined myself, so that link makes sense to me. My FTP is over 250W and when I tried sprinting (when the motor was already spinning at full speed) the bike was not accelerating.

Ebikes can be modded very easily and almost impossible to detect.   The only part i enjoyed when i tried a new ebike were the uphills. The downs felt like a muted slug.... No sale.

Posted by: LoamtoHome

Ebikes can be modded very easily and almost impossible to detect.   The only part i enjoyed when i tried a new ebike were the uphills. The downs felt like a muted slug.... No sale.

Exactly my point. Any real mtb enthusiast that will ride our local trails won't do it on an ebike because the descending effing blows. Yes there will be the odd person out there on one but I can't see it taking off on the shore. My other point was smaller batteries to lighten the bike up to improve on the descending and still have the climbing power would be popular, but the range would decrease the user would still be riding the same amount as a normal bike, just a bit faster up Old Buck.