ebikes on the Shore

"The Shimano system is a bit louder than specialized for sure but it does not bother me, it is not as loud as some guys want their freehub to be."

Last time I went for a ride, I dont recall hearing my freehub while pedaling the climb?  Anyone else?

Posted by: norona

Posted by: Spandies

Posted by: norona

Posted by: Spandies

Posted by: Brocklanders

Posted by: Spandies

Posted by: craw

Posted by: LoamtoHome

e-bikers won't form any advocacy group unless they get banned. Even then, how you going to enforce?

Until batteries get way better, I can't see people chipping their ebikes. Even in Trail mode, battery power doesn't last too long. In Boost mode, it would be really hard to navigate up some trails.

It really boils down to the rider responsibility.

Totally. For me the big sell was to self-shuttle, not just up the hill but across town. I was intrigued by the prospect of not driving to ride.

Until a bit of research revealed that most ebikes would barely get my 220lbs from home in East Van over to one North Shore mountain up down and home again on a single charge. While here I was thinking I could skip the car and ride two mountains when I'd most likely end up hauling this 50lb bike with my truck as usual.

Agreed about the 'chipped' ebikes. For the pedelecs, even though you can chip it doesn't mean you'd want to. I've ridden one, it takes a good amount of wattage to spin it up to 50km/h even on pavement and the battery won't last very long. Good to brag about, not actually very functional in practice. 

For the self-shuttling, also my 'ideal' as well. Could be a market for a certain shop to offer battery charging/battery storage services. I'd love to ride from Vancouver on one battery and a set of slicks, swap at the base of mountain highway, do a loop, swap back and roll home. Much better than dealing with traffic, probably faster depending on time of day. One can dream.

So spandy... If you didn't live so far away from the NS trails would you have bought an ebike? Or is that just a lame excuse? I mean you used to race pro right?

I've had this thing for a week - I absolutely would buy a pedelec even if I lived on the North Shore. Currently, I meet my buds who live a few km away from one of the mountains, ride to the trails, and ride back. We can do a loop in a shorter period of time with no need to load up the cars, and ride the trails with none or minimal stopping even given different fitness and skill levels. If these are lame excuses, then I guess I don't mind being lame. And no, I never raced 'pro'; my comments earlier were contextual around how I foresee myself using this bike, nothing more. 

I'm not here to have a dick waving contest about fitness, the amount of volunteering one has done, or how technically proficient one may or may not be. These pedal assist bikes are a game-changer, and as much as many of you don't like it, this trend will grab hold. It has already been mentioned multiple times that enforcement is the crux of the issue, regardless of whether or not land managers/trail organizations/the wizard of oz plans to ban e-assist bikes. So the question is, if enforcement is nonexistent and we can't do jack-all about irresponsible people, wouldn't it be a better strategy to include those in the pedelec camp as part of the conversation to both help inform policy decisions and to deter abusive behaviours? Otherwise, we collectively have no platform to proactively address the preservation and growth of our sport and our trail assets. 

Shame all you want, but I suspect those who are irresponsible will continue to not give a shit and ignore whatever pleas we may tender, regardless of bans or no bans. Do you now also want to lose the camp of responsible pedelec riders who are interested in engaging in the discussion?

Ya man, have fun, only a week, you have not even discovered the radness yet, about three weeks on it and your world will open up even more, ignore the self feeding bro's on this thread, they don't get it, never did and won't in the future. 3 weeks into riding season here and just hit 1000km, get a second battery and the loops are rad! I put 6000km on a few bikes last season levo, devinci and rocky.

Nice, I can imagine I'll expand on the adventures I can have on the thing. Still setting it up and dialing it in, I'm stoked to be able to do a giant ride on it sometime. Given your experiences with the different brands, maybe you can expand on them a bit in terms of feel and character. I got the Devinci and was debating between the three you listed, but the angles, setup, and robust build sold it for me. I was very drawn to the powerplay but felt that the constant chain idler pulley sound would drive me nuts. Also, what are you riding now?

I ride the Devinci. Love it! 180mm suspension, easy battery exchange, and great spec and price. Christian Begin has opened Blazing Saddle Adventures at the Locavoire Food Truck in Squamish so we have wicked deals on rentals so if someone want to see what these are about, check out blazingsaddlesadventures on insta

I love the shimano Steps due to the fact that yo see your torque curve so it is like playing a game, keeping the light down means your not leaning on the battery as much which gives you more juice. With the Rocky or Specialized without seeing how your using it, you generally will use more, or lean on the battery more. The Shimano system is a bit louder than specialized for sure but it does not bother me, it is not as loud as some guys want their freehub to be.

Couple of things I have come to know

1- get the big suspension and tires2.5-2.8

2- you don't need carbon as the weight savings is not noticeable and the cost is more

3-you want a battery that can be exchanged for epic rides(riding from home to riding area or expanding that riding area)

4- all the other stuff that we use to worry about like having xtr etc, does not really matter, I was surprised I went 5000km on the same chain and sprokets, never had a chain break, sometimes that surprised me how I shifted ha ha, and somone else is still enjoying that bike.

Just have fun and like I said you will be constantly surprised what you can do on the bike and how much fun you will have! If you have some buddies that want to rent some bike and go for a cool ride, hit me up and we will do it. cheers dave

Shared the same thoughts before I got the Devinci - plus the fact that it's made in Canada was an extra bonus. I'm drawn to the fact that less money needs to be spent on fancy drivetrain components and weight weenie stuff in exchange for harder wearing items. I love the coil in the rear and may upgrade the forks to a coil after I get used to the bike some more. I do the same thing with the power graph as well and along those lines, it's great to have a super plush and fun downhill bike that is setup and feels like a dialed xc bike for long distances and on the uphills. Given the mileage you put on your last bikes, how was the battery health for the Shimano system after a season of riding?

Posted by: syncro

Posted by: switch

Takes car to store to get milk and cookies...  ;-)

I've got three acoustic bikes.   No easy I can afford to replace then with electric bikes.

Ha!

No you might not be able to replace all three, but you may only need one. I can see the appeal of getting a bigger travel ebike that may be more dh oriented and using that as your one do-it-all bike to get up the hill and down. For me tho I have no real interest in that for the most part as getting there on my own is more important than being able to get there faster.

And this is a fair assessment. I just see this as a different bike that lets me ride in a different way. 'Analog' bikes are still very appealing and fun, and I will continue to own many as well.

Norona, do you have anything to say about the Norco?

Posted by: norona

Posted by: Brocklanders

From their webpage.

WORCA advocates for non-motorised mountain biking. WORCA considers e-bikes motorized vehicles. E-bikes are not included at WORCA events as our insurance will not cover their use. E-bikes are still in the evolutionary stage and management plans are not yet established. Some clear issues stand out which have not fully been evaluated. The facts are that they allow more people to travel farther and quicker into places they could not so easily access before. This potentially opens up a number of concerns around user conflict, trail safety, and damage to trails that WORCA is keen to monitor and re-evaluate if necessary based on authentic studies or assessment of on-trail conditions. E-bike riders are directed to be extra considerate on public trails and be aware that faster speeds in all directions is a concern for collisions on 

All those who volly their time have enough to do. It's not the trail assns duty to integrate motorbikes into a non motorized riding area. So I guess we will see how it all pans out. I know people on a couple different trail  assns boards that have had enough of this headache and are pretty much done vollying their time. Which is a shame they have done so much, it's thankless work. But you know entitlement rules these days.

I will answer this since all you did was post a quote. WORCA's job is to promote what their user group does. One of your buddies that you talk about in your bottom statement spent the last few years writing lots of things making sure to say on non-motorized trails, however what he always failed to mention was that the area he was talking about was on crown land, in which he, worca and the RMOW have no jurisdiction over, only the government does and they class Class 1 e-mtb as mountain bikes. He is all bummed now but spent his time promoting stuff that was not even true. The areas around sproatt and across the valley were built up by trials riders, I always asked Todd on his non-motorized trails and he said it was a gray area, how does one decide trials is a grey area but e-mtb is not allowed? E-mtb allow you to go further, yes, but that is the same as a regular mtb over hiking so if your worried about trail damage then better go back to walking, truth is trails are beat now due to better and bigger enduro bikes, but all these riders would not half their riding distances to save the trail damage would they? The only reason riders don't care about more damage that is caused these days is because everyone is riding a new enduro bike. Just like when most are riding e-mtb then the damage wont matter. There is no way more damage is caused by e-mtb's out there these days compared to the majority who are on acoustic bikes. I will also add the the number one area where search and rescue were called out is on the Sproatt Alpine trails due to people riding up and being tired for the decent and making mistakes. E-mtb allows a less fit person to be more fresh for that decent which will in turn mean less crashes therefore lowering the call outs so it is the opposite of what people write on e-mtb's. About 10% of the mtb population works on trails, the rest do not, and that number is the same for every user group, it most likely will not change, so not sure what you mean by entitlement, as it is the same for every group. Most people ride, and the work is done by a few. I have done, and still do a lot of trail work in moto, trials and mtb(e-mtb)

So the crux of the argument is that eMTB is more fun because you can ride further/faster/more descending and this trumps any concerns about user conflict or trail access (especially in sensitive areas in terms of permission to build legit trails like Sproatt)? Trials are a small group of folks who know what they are doing, you don't get randoms renting trials bikes and ripping around where they shouldn't it's not even close to a fair comparison in terms of risk of conflict and access. The industry is marketing ebikes to replace "acoustic" bikes and heavily marketing them to tourists and fat/out of shape people so they can go where they previously couldn't.

Posted by: Hepcat

Three walls of text later and this lifelong cyclist has completely changed his mind. FIRE UP THE COAL PLANTS AND PLUG ME IN. ⚡⚡⚡⚡ Sunday morning family trail traffic here we come! Let's go BLAST some uphill singletrack under POWER and watch hikers jump into the bushes! Triple the mileage!! Let's get some motorized noise and into those wooooods!!!

Man, what a salesman. Really earning that pittance from the e-bike sponsor this morning Norona. Hoo boy.

We don't have coal fired power plants in BC.

That's not necessarily the case for the many other places the users on this board live. 

Hydro has it's of own sets of problems, as does whatever other sources the province is using for of energy production I suppose. 

We're at 30% coal nation wide here in the U.S. and falling, but our Cheeto is hoping to fix that.

Replying to grambo: Yes, a lot of specific steering in Dave's lengthy response.

As you state, comparing local trials groups on Sproatt to ebike hoards (valley rentals and e-tourists coming hard and fast) , is not at all equivalent.

SAR activity up there being a result of fatigue, yet ebikes will reduce this... Total BS. Ebikes will be putting nubes on LOS with absolutely no effort/strength filter, and then they'll face an hour of tech DH on a 50lb bike.

And saying that endur-bros are causing the increase in trail wear, ebikes won't increase it at all... The biggest sales pitch for those things is how much more mileage you get in on a given ride and how you can squeeze a huge ride into a smaller time frame. So that's not going to impact trail wear and maintenance?? "Hey everyone, lets just do laps of LOS, we can hit up our spare batteries and do 3 loops after work".

Then, it's glaringly obvious that Norona is selling an ebike service. So great, his opinion is just as clearly financially biased as Richey Schley's advertisement in the ebike news.

I'm all for constructive conversation, but salesmen turning a blind eye to the important issues really tick me off.

Posted by: Hepcat

That's not necessarily the case for the many other places the users on this board live. 

Hydro has it's of own sets of problems, as does whatever other sources the province is using for of energy production I suppose. 

We're at 30% coal nation wide here in the U.S. and falling, but our Cheeto is hoping to fix that.

So just one more thing you’re misinformed about.

Posted by: shoreboy

"The Shimano system is a bit louder than specialized for sure but it does not bother me, it is not as loud as some guys want their freehub to be."

Last time I went for a ride, I dont recall hearing my freehub while pedaling the climb?  Anyone else?

And mine does not on the decent, so were even steven!

Posted by: Spandies

Posted by: norona

Posted by: Spandies

Posted by: norona

Posted by: Spandies

Posted by: Brocklanders

Posted by: Spandies

Posted by: craw

Posted by: LoamtoHome

e-bikers won't form any advocacy group unless they get banned. Even then, how you going to enforce?

Until batteries get way better, I can't see people chipping their ebikes. Even in Trail mode, battery power doesn't last too long. In Boost mode, it would be really hard to navigate up some trails.

It really boils down to the rider responsibility.

Totally. For me the big sell was to self-shuttle, not just up the hill but across town. I was intrigued by the prospect of not driving to ride.

Until a bit of research revealed that most ebikes would barely get my 220lbs from home in East Van over to one North Shore mountain up down and home again on a single charge. While here I was thinking I could skip the car and ride two mountains when I'd most likely end up hauling this 50lb bike with my truck as usual.

Agreed about the 'chipped' ebikes. For the pedelecs, even though you can chip it doesn't mean you'd want to. I've ridden one, it takes a good amount of wattage to spin it up to 50km/h even on pavement and the battery won't last very long. Good to brag about, not actually very functional in practice. 

For the self-shuttling, also my 'ideal' as well. Could be a market for a certain shop to offer battery charging/battery storage services. I'd love to ride from Vancouver on one battery and a set of slicks, swap at the base of mountain highway, do a loop, swap back and roll home. Much better than dealing with traffic, probably faster depending on time of day. One can dream.

So spandy... If you didn't live so far away from the NS trails would you have bought an ebike? Or is that just a lame excuse? I mean you used to race pro right?

I've had this thing for a week - I absolutely would buy a pedelec even if I lived on the North Shore. Currently, I meet my buds who live a few km away from one of the mountains, ride to the trails, and ride back. We can do a loop in a shorter period of time with no need to load up the cars, and ride the trails with none or minimal stopping even given different fitness and skill levels. If these are lame excuses, then I guess I don't mind being lame. And no, I never raced 'pro'; my comments earlier were contextual around how I foresee myself using this bike, nothing more. 

I'm not here to have a dick waving contest about fitness, the amount of volunteering one has done, or how technically proficient one may or may not be. These pedal assist bikes are a game-changer, and as much as many of you don't like it, this trend will grab hold. It has already been mentioned multiple times that enforcement is the crux of the issue, regardless of whether or not land managers/trail organizations/the wizard of oz plans to ban e-assist bikes. So the question is, if enforcement is nonexistent and we can't do jack-all about irresponsible people, wouldn't it be a better strategy to include those in the pedelec camp as part of the conversation to both help inform policy decisions and to deter abusive behaviours? Otherwise, we collectively have no platform to proactively address the preservation and growth of our sport and our trail assets. 

Shame all you want, but I suspect those who are irresponsible will continue to not give a shit and ignore whatever pleas we may tender, regardless of bans or no bans. Do you now also want to lose the camp of responsible pedelec riders who are interested in engaging in the discussion?

Ya man, have fun, only a week, you have not even discovered the radness yet, about three weeks on it and your world will open up even more, ignore the self feeding bro's on this thread, they don't get it, never did and won't in the future. 3 weeks into riding season here and just hit 1000km, get a second battery and the loops are rad! I put 6000km on a few bikes last season levo, devinci and rocky.

Nice, I can imagine I'll expand on the adventures I can have on the thing. Still setting it up and dialing it in, I'm stoked to be able to do a giant ride on it sometime. Given your experiences with the different brands, maybe you can expand on them a bit in terms of feel and character. I got the Devinci and was debating between the three you listed, but the angles, setup, and robust build sold it for me. I was very drawn to the powerplay but felt that the constant chain idler pulley sound would drive me nuts. Also, what are you riding now?

I ride the Devinci. Love it! 180mm suspension, easy battery exchange, and great spec and price. Christian Begin has opened Blazing Saddle Adventures at the Locavoire Food Truck in Squamish so we have wicked deals on rentals so if someone want to see what these are about, check out blazingsaddlesadventures on insta

I love the shimano Steps due to the fact that yo see your torque curve so it is like playing a game, keeping the light down means your not leaning on the battery as much which gives you more juice. With the Rocky or Specialized without seeing how your using it, you generally will use more, or lean on the battery more. The Shimano system is a bit louder than specialized for sure but it does not bother me, it is not as loud as some guys want their freehub to be.

Couple of things I have come to know

1- get the big suspension and tires2.5-2.8

2- you don't need carbon as the weight savings is not noticeable and the cost is more

3-you want a battery that can be exchanged for epic rides(riding from home to riding area or expanding that riding area)

4- all the other stuff that we use to worry about like having xtr etc, does not really matter, I was surprised I went 5000km on the same chain and sprokets, never had a chain break, sometimes that surprised me how I shifted ha ha, and somone else is still enjoying that bike.

Just have fun and like I said you will be constantly surprised what you can do on the bike and how much fun you will have! If you have some buddies that want to rent some bike and go for a cool ride, hit me up and we will do it. cheers dave

Shared the same thoughts before I got the Devinci - plus the fact that it's made in Canada was an extra bonus. I'm drawn to the fact that less money needs to be spent on fancy drivetrain components and weight weenie stuff in exchange for harder wearing items. I love the coil in the rear and may upgrade the forks to a coil after I get used to the bike some more. I do the same thing with the power graph as well and along those lines, it's great to have a super plush and fun downhill bike that is setup and feels like a dialed xc bike for long distances and on the uphills. Given the mileage you put on your last bikes, how was the battery health for the Shimano system after a season of riding?

I had a Levo with 80 charges through it 3000km worked as new, and had more in my shimano and it also showed no difference, these batteries will go easily 20,000+ km without losing anything. Despite how powerful they feel, there is still less than 1 hp coming out of this little package which is super easy on the motor and battery. When I change my battery out after running it hard for an hour and a bit on big climbs the battery is hardly even warm.

Posted by: FLATCH

Norona, do you have anything to say about the Norco?

The norco has gotten  some awesome press and people like the bike. Personally I think Norco made a big mistake releasing it in the sight platform as more riders want it in the range platform, again not being able to take the battery out and carry a spare is a huge disappointment. It is a 630 watt/hr battery so 130 watt/hrs more than mine but that is not much when I can swap one out and have 1000 watt/hr. You also don't need a carbon frame since it saves 1 pound or less on a 50 pound bike. Rumour is there will be a 1000 watt/hr battery in their next generation but all of them will be bigger which is awesome, battery tech is improving everyday. Harbour Air will have an electric Beaver soon, they announced it recently but the motor and battery are already there and they have sponsorship to make it happen and in the military the battery tech is already there, same size just more watt/hr out of the package, it will just be a when consumers will see it.

Posted by: FLATCH

Posted by: Hepcat

That's not necessarily the case for the many other places the users on this board live.

Hydro has it's of own sets of problems, as does whatever other sources the province is using for of energy production I suppose.

We're at 30% coal nation wide here in the U.S. and falling, but our Cheeto is hoping to fix that.

So just one more thing you’re misinformed about.

That'll need clarification. Been a few years since I left home for the States, but 51% sure that BC is still getting it's power mostly from hydro.

Energy policy south of the border is ugly, Trump was elected on the promise of using more coal ffs. When we in the U.S. plug in we're getting 80% of our energy from natural gas + crude oil + coal. Coal is a third of that. Feel free to look up today's exact percentages. Keep in mind that percentage is for 330,000,000+ consumers.

Regardless of one's perception of where electrity comes from, we're talking about taking a ZERO emmision activity and unnecessarily plugging it in.

I may be out of date but much of our off-peak power comes from coal plants in Alberta. We can turn hydro on and off relatively quickly in response to demand, coal plants can’t, so we turn our hydro off and buy Alberta electricity when they have extra capacity and are selling cheaply. 

Not that any of that actually matters, we’re talking about expensive toys for the richest people the planets has ever seen. None of what we do is ecologically “sustainable”.