ebikes on the Shore

Oh are we still talking about ebikes?

Posted by: tungsten

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/04/16/just-say-no-to-ebikes-on-public-lands/

Not the "silver bullet" I was hoping I would find clicking on the link.

Besides, aren't house cats the cause of the declining bird population?

Are eMTB's a hot button, or are they becoming more of an accepted presence on the mountains these days?

I tried one for the first time last week and was more than a little surprised at how good it was.  So I am now wondering if I would get the stink-eye or even the bums rush if I were to use an eMTB on my favorite hill, Fromme?

There are a lot going up Seymour.

Posted this in another thread, should have been here. In response to a joke about getting an E-bike if you're old:

Jokes aside, cycling is a low impact aerobic activity. Ride a pedal bike till you die. It's inherently a perfect old person activity, like water aerobics for the hardcore 🤘 except beneficial for balance and cognition too. Look at pictures of pre-capitolism China and the ancient old people happily riding their bikes around.

Personally I'll ride a bicycle until I'm no longer able to pedal, and then realistically, I expect to park the bike and keel over in short order.

Think the trails are dumbed down now, wait till we're all 80 and shaping the trails to suit us 😅

Posted by: Hepcat

Posted this in another thread, should have been here. In response to a joke about getting an E-bike if you're old:

Jokes aside, cycling is a low impact aerobic activity. Ride a pedal bike till you die. It's inherently a perfect old person activity, like water aerobics for the hardcore 🤘 except beneficial for balance and cognition too. Look at pictures of pre-capitolism China and the ancient old people happily riding their bikes around.

Personally I'll ride a bicycle until I'm no longer able to pedal, and then realistically, I expect to park the bike and keel over in short order.

Think the trails are dumbed down now, wait till we're all 80 and shaping the trails to suit us 😅

Cycling is a low impact aerobic activity? Not so much for mountain bikers.

Theres a visibly massive push by the manufacturers to have all the "content providers", whatever that means, to get all over social media and sing the praises of ebikes of late. Seems that the manufacturers are doing what they can to fight to stigma of riding one of these from within the "community"

I dont care who rides em these days just stay on authorized trails with them and who cares. And dont expect people to pull over for you on the climbing trails.

Posted by: FLATCH

Posted by: Hepcat

Posted this in another thread, should have been here. In response to a joke about getting an E-bike if you're old:

Jokes aside, cycling is a low impact aerobic activity. Ride a pedal bike till you die. It's inherently a perfect old person activity, like water aerobics for the hardcore 🤘 except beneficial for balance and cognition too. Look at pictures of pre-capitolism China and the ancient old people happily riding their bikes around.

Personally I'll ride a bicycle until I'm no longer able to pedal, and then realistically, I expect to park the bike and keel over in short order.

Think the trails are dumbed down now, wait till we're all 80 and shaping the trails to suit us 😅

Cycling is a low impact aerobic activity? Not so much for mountain bikers.

Especially on the shore I think the low impact suggestion is a stretch for sure. 

Kinda like regular bikes, ebikes create more opportunities for user conflict and general assholery.  I'm neutral to ebikes themselves aside from the fact that I think they attract and encourage certain types of people and behaviours. But beyond that, as long as people are respecting the trails and other users, live and let live I say. Bigger fish to fry.

Should call them Me bikes.

I don't have time to ride as much as I want so when I ride now I can cover more ground and get more laps in. 

All about me.

The whole typical shoving match aside, I can speak to one instance of someone I know clawing his way back after fighting off and beating the big C. Bought himself a juice bike to get back into the game and enjoy life again after the ravaging his body took... and he's working hard to get back on a conventional. Certainly a ME case, but a good one.... and you've no doubt ridden some of the lines he put into the Seymour quiver back in the day.  One of the few guys I could count on to bang out 8-10-12-16hr rides in the Chilco before it went mainstream.

Got an older buddy who had a heart attack. He's a 10 bikes in the garage kinda guy.  He's gone electric with multiple spare batteries on board to allow for the long haul touring rides that make his watch tick.  Great use case. 

A gaggle of old retired guys who are gravitating from dirt moto to electrics. They bang out top qual laps in the local mountains and ride regular bikes too. An interesting use case.

And, a neighbor who bought a small fleet of the RAD fat E bikes to go day drinking with friends in the wine district a few miles away.  One broken leg so far, who knows what else will happen?  IMO not such a good use case.

I won't touch the clueless new age commuters who don't know how to ride in and amongst a crowd on the bike infrastructure but I will say fewer cars is fine by me.

Darwin and evolution will help settle matters but truth be told, electrics are here to stay.

Posted by: Brocklanders

Should call them Me bikes.

I don't have time to ride as much as I want so when I ride now I can cover more ground and get more laps in. 

All about me.

I mean I take my kids for bike rides, but mountain biking is pretty much the only thing I get to do just for myself. It's my hobby. So yeah. It's basically about me. But I still respect other people while I'm doing it. So I don't really get how that comment applies only to ebikes. Again, not defending them I just think the comment is a little misguided.

Posted by: Brocklanders

Should call them Me bikes.

I don't have time to ride as much as I want so when I ride now I can cover more ground and get more laps in. 

All about me.

Ok, so here's a thought, who's the more selfish rider?

The pedal guy who rides 4-5 days/wk and does 5-7 laps or the ebike guy who rides once or twice per week and does 3-5 laps?

I see this more in the "get outta the way I'm coming through" e-bike rider, which is not all of them. But certainly tarnishes the group.

Stravahole E-biker, the new scourge of the internet ;-)