Singletrack Issue 127 | My Grandad’s head in a jar

Adam Batty welcomes back a lapsed member of the mountain bike club to enjoy the views.

Words & Photography Adam Batty

Great rides are full of hair-raising descents, jaw-dropping climbs, and belly-filling cakes. When I (a bona fide under-30) am riding with my old man, and even older grand-man, it’s hard to include all of the above without causing the already nervous family GP even more worry. “Radical blood pressure dude.” Thanks to the arrival of e-bikes though, the GP might be able to prescribe themselves a chill pill, let their loyal customers hit the trail, and let families like ours unite through e-assisted adventure.

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Back in the day, when disc brakes and suspension were viewed as sci-fi-inspired futurism, any talk of robotic propulsion devices made from washing machine parts would be considered ludicrous. However, we are now in that future. E-bikes are here. They have fallen out of the sky (where the future is stored) and slapped onto the ground with an almighty Bosch! Not only have they signalled the arrival of the future, but they have also dug up a couple of dusty relics of the past – my mountain biking Dad and Grandad. As with all modern-day challenges, I need to selfishly decide if this something I’m OK with and if I should allow it.

Radness of the generations.

It should be said that intergenerational radness used to be a regular occurrence for me, my Dad and Grandad before e-bikes. We would often hit the trails as a trio. Whizzing downhills together, racing each other through the woods and daring each other to try increasingly dubious bicycle challenges. More often than not, this ended up with my Grandad taking family competition too far and having to fix himself with his trademark first aid kit of heavy-duty tape. However, as the long roll of gaffer tape that we call ‘life’ becomes thinner and thinner, we naturally become a little more conservative with its use. Aches and pains set in. Energy and enthusiasm dip. Years tick by. Rides become more mellow and adventures venture away.

Again, selfishly, this situation was not good for me, and I have an admission to make. I’m ashamed to say this, but even though these shells of former radness I call my family spent their previous rides waiting for me, my desire to do the same as they get older is dwindling. I love spending time with them, but I have to play off my love for my family against my love for big rad-ventures. As they became fans of a more ‘relaxed ride’, I realised I couldn’t have both. Obviously, I picked adventures, but I felt bad about it. I don’t want to feel bad.

But wait one turbo-driven minute! Just when I thought I’d locked the old men in the garage for the last time, that’s when I saw the blinking green light charging the future of our family cohesion. E-bikes arrived. According to the spurious claims from the marketing-addled minds of the dusty time vampires (aka Dad and Grandad), these machines could provide the solution to the problem of our mismatched mountain missions. Time to plug into the mainframe, organise a ride, and test out this excitable theory (hype-othesis).

We arrived in the Dales of North Yorkshire with two days, sixty miles of riding, buckets full of climbing, and three electric bicycles in front of us. No compromise had been made on the radness of riding, and we were all equally excited to see if we could ride together with shared levels of stoke and satisfaction. Just like the good old/young days. We were so excited that we went to pore over maps at the pub before the next morning’s ride.

Trouble trickle tickle.

As must happen in all big days on the bike, we started with a troubling trickle to the top of today’s Everest. Barely a mysterious smudge on the horizon when we started out. Daunting in its distance. With all the might of a hydrogen-fuelled Hulk Hogan, we were thrust towards the promised land with ease. Chatting as we did it. Together. No waiting. No hasty writing of wills. We started on equal footing and the wheels rolled back the years.

The liberty afforded by these modern miracles allowed us to venture further. Climb more without the worry of exhaustion or pesky heart attacks. Hunt out those singletrack descents the three of us love. Most importantly, they allowed us to regain the shared sense of adventure and excitement, as our difference in capabilities no longer became the primary focus of the ride.

The road sign of approval seems to be directing all of us to e-bike city. A utopia built on equality and adventure for everyone. However, I can’t help but think of the other side of the coin in this fantasy flip. Is it really a good thing that technological advances are allowing me to spend more time with my older relations? Extend it to the nth degree, and what happens? Will I be riding with my Dad more often? Every weekend? Until he is 107? In the not too distant future, when my Grandad is just a head in a jar, will I be wearing VR capture goggles on rides to relay footage directly into his brain? Hope not.

Also, will this new age of re-rad-ification prevent older riders sliding into a graceful retirement from mountain biking and taking up golf? Or will it just reach a point where they pull out the battery mid-ride, exhausted by adventure and descend into trail heaven one last time. Who knows?

For the time being, my view on this matter is hooked to the positive terminal of the battery. It is an invention for good and it gets my approval. An invention that allowed me to spend quality time and have shared experiences with my Dad and Grandad in a way that I thought I wouldn’t have done again. The shared adventure once more gave us that uniting experience we used to get. We all did the exact same trails, at the same pace, and shared the experience as peers. Most importantly though, we were only two miles away from the car park when Grandad’s battery went flat. And no, that’s not a metaphor.