Would You Give In To An E-Bike – Or Resist?

To E-Bike or not to E-bike, that is the question? That’s the question that Gary from Dorset is having to consider as one by one his local riding group has bought them to ride.

“You should try it …..”

“You know you want to …..”

“Everybody’s doing it …..”

“Go on, you’ll luv it …..”

Part of the script from Trainspotting? Nope, it’s the peer pressure, which I am sure quite a few mountain bikers are currently feeling, to go down the rabbit hole that is the e-bike trail. 

Now I have absolutely nothing against e-bikes, my wife has had one for over six years and because of knee problems wouldn’t be able to cycle pain free without one. However I am now feeling the pressure to “join the club”, not because I need one, but rather because riding with some of my MTB mates is becoming increasingly difficult without one. 

For the last 15 years or so I have been riding on Wednesday evenings with a group of local mates, sometimes there are just a couple of us sometimes on rare occasions five or six governed by the usual dependencies of weather and who’s around. These are spring and summer rides from when the clocks spring forward until they fall back, riding in the darkness isn’t really our thing unless it’s on the way home from the pub. We do around 20-25 miles finish at a local hostelry and have a beer or two before going our separate ways into the night. We do plenty of other rides as well, but Wednesday’s are always a bit special, blokes, bikes, beer and bullshit. It’s a chance to catch up, chew the fat and, most of the time have a damn good laugh with the benefit of a large dose of exercise to counter balance the beer and crisp intake. 

Over the last two or three years the rides have become much less frequent, this is for a variety of reasons, mainly around some of the guys travelling more and not being available and we aren’t getting any younger, we are all 60+, and an evening ride after a day at work (for the non-retired members of the group) isn’t always what you want to do. However 2020 may prove to be a watershed moment for these rides and the main reason (I think) is e-bikes.  

With the easing of ‘lock down’ rules we have been able to go out on Wednesday evening rides as a group again, but things have changed since last autumn’s evening excursions. Three members of the group are now exclusively riding e-bikes when mountain biking. So on the last two rides I have found myself on the sole acoustic bike amongst the purring motors of “my friends electric” (for younger readers that’s a Tubeway Army reference, google it, a good track and worth a listen).  

So is this a problem? 

Well sometimes yes. On the flat if they use sensible boost modes I can keep up. On downhills, especially off road and on the gnarly descents, I think I am faster on my lighter more nimble Stumpjumper. I gauged this by the fact that whenever I was behind one of them I was applying the brakes, catching them up or felt I could have gone much faster. The problem clearly is when we came to uphills; there is no way to keep up when they are able to go at twice my best speed without trying too hard. If I am foolish enough to try and keep up (FYI, you can’t!) or minimise their wait at the top I will be ‘ballbagged’ for the rest of the ride. My technique on hills has always been to set a pace that is right for me and don’t worry about anyone being quicker, there will always be someone slower (well most of the time!) and we usually take a breather and regroup at the top of the climb before moving on. Sometimes you get a long rest, sometimes you don’t. When riding with mates on e-bikes you will always be last, always get the minimum rest, always miss the banter at the top of climb and start to feel that you are holding up the group.

On the two rides we have been out on so far it hasn’t been a massive problem; the hills haven’t been too long and it’s been great fun to ride with mates again after the lock down. There have though been issues with changes to the routes. Our Wednesday night rides aren’t that well organised, we pick a place to meet up and the route is usually made up as we go along. 

On our first ride together post lock down, with me having climbed from home for just under two miles up on to the South Dorset Ridgeway, the e-bikers suggested dropping back down (twice!) as we headed west each time returning back to the top before heading off into Weymouth to meet the WAG’s. After Weymouth I would have to climb back up and over the Ridgeway again to get home (the other guys live in the Weymouth area).  I did some quick mental arithmetic of time, distance, number of ascents and came to an instant conclusion…

“F*** that, if you want to do it please do, I will meet you at the end of the Ridgeway before we drop into Weymouth”

The response from the e-bikers was “Well that’s the beauty of e-bikes you see, hills don’t matter”.

And of course they were absolutely right. If this was a “day out” ride I would have done the suggested route and to hell with any time constraints, but it was an evening “social” ride, we had people to meet and I would be slowing them down by a considerable amount. So the extra descents were scrapped and I guess I kinda got the route that I wanted and avoided awkward “where are you now?” phone calls from my wife. 

Near the end of the second ride we came to a fork in the trail, left was (as I remembered it from previous rides) a short but very steep climb (front wheel leaving the track steep!) leading to an off road route home or we could go right which was a long shallow fast fun descent after which we would have to use a busy road to get to our final destination. Again I got my way and we avoided the steep climb, actually on the descent we looked back at the hill and I realised that I had misremembered the track and that we had been looking at the super steep side of the hill while on the side where the bridleway ran up it was an easy climb. In mitigation earlier that day I had ridden 6 miles each way over the ridgeway into Weymouth to play tennis for two and half hours and my tired legs were making the decisions not my brain.

While only a small sample size in terms of rides both examples illustrate some of the problems of riding alongside e-bikers, for the average rider it can be extremely difficult. Now I am sure that there are some skinny slim hipped Whippets out there reading this saying ”not a problem for me mate”, but believe me, at some point it will be. It might be age,  fading fitness or getting fed up with arriving at the top of a climb in a sweaty mess while your e-bike buddies look like they have just showered and changed into a fresh set of clothes or maybe you just want an easy life (ride) for a change. The point will come when you reach the conclusion that if you can’t beat ‘em you have to join ‘em or you find a different set of mates to ride with. While I know it’s not quite that black and white, on some rides it will be fine, but on others it won’t and if the latter becomes the norm then what do you do?

From a personal point of view I am now feeling pressure, not from my mates, to join the e-bike club. These are guys that I have been riding with for nearly 25 years and have known some of them much longer than that and I want to keep riding with them. So what do I do?

Spending £2-3k on a decent e-bike (I would probably go hardtail not a full susser) seems a lot for what would be for me a “social ride” bike, I luv my Stumpjumper and when appropriate that would still be my go to ride. There is also the question of fitness. A great side benefit of mountain biking for me is building up my fitness and stamina for my other great sporting love, Squash and Racketball. There is no doubt in my mind that I won’t be as fit after riding an e-bike as when riding the Stumpy. A couple of folk have said “well you could turn down the boost and you then have to work harder”, but what is the point of that? Why have all that power and an engine and then not maximise the amount you use them?  

The money isn’t an issue I am retired and have sufficient funds to just go and get one if I want to, but it seems a very selfish thing to do given the financial issues many people are, and will be, suffering from following the CV19 pandemic. Or should I just say…

“Bugger it, I can’t help everyone else, I might go under the proverbial bus tomorrow, unlikely given that we only get one a day through our village! So get an e-bike, enjoy the time riding with my mates and just get out on the trails with whatever bike is best for the ride I am doing that day and whoever I happen to be riding with”. 

Getting one now would be difficult given the current supply chain issues, so maybe it’s a decision that I can wrestle with some more and put off until 2021. I do so like a bit of procrastination, at least I think I do!

Post Script:

I originally wrote this piece back in July, it’s now September and things have moved on. Lock down was eased a lot, but now looks like it may be back for a while longer and another friend I regularly ride with has got an e-bike. In Chris’s case the move to an e-MTB was a smart choice and I amongst others had been suggesting for a while that he should get one. He is a fit 70+, but has a medical condition that can affect his riding. In the last year or so he had increasingly found himself at the back of the group especially on climbs and felt he was slowing everyone down. Now riding a Specialized Levo he is more than able to ride with the group and has been christened “The Gatekeeper” as he is usually first to the gates we encounter on cross country rides.

Inevitably when we talk MTBs now the main topic of conversation is e-bikes, battery power, torque, software, chipping, engines, battery life, etc. The current hot topic is Shimano’s new EP8 motor. Vince, who rides with us occasionally and works in a premium LBS, says that over 90% of their bike sales now are e-bikes and they are definitely the future of mountain biking. 

This week a group of us headed to Swinley Bike Park (just off of the M3 in Berkshire), 11 in total with three e-bikes amongst the group. Chris with his Levo, Ed with a new 2021 Cannondale Neo (not sure how you get a 2021 bike in the middle of 2020, a question for the Editor maybe?) and Ian with a Turner 5 Spot that he has converted himself including building his own battery! Did having an e-bike make a difference at this particular trail centre? Well not too much I think, they were obviously faster up all the short climbs that we did and definitely much fresher (less sweaty!) at the end of the ride. On the singletrack, which was the bulk of the ride, their power advantage is negated by riding within the group with nowhere to overtake. On the steeper descents you really didn’t need the extra power unless you have balls of steel and the bike skills to handle going that much faster on a very heavy bike. But this wasn’t an e-bike test or an “e-bike vs acoustic” ride; it was just a bunch of like minded mates out for a ride and having a lot fun doing it. And that’s the point I think, it really doesn’t matter what bike you are sitting on as long as you are enjoying the experience and having fun. So I will finish this piece with a re-hash of an often used phrase, “No matter what bike your arse is sat on …… Just get out and ride!”