Confession time: I bought an e-bike. If I am going to continue testing our products as often as I need to, I needed to address a few hard facts. My ability to give the trails a decent serve is not what it was. To do it on consecutive days is a stunt I can still pull off once in a while, but not week after week.
I therefore had two basic options. One was acceptance: that mountain bike rides needed to be shorter, easier, less often, or all three. The other was to get a bike with electricity. After many months of denial offset with daily bouts of online shopping, the die was cast and I ponied up for a big ass e-bike.
The plan was to mostly ride one of my pedal bikes, but on those days when I would go mountain biking if I wasn’t so rooted from mountain biking I could still go mountain biking. E-mountain biking, but still you know, out there and doing it.
Discoveries in the few weeks since the acquisition are a bit of a surprise.
The first thing is that it’s a lot of fun. That isn’t so much a surprise as a confirmation. I had ridden enough e-bikes often enough to get it. It is really a different sport. You can make it is hard as you want, but for my money what is point of that? I can go up a big climb at more or less twice the pace I could manage on my push bike, and carry on a conversation at the same time. I can go even faster, or lower the assistance and suffer like I would on my push bike, but that would take away the ability to converse.
The conversation is important to note, because I am riding with a mate, who is coming back from over half a year of debilitating health issues. Awesome to be out together, and possible because he also has an e-bike. Very sociable. In fact, when I am out on the push bike, and a group is approaching from behind on some god-forsaken climb or other, I can tell they are on e-bikes because they are all talking at once, laughing, and shouting as if air was in endless supply and they didn’t need much for pedalling.
Climbing a hill is still a means to an end. Plodding up a fire road is on an e-bike is still plodding up a fire road, but it doesn’t take as long. However, if I can find a tricky bit of trail that goes uphill it is an enjoyable challenge in its own right. I have always liked trying to ride up stuff that is difficult for my skill set, but the e-power makes more of these things accessible and fun.
And that right there is the biggest discovery. Maybe it will wear off with familiarity, but right now the novelty of being able to go anywhere until the battery lights turn red means my ‘easy’ days I planned for the e-bike are turning into long and arduous sessions, and I am just as rooted afterwards as I was after a three hour ramble on the push bike.
Last night I went for a squirt on a human powered machine. It immediately felt pretty good, and going up hills at a much slower pace was only really noticeable when a bunch of guys I know hooned past me on their e-bikes. An hour or so after that happened I popped out of a favourite trail and met up with them for a second time. Where they had been in the meantime is anybody’s guess, but I bet it was a good deal further than I managed. They were looking extremely pleased with themselves, I was probably looking a bit wrung out. But I can’t say a lap the pedal bike was less than its usual splendid experience.
Just different.
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