I was at a demo day Cycle Lab hosted at Northern Farms on 8 August, and I heard this "reasoning" more than once. WHAT? Let's unpack that a bit, shall we?
Hi, Nigel here from Cycle Lab.
I know where this is coming from. "I'm not old enough yet" isn't the real objection. I'm no sales expert, but after seven years trying to build an MLM business, I heard every objection there is, and I learned that the stated objection is almost never the real reason.
The real reason is financial. It always is. Getting into ebikes isn't like getting into mountain biking generally. For anything half decent, new or second-hand, you're starting at R60k. Simple fact.
Can you get into ebiking for less? Yes, but you won't be getting a crank-driven motor. At that price you're most likely looking at entry-level components everywhere and a hub motor.
Let's not discriminate here: hub-driven ebikes are plenty fine and plenty fun. I've ridden a few, and you can barely tell where the power is coming from. That said, if you want a meaty eMTB that will blow trails apart, you want a crank-driven power unit.
Besides the obvious torque and power delivery, it comes down to weight distribution. A crank-driven motor sits exactly where the name suggests, at the crank, the lowest and most central part of the bike. That low, central mass is a real advantage for stability, bringing the centre of gravity down and giving the rider far more confidence tackling whatever terrain a typical MTB stage race throws at you.
And yes, you can race ebikes now too. Organisers caught a wake-up and realised eMTB was a growing market they couldn't afford to ignore.
Back to the objections. If it isn't money, what's the next one? "It's cheating, you're not getting a workout." That's really two objections in one, and honestly, it's still a financial one underneath. Often it comes from a rider who doesn't want to be judged for their fitness. Such a pity, and such a short-sighted response, because ebikes are absolutely still a workout.
Every time I've ridden one, most recently this past weekend chasing the U17 girls around Olifantsfontein Primeview to get footage of their Schools race, there comes a point where you break free of the group you thought you'd be riding with, and suddenly you're deep in a high heart-rate, 32km/h effort up and along whatever's in front of you.
Why 32km/h? That's the legal limit in South Africa for pedal assist on an eMTB before the motor stops helping. There's a lot of debate globally on this speed limit right now, mostly thanks to throttle-based e-motorbikes, which have been linked to petty crime. As legislators try to clamp down, pedal-assist ebikes have occasionally been unfairly lumped in with them, which has caused plenty of finger-pointing worldwide.
In South Africa, eMTBs are capped at 32km/h, and eGravel or eRoad bikes at 42km/h. On a twisty trail, trust me, 32km/h is plenty, and riding an eMTB in full-beast mode through technical singletrack is genuinely risky. Sure, 32km/h feels slow if you're the eMTB in a group of gravel bikes on the road. But learning to ride right on the edge of the motor's cut-off is a skill in itself, one that gives you a steady average speed and a real power workout, even while you're yo-yoing on and off the group you chose to ride with.
Let's bring this back to what the article is really about. If you're new to mountain biking, say you want to ride with your spouse and one of you is quick while the other isn't, buy the eMTB. If you're coming back from injury, a heart condition where you can't go over a certain HR threshold, and you want to ride with mates you haven't seen in six months who are miles faster than you, buy that eMTB. If you're new to riding altogether, getting into it for health and enjoyment, and your friends who talked you into it have years on you and you're worried about keeping up, buy that eMTB.
Trust me, it takes all the slog out of becoming proficient, and you'll actually enjoy it from day one instead of grinding to reach your friends' pace first, potentially giving up along the way because you bought an entry-level hardtail or convinced yourself a fancy dual-suspension carbon bike would somehow do the work for you.
"The fun you're having on an ebike often comes packaged with a solid Zone 2 heart-rate effort, exactly where doctors prescribe fat-burning, health-and-longevity activity."
Look, I get it. It's easy for me to say all this from behind 40 years of cycling experience, and I do wonder if I'd have shelled out R60k+ to start mountain biking from scratch. My honest excuse would be financial, not age. Every age is welcome in eMTBing.
Would I buy my kid an ebike before I bought myself one? Absolutely not. A bit of suffering is good for the youth. But would we have one in the household if we could afford it? Hell yes.
If you earn your own money and any of this resonates with you, you already know what to do: buy that ebike.
No comments yet. Be the first to comment!