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I appreciate your perspective as a motorcycle and car nut from age 13 on. I just want to point out that one of the key difference between vehicles being overpowered and bikes being overpowered... is that when you get a speeding ticket, disorderly conduct ticket (display of power) or wreck your car, they don't close off access to the roads to everyone. They just take away your license, impound your vehicle and/or throw you in jail. There is no mechanic for that in the trail space and thus what happens is that the easy answer is to just remove the problem entirely by removing access to emtbs. Extend that to the problem being that you can barely tell the difference between emtbs and mtbs, and the answer is removing mountain bikes.
The key about this sport is that it basically doesn't exist without trails. Trails require access to lands and deals with land managers and jurisdictions. We all know bureaucratic organizations are anything if not lazy, so it would be crazy to assume they won't take the path of least resistance and easiest/cheapest enforcement. That is the concern here. The adult in me wants to believe that more and more power doesn't matter because just because it's there, doesn't mean you have to use it. However, the 45 year old man-child in me that will still hoon the ever loving crap out of a motorcycle or car... knows otherwise.
I will say that hiking or trail running either alone, or with your family in shared mtb spaces gives you a lot of perspective. It is at times, very not fun to be sharing space with the average mountain biker... less fun to be sharing space with the average ebiker.
No, but they implement other restrictions with speed cameras, average speed cameras, chicanes, speed bumps and other traffic “calming” measures.
The biggest issues is and always will be a lack of education/mentoring… and also our protection/enforcement agencies being stripped back by centralised government, so they can’t do anything anyway. Anything that does happen as a result is normally a kneejerk decision that rarely has a positive longterm impact.
There are 2 new generations getting into riding now. Those of us that rode in the 90s and 00s were the prime gen that grew up and established it all. The current gen are entitled kids that got given medals just for turning up and they have zero boundaries and still get away with doing what they want and if you say anything to them (no matter how constructive) you’re racist/peado/genderist and simply ignored.
And then there’s the other generation that missed out on it all when they were younger, they’re the ones spending the most money (and massively propping up the industry fyi) but with complete ignorance of all the learing and effort that has gone on to build and establish the sport previously.
With 1500w youre lucky to "rinse' it for 30minutes. With your moto or sports car you "rinse" it for hrs then fill up and continue.
I think most people will be using lower power modes to get a little longer ride
Democratizing mountain biking is the most Avinox I ever read this week
There's a section of road to an overlook that's about the steepest asphalt around. 2nd lowest gear with a 32 front ring steep.
On my buddies last-gen Amflow I kicked it into boost and hit the 20mph cutoff. Utterly insane power.
yeah someone REALLY should do something about these former pro riders, blasting uphill like they have an ebike:
This a common straw man argument I see on this topic.
It’s important to remember that anyone capable of going that fast uphill is only do so with a lifetime of skills as a foundation . Anyone in a pro xco race is likely never putting out 1500w in that race, and if the are it’s for about 5 seconds during a sprint finish.
Theres just a lot more nuance man. No human is putting out world tour sprint finish power for the same duration as a 800wh battery
Humans are creatures of the path of least resistance. If you make going uphill at 28mph ( remember it’s easy to vpn your location) easy . It will happen often. If you make it hard ( pro athlete on a non-e-bike) it will happen rarely . And thus , statistically, issues with oncoming traffic are less frequent
Especially when said pro rider is on a closed course.
You're kind of making our point...thanks to Avinox every obese lazy guy with a credit card can climb faster than Nino Schurter
I still think the industry (and DJI) are hoping to "solve" the access issue by doing nothing and waiting until the technology is so compact and quiet that an ebike is barely distinguishable from an analog bike. We've already partially been there for 5 years with the launch of the Levo SL, and all the new Avinox bikes took a big leap forward in making full power ebikes look like analog bikes. I have no other good explanation for why the industry isn't lobbying hard to get eebs officially allowed in the National Forest. Seems like that's the last big shoe to drop on the entire (mtb riding) Earth for ebike access. (vast majority allowed in Canada and Europe, Latin America doesn't seem like they care at all from people I've talked to, idk about Aus and NZ access at all)
At Telluride bike park I will never forget them making my wife take her battery off her ebike to ride at because the land is a National Forest lease. That same trip I went down to Pheonix where they have BLM trail networks (allowed) right next to National Forest trail networks (banned).
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