Funny you mention that - after two of my friends moved from the DC suburbs of MD out to Montana a couple of years ago, they bought e-bikes (Treks). The rides out there are epic, but so are the climbs. Having e-bikes allows them to do longer rides as they are past their desire to do "training" for rides like that.
Then the quadtards, moto , dual sport, horses , hikers, MTBers AND Ebikers will all be mad at the hover bikers claiming they are THEIR trails.... LOL - Those winds of change are funny and fickle.
Stowe is about to bend on the e-bike thing, they're opening a portion of Sterling Valley to assess impact, I got it all straight from the horses mouth. The rationale is inclusivity. To include the 0.1% of people who ride e-bikes out of necessity, although if you ride out of necessity I don't see how you would ride some of the harder lines up here with bad knees/back, etc. There is a large group of folks up here who go on FOG (Fast Old Guys/Gals) rides. Some of them are well into their 70's. There is also a core group up here who ride some challenging lines that are out of network and not VMBA endorsed. The local Stowe-Trails folks are not happy about that (I've been admonished several times for going-with), but that's what happens when people crave more challenging lines with less tourist traffic. I called the "horse" out on the inclusivity thing, and there was a lot wavering on that point. The fact is there's a lot of e-MTB traffic on the trails already (mostly Cady Hill, out of towners) and most of the shops are already stocking high-end e-MTB's getting ready for when that seal breaks. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out up here since this a place where most of the locals are very fit, into the outdoors, and there is a very high percentage of what would be considered senior citizens riding hard. This is also a place where a good percentage of the locals don't buy ski passes and skin their way to the top of the hill. The population has also doubled since COVID, and most of the new folks are likely the e-bike target audience.
Do you have any info on this setup? I am trying to decide between converting an entry level MTB using a decent Bafang kit or buying an entry level e-mtb (not the $600 ones though, still something decent that doesn't cost me several grands). I guess if I could find an e-mtb for around $2K that would do. Bike would never see an actual trail, maybe some white road to and from the park, maybe Columbia trail.
Quoted purely for old geezer content. 😘
www.emtbforums.com
www.emtbforums.com
Yeah, this is my bike I just recently converted using a Bafang BBS02 kit. It is 750 watts (with a peak of 1200-1300 watts depending on battery setup). Super simple to do on this bike, because it has a 68mm bottom bracket width and didn't need any spacers. The motor doesn't hang too far down so there is still plenty of clearance. Biggest hurdle is mounting the battery. This is a 48 volt 12.8 amp hour battery so it's on the smaller "shark" style side, but still didn't have enough room inside the triangle to mount on the downtube. I might try flipping the shock upside down and seeing if it gives any more clearance and try to mount the battery inside the triangle.
