This thread is so 6yrs ago mbtr never disappoints.

The bike I ride you can't even talk about on here but is a beast on logging roads here in the PNW that are mostly all behind locked gates. I have come up with a scale of 1-5 to describe different grades of road base. 1 is similar to black top in hardness and 5 is basically what they call rip rap and is used as a base layer but still ridable.

In fact they just started some county road construction up the road a little ways that is taking over a gated entrance that we used to use as one of the access points to the local forest that is littered with logging roads of all sorts including really old ones we turn into single tracks. The new road will be paved. But luckily we have a single track that goes up in there now just to the north of it.

I am checking in after work is done for the day to see how they are progressing. Project is going to take until fall of '23.

 

In Tahoe at least, there are many many illegal trails, and they get ridden regularly. Not by everyone though because they are built by good riders and they are pretty technical.

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Ride safe

 

Meanwhile, this is the real problem for land managers. Notice, not a single mention of ebikes.

https://gazette.com/life/outdoors/rogue-trails-coming-to-a-head-in-colorado-springs-outdoors/article_2525c80c-796f-11ec-9a28-d3066f5611d8.html?fbclid=IwAR0MMJH6toPf914weCJ1tQdsxi9tiz9cntoUUVSlBzrJpc0701-doohvfCw

 

It has been my experience that most rouge trails start as animal trails and are taken over by humans.

 

I’m posting in this thread


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That Apex Trail looks amazing. Must be nice to have a Single Direction Bikes only trail. The trail systems in San Diego have only Muti-use and Multi-directional trails(for now).
I have not finished all the videos yet, but in the case of a trail like Apex, the speed differential(main point of this thread) is going to be nil (video was showing mostly a decent) between an eBike and a pedal bike, and without pedestrians the chances for user conflict between wheeled conveyances and hikers is literally zero unless the hiker is on a bike only trail, and then it is the hikers fault for being in the wrong place.
If more land managers took note of this type of trail building the conflicts that exist would all but disappear when you give bikes dedicated trails, and keep hikers on their own trails.

Back to the videos.

EDIT:
Just finished the first video. nothing at the Apex Park was tight or had bad sight lines. All the single track was wide open, meaning you could see a good distance to avoid trail conflict. The single track is narrow as was demonstrated when they showed the main group on the side of the trail to let another Cyclist by in the opposite direction.

I will get to the second video later today.

 

That Apex Trail looks amazing. Must be nice to have a Single Direction Bikes only trail.

This policy direction was a massive change for JCOS; they needed it - conflict was a legit issue. Now, many of their significant parks have directional and odd/even use days (eg: no hiking when bikes, no bikes when hiking). JCOS also has entire parks that don't allow bikes (eg: hiker sanctuaries) amongst other designated use trails. Plenty of rangers too - JCOS staffing is huge and highly funded.

An approach like this certainly is a management technique but it is highly controlled - you need to fund and invest into this management plan. There is no doubt that eBikes merging only with regular bikes, directionally eliminates the worst of speed differential issues.

Edit: klur- Corridor clearing (line of sight, etc) and trail maintenance is highly regimented. It is a well honed operation - during peak season there are probably 30-40 trail workers these days.

Here are a few charts to give a scope of the budget resources: https://www.jeffco.us/DocumentCenter/View/22703/JCOS-2020---2025-Financial-Plan

 

I’ve been fortunate, been riding emtbs since 2016 and never had a user conflict that concerned my bike. I tend to ride mainly solo and that might help. Also been riding two wheels well before emtbs. I mean riding bikes anywhere except your own land is a privilege. I guess some people don’t respect that. I do however, like speed and quite frankly got bored of 4-5mph climbs. Now I can go 20! Jk, relax…
Dog walkers and tourists are the largest group to me in my experience that have no clue how to conduct themselves on trails.

 

Good lord. Strong opinions on Jeffco without visiting since 90s? okay. Hikers hiding in wait, leaping into path? Um, wut?

Here's the thing about Jeffco. I pay them a compliment - in terms of urban management of high use trail systems, they are first in class. Arguably making that experience the best it could be. That said, I have a 25-30 year relationship there and, to be straight, measured against other riding areas - it's a less desirable experience for me. But it is what it needs to be, takes a lot of effort and control to keep the whole process working for most the people. I'd never trade for what they have tho.

 

Your result is based upon your specific skill and fitness.

Two things at play.

Handling: If you have been riding forever and have great skill: the better your skills are the better you will be able to go on the EMTB. What I have found is your average rider CANNOT pin it on a turbo lev in Turbo mode.

Power and weight: The weaker you are, the better your times will improve on the eMTB.

My Father in law, improves his back 40 lap time from a dying 4 1/2hour to happy 2 1/2 lap. It’s amazing. He can almost ride with us if we pinned it. It’s because he averaged around 120 watts and weighed 250.when you add 250 watts on that, things speed up a lot



Me I can do a sub 1:45:00. I normalized 285w on my “acoustic” top fuel for that lap. I haven’t done a hard lap on an ebike of that lap yet, but I recon, it may be able to pull off a sub hour30, but we will see. I’ll report back when I do it.

When I was recovering from covid and had Pneumonia, I rented an Sworks turbo lev. And gave a few trails the business. There is a loop called wolf den. One half is up hill and the other is almost all steadily down.

On the up hill half I shaved off 2 minutes. It was a pretty wild ride, and was like downhilling while going up a hill. I had to manhandle the bike to stay in the power in turbo mode up the trail. Here are my best two all out efforts. One acoustic and one manual.

On downhills it’s a different story. The bike is not as nimble and the fact that it maxes out at 20s I can go as fast as I can on an XC bike where I may hit 25-27 mph sprinting a flat spot because on a downhill like this, I would be sprinting at watts above what the bike can do and I end up pedaling through the governor.

Some downhills were slower, just because the bike isn’t as fast (these dedicated DH trails I am remarkably faster on my XC bike with dropper, vs enduro bike.)

See how much faster the bike acoustic bike gets than the ebike that is maxed. Ebike wins by 1 second. Each of these times are completely pinned, and #2 all time Strava E and Acoustic. Disclaimer: I always stop completely and yield to hikers. And pull the parachute if I catch a fellow biker.

Now this test isn’t perfect because. When I had the ebike I was 1 week removed from bad covid, and still had active Pneumonia. I could barely hit 500 watts for more than a few seconds. But the bike was in Turbo mode and would not have been much faster. It’s quite a handful and in turbo mode mainly because the bike still accelerates after you stop pedaling. You have to adapt when approaching tight corners and learn to stop pedaling sooner.


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Your result is based upon your specific skill and fitness.

Two things at play.

Handling: If you have been riding forever and have great skill: the better your skills are the better you will be able to go on the EMTB. What I have found is your average rider CANNOT pin it on a turbo lev in Turbo mode.

Power and weight: The weaker you are, the better your times will improve on the eMTB.

My Father in law, improves his back 40 lap time from a dying 4 1/2hour to happy 2 1/2 lap. It’s amazing. He can almost ride with us if we pinned it. It’s because he averaged around 120 watts and weighed 250.when you add 250 watts on that, things speed up a lot



Me I can do a sub 1:45:00. I normalized 285w on my “acoustic” top fuel for that lap. I haven’t done a hard lap on an ebike of that lap yet, but I recon, it may be able to pull off a sub hour30, but we will see. I’ll report back when I do it.

When I was recovering from covid and had Pneumonia, I rented an Sworks turbo lev. And gave a few trails the business. There is a loop called wolf den. One half is up hill and the other is almost all steadily down.

On the up hill half I shaved off 2 minutes. It was a pretty wild ride, and was like downhilling while going up a hill. I had to manhandle the bike to stay in the power in turbo mode up the trail. Here are my best two all out efforts. One acoustic and one manual. Good for 2nd E and 16, acoustic.

On downhills it’s a different story. The bike is not as nimble and the fact that it maxes out at 20s I can go as fast as I can on an XC bike where I may hit 25-27 mph sprinting a flat spot because on a downhill like this, I would be sprinting at watts above what the bike can do and I end up pedaling through the governor.

Some downhills were slower, just because the bike isn’t as fast (these dedicated DH trails I am remarkably faster on my XC bike with dropper, vs enduro bike.)

See how much faster the bike acoustic bike gets than the ebike that is maxed. Ebike wins by 1 second. Each of these times are completely pinned, and #2 all time Strava E and Acoustic. Disclaimer: I always stop completely and yield to hikers. And pull the parachute if I catch a fellow biker.

Now this test isn’t perfect because. When I had the ebike I was 1 week removed from bad covid, and still had active Pneumonia. I could barely hit 500 watts for more than a few seconds. But the bike was in Turbo mode and would not have been much faster. It’s quite a handful and in turbo mode mainly because the bike still accelerates after you stop pedaling. You have to adapt when approaching tight corners and learn to stop pedaling sooner.


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Are you in Arkansas? I rode the back 40 there on a mtb vacation, good stuff there.

 

Cool, I believe we did ride Hobbs. There was a ton of trails everywhere. We rode some mountain with 4 or 5 trails to the bottom with jump lines everywhere. Rented a house for a week and hammered it. I’m vague on names of riding areas there, but we drove somewhere and the singletrack was like stacked rocks 90% of the trail, definitely different. 👍🏻

 

Cool, I believe we did ride Hobbs. There was a ton of trails everywhere. We rode some mountain with 4 or 5 trails to the bottom with jump lines everywhere. Rented a house for a week and hammered it. I’m vague on names of riding areas there, but we drove somewhere and the singletrack was like stacked rocks 90% of the trail, definitely different. [emoji1303]

Meaning man made armored/fake tech?

That would be “best trail ever” in Springdale. That it is not. I hate manmade tech.

Kessler is a beautiful natural tech trail system you must ride if you come back.


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FYI:

Conflicts between e-bikers & others nonexistent on dirt trails in counties where allowed -

Conflicts between e-bikers and other trail users are non existent on natural surface trails in three counties in Colorado and Arizona where they are legal.

horsegulchblog.com

"“The e-bike presence on trails has been literally a non issue,” said Bonnell. “E-bikes have been involved in zero reported conflicts from our visitors. "

 

Lulz Adam's blog. Cool he found time to write when not creeping on local health care workers.

Security to be increased at COVID-19 testing site to stop photos, videos

La Plata County seeks to increase security at its COVID-19 testing site after some members of the public have shown up in recent weeks to take photos and videos of health care workers and patients. ...

www.durangoherald.com

cool. cool. perfectly normal.

Again, eBikes landing in Jeffco is interesting because they already restricted hiker/biker touch points due to conflict before including eBikes. It is the most locked down trail experience I know. Hiker only. Odd/even bike days, alternating weekends, massive Rangers presence, speed regs, huge supporting apparatus, wide trails and directional. So, if you like those things, maybe Jeffco presents a model you want to follow.

 

Lulz Adam's blog. Cool he found time to write when not creeping on local health care workers.

Security to be increased at COVID-19 testing site to stop photos, videos

La Plata County seeks to increase security at its COVID-19 testing site after some members of the public have shown up in recent weeks to take photos and videos of health care workers and patients. ...

www.durangoherald.com

Wow, stalking people online for doing their jobs and trying to bring the pandemic to an end? Lower than low

 

Okay, lets not take this discussion in a covid19 pandemic direction. Either we leave these last 3 posts as they stand and don't comment on them or I delete them all.

 

So, you want to hit the reset button. Fair enough, I have been sitting here reading this thread and watching it grow rapidly while not agreeing at all with your premise that E bikes are twice as fast as regular bikes overall on the trails and therefore not an easy mix. My guess is more like 25% faster overall. Yes there are examples at the edge of
the bell curve and I suspect that is exactly where you and a good portion of this forum are.
I don't dispute your numbers a bit and believe you to be accurate in your reporting. My disagreement is in your conclusions. In my experience, E bikers are much more concerned with people, food and social gathering than their non e bike brethren who are more concerned with the biking experience and maximizing efficiency. E bikers tend towards matching the performance of the overall group and pick up the pace or dial it back to stay in the social gathering. They are more apt to be in your way and unconcerned with your efficiency experience than running you over.
On forums such as this, the perception is different than overall reality and rightly so. You would not be on this forum if you were not passionate about the experience.

 

Good test. A rider of unknown ability can detect a hill that he/she can ascend in half the time on an e-MTB when compared to an MTB. Has no relationship to any other rider on any terrain or to this rider on anything but this hill.

 

Here's my results. Same rider, same route, "fast recreational" pace on both rides. Only 2.8 mph faster on the ebike over the course of the entire ride.

 

Right now I have a 64 yr old friend who got the e-bike bug. I am hearing how his muscles seam more worn out after the ride. The heart rate being up higher and other things. I am already telling him he is going to sell his regular bike, he denies it. Next night ride I am going to pour a bit of my beer out for the loss of another real mtb'r but he will still be welcome in my group along with two other ebikers. The thing that bugs me is that he went camping with a group of ebikers and they left him behind and ragged him and pushed trying out their bike and went on about the health benefits. I don't mind the group but this behaviour bugs me. Any time you question ebike fanatics they get beligerent about it. That's what bugs me the most.

 

I am already telling him he is going to sell his regular bike, he denies it. Next night ride I am going to pour a bit of my beer out for the loss of another real mtb'r

Beligerent? Pot...kettle...black?

Sorry, but that's a really douchey thing to say, and pretty revealing about your ego. How dare he ride more, and have more fun, especially at his age.

 

Dang, just wow. To me it’s simple, if you like ebikes and own one, or want to own one, post here in the ebike forum. If you don’t, than don’t bother. I mean wtf? I’m personally not a fan of rigid or single speeds, but whatever? At the end of the day, we are consumers of the emtbs being produced by the same manufacturers that mtbrs ride, and yes, 98 or 99% of us were former mtbrs and still ride mtbs. Not me, I’ve made the switch and will never look back. So, if everybody are true cyclists, than seriously why such the hate? We all know anyone can be a Jack a—, on anything. We also know emtbs are not going to disappear. I believe, mtbs will become the minority in the future. Whether good or bad, things change and it’s just the way it is. Not for everyone, agreed.But damn man, sounds like a bunch of beutches on here whining about BS.

 

I’m personally not a fan of rigid or single speeds, but whatever?

HATER!

 

The me vs. you thing is part of what keeps the lights on here on empty beer. I joined here in 1999 and it was the same thing then but about 29" wheels. Maybe because mtbr has so many sub forums that people get bored of trying to find somebody to discuss the finer points of hitting berms at speed or single speed fat bikes etc. and wander over here to talk about things they really do know nothing about.

 

The me vs. you thing is part of what keeps the lights on here on empty beer…

I agree and what makes this topic that much more volatile is that what we got here are two different sports. I guess we are supposed to pretend they are the same sport because there is a specific forum for ebikes here on a mountain bike web site, but people don’t like that, because they are not the same sport. So, no matter what the mods or anyone at emptybeer do, it will not stop the me vs you, because that is what it is, one sport vs another different sport.

*although, can you call ebiking a sport? Do they have ebike competitions? Or is ebiking a sport like jet skiing is a sport? Super fun, but not really challenging.

 

You can go as fast or as slow as you want, just depends on your battery and controller voltage, and of course your wheel diameter and how much you pedal.
You could hook up to 24v hub motor like a bafang that is like a stupid 15t (really low rpm per volt) and go as slow as you want, vs 72v 3t setup.

 

Yes, that’s pretty weak and obviously doesn’t own an ebike. What’s really weak is that he was going to pour out some beer! That’s just alcohol abuse and I believe that violates 99% of any rider, riding anything!

 

Lol I'll get a mic lite, it's beer flavored water anyway.

 

Are the trails near “Outspoken bikes” worthy? That’s where I purchased my Levo, nice people. They told me that was one of the most visited riding areas in the U.S?? Or did he say East coast? It’s 2.5 hrs from me.

 

Alifia, Balm and Carter. Awesome trails. One of my other favorite group rides. Kenny's Balm night ride is a must do if your in town. The other favorite group ride is the Dothan crew in Alabama. I think Carter is working to get the land managers to allow class ones, but the park rangers don't police the trails for e-bikes.

 

I listened to this podcast yesterday while driving home from riding my ebike. I had no idea PFB had an eMTB person on staff, but I'm glad to hear that they do, and she seems to be on top of it.

Listener warning: The word "analog" is frequently used in this interview. 🤣

Google Podcasts is no longer available

podcasts.google.com

 

Cool, I’ll keep those in mind. I think the trail systems they were talking about were Woodstock, and Blankets creek park. Ever ridden them?

 

Blankets, which is pretty much in Woodstock, I believe is one of the most popular trail systems in the East Coast, or at least South East. Rope Mill is just down the road a few miles. They had hoped to link the two trail systems together but that hasn't worked out. Allatoona Creek is a great system, rode there this past weekend. It has a lot more mileage available and a large variety of trails.

 

I have not read through all 16 pages of replies, but riding an eBike on fire road climbs is very different than riding an eBike on technical climbs. Either way they are significantly faster and I have the times to compare on everything.

Biggest issue I see is that we have an entire new user group to educate on trail etiquette and some new rules to lay down on the eBikes vs analog bikes. That will take time and effort and not sure anyone wants to deal with it.

 

I have yet to see a newb on an emtb. Not saying they don’t exist, probably less ebikers where I live ratio wise. Wtf would you want to learn on an emtb? I absolutely loved riding mtbs, I just got bored.

 

Entirely new user group, as in new riders, or new sport? @Salespunk

 

New riders. Whether we like it or not eBike are going to be on the trails and get lumped in with MTB's. Pandora's box has been opened at this point.