Comments on: Can we live with electric mountain bikes on trails?

By: Michelle Varrin

Michelle Varrin — Fri, 04 Nov 2022 13:37:21 +0000

As an ebike owner, I was hesitant to read your article. Glad I did. I was surprised and pleased to find it pro-ebike. I have thought for years that philosophically pedal bikers’ arguments against ebikers all end up ageist, sizeist and ableist. As I tell my 23 year old anti-ebike daughter: in the late 70’s hikers were mortified that bikes were on the trails and said all the same things. Change is a bitch.

By: Ray

Ray — Sat, 08 Oct 2022 22:02:48 +0000

I started mountain biking in the 80s and still ride several times a week, plus hiking. Over the years my joints have become creaky even though I’ve maintained a good fitness level and have shied away from rides with big climbs. Bought a class 1 ebike last year and back to enjoying those rides again. Ride my analog bike for x-country and lower climb rides. Rides over about 1,000 feet of climbing are ebike rides for me. Most of the ebike riders I see are experienced riders.
Class 2 &3 ebikes are where I usually see the inexperienced riders. We try to avoid areas of high hiker usage and lot of it is practicing good trail etiquette. The different Ebike classes shouldn’t be lumped together. Class 1 are pedal assist, 20 mph assist cut off & power limited. BC allows class 1 ebikes wherever analog bikes are allowed (unless signed otherwise) and has worked there. Thanks

By: glen hayes

glen hayes — Sat, 08 Oct 2022 02:21:14 +0000

As a 79 year old, my ebike has allowed me to again ride, and ENJOY the trails I rode 30 years ago, My ebike is a class 1 mtb and I see no logical reason to prohibit them on mtb trails.
PS:”I don’t like seeing them” and “they are cheating” are not valid reasons. Also, comparing them to motorized dirt bikes in a bunch of hooey(is that a real word?).

By: Bill Gray

Bill Gray — Sun, 18 Sep 2022 18:36:26 +0000

Lots of good comments here, so I’ll try to make my addition brief.
Let me take issue with the conclusion taken from the Tahoe National Forest study that showed average speeds uphill of 5 to 8 mph for traditional bikes and 8 to 13 mph foe “e-bikes.” They (or you) conclude that this is “not enough of a difference to cause more accidents…” Let’s move the decimal point one place to the right to show how ridiculous that conclusion is. Imagine a right-of-way where traffic averages 50 to 80 mph. Now add a different kind of traffic on the same already used right-of-way that averages 80 to 130 mph. It would be hard to imagine anyone concluding that this is not enough difference to cause problems, even though the percentage difference is the same as the bike speed study.
The speed differential conclusion goes on to add “especially if bikers alert others to their presence and ride in control.” That’s quite a hope. I’m a life-long biker, and bought my first mountain bike in 1985. At that time, and even 20 years later, I always felt confident that the vast majority of bikers alerted others to their presence. Now it seems as if you’d be lucky if 50% of them did that.
I think any competent traffic engineer would tell you that traffic safety on a given road is affected more by speed differential than by the average speed.
And while I completely understand your reference to the introduction of snowboards to ski slopes, having lived through that, that’s not a particularly valid comparison. If you want a better comparison set on the snow, you have to use your imagination (for now). Imagine, as a cross-country or back-country skier, that the trails and terrain you’re using were opened to electric snowmobiles.

By: bgee

bgee — Sat, 10 Sep 2022 18:46:15 +0000

In reply to Neil Gleichman.

With the longest comment to date, thank you for your perspective and thoughtful comments. As a long time road biker, after long self debate, I finally capitulated and bought an E (pedal assist) gravel bike for two reasons. First, I finally overcame the “cheating” mentality and have come to realize that the “assist” can be dialed back as much as I want, but the comfort of knowing that I have “assist” available, encourages me to ride more often, and enables me to ride further than my 59 yr old legs would be able to take me without “assist”. Second, I am making a concerted effort to bicycle in areas that avoid pavement and automobiles for fear of collision and injury.

As someone who would like to ride an “e-bike” on well established trails to avoid cars, I am disappointed to hear debate from cycling purists and equestrians who argue to limit or prevent e-bike access. While I agree that e-bikes enable newbie cyclists to ride on terrain where they may be over their heads and endanger others, dangerous situations are not caused by e-bikes alone, but by the skill and speed of the rider. Therefore, instead of limiting access to all e-bikes, the community could consider other forms of regulation such as: differentiating between pedal-assist and throttle “e-bikes” when determining access; speed limits for bikes, horses, runners, etc.; cycling skills tests and certification (e.g., like a automobile driving license with different skill certifications) to name a few. But most importantly, in addition to respectful debate, more civility and grace to all who want to enjoy the public outdoors in a healthy manner.

By: Ric Bailey

Ric Bailey — Wed, 07 Sep 2022 22:13:24 +0000

“Ebikes” are a motorized vehicle, little different from a dirt bike (motorcycle). They are power-assisted by an electric motor. They will result in more vehicles on trails, bringing more conflicts and more impacts. The issue isn’t whether a motor-assisted bike is ‘cheating’ non motorized bikers, the issues is whether we’re going to besiege public lands with every new mechanized toy that comes along.

By: Neil Gleichman

Neil Gleichman — Wed, 07 Sep 2022 17:18:40 +0000

I never put the paper in the recyc. bin until I’ve read your piece. AND I always save it till I’ve read the rest of the section, that I may savor it. Thanks for your propensity toward the finished and polished essay.
On your latest piece re. E-mountain bikes: you finished in that familiar space of pro vs. con being unsettled as yet.
I too have struggled with the issue. I think you actually hit on the salient point without acknowledging it as such. Despite my personal judgment that someone is “cheating,” that is subjective and has nothing for the question of whether electric mountain bikes should be allowed on trails (or paved pathways for that matter).
The crux of the conflict from my perspective is that riders on bikes cannot handle their machines at the greater speeds they so freely realize.
Rachel Fussell nearly hit the bullseye and may have dismissed the meat of her own thesis… Hard to tell because you don’t quote her directly. You slide into a fantastical future tense with “…would avert…” This reminds me of the concept that there would be no more wars if everyone would just get along.
The very reason I can trust the approaching pedal bike is that if that rider is THERE, going at THAT RATE, over THAT TERRAIN, it means he or she has served the long apprenticeship (the 10,000 hours to borrow from Malcolm Gladwell) to have the capability to manage sharing the trail when they encounter me.
An e-bike can sneak up fast, with or without warning and simply not be able to handle the situation. There IS an increasing rate of accidents because no apprenticeship was served, no commensurate skill required, no sense of exclusion from an environment that requires credibility to be earned, not purchased.
Willi Unsoeld posed the issue this way back when there was a wave of paving going on in national parks so that wheelchairs could access some of the gem hikes: Imagine a wheelchair trail to the summit of the Grand Teton.
If that sounds ridiculous, you may recall the number of gems that were paved for awhile. Angels Landing in Zion comes to mind; now the NPS is uncomfortable with any trail to that destination. Closer to home, a snow machine has dropped into Corbets Couloir.
E-bikes will have greater power and battery life over time. The skill-less rider WILL continue to strain the logical boundary. We never will get to “…would avert…” because it is not in our genes to avert.
Every technology ever invented has been deployed toward, and beyond, their own limits. It is up to those of us who have built our own skill base over years to dismount and dive out of the way or hazard the consequences.
You have provoked another rich brain harvest. Thank you!

By: Joel Dukes

Joel Dukes — Wed, 07 Sep 2022 12:00:04 +0000

Exciting times

By: Sha

Sha — Tue, 06 Sep 2022 19:39:44 +0000

Thanks for opening a discussion on this topic.

Two additional things influenced my opinion: 1) Momentum of a eBike could be 2x a mountain bike or greater (mass x velocity). That could be the difference between a broken bone and a bruise in a collision. 2) Someone pedaling is more likely to be huffing and puffing on the way up which hikers can hear.

I think it is unfair to ask hikers and manual mountain bikers to be hyper alert. It’s also unfair to the native wildlife in my opinion.

By: Clara

Clara — Mon, 05 Sep 2022 15:19:27 +0000

I’m a hiker. I have never minded mountain bikes on remote backcountry trails in the Sierras, Rockies, Cascades; I have been mowed over (literally in some cases, and figuratively) on the more congested single track trails of wilderness areas in southern California. And this year I got an e-bike — the wonders of which are dazzling. But my understanding of that fuels my concern for what it would mean for my hiking safety on those more congested trails. (I hate saying it: but I don’t want to share the tighter busier trails with e-bikes).