Well, truth be told, lately I’m not riding as much as I’m spending time cutting grass, shaping trails, filling-in as the shuttle bitch, and observing what people, who visit “my” neck of the woods, might say when, if time allows, I pick the black-green bolt with the purple LEDs from my personal MTB flotilla.

The findings are absolutely spectacular. WTF!?

I think that the e-bike is more of a cultural than a technological phenomenon. Can’t recall when something, invented by mankind, would manage to generate so many downright bizzare stereotypes in such a short time. From loathing and excessive enthusiasm, to wild misconceptions.

First, let me deal with people who compare e-bikes to endure or trial motorbikes. Straight up wrong! Having operated the aforementioned motor vehicles across various tech-trails myself, I can safely say you’d be hard pressed to find a person with experience in both worlds that will agree with that statement. Electros, that help the crankshaft bearing along, in no way affect such changes to the riding technique that would make it comparable to the toil of riding a motorbike. The two worlds remain completely separate and electric offroad motorbikes don’t resemble e-bikes, not even from afar. And vice-versa!

I agree more with the people, that say all the apps and the displays on the device, we call an e-bike, are robbing it of its primal essence. Partly true. All the romance of a bicycle, just a modest tool to experience life, lies in its simplicity and the physically linked cyclist autonomy. As long as you have tubes, blueberries growing along the trails providing calories, and hydration inclined bubbling brooks, you can ride your velocipede through the woods for as long as you wish. The electricycle has its limits: when the LED fades, the incredible Pantani-like lightness, accumulated in the battery, quickly turns into a much more retro experience, reminiscent of riding weighty decade old freeride bikes. While hungover! In reality, it’s not a big deal. It can be done without the E’s.

And while we’re on the subject of weight, we all know it’s an extremely relative effect of the earth’s pull. I’m no physicist to state with any degree of certainty why some heavy e-bulls seem lighter than others when you grab them by the horns, but I can speculate the phenomenon’s got a lot to do with putting that weight in the right places. Levo, compared to other e-specimens I won’t name drop, because basic decency, almost doesn’t seem like an e-bike. The thing runs downhill very smoothly. A couple of pleasant acquaintances, typical new school rooks that believe the point of biking is scouring the web and super dank, lightweight parts, claimed after a short trial they didn’t go downhill so “fast” yet. Which leads us to conclude that the newfound recreational endure athletes, who send their shocks to be filed down by the finest Italian and Swedish experts, because their friends and the internet says so, might benefit nicely from an extra pound or two to compensate for a lack of technique. Light things aren’t made for stiff limbs, straight trails and corporal competitiveness competition.

Well, to cut it short, let me just say I like my e-drive a lot. I can check out the surrounding trails in half the time and it only takes me a couple minutes longer to get uphill than my shuttle. 600 vertical with a 100 kilos? Cakewalk. And that’s using the trail. The climbing feature of this much debated contrivance offers the most added value imo. As far as its downhill guidability goes, I still wouldn’t trade it for my “motorless”, though I nailed all the jumps I still have the balls to do last week with it. Nice and surprisingly very stable.

Also, I crashed it too! And broke off the seatpost remote, which I apologize for to the nice guys that lent me the bike and offer to recompense for the damages as soon as the Extremevital delegation brings me a new part out to the Robidišče trails.

Tomorrow I'm taking it for the entire Matajur. Špijetar to Špijetar. We'll see how it handles lengthy epic classics.

Till next time,

Miha