King of the e-Mountain bike throwdown!

richj8990

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This is hilarious to me, may be more serious for you...you decide. If you are not familiar with the term 'KOM' it's when a rider has the best time on a certain section of a trail, as in they averaged 17.1 mph while the next fastest rider averaged 16.9 mph, etc. There is a little crown for them on an application that stays there until someone bests their segment trail time. Can be uphill, downhill, or flat. Can be 0.1 miles or 50 miles.

So more and more mountain bikers are getting an e-bike. No story there for most you reading, this has been a accelerating trend for the last couple of years, it's really taken off now. I'd say at least 10-20% that I follow on Strava have an e-bike now and normally (or exclusively) ride it. This has happened even faster that I predicted a few years ago. I thought e-bikes would go up to maybe 20% of the total adult bike pool (at least one e-bike in their garage or apartment, etc.) and then level off. Street-wise it seems even more than 20% now are e-bikes. Mountain...maybe 5-10% but it's growing fast.

Anyway, there was an interesting comment on Strava I'd like to share. I find it funny. One of the experts on there (not sure if he's won normal MTB races in the past) had knee problems and decided to test out a Levo. He never looked back, doesn't ride his other bikes much at all now. So now he's getting a lot of the e-bike KOMs (fastest segment times). Which, as a hub drive owner, I find funny, but whatever. I just use my e-bike for casual exploring, screwing off, etc. No way I'd take a 50+ lb bike and try to do timed downhill runs (uphill yes, downhill no). And even if someone took my e-bike KOM, big deal, it's electric power, people, it's not skill and fitness. But this guy was pissed, he was talking with someone else about how their eKOM's are getting taken away by 2000W direct drive e-motorcycles.

As far as I know, in California it's only legal for an e-bike to have up to 750W and it has to be 100% pedal assist, no throttle. So yes, technically a 2000W direct drive is illegal. But I mean c'mon let's be realistic about this. There is not even an option for them to put their ride down as an e-motorcycle. Apparently most of them make their ride private so they don't get flagged --- but of course they get flagged anyway because it's on the leaderboard.

To me this whole thing about eKOMs is so ridiculous. So let's say some guy gets a 'legal' 750W motor and takes a bunch of KOM's over all the dudes that have 250W motors. Is that a real, earned KOM? No. That's simply more electric power. If someone has 4.5 inch fat tires and they blow through chunk and climb steep 20% fire roads is that "earning" a KOM compared to a normal e-bike with 2.4 or 2.6 tires? How do you really even determine who qualifies for getting a legitimate eKOM? Wayyyyyy too many variables: watts, PAS or throttle, tire width, drivetrain type, etc. So why would anyone even care if they lost an eKOM to some dude with a juiced up bike, look it's going to happen, nothing to cry on mommy's arm about. If it's a real MTB KOM, that's different. An eKOM? Again, as an e-bike rider, I find it so funny that there is even an argument about "who stole my eKOM". It's just pathetic if you ask me. Why would they take it personally that some dude has 4x the power of their bike and got the eKOM? If you are so obsessed about it, plunk down $5000 USD and get a huge direct drive singlespeed e-motorcycle. Knock yourself out and take back all those eKOM's you lost. So you can be king of the electric nerds. Just do it and be done with it already, jesus.
 
For the off road trails I like to ride, having a light weight and well balanced and tuned suspension ebike is definitely your fastest option through them, regardless of the power level the vehicle has.

Even on an asphalt smooth and flat kart track, I was beaten by PaulD riding an ebike with 2-3kW peak power when my own ebike was >35kW peak power. If the trail is twisty and technical, the riders skills become what makes the time through the segment and the vehicle and its HP becomes relatively unimportant.

Even on the dragstrip, every vehicle deathbike raced had at least 2x the horsepower if not >5x. It didn't lose any races. This is because acceleration performance isn't dictated by your dyno peak power number in Watts, it's about the ratio of vehicle mass to your powertrains deliverable power area under the curve, chassis geometry and suspension behavior.

Even if I had a Sur Ron with Fox suspension hotrodded to >24hp and whatever is the best tire choice for the trail, I know a pro Mt biker on a pedal only bicycle will destroy my times if the trail is made of mostly downhills and twisty flats. Going back uphill I would like to think I could beat the pro, but in fairness it would depend on how much was flat and how twisty and technical the flats were.
 
Most runs seem to have under 5-10sec where the rider is intentionally adding power to the bicycle. The great majority of time is hugging the brakes while trying to ride the big terrain obstacles like a pump track with your body and the bicycle in a weight transfer dance to not be bucked off. This is an extreme example where any ebike power is an obvious time penalty, but in flat and gentle uphill technical twisty trails, the difference between 750w and 75kw is up to the riders skills.

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I twice blacked out on my pedal road bike and woke up scratched up on the ground attempting to get the KOM for the long steep hill I once lived near the top of. I was still >30seconds off the time. A competitive cyclist stopped by to visit and borrowed my own pedal road bike without clipping in (my shoes didnt fit him), and got within ~5seconds of the KOM first try without a warmup. He also could immediately speak afterwards and didn't have to lay on the ground for 10min to get his heart rate and breathing stabilized like I needed to do after each attempt (at least he was sweating a little).
 
ebuilder said:
Reminds me of extreme skiing. Crazy sh_t...lol.
Several decades ago my rich Uncle Sam sent me on an all expense paid year long vacation to a remote mountain resort in Alaska (aka DEW line radar station). The only way in or out was via air. Because of varying weather conditions it was sometimes more than 30 days between trips. When the plane I was on finally managed to land, we were met with a couple occupied medical stretchers for the flight out.

I asked, "what happened to them?".

Response, "Skiing accidents. They have been waiting three weeks to get back to a hospital."

At that moment I decided that I had lost all interest in winter sports.
 
How about a Fiat abarth 1275S .I think that's the old one Paul Newman and his Datsun 240z had them outlawed on the track. little go-cart
 
The experiment will show you what combo gives best performance, I suppose superior brakes would play an equal part with motor speed. A secondary capacitor box could be recharged every few minutes for a burst of power. A bike with multiple seperate batteries could almost be perpetual, that would be cool.
 
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