Greetings from New England

[JimBo]

Howdy fellow int'l eMTBers, I'm JimBo from the foot of Mt Holyoke in Western MA, USA. My first MTB in 1991 was a Bridgestone MB-3, followed by a front-suspended (gasp!) 1996 Stumpjumper, which is still going strong for a college chum. In 2003 I went full-suspension with another Stumpy (now gathering dust in my garage), which saw under 100 trail miles after I turned 50 and battled Lyme Disease - for a third time - in 2012. Wish I was a chick magnet, but no, I'm a TICK magnet!

From 2012-15, climbing any kind of hill on a bicycle was excruciating, but then I saw a Facebook ad for the Sondors IndieGogo campaign in January 2015. $700 shipped to try an ebike - why not? That 60+ lb steel beast arrived in August '15, and is still going strong today. It got me back on the saddle, though its climbing prowess was sorely lacking (singlespeed, hub drive). It took me several more months to ascertain that mid-drives were the way to go.

Fast forward a few years, and I'm officially e-mountainbike-obsessed! I now own a few eMTBs, separately powered by Shimano e8000, Yamaha PW, Bosch CX, Brose T and TranzX. At age 56, I'm seriously pondering my 4th career change, trying to find a way into the cycling industry as ebike sales finally seem to reaching a critical mass here in the US. I've been doing more and more of my own repairs, upgrades and mods, and have gotten a couple of friends to acquire their own pedelecs. I've even made riding buddies out of a couple of folks who bought my old ebikes.

I intend to start posting more here - I've been fairly prolific on Electric Bike Review forums since 2016, but there aren't many eMTB-specific posters there. Just like there aren't a lot of pedal-assisted MTBers here in New England; the regional MTB association has lobbied its membership hard against adopting the technology since 2013, culminating last year with very long letter sent to New England MTB retailers. They've also convinced policy makers to exclude "Class 1" ebikes from "natural surfaces," which I find incredibly short-sighted.

Enough said for now? Thanks for reading, I hope to share trials and triumphs with y'all!

 

[mark.ai]

Welcome

Death to ticks!

And your regional MTB association sounds blind to me, not just short sighted ...

 

[More-read-than-ride]

Howdy fellow int'l eMTBers, I'm JimBo from the foot of Mt Holyoke in Western MA, USA. My first MTB in 1991 was a Bridgestone MB-3, followed by a front-suspended (gasp!) 1996 Stumpjumper, which is still going strong for a college chum. In 2003 I went full-suspension with another Stumpy (now gathering dust in my garage), which saw under 100 trail miles after I turned 50 and battled Lyme Disease - for a third time - in 2012. Wish I was a chick magnet, but no, I'm a TICK magnet!

From 2012-15, climbing any kind of hill on a bicycle was excruciating, but then I saw a Facebook ad for the Sondors IndieGogo campaign in January 2015. $700 shipped to try an ebike - why not? That 60+ lb steel beast arrived in August '15, and is still going strong today. It got me back on the saddle, though its climbing prowess was sorely lacking (singlespeed, hub drive). It took me several more months to ascertain that mid-drives were the way to go.

Fast forward a few years, and I'm officially e-mountainbike-obsessed! I now own a few eMTBs, separately powered by Shimano e8000, Yamaha PW, Bosch CX, Brose T and TranzX. At age 56, I'm seriously pondering my 4th career change, trying to find a way into the cycling industry as ebike sales finally seem to reaching a critical mass here in the US. I've been doing more and more of my own repairs, upgrades and mods, and have gotten a couple of friends to acquire their own pedelecs. I've even made riding buddies out of a couple of folks who bought my old ebikes.

I intend to start posting more here - I've been fairly prolific on Electric Bike Review forums since 2016, but there aren't many eMTB-specific posters there. Just like there aren't a lot of pedal-assisted MTBers here in New England; the regional MTB association has lobbied its membership hard against adopting the technology since 2013, culminating last year with very long letter sent to New England MTB retailers. They've also convinced policy makers to exclude "Class 1" ebikes from "natural surfaces," which I find incredibly short-sighted.

Enough said for now? Thanks for reading, I hope to share trials and triumphs with y'all!

Looking forward to your content and hopefully you can be instrumental in making the US more open minded for emtb...

 

[JimBo]

Welcome

Death to ticks!

And your regional MTB association sounds blind to me, not just short sighted ...

Thanks Mark!

I've actually never pulled a tick riding, only hiking and doing yardwork. I don't wish extinction on any species, except ticks!

95% of my MTB encounters have been positive or indifferent, yet the local assn insists its membership unanimously feels my "motorbikes" should be relegated to ATV/Motocross trails. They don't seem to think I'm breathing hard enough to mind the exhaust...

 

[JimBo]

Looking forward to your content and hopefully you can be instrumental in making the US more open minded for emtb...

I've taken two state officials on demo singletrack eMTB rides thus far, with hopefully many more to come. Here's a little write up:

I took a couple of MA state officials on their first pedal-assisted eMTB trail rides on some (ordinarily) hardpacked singletrack the other day. One of them, an Environmental Affairs guy, was specifically looking to see their effect on trails.

A thinner-tired, "naturally aspirated" 23 lb gravel bike was zipping around the semi-moist trail at least a few MPH faster than our ~50 lb pedelecs. As we stopped to let it pass, it dispersed a visible - albeit analog - "rooster tail," and left behind much deeper gouges in the soil than any of us did!

Should "human-powered" gravel bikes be banned from singletrack?

 

[Mabman]

As one of the other mtb oriented posters on the EBR board I think you will find the folks here mostly interested in the quality of the bikes and gear and knowledgeable more than on US sites because they actually use eMTB's as they are intended.

Not a lot of trail access chatter here because it seems that across the pond there isn't as much fuss about it. Quite frankly this is very refreshing and a lot of the reason I came here to begin with.

It is too bad that:

"They've also convinced policy makers to exclude "Class 1" ebikes from "natural surfaces," which I find incredibly short-sighted."

You are doing the only thing possible to get the local entities involved. Getting them on actual eBikes. There are a lot of good people in your state but there are are also a lot of Massholes and although they seem to be winning at the moment in regards to trail access in time they should be overruled. Especially if you get them out in black fly season on a few hill climbs and they find out you can ride up faster than the flys can find you.

I wouldn't look to seek solutions for your access situation via this forum but it is a good source of info for all the other aspects of eMTB.

 

[mark.ai]

I've taken two state officials on demo singletrack eMTB rides thus far, with hopefully many more to come

Yep, getting people to actually experience them firsthand seems a great way forward. Hopefully others will be prepared to give it a go too I like what @Tim29 mentioned in another thread - in his area some officials tried out some class 1 EMTBs, but they weren't told until later that some had even been derestricted - none of them had even noticed.