Mid power emtb-forever regretted?

[rushy46]

Oh yeah - like a normal Downhill bike, very dangerous indeed you literally risk your life

 

[Mikerb]

Oh yeah - like a normal Downhill bike highly dangerous indeed

Just a wind up mate. I don't care what people ride as long as they are having fun. I sometimes ride a trail centre with my son and 2 grandsons. My son is on a Levo and the boys on analogue Giant bikes. The boys are crazy.....loads of energy and their lines totally unpredictable. My son and I help them up the long fireroad climbs.

 

[cozzy]

True.....dangerous to try because they bounce all over the place

This. I rode a mates top end capra briefly last year. It was genuinely terrifying, bounced and pinged me all over the trails, maybe this is whats meant by playful and poppy ?
Pre ebikes my least favourite bike was also the lightest, a santa cruz Bronson.
Always preferred the extra heft and hence stability a dh bike gave, very similar to the eeb.

 

[Weeksy]

Hi to you good people
I returned my unused Whyte e160s for a refund in July as my wife just couldn’t get to grips with the sheer weight of it.What a cracking bike otherwise that ticked MANY boxes.
Due to security reasons it had to reside in our house and she couldn’t physically move it around whenever she needed to if I wasn’t in.
Having previously demo’ing and enjoying an Orange Phase Evo ltd
I pulled the trigger and bought one on sale.
Six months and only 68 miles later
(I’ve mothballed it for winter) I’m now better clued up on most things Emtb
and realise what a huge mistake I made buying a mid power bike with a non removable battery irrespective of the fact it rides and handles fantastic.
Does anyone else here bitterly regret making such an expensive mistake buying “similar”due to ignorance/lack of choice and are you honestly happy with your mid/low powered purchase.

Not even slightly, I absolutely love my Rise, it's a completely amazing thing.

 

[Dax]

This. I rode a mates top end capra briefly last year. It was genuinely terrifying, bounced and pinged me all over the trails, maybe this is whats meant by playful and poppy ?
Pre ebikes my least favourite bike was also the lightest, a santa cruz Bronson.
Always preferred the extra heft and hence stability a dh bike gave, very similar to the eeb.

Well it was a Capra

 

[rushy46]

I agree to a certain extend. For me that is roughly around 20 kg with the weight down low. A full fat with 25 kg felt like a tank to me - didn‘t like it. Maybe because the big battery in the downtube is not the place where you want to have the weight - the bulk of the weight should be in the BB area.

 

[Emailsucks98]

Best not get too upset about what people on the internet like and don’t like, and decide what works for you.

Most people with the strong opinions have only owned one or the other, not both.

Here's a thought experiment:
What if we all had custom battery/motors that provided the same output relative to our weight & fitness?

Then I think a fit 60kg rider on an SL, would basically have the same power/range as an average 105kg rider on a FF.

Now if you put the 60kg rider on the FF, they might not have any complaints, but what is the point if they rarely >50% of the battery? And they may start to prefer "wheels on the ground" trails.

Granted if you put the average 105kg rider on an SL, they may be disappointed with the range.

 

[Tooks]

This. I rode a mates top end capra briefly last year. It was genuinely terrifying, bounced and pinged me all over the trails, maybe this is whats meant by playful and poppy ?
Pre ebikes my least favourite bike was also the lightest, a santa cruz Bronson.
Always preferred the extra heft and hence stability a dh bike gave, very similar to the eeb.

I’ve no experience of the Capra, but I’ve just been catching up on last years UCI World Cup races, I was interested to see that the downhill bikes are in the 17.4-19.9kg ballpark, averaging around 18.5kg.

That’s about the same as a Levo SL, and still lighter than most full power EMTBs, so there must be a reason why they choose to make even the DH rigs as light as possible?

A bike bouncing and pinging all over the place probably has a sketchy suspension setup…

 

[Tony4wd]

I'm 66kg and ride steep terrain and I wasn't really enjoying my Rise H30 until it was set to full EP8 85nm/500W. Now the motor performs similarly to the Bosch CX but the Rise (21kg) is 4kg lighter than the Cube Stereo.

 

[rushy46]

I’ve no experience of the Capra, but I’ve just been catching up on last years UCI World Cup races, I was interested to see that the downhill bikes are in the 17.4-19.9kg ballpark, averaging around 18.5kg.

That’s about the same as a Levo SL, and still lighter than most full power EMTBs, so there must be a reason why they choose to make even the DH rigs as light as possible?

A bike bouncing and pinging all over the place probably has a sketchy suspension setup…

These were exactly my thoughts when I read the article about the weight of the worldcup downhill bikes. There seems to be a sweet spot concerning the weight of a bike for downhills.

 

[Dax]

Most of the WC bikes have weight added at the bottom of the frame. IIRC a v10 is ~15kg, quite a lot lighter than they are running, and a recent video on the Atherton gearbox bike said they put 5kg of lead on the previous WC DH bike.

 

[Mikerb]

I think the weight figures above .....considering we are talking here about analogue bikes.......demonstrate the exact opposite of what some are saying. There is clearly no attempt at weight saving but rather the use of strong components throughout and even adding weight to enable better stability and effective use of heavy duty suspension designs. With exception of dual crown forks much of the component design is the same as that used on our full enduro emtbs. Downhill "SL" stands for "super lardy"

 

[dirtdinner]

I'm completely happy with mid powered, but I have two important traits:

- I'm light weight.
- I don't/very rarely ride with other full powered emtbs.

When you are under 70kgs, then an 18kg bike feels a lot better than a 23kg bike.