There are probably – internet indexed –  a million articles entitled  “e-bikes – The Truth they didn’t want you to know“. Actually, there are definitely a million articles chasing those eyeballs, so obviously I decided to write another one.

Many explain why e-bikes are the future. Others pontificate about how they’re ruining mountain biking. Clickbait insists they’re the salvation of the sport. Ragebait insists they’re the opening act for the apocalypse. Most are trying to convince somebody of something. Almost no one is listening.

I’m not. Partly because life’s too short, but mostly because I’ve learned that arguing with mountain bikers is like throwing darts at the periphery while everyone is sure they are aiming at the centre. I’m a polytheism sort of bloke. We can all choose our own God. Right up until those darts become swords and some misguided bastard starts leading a charge*

So no, this isn’t one of those articles.

It is however my “non AI improved”  experience. Updated from a previously rather firm position regarding the electrification of something that’s defined a good chunk of my adult life. Which means I should probably start with a confession. I’m an e-biker now. There. I’ve said it. It still feels uncomfortable. Not because I think there’s anything wrong with e-bikes. Quite the opposite. I’ve owned one for a while now, ridden 1,600 kilometres on it and enjoyed pretty much every minute.**

Apart from the guilt. That guilt is fading, mind. These days it’s more background aroma than trail smell-o-vision.  Less signal, more noise. Mostly because I’m no longer entirely sure what I’m supposed to feel guilty about. But let’s move on from my existential angst.  Instead, let’s talk about tribes.

Mountain biking has always been tribal***. Long before e-bikes arrived we’d already split ourselves into dozens of warring factions. Cross-country riders and downhill riders. Racers and freeriders. Steel romantics and carbon fetishists. Riders who thought V-brakes and 100mm of travel were perfectly adequate, thank you very much; and the rest of us, who regarded decent suspension and powerful brakes as victimless crimes.

There were a thousand variations on the same theme. Everyone was convinced they’d discovered the one true expression of mountain biking. Yet if you stripped away the finger-pointing and the passion-project righteousness, there was always a huge amount of overlap.

Back then you could spend Saturday downhill racing, Sunday grinding around a cross-country loop and finish both days in the same pub arguing about the performance of your flex-stem over a dubious burger and a well-earned pint.

The tribes were different, but the experience wasn’t. The centre held meaning the Venn diagram worked. Sure, we rode in different circles but there was still a big overlap. Everyone pedalled up and then rode down. Repeat until you broke. Or the bike broke. Then do it all again the following weekend.

Which brings us nicely to e-bikes. I’m not particularly interested in the increasingly tired argument about whether they’re replacing “proper” mountain bikes.*** That’s a debate that ran out of legs years ago, not that this seems to stop some bores attempting to resurrect it.

What’s more interesting is this: I increasingly suspect e-bikes and conventional mountain bikes aren’t solving the same problem anymore. Or perhaps they’re simply dividing the fun differently. When I bought my e-bike, I assumed it would be the same experience with slightly less sweating. Instead, it quietly rewired the whole way I think about riding.

Take climbing. For years I told people I enjoyed climbs. Sometimes I even believed it. Admittedly I believed it most strongly at the top rather than halfway up, when my lungs were trying to file a formal complaint. Looking back, I suspect I spent years confusing enjoyment with worthiness.

Sure climbing can be amazing. Vistas opening up, gaps to the rider behind opening up, lungs opening up oxygenating every last blood vessel. The sense of achievement saluting your conquered landscape. But also climbing is slow enough to provide plenty of time for reflection. This is not always welcome.

Then you get an eBike where uphllls are mostly proxies for what comes next. And that’s before we admit the next guilty secret hiding that illicit pairing of “Maximum Power” and “Twisty uphill singletrack” before turning them into another pseudo downhill.

So if we’re being completely honest, most climbs exist because there’s something worth riding once you’re at the top. Very few riders are desperately accumulating gravity credits for that climbing experience alone. Yet for years I accepted that arrangement because there wasn’t really an alternative.

The climb was how you got there. The descent was why you went there. Then my e-bike arrived and quietly asked a deeply awkward question: “What if we just rode the fun bit again?” Annoyingly, I didn’t have a particularly convincing answer.

That’s when I realised the real superpower of an e-bike isn’t speed. Nor is it range. It isn’t even how much easier it makes climbing. It’s something harder to define and even harder to admit, let’s call it “Freedom” and see where it takes us.

On a conventional bike the question was usually: “How much energy do I have left?” On an e-bike it’s: “How much battery have you got left?” They sound similar but they really aren’t because the former encourages conservation, the latter mischief.

Fun trail? Shit climb? Let’s do it again. What’s up that bridleway? Let’s find out. When do we stop? When the battery’s rinsed. For the first time since I came back from Splatterbone, I genuinely started looking forward to hearing someone say: “Another Trail?” A phrase that had previously generated roughly the same emotional response as: “Just one more Friday afternoon meeting.”

However, my embrace of the Amp hasn’t converted me fully into a disciple of the Cult of E because most of my favourite rides are still mixed rides. Contrary to what those other million articles would have you believe, they’re absolutely brilliant.

The e-bike smooths out fitness differences and keeps groups together. It allows me to spend all day riding with friends who possess both enormous lungs and very limited sympathy. And the  motor becomes subordinate to the non-e-bikes which is exactly how it should be. So cementing the righteous fact that  mountain biking is still fundamentally the same social experience I remember from muddy fields in the early 2000s. The bike matters far less than the people you’re riding with.

But there is a trade-off. On those rides the e-bike isn’t really expressing its true nature, it’s acting as a compatibility device. Its true nature is much closer to a small child grabbing your hand and shouting: “Again! Again!”. And I think that’s what explains my lingering guilt.

Mountain bikers have always had a slightly unhealthy relationship with suffering. We don’t really do easy. We celebrate epic rides. We rank our hardest rides amongst our best rides. We tell stories about hypothermia, mechanical disasters and nutritional collapse with the reverence usually reserved for military veterans. The worse the conditions, the better the tale.

Somewhere along the line, many of us started equating hardship with value. I know I certainly did. Which is why part of me still feels I should prefer the conventional bike because of its innate worthiness. For years I treated mountain biking as both a reward for my head and a fitness boost for the rest of me.  These days I increasingly treat fitness as the thing that allows me to go mountain biking.

That’s a surprisingly significant change BUT the Venn diagram still works. Trails, adventure, friendship, post ride beers and questionable financial decisions disguised as upgrades all remain firmly in the overlap.

But I think the circles have drifted further apart than many of us realise. This isn’t another attempt to answer the pointless question of which is best. For me, at least, they’re increasingly answering different questions. And that’s probably why that faint whiff of guilt hasn’t quite disappeared because I think e-bikes are cheating. Well, I mean, they are but let’s move swiftly on. Nor because I think they’re ruining mountain biking.

After more than thirty years on mountain bikes, I’ve simply been forced to admit something rather more awkward. Given the choice between a noble sufferfest and another lap of my favourite trail, I’m not entirely sure I’m mature enough to keep choosing virtue.

Like many mountain bikers, I’d developed the peculiar habit of only valuing things I’d suffered for. Had somebody invented a bike-powered machine that repeatedly hit me in the face with a shovel, I’d probably have convinced myself it was building character.

Not now. Like I said, I’m an e-biker and I’m not going back.

Some regrets. A little guilt. And a shed full of non-e-bikes that, if I’m honest, probably require some rationalisation. But not all of them because there are red lines and most of them are marked “Steel Hardtail”.

But let’s just stop pretending they’re all the same. We don’t need an answer to e-bikes versus non-e-bikes when riding with your friends amplifies the similarities and largely erases the differences.

The argument was never really about motors anyway. It was about what we wanted from riding. Much to my surprise, I’ve discovered that my answer is embarrassingly simple.

“Fun trail, Shit climb. Let’s do it again”

*Sorry. I might have wandered somewhat from the point. It’s those Americans and their Christian Nationalism Schtick.  I can’t imagine where I’ve seen that before.

**I appreciate this is the kind of reverse ferret normally invoked by politicians of any stripe, or anyone with a lackadaisical approach to deleting their social media history. Or, more frequently, both.

***I so wanted to do a Frankie “Two Tribes” riff here but already I’m a long way into the “old man shouts at clouds” meme already.

****Analogue bikes? Meat Bikes? Leg Bikes? Proper Bikes? We have a category error and I’ve no idea how to fix it.