Alright, so my headline is pretty sensationalist, but one thing’s for sure: electric mountain bikes are becoming so popular that regular mountain bikes are surely falling behind. It could be said that e-MTBs will be the new norm, or that they already are, but after a long stint riding pedal-assisted machines and moving back to a meat-powered bike, I certainly won’t be letting go of the good old regular mountain bike.
- 2025 recapped: the highs and lows of the bike industry
- The Canyon Spectral AL and Yeti LTe: Liam’s best tech 2025
- Kevin Vermaak: from Cape Epic to Gravel Burn
e-MTBs are mighty popular and with good reason. They are simply more accessible, so new riders can skip the fitness curve of climbing, and all riders can get more descents in a shorter time, all while saving vital energy to keep hitting the downhills in good shape. I’m not going to go about dissing them either. I ride them a lot, and there are certain venues where I wouldn’t want anything else. But I don’t own one, and I don’t intend to unless an e-mountain bike is the only method of keeping me riding.
E-bikes are only getting better, too. As technology advances, they’re becoming lighter, more powerful, and more reliable. With that, if they’re not already, they’ll become the standard, surely. But in terms of ride quality, they just don’t shine a light on what a regular mountain bike can achieve.
Over the past few months, I’ve been spending a lot of time riding and testing e-mountain bikes for work because that’s just what people are interested in. One of the bikes I’ve been riding is the Santa Cruz Vala AL, which I’ll review in a few weeks. It’s a cracking machine that doesn’t skimp on dynamism, but when switching to a bog-standard bike over the holidays, that lengthy stint on e-MTBs has really made me appreciate what regular mountain bikes offer. And where Newton metres, watts and displays are taking the limelight, I worry that the sheer experience that a non-assisted MTB brings is vastly overlooked.
Yeah, it takes a little longer to get them up a hill, and they’re more demanding of energy and fitness, but there’s nothing like dropping all of the electronics and becoming one with a mechanical bit of kit. Not turboing up every climb means more time at a slower pace, where I regularly find myself appreciating where I am all while mulling over life’s problems in a strange, masochistic but far cheaper form of therapy. Of course, mental things aside, there’s also the satisfaction of summitting a tricky climb under one’s own steam. Think of it as a runner’s high but cooler.
Now, I’m never going to claim that I’m an accomplished rider, but I’ll happily state that I’m far from it. But upon tipping my regular mountain bike into a descent, the whole experience came alive, compared to weighty 20+ kilo machines. I was able to push the bike into berms and load it into lips and kickers in a way that just isn’t the same on an e-MTB. Where e-mountain bikes are fast, confident, and often, their suspension is incredibly capable, their handling is undoubtedly sluggish in comparison. They definitely require more muscle to get the most out of them, so perhaps I’m lacking something there.
I’m not going nearly as fast, and my legs aren’t able to produce 750W after a few pedal strokes, but the manoeuvrability, feedback, and the sense of what I’m putting into a bike is what I’m going to get out, adds shedloads of thrill to the whole mountain biking experience, for me at least. I guess it’s kind of like comparing a manual transmission to an automatic in a car. I like both, but automatic doesn’t have the feedback or satisfaction of manual. It’s something that I think every rider needs to experience.
Again, I’m not trying to slag off e-MTBs. They’ve done fantastic things for the industry in general and, in some cases, have kept businesses afloat. They’ve brought more people into the sport that we all love, and I would go as far as to say that they’re breathing new life into mountain biking in general.
But don’t discount the regular mountain bike. Although they’ve come a long way since the birth of our sport, they’re where it all started, and in a world that’s dominated by screen-based technologies, social media and doom scrolling, plugging out of electricity dependence is ridiculously rewarding. While I’m all for the development of mountain biking, I fear that anything that’s not equipped with a motor and battery is going to be left far behind, despite them offering an experience that can’t currently be found with the assistance of a motor.
Of course, there are places that the electric mountain bike won’t touch – proper downhill, cross-country, and with the UCI dropping e-enduro, high-level racing altogether it seems. But I’m talking from the average Joe’s perspective, and as a very average person, you’ll have to pry my regular mountain bike from my cold, dead hands.
