thevpfreerider

@squirrelysquid: I have an Enduro (2021 frame) and currently run it both mullet (with the WRP link) and full 29 (with original link). Overall, I much prefer the mullet setup, running it that way probably 90% of the time for the gnarlier trails around coastal Norcal (steep, rooty, loamy/rocky, but overall not super high speed), but I do run it full 29 for the NorthStar stop of the California Enduro Series, specifically, as I find the 29 rear to feel less prone to hanging up on square-edge hits, rolls faster through large rock gardens, and feels a bit more locked-in/confident on high-speed sandy/rocky gnar. The 27.5 rear shines on lower speed, tight switchbacky tracks where I want to more easily jam the front wheel into the apex and have the rear flick around quickly. Whenever I switch back to the 29 rear, it takes some time to reacclimate to the slower-steering rear end. As an experiment, I have also run the bike with a 27.5" rear wheel and the stock 29" link in the "high" setting to try to lower the BB a bit for some super steep chute tracks, but found the further slackened head angle in that setup made the bike steer weird--so the WRP link is the way to go if you want to go mullet, IMO.

@Mtbdialed: Got it—you’re completely full of shit. You swerved out of nowhere to try to make Santa Cruz your ebike panacea, got called out, doubled down with an explicit challenge to prove your point, and now pretend that never happened when I literally accepted that challenge. I was fully willing to put the hammer down on a tech climb for the hell of proving such an insanely bullshit talking point to indeed be bullshit, but I’m gonna go ahead and decline your kind offer to race a trail of my choice instead. I’m done with this thread, so feel free to reply with more weird flexes about your wealth, transphobic jokes, etc. if you want the last word for posterity. This has been quite a ride.

@Mtbdialed: Challenge accepted. I'll put my money where my mouth is and pick up the gauntlet. DM me the coordinates of this climb which totally exists, which can only be done on an ebike. If there's a section I can't clean on my trail bike that you can clean on your ebike, I owe you four beers at BT. Otherwise, the beers are on you. Friday? Saturday? Sunday? Put up or shut up. YOU made the point that there are Santa Cruz climbs which are only possible on ebikes, and I'm calling bullshit, because my bet is that the reality is that you're just an out-of-shape old goof who has fully lost the plot on how unsanctioned trails can and should be climbed. Unless, of course, you're completely full of shit, which is what my money's on. Pick a lane, man--if you think everyone on this site is an incel and hater, then stop posting your multi-paragraph takes here. They're so deeply downvoted that they have to be unhidden to even be read by all us other haters and incels anyway. According to your own words, you're a half-century old and have lived less than a fifth of your life in Santa Cruz, now apparently live in Steamboat Fucking Springs...and yet you call me "silly fucking valley?" Do you have your "Valley Go Home" bumper sticker next to your "Colorado Native" bumper sticker on your 911 Turbo S? The peak, sweet irony, of you claiming California roots from a thousand miles away in Steamboat...while throwing the "valley" epithet is just...*chef's kiss*. I hope you feel the same love as a CA transplant in Colorado as you give to those of us born in Colorado who live in Santa Cruz now, asshole.

@Mtbdialed: Wild stuff here. Let's break it down. Call me a "fucking hater" for writing a comment responding to a $30 billion company's AI-written press release which takes mountain bikers for absolute suckers. So, uh, yes, I hate that. And, golly gee whiz, it certainly does appear that other people on this mountain bike enthusiasts' site don't appreciate it either. "also, you think a novice rider can put out 550w!????? lmao. most noobs would struggle at anything over 200 for more than a few sec"..........You do realize that the point you're making here only reinforces mine further, correct? Yes, I am aware that typical novice riders actually put out less than 550 Watts, which would make the multiplier to get to just the Avinox "pedal assist" power even higher than 2X....probably more than 3X. So hey, thanks for reinforcing just how ridiculous it is to put 1100 watts of motor underneath any idiot with a credit card on a multi-use trail. You then point to *Santa Cruz*, of all places as your panacea for positive ebike influence. Good lord almighty the stupidity of this take nearly knocked me off my feet. You obviously do not live in Santa Cruz, nor understand the new pressures that ebike users are putting on a community that has made strides in recent years for having mountain bike culture accepted. E-bikes are a rapidly accelerating threat to a delicate truce between mountain bikers and other trail users in Santa Cruz not because they rut up the climbing trails, but because they shoot the usage of previously rarely-ridden, secret descent trails through the goddamn roof. Because, let's read your own words back niiiiiiice and sloooooowly to see if you can see the light here....DH tracks brutalized after mere months....almost as if a bunch of 49 year-old tubs who have never thrown a shovel in Santa Cruz in their life have blown them out by lapping them on their ebikes. Like...are you proud that you and your ilk thrash the fuck out of those tracks? "All of the climbs are for ebikes only"....bullshit. You're telling me there's a zone in Santa Cruz where the climbing trails are only for ebikes? What, is there a sign that says you can't climb the train unless you're on an ebike? Bull fucking shit. "it's a slog to get to just the base of the zone"....almost as if those pirate trails are intentionally built far out in the sticks to keep them lowkey and reduce the likelihood of them getting shut down. Thank heavens we have Avinox motors to enable any idiot to run laps on descents that used to be special largely in part because of the adventure of simply reaching them.

(double-post)

@sasquatchclyde: Couldn't agree more.

Shove this whole piece right back up the hole it came from. I demoed an Avinox at M2S and my initial reaction was pure "what the actual f*ck" when I pointed that thing up a single track at full power. When a "bicycle" accelerates like an EV from a stoplight, it's not a damn bicycle. "Whether it is clearing a rocky ledge, climbing a steep incline, or helping a less experienced rider maintain momentum, more power can make mountain biking both easier and safer." Unreal--not even gonna touch the "safer" bit there, but instead call out this horsesh*t of arguing that mountain biking needs to be made easier. Just imagine a novice rider workshopping a tech climb on their acoustic mountain bike and then handing them an Amflow saying "here, try it again with this 1100 watt motor" as if that's how any of this works. Reeeeal tired of this Trojan horse "but think of all the old and disabled people who can mountain bike now" argument, btw. Avinox is packing DOUBLE the peak power of a novice cyclist into the pedal "assist" motor--lunacy. And completely detatched from any semblance of serving as an accessibility aid. This is a company that obviously doesn't actually give a shit about mountain biking and simply sees an opportunity to pump a market full of their product with no regard for the downstream impacts. A Costco-sized pack of "we support..." and "our principles are..." and "progress should be..." in this piece, all while doing jackshit to actually meaningfully support trail access via any kind of action, let alone mitigate the impacts of their own product. F*ck all the way off.

@VicSandrin: You're collapsing everything into "both are illegal" because it's easier than dealing with my actual point. The real world isn't binary like that. Impact matters. Visibility matters. Volume matters. I'm not claiming that riders like me who ride traditional mountain bikes are pure while ebikers like you are impure. Every time I ride those trails, I too add to the strain of keeping them available--I myself add to the usage volume, to the impact. Accordingly, I do my best to minimize the cost I exact on the system by exercising tactfulness around hikers etc. and pay down my debt with trail work to the point where I am confident that my positive impact outweighs my negative. My point, which you seem to completely fail to grasp, is that we WILL lose access once we as a riding community lose that balance. You're not pointing out hypocrisy--you're just ignorant of nuance. The new flock of ebike clowns I see riding aren't the guys in the woods after storms with shovels and saws, because they either don't get it, or they just don't care to pay back into the balance. Yet, simultaneously, their impact is much greater--both on the trails and non-bicycle users of these recreation zones. But hey, maybe you're different. Though, if your riding ethos is as lazy as your bad-faith argument, I doubt it.

I have zero issue with ebikes being ridden on trails where they're allowed. Lapping Eagle Bike Park's tracks on an ebike would be friggin' fun, I'd imagine, as an example. But my day-to-day experience with e-mtb's isn't that--it's people who are jeopardizing access to sensitive pirate trails, and I feel like this location-based sensitivity is often left out of the pro-or-anti-ebike debate. I am hugely lucky to live somewhere with world-class pirate trails that the community has been able to keep sufficiently under the radar for years. Some of the best trails are true missions to get to, in that you'll likely plan a multi-hour several-thousand-foot-elevation ride so that you can hit that perfect descent just once. Coming across another rider out there used to bring with it a default vibe of mutual respect because you both had to suffer to earn those turns. My problem with ebikes here is that people choose to leverage that historical precedent of hikers/authorities looking the other way from cyclists (who are allowed in the zones in question, thought obviously not the pirate trails specifically) to bring their ebikes (which are explicitly prohibited in those zones) to head out into these remote areas to lap those same trails. Appreciating the difficulty of reaching hard-to-get-to epic descents built by badasses who hiked or pedaled for hours with tools on their backs is a massive part of what makes them special, and the least a rider privileged enough to know of them could do was to be stealth about it. Wear dark clothes, don't loiter around trail entrances/exits, keep your voices down....generally just have some basic tact. Unfortunately, on a weekly basis, those zones are becoming more and more saturated by clowns on ebikes who have absolutely no appreciation for that culture. I'm talking groups of 5-10 ebikers all hanging out at the entrance to the trails, bluetooth speakers and vapes aplenty (I realize this sounds like a ridiculous exaggeration, but I'm just sharing what I see). Ebikes have eliminated that filter of needing to have a semblance of seriousness about the sport to achieve access to these special tracks. That hiker who used to look the other way from a few mountain bikers hopping in and out of the woods from the fireroad now has ebikers whizzing past them up all the damn time, so the now the rulebreaking is right in their face. When the crackdown inevitably comes, do we expect them to spare the non-ebikers? I don't.

@SpotBikes: Cheers to you guys for being receptive to criticism and acting quickly to make corrections. Other companies could learn a thing or two from this kind of engagement.