Originally Posted by
toast2266
Finally got around to riding it myself. Did one of my standard loops; a bit of steep, tricky climbing, a bunch of fire road climbing, and a rolley descent that's rooty and rocky, but not super technical. Did a couple short bonus loops that were steeper and techier.
Climbing, as expected is almost comically easy. Did the whole ride in eco and trail. Tried turbo on one of the bonus loop climbs, and like others have said, it's actually kinda challenging to keep the front wheel down on steep stuff.
My biggest complaint on the climb is that there's a slight lag in the power delivery, both when starting to pedal and stopping pedaling. So on tricky switchbacks, the motor would keep driving me when I didn't want it to, and if I stopped pedaling briefly (like to ratchet through something rocky) the power wouldn't come back on quick enough. While I'd probably get better at this with more practice, I didn't clean a bunch of techy stuff that I normally clean on a regular bike. But, of course, I also easily cleaned some steep punches that are pretty brutal without a motor.
On the descent, the thing is a sledgehammer, not a scalpel. Anything beyond the most rudimentary line selection wasn't happening. And on the main trail I rode, that was fine. On the techier stuff I got into, it was a problem and I had some pretty legit oh-shit moments. But as long as I could just point it straight and smash through stuff, it was great. Like others have said, the extra weight of the bike helps keep it composed and it makes the suspension work really nicely.
I do think, however, that if it were a bike I was going to ride often, I'd go through parts pretty quickly. All that pointing and smashing felt pretty abusive. I suspect that the replacement rate for rims and tires would be above and beyond my dh bike. And yeah, with the amount of power that thing is putting into the drivetrain, I wouldn't expect the chain / cassette / chainring to last super long either.
Overall, it's definitely fun. Getting it on the right trail makes it more fun. I banged out a loop that'd normally take me around 1.5 hours in roughly 50 minutes, which left me time (and energy) to go do some trailwork (which this thing is also really handy for - makes pedaling with a chainsaw pack significantly less terrible). I will say though, anyone who says they're getting the same workout on an ebike as they do on a regular bike is either full of shit or captain soft pedal on the analog bike.