In the beginning, there was the eMTB. No one thinks anything bad will come of it, you’re just happy about your new bike. Yet, slowly but surely, your life begins to change. The butterfly effect kicks in and chaos runs its course: you catch the eMTB bug, and nothing will ever be the same again. Sounds great, doesn’t it?
Life is change, or as James Yorke, the father of chaos theory puts it: “The most successful people are those who are good at plan B”. What does that have to do with e-mountainbiking? After all, we only bought an eMTB. It’s a bit of fun, good times at the bikepark, a new hobby, that’s all. Are you sure about that? Let it be known: it’s so much more. Read on to find out why eMTBing will turn your life upside down, and how to recognise whether you’ve been affected.
Warning: the following text is meant to be satirical. That is, exaggeration for exaggeration’s sake or deliberately taking trivialisation to absurdity. However, there’s a core of truth to everything.
Wallet
Get used to it: your wallet will be empty more often than not, and your bank account balance will bring tears to your eyes. As soon as some money comes in again, you see no choice but to spend it immediately: that new Öhlins fork is long overdue, and those new race pants from Fox would look good on you too. Bikes, components, protectors, clothing – in addition to holidays, lift tickets for the bike park, and you will soon have to think about a new van (see point new mobility). The SILCA Secret Chain Blend chain wax is ten times more expensive than the extra virgin olive oil of a 3-star chef, going for € 100/kg. You’ll save the money by eating nothing but canned ravioli as you camp in the bikepark parking lot.
Status symbols
In the past, it was the golden Rolex Daytona that got your attention in the jeweller’s shop window, and while you still love precious metals of the highest quality, now it’s shiny gold chains for your eye-wateringly expensive wireless drivetrain. It wasn’t long ago that you had suits made from the finest fabrics, but now you pitch up at your friends’ houses in outfits that could make a clown at a children’s birthday party look dull, wearing your favourite bike jersey to garden parties. Speaking of birthdays: it’s when you invite your friends to a post-ride beer instead of sponsoring a few bottles of Moët at your favourite Italian restaurant that you’ll realise how drastically your life has changed recently.
Looks
Your idea of relaxation used to be leaning back in a chair during a manicure and just revelling in the sensation of a hand massage. Cut. Today, having dirt under your fingernails feels like the most natural thing in the world. Hygiene is when you groom your bike chain with a toothbrush or knead your new tubeless tires to make it easier for them to seat on the rim. If you’re going to trim anything, it’s the cabling around your cockpit, not your fingernails. But that doesn’t matter, because you’ve got roasties on your forearms and elbows to match the look, and you wear them like trophies. Your new lifestyle even affects your hairstyle: in the past, you had mandatory visits to the barbershop every 2 weeks, including entertainment. Today, you wear a small moustache like many of the incredibly fast Frenchmen at the UCI Downhill World Cup. Your hairstyle now matches your mullet wheel setup: business in the front, party at the back.
Oh, you’re also in the shape of your life, have lost 15 kilos, and only use the motor to get in an extra lap in the bike park after the lift has already closed. The daylight fades faster than your energy levels.
Injuries
Tell us you’re a mountain biker without saying that you’re a mountain biker: the bruises and scars on your shins are your best friends, and they make tattoos obsolete. Your lifestyle is already written all over your face… uh, sorry… all over your legs. But what are bruises and broken bones if you can plough through sticks and stones aboard your eMTB and set new personal records. Scars are your new trophies and like a tribal initiation ritual, the scratches from thorns and branches serve as a proud display of the tribe you now belong to.
Strange habits
You’ve moved into the basement at home: while the laundry room used to be a clear no-go area in the past, you now have an arsenal of cleaning products that could make every crime scene clean-up team jealous. The water lily/lime detergent for delicates has been replaced by a special degreaser, which gets used regularly for your laundry. And somewhere behind the 5 different frame care products from Muc-Off you will also find a normal pack of detergent – someone might need it. If you’re not in the laundry room cleaning some component of your bike or riding kit, you can be found in the workshop, your 2nd living room, because there is always something to tune or fix. A small tip: a refrigerator or a cooler for the post-work beer is an essential item in every well-equipped workshop. You need to replenish your electrolytes, after all.
Your interest in an “earthy note” used to be limited to fine wines from Tuscany. Recently, you’ve learned to distinguish different types of terrain simply by sniffing the dirt: like a truffle hog, you can tell “Hero Dirt” apart from the infamous “Black Ice” from a mile away – no, that’s not a new deodorant, but the kind of slick black clay that offers almost no grip in the corners.
Communication
So, you were always a B-grade student in English at best and either mentally or physically absent in French? Your teachers would be blown away: you’ve never learned a language as fast as you’ve mastered bike talk. While you used to enjoy (or should have enjoyed) Kafka’s perfect sentence structures, today you know 25 different words for the funny noises bikes make while drifting through corners: braap, shralp, burp…
Meeting with old friends is increasingly fraught with communication barriers: while they tell you about their beach holiday in Tenerife, you ask if there’s a trail from the 3,715 m high peak of Pico del Teide down to the beach. Conversely, if you talk about your vacation in Whistler and how fitting a fat ASSEGAI up front totally paid off, you’ll be met with blank faces, and you’re unlikely to be invited back very soon.
Mindset
Only recently you judged people prematurely based on appearances and their clothes, now you judge people prematurely according to the bike they ride. While you previously only associated Bosch with your cordless screwdriver, you now follow the annual Bosch eBike Systems product releases with the same excitement as film fans follow the Oscars. Your friends associate the word “finale” with the football World Cup. For you, however, it brings back memories of your most recent bike trip and the enduro party laps of last autumn. (We’re looking at you, Michi Schneider)
Your Instagram and TikTok feeds only have eMTB content, and you practice jumping until you can get the perfect mid-air shot for social media. When you post the pic of your new airtime record in your dirty kit and a broad grin, you can be sure of the community’s respect. But the highest you’re aiming is for the mountain tops, and you’ve started faking a fear of flying every time your partner suggests a chilled-out beach holiday. In truth, you just want to increase your chances of a bike holiday instead of hanging out on the beach in Bali, because you’re not allowed to fly with an ebike battery.
Fuel prices no longer interest you; all that matters is how far you can get on one battery charge and whether you will manage to ride every trail in the bikepark without recharging.
New mobility
In the garage, where your convertible used to stand and old magazines *cough* piled up, you can now find your mobile bike repair stand and a finely sorted workshop with three different cassette tools. The convertible has been relegated to standing in front of the garage and hasn’t been driven for so long that there is moss growing on the top. The only gasoline powered vehicle with an open top that you get excited about now is the Toyota Tacoma pick-up (including a chainsaw for trail maintenance). You can chuck the whole family’s ebikes on the back of the Toyota in under 3 minutes, and you’ll be at the trails in no time at all. Thanks to all-wheel drive you can find the entrance of even the most elaborately hidden trails. Alternatively, you’d consider purchasing a van. Because you can only call yourself a true mountain biker when you spend your nights in the bikepark parking lot.
No friends, no free time, no money! Is there any hope left for you? The sport of e-mountainbiking has slowly but surely turned your old life upside down. But that’s a good thing, because change is the only way to gain new perspectives. New friends, new priorities, and new horizons follow naturally. Besides, your life has never been better than it is right now. You’ve got to go? Oh, of course – the bikepark has just opened! Go! Don’t let us hold you up.
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Words: Susanne Feddersen, Rudolf Fischer Photos: Illustrations: Marvin Langner
