E-Bike Performance Accelerates Acceptance

While electric bikes have upshifted globally, with sales growing in Europe and Asia for half a dozen years, the movement has started slowly in America. Bloomberg Businessweek projects Asia Pacific, where 200 million e-bikes are already in motion, will fork out $32.8 million on e-wheels in 2016, and Western Europeans will spend $1.6 million on electric-assist bicycles. All while North Americans ride in the slow lane with a paltry $152 thousand in projected 2016 sales.

Global e-bike sales, according to Bloomberg and Navigant Research, are expected to accelerate to over $24 billion by 2025, making the way for e-bikes in the U.S.  This, as bike technology (e.g., battery life, disc brakes, reduced bike weights), bicycle infrastructure on roadways, and overall e-bike social acceptance gain momentum.  By way of anticipation, Germany’s Bosch, supplier to more than 60 brands with e-bike motors and batteries, opened a subsidiary in California in 2014 to help support U.S. dealers. 

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And a new research study published by the University of Nebraska Omaha's Exercise Physiology Department showed, on a small scale, that electric bike riders accrued as much exercise as a test group pedaling unpowered bicycles.  That’s because they rode further, more often, and for longer periods.  E-bike proponents got their engines revving as such data defied the “cheater” view of assisted riders.

Enthusiasm has grown with the realization the user is simply a different category of rider employing bicycles in a new manner. Another study out of Austin showed a bike commuter generated the same wattage (power output) with either bike category while slashing commute times by at least a third with electric.

Commuters cruise, coast and climb moderate terrain. But mountain e-bikers are leaving the roads and hitting the trails. This has been problematic in the past as the regulatory community views e-bikes as Off-Highway Vehicles, which affects sharing bike trails with motorized vehicles like four-wheelers and motorcycles. And a lack of acceptance from fellow MTB enthusiasts has further inhibited category growth until recently.

To verify its place in the cycling cosmos, Active Junky rode long, high and hard on MTB e-bikes.  Doing so was a test of both design and durability of current generation technology along with evaluating the performance potential of e-bikes in more challenging environments, whether on road, paths or maintained trails.

This spring, testers jumped aboard the latest models from leading electric bike builder Haibike. Winora Group CEO Susanne Puello and her husband Felix established Haibike in Germany in 1995, but its origins date back to 1914 when Susanne's great grandfather founded E. Wiener Retail Trading Company, a manufacturer of custom bicycles. 

Haibike USA, established in 2015, is the North American subsidiary, representing the company's popular ePerformance collection of XDURO and SDURO bikes. With superior Bosch and Yamaha drive systems, Haibike's ePerformance bicycles are among the advance guard in the industry.

Haibike fields performance eMTBs ranging from an entry-level, hard-tail 27.5” mountain bike for $2,500 to a full suspension, carbon-framed, carbon-wheeled bike with top-shelf FOX and RockShox suspension, and electronic XTR Di2 shifting ($11,000 retail). All Haibike eMTBs are pedal-assist with a top assist speed of 20mph. 

Slicing and dicing the trails of Rabbit Valley near the mountain bike mecca of Fruita, Colorado, we rode a variety of full-suspension SDURO (Yamaha motors) and XDURO (Bosch) Haibikes. The SDURO AllMtn bike I rode is one of the most capable bikes in the lineup. Battery life is highly variable, but we rode 37 miles over four hours on a single charge.

It’s a 27.5-inch-wheel, 150mm travel, full-suspension bike with 180mm hydraulic disc brakes and a dropper post – crucial for the technical up and down around Fruita’s Kokopelli and West Rim trails.  SDURO is offered in three different build kits, but the AllMtn RC ($4,300) is a solid spec with a RockShox fork, RockShox Monarch rear suspension, XT brakes, and a 400W Yamaha motor.

Based upon Active Junky’s brief-but-intense experience, e-bike performance is suitable both for more civilized pursuits as well as backcountry blitzes.  As manufacturers achieve economies of scale through sales in other countries, the price-to-power ratio should drop, opening up U.S riders to the possibilities of charging full-on into the future.