eMTBs Are My Future | 40+ Mountain Biker Neil Donoghue

I've ridden my fair share of e-bikes, but now is the time to commit to them full-time. EMTBs are the future of my riding. This isn't actually the start of my story here on EMBN. I was there at the start when the channel launched in 2018 with Steve, but I was still committed to GMBN. For a long time, I had to balance my EMTB and my mountain bike riding. If I'm a fresh face to you, here's a very quick history about me. I started racing downhill mountain bikes in 1995 and spent 15 years as a pro racer, but it's those downhill racing years that I look back and I'm really proud of. I raced World Cups for 10 years. I was mostly average, had lots of crashes, as you may have noticed, but I sometimes snuck into the top 10 at World Cups and I was really happy with that. After that, I switched over to enduro racing for a good five years and started coaching as well. Then I moved on to GMBN. GMBN started in 2016 and then EMBN came along in 2018. During my racing and filming career, I've had quite a few crashes and injuries, broken bones, torn ligaments, but it's my most recent injury that's made me think my future is now all about e-bikes. If you've seen my recent film over on GMBN called, Am I Too Old For This?, I questioned my approach to riding whilst talking about my latest injury. A crash recently left me with a torn ACL in my knee and the surgery has left me here, unable to ride my bike for six months. Along the way, I've broken both shoulders, separated both shoulders, broken and dislocated fingers, broken scaphoid, fractured skull, broken nose, jaw, ankle. I've partially torn my other ACL and had the meniscus repaired. I had to swallow the pretty full-on surgery and the long recovery needed to make sure my knee wasn't going to get any worse. It's really quite a common injury for mountain bikers, but any other sports really, football, basketball. I even know someone who tore their ACL while putting their kid into the car, so it's not that hard to do. Life is getting back to normal and my knee's feeling okay. Still painful now and again, it's a bit up and down. Some days it feels good, some days it doesn't. I've got a worse limp as well, but I can be pretty active now. I've been trying to rack up the miles on the turbo trader. Riding Zwift, you know what? It's not a bad time to be doing it. British winter is here. As you see, it's an absolute pee super out today. It's horrible. It's not that inspiring to get on the trails anyway, but the real big but here is when I spoke to my surgeon, he said that pro-athletes that are in the gym two times a day are the ones that can come back after six months. For most people, an ACL repair will take nine to 12 months to get back to their regular activities. I am trying to take it seriously. I am taking it seriously. I'm working hard. I am in the gym and I'm on the turbo as much as I can be, and then resting it as well because that is important. It's feeling good, but the problem is the risk of re-injury. You need to give it six months for the ligament, the graft to really take. As much as I feel like I could go outside now and ride a bike because I can ride a turbo trainer, the problem is if I twist my knee, I wouldn't have to go through all that again. I wouldn't want to have to go through that all again, I should say. I have to take it steady and wait for spring. Whilst my knee is feeling loads better, the repair has got to be given time to heal properly. I've put a dot on the calendar, 29th of March, that's six months on the dot since surgery. That is my goal. It's not guaranteed, but that is when I want to be riding by. Over on that GMBN video, I had so many amazing comments, and on my Instagram actually. On the video, there were 1,600 comments, I think. Loads of amazing stories about people's experiences with injuries. A lot of advice for other people in there, but brilliant. Also, a lot of reasons why people have switched to e-bikes, loads of great chat in there. On that note, for anyone who's going through a similar surgery, my advice would be, number one, if it's something like a knee surgery, get yourself a cryo cuff. That thing has been worth its weight in gold. It's been so good for reducing the pain and the swelling. Also, listen to your physiotherapist. I have done, but I've also seen that as a bit of a challenge. I've tried to maybe do it four times a day, if they said three, and I've gone a bit too hard sometimes. I found that on the turbo trainer, I was feeling good after about three weeks, and then I put in quite a hard session, and my knee joint just felt so painful. Not painful, but really achy, so I didn't sleep for that night at all, and that put me back a couple of days. Definitely take on the advice. You've got to do the work for sure. It's really important, but listen to your physiotherapist, and take it easy. Now, I guess I need to get into why I'm choosing to ride e-bikes. Okay, reason one, let's go into my garage. I'm lucky enough to have some kit in here. I've been riding mountain bikes for a long time now, 95 is a long time ago. As much as I love it, it's really amazing to me to be involved at this time, this era of bikes, because of e-bikes. I love the technical aspect of bikes. I love looking into why bikes work, but having these motors and this technology come around at this time of life seems like a perfect opportunity to me. I'm almost as interested in the bikes we ride as the riding we do as well. I love having the extra support and having this new style of mountain biking to be getting into when I am 40 plus. Even eight years ago when EMBN started, we were looking at bikes with external batteries and things like that. The industry and the brains of the mountain bike industry have really got behind e-mountain bikes. What we're seeing now, just the integration, but also the way these bikes are designed, how they ride, what they're capable of, is just miles ahead of eight years ago. What are we going to see in the next eight years? I can't wait to find out. I guess my number one answer when it comes down to why e-bikes is time pressure. I know we all have our own versions of this, but kids, family time, and work all take up most of the week. Actually, leisure time, I definitely can find an hour or two a week. That for me these days is probably about enough, but that's why I really like riding an e-bike. I can get out in two hours is enough to have what I feel is a satisfying ride where I can ride at a really demanding pace and get enough out of it. It's not always like riding 100% fast because sometimes it's just getting out into the wilds and being a bit more mellow, but in two hours, you can also cover quite a lot of distance. That is one of the special things about e-mountain bikes. On a regular mountain bike, within two hours, I'm probably not sure I feel very satisfied at the end of it, but with an e-bike, I can just see more, ride more, do more trails. That has always been my number one answer. Time pressure isn't the only reason why I want to ride e-bikes. It's the new style of riding. It's the technicality going up as well as down. I've never thought so much about grip going up a hill before. Even when I was fit racing enduro, the climbing part was to get the descents, whereas now, I'm changing the way I ride and trying to find technical climbs, which I find really difficult. I don't find I'm very good at that. It's another new challenge. I saw a really good comment actually on my GMBN video from TheTree1968 who says, Neil, you're not old. What you are is at the end of that 35 to 44-year-old age group where men come down from the peak physical ability down to a new lower level. That's worse for you with that injury list. Everyone, no matter their peak level of fitness, goes through it and it's hard to deal with. Nobody talks about it. You're entering the new normal fitness level that will last to 65 if you keep at it. I'm 56. Fitness can drop quicker. It's harder to regain if lost, but you're definitely not too old. I really like that comment because also I think, particularly mountain bikes, they can be quite a demanding mistress. To me, especially because I've ridden and raced at a higher level, I know what that feels like. To be fast on a mountain bike, personally, it feels like I've got to be at the peak of my fitness or in a really good state all the time. Then I can power on the flats and be happy to do loads of climbs. Whereas with a mountain bike, I can be at this good level of fitness still, don't get me wrong, but I don't have to be an extreme level of fitness. I can still have a really fun, really satisfying ride and feel like I've really pushed hard and physically as well, but I don't need to be revving at 100,000 RPM and be at peak physical fitness to do that. I find there's a definite buzz at the moment as well within the group of mountain bikers I ride with who, I guess you'd call them fairly hardcore, go out and ride tough tracks, try and ride them as fast as possible. There's a real buzz around e-bikes at the moment and I'm seeing some of my friends finally jump on board. I find that really interesting, quite nice as well. Luckily, at the moment, I'm off the bike, but people start asking me about it. I've got a few bikes in the garage, I'm like, just take it out for a spin and it always convinces them that they need an e-bike. Riding e-MTBs for me is therapy as well. I'm not just talking physical therapy, which it definitely will be for quite a while, but also just getting out into the woods, sound, fresh air, into these special places near where I live. I really enjoy doing that and I don't know what I'd do without it. Particularly with e-mountain bikes, on a summer's evening when it's going to be late for longer, I can just jump on the thing, ride out from home, ride down the lanes and out into the woods. It's definitely not about the trying hard and going fast, it's just about being out there and experiencing the woods. Sounds a bit like I'm getting a bit deep and a bit hippie-ish, but I definitely think of all things, I can get out there, cover ground really quick and be in the places I want to be. It helps make me happy. The thing that first got me into e-bikes was actually being able to do lots of downhill riding. I'm not really one for tracking my rides massively, but I do keep an eye on the descending meters I've done. It used to be 1,000 meters of descending was a proper ride, but actually on an e-mountain bike now, you can get over that pretty quickly. It's not the only type of riding I do. Like I've said, I like getting out in the woods and just go for really mellow further rides, but actually my hardcore ride, the one that I really do like to do and the one I've always liked to do is just bomb downhill as fast as I can. The fact that I can get loads of that done on an e-bike is brilliant, but also the fact that these bikes are just so good now. The weight has always been pretty helpful actually for grip and for momentum, but now the bikes and the geometry are so sorted that actually they're as good a downhill bike as the bikes that are just made for racing downhill. It's pretty exciting to ride a bike that has all the tech, has the brakes, the suspension, tires, but also the ability to enjoy riding up the hill as well. What's better than that? You might have guessed from what I just said about my favorite type of riding, the kind of bike I like riding as well is big travel e-bikes. My Canyon Torque is an absolute bruiser. 184, 175-millimeter rear travel, mixed wheel size. It's got a 900-watt-hour battery, means that the range on that thing is ridiculous. With those tires and the brakes I've got on it, it is just an amazing descending machine. I'm lucky, obviously, to have some amazing brand support in the channel, so I do have a variety of bikes. Another thing I'm really looking forward to riding is a white e-light. Those are very different bikes, the Torque and the e-light, but they feel like an enduro bike and a trail bike to me. For those more epic, longer days out, of course, the Torque does have 900-watt-hour battery, does have the range. The e-light is 150-mil travel, it's a full 29er. The way that thing rides, it's kind of, yes, it's so much lighter, it's maybe a bit more skittish, but actually that feels much more nimble on the trail and rides like a proper trail bike where you want to load up your backpack for a big day out and do some big miles. I'm really looking forward to that. I'm really looking forward to spring, some nice weather. I think I'll be feeling much more hyped up for riding a bike. I'm planning trips already. I'll have the maps out, maybe a bit premature, but I love getting the maps out or even do it online now, get something like a commute. I start looking about where I want to go and I'm thinking North Wales in spring. I've done trails everywhere, but I kind of feel like you bypass a lot of the really good trails. I'd love to do that, but do it properly. I'll start off, obviously, with a mellow rise, doing those adventure rides, but definitely thinking about the bigger bikes already, getting the knee fix first. I am looking forward to hitting some downhill tracks and bigger jumps again. I definitely will be doing that. I don't feel like I'm too old for doing that just yet, and maybe a bit further afield. I'm starting off mellow, adventure riding. Let me know if you're into that, if you're into the idea of me doing those rides and showing them on the channel. Get involved in the comments down below. If, like me, you've decided that e-mountain bikes are your future and you're committed to them, I'd love to hear your story in the comments down below.