I Gave Up My eBike For A Normal Mountain Bike!

I'm a mountain biker. It's what I've done for a long time, but guess what? I haven't actually ridden a regular mountain bike in almost two years. I've been a full-time e-bike guy. It's been nagging me. I'm going to jump back on a regular mountain bike and see what it's like. E-mountain bikes are just getting so good. They're improving all the time, better motor systems that feel natural, but give you loads of support. They're lighter, better looking, and lots of fun to ride. I feel like I've been missing something. Should I have a mountain bike in the garage, or would that just be a waste? Would I actually ride it? I decided just to do it. I'm in a lucky position where actually, I just didn't have to spend the money to work out if that was going to be an expensive mistake or not. I rang up Fergus and asked to borrow his propane, Eugene, whilst he's keeping himself busy with his tie-e. I'm on a regular mountain bike, acoustic bike, muscle bike, whatever you want to call it. I actually hate all those titles. I think it's so stupid. It's just a mountain bike. Will it confirm to me that I do need one of these in the garage, or is it just going to reaffirm that actually all I want is an e-mountain bike? Actually, over winter, I did borrow Rich's Hardtail for a couple of weeks. I actually only got to ride it a couple of times in the sloppy conditions. It was really fun. It was simple. It was a good workout as well, and it got me thinking. Jumping back on a mountain bike, I can't believe how it feels actually. It feels really slow to begin with. As soon as you get pedaling up a hill, it's really shocked me how bad I feel. It feels like I've dropped an anchor. It's crazy not to have all that power of an e-bike. That's a bit of a shocker. I think I'm going to have to reset my mind and get used to it because along the flat, it felt amazing. Just spinning along, bunny hopping, it feels great, but actually, this is hard. I've forgotten how hard this is. This is the bike I'm riding. I think it fits the bill. It's a trail bike because I think I'm in probably a position a lot of people are in where they got themselves an e-bike, but there's just this nagging feeling in the back of their mind about actually having a mountain bike in the garage as well. I didn't want something that was long travel, heavy, not very efficient like an enduro bike. As much fun as they are to ride downhill, I thought I'd really struggle up the hill. This is my bike. Well, it's actually Fergus's bike. This is a Propain Eugene CF, and I think it really does fit the bill. It's a proper trail bike. It's got 140-mil travel fork, 130 rear travel, 29er. You wouldn't believe how light this thing is. It blew me away. It's like 14 kilograms, which isn't that far off half the weight of my e-bike. I think it really fits my weaknesses, and it's something that I think should be a really good fun bike to ride. This Eugene is the lightest bike that Propain do, although they do do a gravel bike, but I'm not here for that. Just look at it. It's got a Lyric fork up front. It's got a super deluxe ultimate rear shock. Yes, I'm here for doing some epic rides. I want to do some distance, maybe some long adventurous days in the saddle, but actually, I want to have some fun as well. This bike is built for a bit of thrashing as well. I am getting less fit. That is definitely a fact. I know I'm putting on a little bit of weight. People are really quick to notice that in the comments. Some pretty full-on comments about it. I don't mind, but I think there's a few reasons for that. Number one, getting older. I've tried stopping. It doesn't work. I'm going to be 45 this year. The second one is I've been finding it hard to actually get the time to ride a bike. Actually, in the office the other day, me and the young pups of the office, James and Ferg, were talking about Strava, comparing notes. I think in 2026 so far, James had done 53 activities and I'd done 13. Obviously, it's a lot less than James, but actually, that's probably a lot less than I've ever done. For many reasons, family, all sorts of reasons, but I've been doing less riding. I actually sold my road bike this winter because I just hadn't ridden it in ages. Actually, anytime I have ridden a bike, it's been on an e-bike. For me, the workouts just haven't been as hard as they would be on a regular bike. Obviously, with two years of not riding a regular bike, that is going to add up. Actually, just recently, I did a video on my e-bike talking about trying to use a new feature. It's called Smart Heart Rate Control on Avanox bikes, where you can pair your heart rate strap to the bike and you can set your target heart rate and then your motor will power in and out to keep you in that zone. Actually, I found that really works really well. I worked in this really good zone too. It's a fat-burning heart rate zone. Actually, I did get a good workout. Over a 52-minute ride, I burned 587 calories, which isn't bad. However, I looked in the data and my average power was 57 watts, which is pretty laughable actually. That is really, really low compared to any of the training I used to do for enduro. I'd be well up in the hundreds, 57, which wouldn't have registered on any sort of ride, even a low-power, fat-burning ride on a regular bike would definitely be in the hundreds. I looked into the Garmin training effect of that ride on my e-bike and it was quite good actually. For aerobic, I got a score of 3.9, which means you're impacting your aerobic, which is good. It's what I was aiming for. Then it was 1.1 on the anaerobic, which gives you some benefit, but that's pretty low on that. It was giving me that good proper aerobic tempo workout, which is what I was aiming for, but that was using that smart heart rate control. That isn't a normal ride for me on an e-mountain bike. I normally ride them on full power. It's nice to have that option, but actually, what I think I've come to the conclusion is I need to find more time to ride a bike definitely, but also I need to work harder when I'm doing it if I want to keep my fitness. It's crazy how hard it feels to pedal up this hill. Sort of shocking. I think the legs burn. I'm getting into parts of my lungs which I haven't done in a long time. Actually, I'm riding up a hill that's 50, 60 meters elevation. It's not very big at all, which is why I actually came here because the place I ride the most, Eastridge, kind of enduro-y trails, is brutal even when I was really fit on an enduro bike, on a mountain bike. It's just really hard work. I will go there, but I'm just easing myself back into mountain bike life first. One thing I have noticed straightaway is actually it's a really nice feeling when I get to the top of the hill, obviously, but actually cresting the and then dropping in feels totally different. Actually, it feels really good. I guess it's the satisfaction of getting up and over the worst of it, but it just feels right for some reason. Pedaling into a downhill with no assist feels really rewarding. Then when you go in, I'm into the place where it's the one thing that really annoys me about e-bikes is the speed limit. In the UK, that speed limit is set to 15 miles an hour. When you hit that, and on a lot of downhills, you will, your bike not only stops giving you power, to me, it actually feels like the bike all of a sudden then does feel like a massive lump. I can go this jump. This trail isn't really that fast, but the 15-mile-an-hour limit, that's not really that fast. I can crank and it feels good. I bet I'm over the limit now, but it's still worth me pedaling. This is actually day two of me riding this bike, and I've got over the initial shock of how underpowered. I can't say the bike feels, it's how underpowered I am. It feels slow to begin with, and it felt like I was pushing squares, like a bit of power, a bit of power. I've switched to clip pedals because that feels better straightaway. I think it suits a trail bike as well, but I felt really weak on flat pedals. The brakes feel crazy how strong they are. They are Maven, so really powerful brakes, but obviously, me and the bike weigh 11 kilos less than the e-bike, so it will stop a lot faster, but it's taken quite a lot of getting used to. They're so powerful. For just messing around on the bike, a bit of drifting, wheelies, manuals, jumps, the bike just whips around in the air so much easier. That's where you really feel the difference in weight, where it feels way more playful for the fun stuff, which I really like. Obviously, I've not ridden my e-bikes. I've not switched between the two. I am going to speak to a friend of mine who does this. He spends half his time on a regular mountain bike and half time on an e-bike, and I want to get his opinion on it. There's one person I know who rides more than anyone, my friend Marv. His Strava stats are unbelievable. His Instagram account, BornLomia, it's hard to keep up with all the amazing places he rides, and he splits his time between mountain bikes and e-mountain bikes. I wanted to ask him how he feels about switching between bikes. Marv, I looked at your Strava. Last year, you rode a mountain bike 327 times and an e-mountain bike 245 times. Sound right to you? It must be about right, yes. 7,000 kilometers on an e-bike, 9,000 plus on a mountain bike, 700 hours mountain bike, 500 hours e-mountain bike, elevation gain 449,000 mountain bike, 335,000 slacking on the e-mountain bike, which is incredible. I've checked. That's more time in elevation gain than Wait Van Aert and Christopher Blevins. Can't be right then, but I do ride a bike every day. Is that your rule, every day? Yes. I know you ride a bit of both, and I've just ridden an e-mountain bike solidly for, I think it's like 18 months. You said you're lazy. Yes, I think I did say that, yes. It's been a bit of an eye-opener jumping back on a mountain bike, but the first ride was not that much fun, I've got to say, but I've got back into it quickly. How do you feel when you switch between them? Because you're doing it all the time. E-bike is fun, social, convenient. This is rewarding, so you get a workout a bit more. More power-based workout. I wouldn't say a cardio-based workout is more power-based, and you've got to plan your rides. You can't just go and lap. What about, obviously, we're riding nice bikes, they're quite expensive. It's a dilemma, I guess, if people are thinking about getting an e-bike and whether they keep their mountain bike or sell it. How do you feel? Do you think you're always going to have the two, if you can? I'm just lucky. If you've got a mountain bike now, the second-hand market isn't great, so keep hold of it. Mine's five, six years old now. It's a 2021. It's exactly how I raced it at Llangollen on the first weekend I had it. Exactly the same setup. They don't date as much as e-bikes. Plus, if you buy a decent brand, you're going to have lifetime warranty. What about, you must be getting through some kit, drivetrains, brake pads, all that stuff. You stocked up on that stuff, so you just load the bike up when it needs it. On the e-bike, I've been running the T-Type transmission for a year, and it's been faultless. Power updates affect it, but it is unbelievable. On this, though, we're like Deore, SLX, Shimano, where you can buy the whole groupset for 150 quid. It's good kit. Yes, and it works. I'd love T-Type on here, but I've just been away, and nothing electronic, nothing went wrong. I didn't have to check a thing, and it just works. Does the mountain bike feel old-fashioned at all? This, in terms of components, feels a bit dated to the newer e-bike. I've got the old codes on, which aren't quite as snappy as the Mavens. It's a bit short of reach, so the geometry's a little bit dated, I would say. You miss just being able to turbo out of a corner. Yes. What do you see in the local scene? Do you see- E-bikes, lots of e-bikes. It's coming. It's there already. There's e-bikers now that have been mountain bikers and now e-bikers. You've got the likes of me in the middle, and then you've got the purists that just won't buy an e-bike. There aren't many of those, are there? There isn't many of those, no. I figure one. They're either old school or they're fitness-based people, but 95% of people now are e-bikers. I've been wondering if there's going to be- I called it a mountain bike renaissance, which is a bit of a funny way of saying it. People like me that some get a couple of years down the line and they think, actually, I do want to get back on a mountain bike. Do you see that coming or not, that ship sale? What I've seen is people buying downhill bikes. An e-bike and a downhill bike or an e-bike and a gravel bike. If you can just do mountain biking on an e-bike, you can then do a different discipline on a different bike or an ex-e-bike. I'd love an ex-e-bike. That's a good point. I've just decided that. I've just bought a hardtail. Hardtail, e-bike, downhill bike would be nice, but I'm not going to use a downhill bike, but yes, that's a good point. Yes, I think if you can, more bikes in the stable, the more fun you're going to have. I see that with e-bikes, they've got conversion kits now. You can take the motor and the battery out and convert it to a normal bike. Potentially, in the future, you can have one bike that does it all. I've been getting out a bit on the mountain bike and I've been really enjoying it, I've got to say. Obviously, I am super into bikes. Ever since I could, I've had more than one bike in the garage. I started off on just a cheap secondhand hardtail and I did everything on that, but I soon realized that I actually didn't do everything that well. Next thing I did was buy myself a cheap BMX. It's horses for courses, definitely. Obviously, now I'm talking about two things that can be very expensive, an e-bike and a mountain bike to have both. You've got to have the funds to do it and I guess you've got to have the enthusiasm to want to do it as well. I suppose the way the market is at the moment, you can get cheaper mountain bikes for sure. It is possible. A lot of my friends actually do have both and try and split their time somewhat equally between the two. For me, I think I'd really like to do that. I think whatever it is, whether it's a trail bike like this Eugene or if it's something a bit more simple like a hardtail, I really do want to make sure I've got a mountain bike in the garage so I can do a bit of riding like this. I'm getting a good aerobic workout as much as I then can jump on the e-bike for a really fun ride at the same time. Like I said earlier, finding enough time to do both, I guess that might be the tricky part. I guess the real question is, will I still be riding a mountain bike in six months' time if I kept hold of Fergus's bike for a bit longer? I think the answer is yes. I don't know, but I really do want to get a mountain bike in the garage really because my fitness really, as much as it feels a bit frustratingly slow for the first time out, that soon fades away and actually starts to feel really rewarding. You wake up with the achy legs, you know you've done a really good workout, and a mountain bike is brilliant for that. They still feel really, really good fun downhill as well. How light and agile this bike feels when you start going downhill, yes, you could say it's a bit more jitterish, but I don't really think that. I actually feel like it's just more flicky, more fun, poppy bike to ride on the downhills as well. Actually, the last couple of years, I've done some more adventure rides, epic point-to-point. I did the West Highland Way last year on an e-bike. As much fun and as cool as that ride was, it did feel to me a bit like that's the sort of bike ride I would rather be doing on a mountain bike. I think I'll probably still do a mix of that, but I would like to do some of those bikepacking epic adventures on a mountain bike. That's why I think I need to fend Fergus off for a little while longer and keep hold of this bike because it's a lot of fun to ride. Jump in the comments. I'd love to know your opinions on this, whether you are someone who's curious about buying their first e-mountain bike and wondering what it will feel like to maybe keep hold of a mountain bike at the same time, or if you're someone like me who has been riding e-mountain bikes for a year or two and you're now thinking, I wonder what it'd be like to jump back on a mountain bike. Let me know if you've got any questions or if you've got any experience for other viewers. Leave those comments down below. That'd be great.