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We had about 70 folks start off. Good turnout for an iffy weather day. But the rain held off until the very last. Good event

Man, I really shouldn't have inserted myself into this discussion. I don't have a dog in this fight...except for the fact that I spent the night at a holiday in once. I don't know the names, levels, details, categories or anything as such for these bikes. I just (think I) know that there are lightweight ones that give a little extra assist and then more robust heavier ones that have a higher output ability. (I think there are also throttle ones, but that doens't seem relevant to much of this). I was riding an Orbea Wild with the 750 watt motor, I think it weighed 52 lbs. I was riding it on some of the most techincal trail I could find. It was the day after a hard 70 mi ride for me. All I wanted to do was putter around the steep ups and steep downs. I was not trying to go fast. I truly found the experience to be closer to the way I ride my KTM 250cc enduro motorcycle. Bunny hopping was near impossible, lofting the front wheel took real effort and timing, getting the bike going on steep ups requires dirtbike type technique, and the extra power/velocity through the tight trees/tech makes this a skill all of its own. YMMV. I came away from the experience with the feeling that this activity was really a completely different sport all together. It just took place on our local mountain bike trails. And I'm not saying this as a hater, it was a fun experience, I can understand why people buy them. But it was simple NOT the same activity that I've been doing there for nearly 20 yrs. It was very much akin to if my FS MTB had a baby with my KTM MX bike. Cheers, CJB

Wear long socks.

A little fun in Northwest Arkansas. Today should be the last warm day here for the remainder of my trip. It has been warm and muggy but also crazy beautiful! Dogwoods and columbines are blooming.

I just saw this on MTBR: This is an interesting take. I had not considered the "finesse" that you can get from a bike that is just not present with an e-bike. So much of my riding over the years has become much more about feeling the bike through tight obstacles, rock gardens, etc. My Orbea Occam is exceptionally adept at helping me finesse my way through features, to the point where I often tell people to give me a little space because I have the ability to slow a climb to insanely low speed to slips through the appropriate line instead of just getting a head of steam and trying to power up something. The singlespeed really taught me this skill but the Occam lets me literally track stand in the middle of a climb or a rock garden and sneak through with the least effort.

YouTube has saved me hundreds in refrigerator repairs. Now that I am mostly retired, I'm willing to try a lot of things because I have the time to putter around with them. Since I still do a little bit of consulting, I know what my "per hour" rate is so I can judge that against the amount of time and effort to get someone out to do things for us. I still find that, despite having a decent bike workshop in the garage, I still take my FS to Bicycle House for anything suspension related. Or anything requiring me to remove the crankset because a.) it is impossible to get off even with a breaker bar and b.) DUB sucks. My next bike will definitely not have a press fit bottom bracket, that is the devil.

🤣

The weather doesn't look perfect, but it looks like it might work. So it's happening. Fast Friends is going to give all participants a dollar off their first post ride beer. Hey, it's something.

We used Klock Electric in Austin when we had a lightning strike to fix some issues in the house, they were fast, did good work, and as I recall, pretty reasonably priced. Also, Mark Bedell who posted on the old Mojo site as "silverback" is an electrician: https://www.facebook.com/mark.bedell1/ I think he works for a solar company these days so I don't know if he is in the service market but if you are friends with him you may want to reach out to him.