My wife's aluminum eMTB weighs 55lbs with pedals and DH casing tires. Admittedly it sucks to hang on the wall after a long ride, but it's fine on bike racks. Including my lightweight yakima rack. I used to want a light eMTB but have since changed my mind. Now looking for a 180-200mm travel aluminum bike with a big motor and battery. Basically a DH rig. For where we ride, I'd rather have more bike than too little. Especially for the stuff we like to ride in AZ where there's no shuttles or lifts.  Plus, it keeps me on my regular pedal bike more often, since riding around blue trails with a dual crown ebike is silly.    For CTX, id definitely stick to shorter travel, and lighter eMTB. This canyon is a pretty good deal and you can get down to around 40lbs without a ton of additional money. https://www.canyon.com/en-us/electric-bikes/electric-mountain-bikes/neuron-on/neuron-on-fly/neuron-onfly-cf-7/3665.html?dwvar_3665_pv_rahmenfarbe=M166_P01

Went to visit Joe Ender at TJ Cycles today.  Joe previously had Monkey Wrench Cycles on Guadalupe.  We both like working with Joe; he's super knowledgeable about bikes.  I didn't realize that  TJ Cycles has a huge storefront, focusing on Specialized mainly, but with some other brands as well, all different kinds of bikes, road, gravel, commuter and others.    I'm leaning towards a Turbo Vado SL 2 6.0.  (Mr. June Bug:  Vato? No, honey, it's VADO).  Two friends bought the Specialized Turbo Vado SL 1 this past week and a third friend bought one a few months ago.  They are being discontinued though,  and are getting hard to find. They are really light (31 lbs) but relatively underpowered with a smaller battery.  Joe E. noted that they weren't selling well in general. Apparently, people that want an eBike typically want something with a fair amount of "go", rather than something that just has a little more assist than their analog bike.  The 2 has, as noted, a carbon frame and weights in around 35#, with a fairly large motor and battery, flat handlebar.  This version I'm interested in has no intergrated lights or fenders, my preference.  It can take at least a 50 x 700 tire and maybe a bit more.  Specialized refers to it as a commuter bike, but it can easily do gravel and relatively mellow paths and trails.  It has a little hidden shock absorber in the head tube to take the edge off.  The front triangle is fairly spacious so there's room for a frame bag.  Drive train spec is XT.  Would consider a mountain  ebike, even a hardtail, but they are just too heavy for me to wrangle  (50lbs average) and might overpower our Kuat bike rack.   

Can confirm. There's a a lot of guys in their 20 & 30s on ebikes here. Biggest thing is its hard to shuttle up the franklins so there's a lot of climbing to get to the good stuff. El Paso would SUCK without an ebike for a lot of us. Hard part is a majority of our group are on ebikes now so that becomes an issue for people on regular bikes. Lots of tow straps being used😁   https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1AgdAjexyB/

2025 Event is on the Calendar: September 7, 2025 at Flat Rock Ranch, Comfort, TX. Registration at BikeReg https://hillcountrybicycleworks.com/local-events/ The event is super low key but well run by Hill Country Bicycle Works in Kerrville/Fredicksburg. This will (hopefully) be the 3rd time I've done the event, it's been a blast both years so far. 

Crossed over to the dark side myself. Moved to the El Paso/New Mexico area in August. For many of the trails here an e-bike is almost a necessity even the more fit riders here are riding e-bikes. Lots of loose rock and steep climbs with lots of elevation in short distances. At 63 trying to do some of these trails was not enjoyable the e-bike makes it much easier to get more miles in and enjoy it. Bought a Polygon T7E nice bike with a good spec at the price I got it for the only thing I changed was the suspension the Suntour fork was abysmal I probably could have torn it down to see what may be the issue but decided to replace along with a rear shock to match.