The Trouble with Fun

You want to start a bar fight at your local trailhead? Mention e-bikes. Just drop the term casually, like a lit match into a pool of propane, and watch grown men in tight pants convulse in spittle-flecked fury. I’ve seen blissed out yoga moms froth at the mouth over “those helmetless creations going the wrong way down the sidewalk and almost killing themselves!” And don’t even get the mountain bike purists started. They’ll scowl that e-MTBs are nothing but a camouflaged temptation to the dark side, two-wheeled heresy wrapped in a lithium-ion blanket.

`The electrification of recreation has split the outdoor world wide open, like a glide crack on a too-soon melting glacier. Some argue it’s about accessibility, inclusion, dignity for the wheezing masses who still want to get outside without being flagellated by topography. Others gripe about trail erosion and laziness and the death of the soul, whatever that means anymore, in this age of motorized, digitized, orgy of outdoor recreation.