eBikeing Moab Practice and Slickrock Loops?

[MikeSSS]

Anybody ridden these? Tell me about a minimum eBike (cheap) capable of riding these. And, what are they like and how did you like riding them? (I drove Hell's Revenge in a side by side last summer, so I know a little bit about Moab.)

Note: I'm old and slow and this is probably a one time deal, so cheap is better. Riding is to get there and look around, I'm not playing racer. I like throttles better than pedal assist, but I do pedal because it feels good and it's a bike. Besides my motorcycles and scooters have all had throttles, so that's what I'm used to. That said, the Trek mid drive with torque sensor bike I rode was just fantastic, most other pedal sensor bikes I've ridden have been very unsatisfactory. Walking difficult places is OK.

Options: Put a small geared rear hub motor on my FS bike, mid drive won't fit. Or, a mid drive or rear geared hub motor on a hard tail, front suspension bike and use a Thudbuster LT seatpost. Or rent a Trek Powerfly FS 7 from Poison Spider or rent some other ebike. The rental becomes too expensive over several days and I can't take it to use at other places along the way.

Present ride uses a direct drive front hub, has no suspension, and has been ridden 300 miles in the first two months of this year. It's a great bike path ride but is very rough off pavement. Well, rough on pavement too if the pavement is rough.

Thanks for the help,

Mike S

 

[flat tire]

Mid drive will be ideal, full suspension ideal, but capability is entirely in your hands if bike isn't broken.

 

[MikeSSS]

Yep, but the choice is between: riding far less than ideal versus not riding ideal. I'd rather ride vs not ride.

30 years since riding a lot of offroad means walking the bike in difficult situations.

 

[flat tire]

You're looking at this wrong. If you haven't ridden offroad for 30 years you probably won't enjoy moab as much as you would if you got back into the swing of things for at least a couple months beforehand.

You live in SA, so there should be good options for that. You can even drive up to austin, where they have great trails and even a place with a lift.

I recommend getting back into riding offroad. Otherwise wtf are you doing picking something you haven't done in THREE DECADES that requires skill and currency to enjoy, as a vacation?

If you are comfortable, you could use basically any bike to do most of the trail, especially if it has lower gears for climbing.

 

[dogman dan]

Rent the mid drive will seem to cost a lot. But you just said the magic words, one time deal.

Use the experience to tell you if you want to ride more dirt locally. If so, most likely a good 10t mac or equivalent will work for you on your current bike. I do my off road riding on a similar motor. It can climb anything I'm up to riding down it. And I don't have the strength to ride it places that would kill it. Moab though, might kill my rig.

So I really think you do need mid drive for moab. No, I haven't been there, just seen some on videos, which of course is the badass part. But I have ridden in places nearly as tough, and know that a longer ride in such places tends to melt motors, or, you walk a lot to not melt the motor. So mid drive it, and avoid the walking, and the melting.

But you can take any e bike to Moab, and use it on the "rest days" or other places not so badass. So take what you have, and then rent at least one day. Multiple days riding the badass stuff,,,, Yeah, Right,,,,.

But a good starting point right now, if you want to train up some for this, would be a Mac, or similar motor on what you have, while looking for something affordable in FS on the used market. Not sure what you have locally, but a place they dumped piles of fill dirt in some empty lot can make a good place to ride a quickly made dirt single track. A few laps of a short track will beat it into riding shape.