Pedalcycling into war - might (e)Bikes be back?

[Firn]

Suspension, tires, and bakes have some impact but do not change the fundamental problem of trying to carry a large load on your back while riding a bicycle. A backpack works while standing straight up by shifting the load to the hips. On a bike you're leaning forward, so the load goes onto your lower back, not the best place for it to be. Plus at any speed inertia comes into play, which means that when you turn the bike that load wants to keep going in a straight line. The consequences are not always pleasant.

It's also true that while a skilled rider on a mt bike can move fast over quite difficult terrain, this requires skill and a great deal of practice. If less skilled people try to do it, especially under large loads, accidents and injuries will result. Adding mt biking to a training rotation would probably be fun, but I'm not sure how practical it would be!

I think that you are rightly pointing out the biggest problem for the use of bicycles by the Western infantry: the heavy load carried by the soldiers. Bikers of all sorts are well-known to be often fanatical about weight, especially if slopes have to be conquered.

This is one of the reasons why I hardly see even a niche role for most combat operations for Western forces. This leaves for them those roles:

i) Quick and agile short-distance (>15 km) rides for troops at or around military bases. No need for a mother vehicle.

ii) The same for support troops or rotated other forces in theatre if the situation allows. A standard vehicle might work as mother for one or two, a support truck for a couple.

iii) Motorized recce operations might get supported by one or two ebikes strapped to the specific vehicle. Once again it is about relative short distances over terrain which poses difficulties for larger vehicles. Could be forests with narrow trails or urbanized areas.

iv) Infiltrations by various means, for example like those coastline raids by Commandos in WWII in which 'borrowed' bicycles were used. Surprisingly distant targets might be approached that way rather quickly and silently.

v) Patrolling in mostly old urban areas during (very) low-intensity conflicts or stability operations for example by Carabinieri-like troops.


Other armed forces might use them also for:

vi) Portage or 'Pushage' in rather difficult terrain with narrow paths

For most of those niches a powerful engine and batteries are attractive. The ability to fold the bike would also be often highly valuable but has still some considerable downsides. While in some cases like not so deep mud fat tyres might be at a disadvantage overall they should make, at least powered by an electric motor, most tasks quicker, easier and safer. This goes also for full suspension. Overall my personal point of view that in cases like those it is a good maxim to spend more and have a - still cheap - piece of equipment which might be too performant for some activities instead of ending up with stuff not up to some tasks. Obviously there is a good case for two, maybe three types of ebikes.

Your other points are also of interest, I will write about them later.

[Firn]

I confess that I'm a bit of a Luddite when it comes to cycling innovation: I think most of what passes for "innovation" lately is just the industry trying to come up with new stuff for cyclists to buy, and a lot of the supposed innovations mean very little in terms of performance. I still use 26" wheels (I ride technical trails and big wheels just feel clumsy) and a 2x9 drivetrain. A few years ago the industry was saying everyone has to be on 2x10, now they all want us to go 1x11. I think they are just trying to sell stuff.

They certainly want to. Praise capitalism and the (mostly) free market economy.

After that long period monopolized by the 26", which saw (very) considerable progress in pretty much all the relevant (and other) areas of cycling all those new tyre size options came as a big suprise to me. In my experience as a rather tall (1.88), broad and heavy (87 kg) biker 29ers do climb better if you have gravel, bigger stones and roots on your way up. I love a big gear range so I'm not planning to go 1x11 for bikes only powered by myself, which might be great for specific competitions.

I don't get the whole fatbike thing at all, unless you ride a lot on snow, which most people don't. In mud they will be a liability: you'll sink in anyway and have to plow all that tire through.

On today's short tour, only 567 m of altitude I came across deep mud on a varying bewteen flat and short slopes where a tractor had drawn timber out of the forest. With some roots it is an interesting trail to climb but today I was forces to push in quite a few places as the tyres on the hardtail have hard time to clean themselves and in other places the resitence was too big. A somewhat lower pressure would have helped but the profile, good as it is on fast gravel sections, is just poor for mud.

I will try to get my hands as soon as possible on a electric fatbike with tyres biased towards soft ground. It has to face off against a 27,5" electric fully, which might fit overall my cycling better.

I can see how motor assist would be useful to people who use a bike as a tool, as would be the case in any military scenario. No interest in using it myself: the whole point is to do it myself! I have to wonder about the durability and maintenance issues, though, another consideration for military use: you'd have to have bike mechanics along wherever there are bikes.

Indeed.

Overall I would buy more then enough ebike for military applications and one that is as easy to use as possible.

P.S: A brief history of fatbikes

[Firn]

As discussed the electric bicycle undergoes rapid developments but has already become a mature technology used around the world with a strong industrial base. The rise of the ebike used for trail fun has caused Bosch to come up with the 'Travel Charger', likely for all those Germans planning to bring their new 'hybrid rides' on their VW multivans for the trails around the lago di Garda.*

This is just one example of how much easier and cheaper it becomes to integrate motorized bicycles into the armed forces, if it makes sense to do so. Hybrid military vehicles or those fitted with generators are of course the most suited for charging apart from the grid, if the latter is both possible and sensible. Hybrid bikes might thus become one of the factors in an increasing demand for electric power on the battlefield and benefit from the longer term drive to secure it.


*A blast from the past:

ISO 4165 is a standard adopted by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that describes a double-pole DC connector to supply between 12 and 24 V DC at up to 12 amps to appliances in vehicles. Although roughly similar in design to an automotive accessory receptacle, the ISO 4165 connector is shorter and smaller in diameter. It was originally a standard fitting on all the German military vehicles during World War II.

[Firn]

To sum it up for now:

Technological advances could make bicycles in new forms attractive for some armed forces for some niches in some conflicts - or not.

[Firn]

Last year I was mostly switching between a 29er fully with rather wide 2.4 tubeless tyres and my older 29er hardtail with a bit narrower ones with one or two rides with an older 26er ht thrown in. The difference between a full suspension bike with larger, wider tubeless tyres with considerable less pressure compared to the old-style one is surprisingly large indeed. It is quite amazing how different they behave in the more technical stuff on our trails, especially over those big knotty roots. I became quickly a coward with my older bike in some of the rougher patches and was glad to switch back.

The amount of experimentation going on right now in the bike industry is crazy, especially when it comes to tyres. Not long ago, even if it seems now ages, everybody just biked on his mountain bike. I did experiment a bit with air pressure but only switched tyres once the profile was gone - never thought I about tyre size or something like that. Now there are three diameters with a third width, the plus, coming up after the normal one and the 'fat' 26er. Big industry player Schwalbe sells now it's Procore system which was praised by bicilive. I will likely try it out this year. New lighter tubeless tyres plus procore could allow for even lower pressures with a lot of safety margin and not too much additional weight.

It rode only a couple of times on an pedelec this year as I trained a bit for mountaineering for my little African trip in various mountains but things move certainly swiftly there. That model comes actually pretty close to what I had in mind for an easy-to-ride electric bike with full suspension, low ground pressure and not too much weight. Obviously for military use it would need be heavier for the additional weight, storage and other stuff.



Actually this one attracts me as a 'hunting' bike as one can legally ride on a lot of roads closed for car and motorcycle traffic. I know of quite a few professional mountain guides which now use electric bikes as their second stage 'approach' transport. Instead of hiking or biking up long and tedious gravel roads they reach thus quickly the interesting areas to meet for example their clients.

[Firn]

I did some additional research before the second run in Vail. Personally I still think that those guys have the best way to descend on snow but there are some interesting fatbike tests from Norway. On the trail biking seems to be faster then cross-country skiing..

An electric approach from California. All-wheel drive with two hub engines reported to have lots of watts.

[Firn]

A year on and with a considerable amount of miles helped in part by an electric engine I it is time to look at the bigger economic picture.

1) In the EU, the key driver of high-end market, e-bikes are now outselling petrol bikes!

With regard to e-bikes the Federation states that sales in this category grew with 25.6% to 1,139,000 units. This total is a low estimate. In its June/July edition, which contained a 2014 Market Report for EU e-bike imports and sales, this trade journal concluded that the 2014 volume of the e-bike, e-MTB and speed e-bike market in Europe stood at 1,325,000 units.

v.s

According to the latest data available, in 2014 a total of 1,099,000 PTWs were registered in the EU and 57,550 PTWs were registered in EFTA countries. The year 2014 was the first year since 2007 in which the number of PTW registrations remained stable on a year-on-year basis.

In short after an amazing growth in the last couple of years the demand is strong.

2) The demand increases in years past has greatly driven industrial investment into the high-end electric bike market from the smallish Mittelstand to big players like Panasonic, Yamaha, Bosch, Shimano, Continental with engines and batteries or just the latter like Samsung.

This competition will continue to drive innovation, especially in conjunction with rather wild development race in (mountain) biking. Prices per performance will come down.

3) This investment and interest has led to an ever growing amount of electric bikes of all sorts for almost every niche. In the new ones the prices are of course still very high but there will be cheaper alternatives in the next years.

From DH bikes,



to full-suspension fatbikes



to all-wheel ones you have the broadest choice yet for your low-level transport vehicle.

4) For military applications it is of course important to keep Dahuyan's point in mind:

It's also true that while a skilled rider on a mt bike can move fast over quite difficult terrain, this requires skill and a great deal of practice. If less skilled people try to do it, especially under large loads, accidents and injuries will result. Adding mt biking to a training rotation would probably be fun, but I'm not sure how practical it would be!

In general I would now put less weight on rather difficult terrain and trails and more one the general ability to get rather quickly and silently on a short trip from A to B in which most military vehicles have a harder time to traverse or are not needed. I think in some cases those electric bikes would fit Sven's neat idea of parasitic vehicles. Serious trail training should not be worth it's opportunity costs in practically every case.

As before I would pick at least a high-end speed pedelec if not a 'race' spec one, with wide tyres and top-end suspensions or a light e-motorcycle like the KTM Freeride E. Such decisions need obviously proper reviews and testing and not just speculations.