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

[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.