Peremptory, absolute, almost threatening. Of all the criticisms we received on our Facebook page, when we launched the comparison of the 5 enduro e-bikes featured in the March issue, the one that struck me most was that of a reader who told us not to call them mountain bikes.
In fact, we ourselves have called them e-bikes and not mountain bikes. Still, I don't understand all of this orthodoxy.
However, marginal criticism with respect to the approval posts and this tells me that we are going in the right direction.
After all, the world of mountain biking, thanks to pedal assisted bikes, is in full swing.
Useless to deny it, stupid snub it. Especially for a magazine like ours that has always been interested in the new, often alternative ones, of the mountain bike scene.
Personally I have been practicing mountain biking in all its disciplines, I mean the muscular one, for over thirty years and I will continue to do so. But I am not afraid of the news and I am increasingly convinced that the All mountain and Gravity disciplines have many similarities with pedal assistance. If only because it allows you to carry bikes with strong downhill characteristics more easily and effectively uphill.
A way of doing sport that I like, because it is very freeride, in the broadest sense of the term and gives, regardless of your level of training, even more freedom to run free on the paths. Above all, it can also entertain people who are not necessarily super trained. As we do, for example, at our Costa dei Gabbiani Bike Center, where we can take on excursions and have fun riding a mountain bike, yes I call it that, even novice bikers and not just the big handcuffs or super orthodox fanatics .
So, my advice is to put aside your prejudices and, if you feel like it, try to discover a new way of practicing mountain biking, perhaps even through our comparison that I hope to find interesting.
Then no one prevents you from continuing to pedal only with your own strength and mountain biking in the classic way. Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Jehtro Tull, but not only that, I often still listen to them on vinyl.
