Is eBike Tech Coming To Mountain Biking?

E-bikes have had more than their fair share of exciting new technology in the last year or two. Groundbreaking, never-seen-before stuff like anti-lock brake systems or automatic gears, but the question is, are we ever going to see that technology on regular mountain bikes? E-bikes nowadays are having lots of little incremental gains like lighter, more power, better integrated, neater systems, kind of like regular mountain bikes. All those things are minute improvements that are happening all the time, but we have seen these massive leaps forward like the anti-lock brake systems, where actually, I don't think you can see that translate to a regular mountain bike because of the complexity and the batteries and the power you need for those systems. I don't see that translating over. Plus, if you're a veteran mountain biker like me, you may be all scoffing and think, well, we don't need those things anyway. There may be some truth in that, but what I'm trying to do is open my mind to all these things because quite slightly, I've got this new Propane Econo 2 with the SRAM powertrain transmission on it as well. This does offer automatic shifting and coast shift, which means that you don't have to pedal to shift. It will actually spool up the motor, turn that chain wheel when you hit the button, so it changes gear without you having to spin the pedals. Now, those two technologies, as far as I can see, could come to regular mountain bikes, and I'll explain why in a bit, but the question is, will we see them on regular mountain bikes? I don't have a crystal ball. Plus, that information is not shared with me. People like SRAM and Shimano do not trust me enough with that information. I have no idea, but I have some of my own thoughts about it. I'm very lucky with my job at GMBN, of course, to ride lots of new and exciting bikes and try them all out. I think that's mellowed my opinion as well. I have to try these things before I have a strong opinion. I am really excited about today trying out the system. Of course, we have seen this before. Shimano have their XT Di2 groupset, which is e-bike only, and that offers automatic and this free shift, coast shift if I want to call it as well, so the ability to shift without pedaling. I have not tried that, although Steve Jones over on EMBN has, but this is SRAM's offering, which is different. This is their Axis drivetrain, but it is what they're calling their powertrain. It's all working together. You've got that transmission with the ramps on the cassette, all that stuff we have seen on regular mountain bikes, except now, of course, this is SRAM's motor developed with Brose, which is a company that have made lots of e-bike motors for people that specialize in the past. This is their system all working together. Like I said before, it gives you that ability very neatly to shift yourself, but also has SRAM's very own algorithm to give it automatic shifting. It will decide when you need to change gear or when it wants to change gear for you, I should say, and do that like you haven't touched any of those buttons. This is my brand new bike. It's a Propain Ecano 2 CF, one of very few e-bikes at the moment that actually run this SRAM powertrain actually, so quite interesting in itself. It's a big bike, 170 mil rear travel, 180 fork, and it looks fairly familiar to me at least. I've got the SRAM AXS paddles up there doing my gears. This one does my drop post, whereas the top one on the left actually does the rally or range modes of the power mode of the bike. There's only two, keeps it super simple. This is all, of course, completely adjustable via an app like most e-bikes are these days, or I can long press my gear buttons to do a couple of things as well. I can turn the automatic shifting on or off, and then the bottom button actually chooses the sensitivity of that. Basically, how fast I need to spin the pedals, my cadence before it starts to shift. I've not ridden this bike properly yet, so I've just taken it outside the house and tried it. It's really quite interesting. Today, I'm going to take it for a spin on the trails and see how this technology works and see if it's the thing that we do want on regular mountain bikes. It is really weird, especially for an old skeptic like me, I know, would you believe it, to just trust in the bike to know what it's doing. It's so unusual just gripping the bars and levers, and all I'm doing is using my left thumb to go up and down the dropper. You get to a step up, quite a steep step, and you think, oh, hang on, I'm slowing down, and then the bike will just shift. It's pretty unusual. Even when you're up to speed, obviously, you've got a speed sensor on an e-bike, you have the speed sensor on the back, you must know how fast I'm going and how hard I'm pedaling, and then it's doing the rest for you. When you're up to speed, you're going fast, you're freewheeling, and you can hear it going, and it's shifting down to those high gears. Then you come to pedal, and it's hard to trust it as well to know that when you go to pedal, there's going to be resistance, it's going to be in the right gear, because I've not done anything. I automatically think, I'm just going to pedal, and there's going to be no resistance. That's dodgy when you think, oh, God, almost like when you change steps. It's really weird to just trust your bike to do the things it's going to do. Obviously, this has got that SRAM transmission on it as well. When that came out, whenever that was, a year or so, two ago maybe, you've got all those ramps. It's slowish, it doesn't shift instantly, it just goes up and down these ramps, up and both ways on the cassette, so it's really smooth. Now it makes sense with this doing its own thing, but it's really quiet. You've almost got to listen and hear that little chirp to know that it's done anything. I wonder if that was the play all along that SRAM knew that this powertrain was coming. They wanted it to be a really smooth e-bike shift, but it definitely works. The word holistic gets thrown around, but it does all work together. It is pretty impressive. Anyway, I want to get to the top hill because what I'm really interested to try is the coast shift on the descents. For automatic gears, I don't know, it's impressive, but I think I like to be in control. To use coast shift now, I have to turn the auto shift off. Super simple, just long press that one button and away I go. Now, if I'm pedaling or not, if I hit that, those buttons, the shifter, it will change gear. If I'm pedaling, obviously, as normal. If I'm not pedaling, the motor will spin up the chain wheel and that will obviously turn the cassette and shift for me. Anytime I want to shift, I can choose, it will shift. Let's try that. I think I must be a control freak because that ability to shift whenever is really interesting. The way, even on that bit, you go from slow to fast and then I try to pedal out of a turn and I realize I'm in too easy a gear, I can then shift mid next turn and know that I'm going to be in the right gear all the time. I love the way I can shift all the time. I do feel like I'm, I like spinning at certain speeds with my feet. I think I feel quite sensitive to that. I feel like I shift a lot on a bike normally, now it gives me the ability to shift even more. I like that. It's really quite interesting. That's something that if I could have that on a normal mountain bike, is it a game changer? I don't know, maybe, but if I could have it, I think I probably would choose it. My feelings and opinion aside, how could this technology come to regular mountain bikes? At the moment, on any bike, obviously, you've got a free wheel on the rear wheel, but you've also got a free wheel on the chainring. The chainring can move independently of the crank. When you pedal any bike, your power and the motor are spinning the chainring. On this bike, when you do the shifting or the auto shift, the chainring will actually spin round and do the shifting on the back. Obviously, you don't have a motor on a regular bike, but there is a way of doing this. What you can do is actually add a free wheel to that chainring as well. There are products out there at the moment that can do this, particularly if you look at trials bikes, they have the free wheel on the cranks. I don't know why, actually, but they do. If you do that, and then you lock your cassette simply by zip tying it to your spoke, when your bike is moving, your chain will always be spinning. When you're not pedaling, the free wheel will activate on the chainring. Then you can shift. Obviously, with the automatic shifting, you need the brains. You need the SRAM algorithm, which is inside here. I don't know where they fit it, it doesn't look very big. All that data, all that computing goes on inside there, and that decides when it's going to shift. On an all-bike, you would need a brain for auto shifting, but you could use your regular gears, your SRAM axis, whatever, to do co-shifting. If when you're riding, your chain is always spinning, a bit like the Honda downhill bike back in the day, that was all going on in here, they could shift without having to pedal the bike. You could do that on a regular mountain bike. I'm not saying it is something that we need, or there are some disadvantages, I definitely think. If that's spinning all the time, sometimes when you might ride through a bit of brash and get something into your rear wheel, into your mech, with a bit of experience, you know, stop pedaling because that's going to break everything. You wouldn't have that. If that was spinning all the time and something went into there, it is going to self-destruct. There are definite big disadvantages to it. However, if we see things like gearboxes, like the Honda back in the day, then that could be a thing where the freewheel moves straight from there to the middle of the bike. The gears can always be changed, as long as the bike is moving. Obviously, we've seen these systems already with e-bikes as well. Automatic internal gearboxes that are motors as well, you could do that on a regular bike as well without having the motor. Am I over-complicating things? Are the companies over-complicating things? Who knows, but it is possible to get that coast shifting. As far as I can tell, maybe it's something I need to get tools and try and build myself.