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Just like quads, and especially side-by-sides.
Ponder this: what's the difference between an eMTB and an e-dirtbike?
If you think MX and offroad/trails are separate issues, well........stick around and see.
I live 300 yards from a gate into the 3 million acre Tonto National Forest, and SxS are an absolute MENACE around here. As motorized sports get more and more "democratized" and any mouth-breather can buy a SxS and go play Robbie Gordon on the first dirt road they see, the inevitable pushback happens......like here. The Tonto NF is about to get seriously restricted, stay tuned, watch the news.
Why? Because of IDIOTS in SxS and quads mainly, but also plenty of bonehead spoilt brats on new 450s (yeah.....a 17-year old bought that with his burger-flipping wages......and why do they invariably ride the 120 dB KX450s??) who use public dirt roads around here as racetracks. I can't tell you how many times I've ridden one of my dirtbikes to the nearby (illegal) staging are to try and educate a group of morons who just caused 25 phone complaints to the cops and the NFS by racing up and down residential streets that happen to be DIRT.
Result? The 3 million acre NF is about to go MAX restricted, including a permit system and locked gates.
Thanks, assholes!
E-bikes will....ARE...... only exacerbating this problem, contrary to what the "no noise complaints" crowd thinks. There are lots of local preserves and regional parks (at least in AZ) where hikers, MTBs and horses co-exist peacefully .......or used to. Now eMTBs have proliferated, and it's causing MASSIVE resistance from the horse and hiker crowd because every dipshit with a pulse and at least one leg can now go "MTBing" and they run over hikers and chase horses into the bush............after throwing the riders.
Most hardcore dirtbikers and MTBers are VERY aware about responsible riding......but the noob morons who don't have the skill or fitness to partake, and go crazy on SxS and eMTBs f**k it up for everybody.
More MX tracks, or reopen old ones? Maybe......and good luck. More low-skill morons on bikes, more injuries, more lawsuits........more tracks close. THE best MX track in Phoenix was on an Indian reservation out by Fountain Hills. Absolutely world-class place, brilliant terrain..........shut down because some dipshit dad sued the Tribe because his dipshit kid crashed and hurt himself. Of course he had to blame SOMEONE except his stupid kid who couldn't ride properly.
Thanks, assholes!
Point #2: the town of Silverton CO has BANNED SxSs in town except along one side street with a 15 mph speed limit. Wanna guess why?
(On that topic, there was plenty of talk of banning SxS here in the NF during the creation of the new "NFS movement plan", wanna guess why? And Moab is about to lose 1/2 of its OHV areas, wanna guess why? Hint...........it all starts with "SIDE")
Thanks, assholes!
Point #3: eMTBs are banned from every regional park and preserve around here, north-east of Phoenix....wanna guess why?
Point #4: dirtbiking went on life support when 4 strokes became the thing. Talk to people who have been in the industry 20 or 30 years.........the bikes are simply too expensive. A Euro 450 is now $12K OTD, give or take. Yamaha or Honda, not much less. You CAN buy the cheap stuff, green or yellow, but you get what you pay for. What will these e-bikes cost? I haven't seen even a HINT about pricing.......but a case of PBR says 12K +.
Point #5: despite EVs having been around for almost (more than?) a decade, the battery issues have not been solved. Hell....not even STARTED to be solved, nobody is thinking ahead. Mainly, the materials to MAKE billions of them (limited supply, in inaccessible places like Congo) but more importantly, what happens to them when they die? That's an awful lot of TOXIC hazardous waste.....so much for "green" eh? Those batteries are no less toxic than nuclear waste.
Point #6: for those who preach "green" e-bike rhetoric..........visualize the MX pits of the future..........500 generators running full blast all day.......can you hear the noise level, can you see the cloud of smoke rising above the track? Or do you think your local track in Shitsville, Arkansaw is going to install 300 chargers in the pits? WHAHAHAHAA
Then throw away your toxic dead batteries in the dumpster............GREEN GREEN baby!
Point #7: if a 60 HP 450 dirtbike tears up trails, what will an 80 HP e-bike do? Will the rangers say it's OK, because it's "green"?
CAVEAT: I'm not ANTI electrical anything, just coldly practical. I'm about to go solar at my house, but EVs of any kind that are as capable as ICE vehicles of any kind are many years away. In cities? Very useful. Anything beyond that, pretty much useless. How long will an eD10 Cat run on a charge? How many amps required to charge that big boy to 100%? Way out in the boonies, building a road? Good luck wi' dat!
THE biggest threat to our sport is the invasion of riding areas by MORONS who don't understand the concept of riding responsibly, because they can now be an instant MTBer or desert racer. I ask again....what's the diffs between an eMTB and an e-dirtbike? And do you think MX and offroad/trails face different threats?
E-bikes (and SxSs) suck a lot of irresponsible assholes into the 2-wheeled sports, and it will end up backfiring, watch and see. Be careful what you wish for.
If MX/SX goes full E, I'll find something else to do and watch, after 42 years of riding. Go watch an "E-GP" and see how "EXCITING" that is........like watching paint dry. At least you can follow conversations in the stands while the pack races by
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L98Xdl5Glx8&t=606s
1:15 - big shit eating grin on my face
1:35 - holy shit man
So clearly he is happy he is riding a so called "green" bike. It is all political; has nothing to do with the performance of the bike.
5:23 - how reactive the bike is in the air. But who wants that? Most people prefer to go over the bars.
11:03 - the bike corners really well ... i was able to carry my momentum. It corners like a 125 but out of the turn accelerates faster than a 450. That isn't really an improvement though -- it's useless. Gimme something that corners like a 450 and accelerates like a 125.
And all this other stupid crap like being able to hear when your tires break traction. How useless is that?
It all politics man.
Turns out he had been some kind of city councilman or supervisor or something, and he had instituted bans on riding in many areas.....now he's whining about it.
HYPOCRITE!!
Most people miss the point: it's not about the MODE of propulsion, it's about bikes BEING THERE period. Attracting large numbers of noobs with ebikes will undo the decades of educational efforts by many, many organizations and individuals to combat the closing of riding areas and tracks. The "no noise complaints" argument is only half valid.
The Shop
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DeCal Works Huge Plastic Inventory of UFO and Polisport kits.
That's a helluva manifesto you wrote! Got a pretty good hoodie collection?
Or converting those coal-burning engines to burn plastic.
Or, just dump used motor oil in the river, rather than ride. You'd probably enjoy that more.
I did see that there is a fusion reactor that Deu might be rolling out. Now we are talking about real green energy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYzVoEONKwg
Energy crisis? We have the most stable electric grid in the world and the only question there is, is if we put ourselves into a mild energy crisis by abandoning Russian gas or not. It our choice.
The good thing of all that, is that it’s gonna accelerate the change to renewable energies. Germany always had to import oil and gas and to get away from it would mean more independence from Russia and the middle east, which can only be a good thing.
Solar panels need to run between 2 to 4 years to produce the energy that was needed to manufacture them, they last easily 20 - 25 years (lots of real world examples here in Germany) and can be recycled to 95%. There aren’t good arguments against them anymore.
Germany‘s not going back to nuclear and fusion is still a long time away from producing net positive energy (they never account for the energy that’s needed to run the magnetic coils and all the auxiliary components, they just do plasma heating vs. fusion power. Really well researched video here: https://youtu.be/LJ4W1g-6JiY[/url]
It’s gonna be a challenge to go fully renewable, but I hope as an engineer Germany is going to take the challenge and gets moving!
How many more deaths and life changing spinal injuries due to an 80+ HP MX bike are we going to see? 450's are are already too powerful for the average rider.
Pit Row
Do you guys never want anything to change? How did you Yanks get to the moon? Surely not with guys like you..
I’m excited to try something new.
I feel like the cost of fuel will be on track owners when these eventually come... And we all know that isnt good.
Can we chit and chat about that?
However, where’s the problem of charging a good amount of money form guys with electric dirt bikes? They don’t need gas, oil or air filters at the track, so they could at least give that amount to the track owner for charging.
In Europe I usually pay around 25€ of track fee. I‘d be fine to double that to charge my bike in between motos and for the next day.
Like many other things, won’t know good ice is until it’s gone.
Post a reply to: The solution to the last problem of electric dirt bikes?