I tried to play it cool, as I had done some light mountain biking—actually just gentle trail riding—growing up. I was out at Trek HQ in Waterloo, Wisconsin, and they were asking my comfort level on a mountain bike. I didn’t want them to give me full-on training wheels, so my experience history of “non-technical trail rides with a couple jumps,” became “yeah… I’ve done some mountain biking before.”
We were setup for an hour or two of actual mountain biking, reasonably skilled riding. I’m not even that good on a bike on flat ground. I had a feeling I was going to end up face first in a tree, with a separated shoulder or something.
But I got handed a top-of-the-line Fuel EXe, one of the brand’s flagship electric mountain bikes. It’s got a lightweight carbon frame with top of the line components, so it feels almost identical to a standard Fuel EX bike. Plus, it’s got an easy to use three-tier assistance system, a nifty little LED display, and a whisper quiet motor.
Those electric add-ons make all the difference. I rode for two hours and barely broke a sweat. In just 120 minutes I was converted to an e-bike guy. It’s the best advertisement I have for this whole e-bike revolution.
Trek Fuel EXe 9.9 XX1 AXS
People have been asking me—as the product guy of any gathering—if e-bikes are worth the hype. Trek, and most other bike brands, has a huge selection of city e-bikes and a growing arsenal of specialty road and mountain e-bikes. I was always on the fence—usually saying only get an e-bike if you physically need it. But damn, was I wrong.
First, let me go back to that ride I took. We started on some flow runs with decent little jumps—fun, easy, fast. It was right in my wheelhouse. Then we jumped into the trails. Nothing difficult, but absolutely above my pay grade. I wanted to go fast and hit jumps, not peel around corners, hit switchbacks, and trudge over roots and rocks. But that Fuel EXe literally drug me through the trails.
Whenever we were climbing uphill, whenever my bad riding slowed me down to the point of a downshift, I just upped my electric assistance, and the bike took off instantly. In “Turbo” the experience was more like a dirt bike than a mountain bike. With a few pedals, the thing would just rip me up a hill over rocks, roots, and the debris I met after going off-trail. It eliminated all the bullshit parts of mountain bike riding that would typically keep noobs, like myself, far away. For the mountain biking community, I’m sorry, but everyone mildly interested in hitting trails should get one of these because it’s just so damn fun.
The only issue with that Fuel EXe is how steep the price is, even though it's comparable in price to Trek's standard mountain bikes (what they call "acoustic" bikes). For anyone who wants to use it as an entry into mountain biking, that's tough. For that, I'd suggest the Powerfly, a similar e-mountain bike model that has a great build, not a top-of-the-line new car type of build.
I've always understood e-bikes for city people. Of course, living in New York City, I’d advise any Brooklynite parent to trade in their Volvo or Subaru for a cargo capable e-bike. It’s a car replacement. But after getting on one of these mountain bikes, I was thinking of the all-terrain vehicles you could replace with these. In areas where a gas-powered ATV or side-by-side is strictly forbidden—think national parks or wildlife areas—you could most likely hop on an e-bike and not get into any trouble from park management. I thought about my family in Louisiana full of sportsmen who need to do a lot of scouting before they go hunt. Instead of a pre-dawn hike to a set up a turkey blind or a loud four-wheeler that’s going to scare everything within a half-mile, you could silently pedal out on an e-bike.
When I mentioned this line of thinking to the Trek team, they said they’ve actually got an A-List customer who does exactly that. Country music singer Luke Bryan is a big Trek customer, and he’s worked with the brand on a handful of custom bikes, one of which is a Powerfly like the one above. During hunting season, it does the job of an off-road vehicle almost silently, and the Trek team has joked with Bryan—not unseriously—about getting him a bike that has a full mount for a hunting bow.
But like I said, I never really questioned e-bikes in the city, and if you want to use an e-bike in the city, go ahead. It’ll replace a car for famers market runs, commutes, or picking the kids up from school—no friction. I was just never convinced about the feasibility of an electric bike for any outdoorsy uses. But after trying out a Fuel EXe, I'm all in.
I really think there’s going to be a lot of growth for this specialized category of outdoor e-bikes, and as of now Trek is the brand I see dominating. If you’re already an outdoorsy person—bike-packer, hunter, fisher, or whatever—an electric mountain bike is a tool to help you. If you’re an apprehensive mountain biker, who gets the appeal but isn’t about all the hard work—like myself—an electric mountain bike is going to change your world. The Fuel EXe did for me, at least.
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