26 | Cycling World
It’s electrifying:
Why France is embracing
the electric mountain bike
Text by Matt Watkins, activeazur.com
Pictures by Christophe Febvay
from Les Roues de Lilou
T
he world of mountain biking can’t sit still for
a minute. Wheels are getting bigger, tyres are
getting fatter, geometry’s getting slacker and
pedal power is getting a power-up.
It’s a bewildering landscape for any newcomer to the
sport. But, the e-bike phenomenon is cutting through
the noise and sparking the interest of an ever-growing
number of people.
In France, electric-assist mountain bikes are no less
controversial but the argument for embracing them is
finally winning out.
To understand why, you just need to look at the terrain.
Huge mountains, massive vertical drops, and miles
and miles of epic singletrack. This has always been the
domain of fit and ex erienced riders.
Not any more – electric mountain bikes (eMTBs) have
levelled the laying field.
Now, mountain biking is accessible to everyone, from
eo le getting back on a bike for the first time after
injury, to new parents and busy career types who just
don’t have time to put the training miles in. And that
once brutal 45-minute climb now takes half the time and
is just as much fun as the descent.
The Fédération Française de Cyclisme (FFC), the French
equivalent of The British Cycling Federation, is very
clear in its support for e-bikes. “E-bikes make cycling
accessible to more people,” says Joaquim Lombard,
the FFC’s national technical advisor. Anything that gets
more eo le riding bikes hel s fulfil the C’s underlying
mission. The organisation manages a huge network of
waymarked trails across France and they’re all open to
e-bikes. “We put electric bikes in the same category as
regular bikes, so where you’re allowed to take a bike, you
can also take an e-bike. We just consider them normal
bikes.”
Not everyone is 100 percent on board though. In the
Vercors Massif, in south-east France, there’s an optional
section of the Grande Traversée du Vercors multi-day ride
where e-bikes have been banned. It’s a natural reserve
and the argument goes that e-bikes make the area so
easily accessible that it will be overrun with visitors.