It was last fall when I realized that everything had changed. First there were the back-to-back high-country rides where my friends and I were the only ones on mountain bikes without motors. Then there was the eleven-mile climb where a hiker squinted at my crankset, exclaimed, “No battery!” and began to clap. There was the exchange later that day with the only other cyclists we saw riding traditional pedal bikes, who shouted as they passed, “We’re a dyin’ breed!” Finally, there was the encounter at the top of an obscure peak in the Sierras, when an older man looked at my bike and said, “I remember riding this trail on my analog bike.”
Depending on who you ask, we are approaching, at, or past a tipping point for eMTBs. This year, Santa Cruz Bicycles expects to sell more eMTBs than pedal bikes, the company’s product director Josh Kissner tells me. Specialized’s Turbo Levo model has been its top-selling mountain bike for years. And Cannondale currently has more eMTBs in development than analog. Professional mountain biker Paul Basagoitia, who’s ridden e-bikes since a 2015 crash at Red Bull Rampage left him paralyzed, laughed when I asked whether eMTBs were the future of the sport. “The future?” he said. “What do you mean? It’s here, it’s now.”
Industrywide, bike shops still sell more pedal bikes than eMTBs. But product managers from the brands above believe e-bikes will soon represent more than half the bikes on the trail. How much more? Specialized was the most bullish, with Turbo product director Marco Sonderegger and eMTB product manager Joe Buckley guessing they could become 75 to 80 percent of the bikes sold. Kissner of Santa Cruz thinks it could be up to two-thirds. Cannondale senior global marketing manager Mike Marro believes that in the future, “analog will have its place,” but it will dominate only for “specific use cases,” like cross-country race and downhill categories.
“How many people are cross-country skiing compared to alpine skiing?” asked Buckley, rhetorically. “That’s where it’s going to go.”
The inflection point that once seemed impossible, then unlikely, then far off, is suddenly here. European eMTB models emerged in the early 2010s, but they had kooky bolted-on batteries and carried their weight about as well as a JanSport backpack stuffed with Encyclopedia Britannicas. Specialized is credited for launching the North American eMTB revolution in 2015, when it debuted the sub-fifty-pound Turbo Levo 6Fattie, with its integrated battery and refined handling. But eMTBs still had a long road to social acceptance. In 2017, Outside columnist Marc Peruzzi wondered if they were “Dorkmobiles or Saviors of the Universe.” By 2019, however, bike reviewer Aaron Gulley allowed that they’d “come far enough that they’re well worth buying.” Around 2020 or 2021, Sonderegger says, the Levo began to lead Specialized’s mountain bike business. Today, he tells me, “I don’t see a way back.”
How you feel about this change depends, unsurprisingly, on whether or not you ride an eMTB. Most eMTBers I spoke to said they’d welcome a future in which they’re the majority (duh). Most industry professionals expressed optimism as well (at least outwardly) for a scenario in which e-bikes grow ridership, stoke trail building, and get more Americans exercising. One industry professional admitted that he would feel “a little bit sad” if eMTBs one day outnumbered pedal bikes. Then he asked if he could stay anonymous.
A lot of longtime riders can probably relate to this sentiment—as well as the reluctance to voice it. It’s not really OK to be anti–e-bike anymore. Most of us know or love people who ride them, many of whom couldn’t (or wouldn’t) ride otherwise. If you love the sport, it’s tough to criticize gray-haired dads riding with their kids, injured cyclists returning to the trail, or, really, any rider more readily accessing the joy of mountain biking.
It’s not really OK to be anti–e-bike anymore. Most of us know or love people who ride them, many of whom couldn’t (or wouldn’t) ride otherwise.
But also, if you love the sport, you might not want it to change. Many die-hard pedal bikers thus find themselves in an awkward position. Just because you support eMTBs doesn’t preclude you from dreading their ubiquity, or worrying about a future in which they completely take over. It’s either naive or disingenuous for people to reduce the debate to “ride whatever makes you happy,” as if pedal bikers have no stake in whether they’re eventually outnumbered.
No one wants to be constantly buzzed on singletrack by much faster riders; and despite the industry’s claims that eMTBs don’t damage trails mile-for-mile more than pedal bikes, concerns about overuse by virtue of an eMTB’s ability to cover more mileage are legitimate. Marro also tells me that one reason people buy e-bikes is to keep up with their friends. In his view, riders like me could soon have to make a decision: Do I buy another analog bike? Or do I get an e-bike so I can keep riding with the group? (The product managers I spoke to also agreed that most companies will pare down their pedal offerings if growth continues to lag.)
Not everyone believes our electric future is a foregone conclusion. Kyle Young, founder of Transition Cycles, for example, doesn’t think it’ll happen (although even the decidedly core Washington brand sells one eMTB for every four mountain bikes sold).
But wherever the long-term ratio shakes out, we’ve already hit some undeniable tipping point—the alienating experiences I’ve had recently would have been hard to imagine even a year ago. If there was any moment where the eMTB revolution could have stalled, Cannondale mountain bike product director Scott Vogelman believes it would have been five to eight years ago, when battles over trail access for eMTBs were most hotly contested. Since then, eMTB riders have won access to many trails.
“At this point the ball is rolling down the hill,” he says. “I don’t think it’s stopping.”
The Turbo Levo turns ten this year. As with other technological changes over the past decade, eMTBs show that we’re living in a time when a lot is changing very fast. Now, buoyed by their success, the outdoor industry is experimenting with what else it can motorize. Companies have recently released electronic touring skis, hiking pants with a powered exoskeleton, and an electronic tow rope for backcountry skiing. On a Reddit thread about the electronic skis, commenters dismissed them as “abominations” and said they would never be allowed on public lands where most backcountry skiers go. They could be right. But I remember similar conversations when we saw the first eMTBs too.
This piece first appeared in the summer 2025 print issue of Outside Magazine. Subscribe now for early access to our most captivating storytelling, stunning photography, and deeply reported features on the biggest issues facing the outdoor world.
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