And I didn't die!
Joking aside, was riding it quite a bit locally (very flat) through 2024 and early 2025 to help with my rehabilitation, but then got a new eMTB, got used to travelling to do any kind of ride again, and my regular MTB sat languishing in the garage once again... Until a friend, who still steadfastly refuses to embrace eMTB, got in touch recently and wanted to go for a catch up on some decent trails again, and so I topped the sealant up and gave it a once over and took it out again...
22 miles, 900m elevation later, I had fun, I'm still alive, and I'll definitely be keeping the bike a while longer anyway... The thing I will say is that looking at the stats (similar kind of distance, elevation etc. that I would do on eBike) is that my avg HR was only slightly higher (but also a bigger spread), time taken was probably only 30mins more (3 1/2 hours instead of 3) compared to how I'd normally ride my eMTB in Tour+ mode on those trails, but where on an eMTB I'd spend most of my time in zone2 and Garmin would be recommending 24hrs recovery time, I spent most of my time in zone3 on the regular bike, some time in zone4, dipped into zone5, but then also had to spend a bit of time stopped and recovering, so spent more time in zone1 (or below) than I would on eMTB too, and the suggest recovery time was nearly 4 days rather than just the one!!!
Subjectively, I still had plenty of fun, but I was a lot more cautious on the descents mostly because I wasn't as fresh so didn't have the headroom to attack them, more just make sure I got down them safely... The next 3 days I'll spend not riding as recovery would never have bothered me before, but the last few months in particular, I've got used to riding 3 or 4 times per week at times with an eBike, and wouldn't be able to ride like I did today more than once per week on a regular bike I know that from past experience...
The biggest difference in terms of ride feel was simply just having to push the pedals that much harder (something I've not forgotten to do, I do still ride road a bit too, just less used to it off road these days), but also the lighter weight making the bike that much more playful on the more flowing terrain again...
Anyway, totally unscientific exercise of course... Backs up my experience on how and why eBikes are actually a very good training tool (you spend a lot more time in zone2 on them typically) but also why they shouldn't be used exclusively as you will lose muscle mass/memory if you don't push weights or pedal harder at times yourself...
