How Electric Mountain Bikes Changed My Life

E-MTBs Improved My Marriage
E-MTBs Restored My Youthful Fitness
We Moved To The MTB Capital of the World

Roughly one year ago, we invested in our first Electric Mountain Bikes [E-MTB]. My concord grape-colored life-changer was a second-hand Specialized Turbo Levo SL Comp Carbon. Lucky for me, a friend had purchased the bike for his wife who soon after became pregnant with their second child. The time simply wasn’t there for her to take advantage of the bike, and they generously allowed me to test it out for a week before taking it off their hands.

We’ve had mountain bikes before. Our semi-hodgepodged setups were better than basic, but certainly not ideal. For example, we didn’t have personalized suspension or dropper posts, either of which would have been a game-changer. Needless to say, all aspects of mountain biking were…uncomfortable.

E-MTBs Improved My Marriage

It didn’t take long for my husband to invest in his own E-MTB – a Specialized Turbo Kenevo – and soon, we were going on adventure rides nearly every day. This is the first of many ways E-MTBs changed my life. My husband and I are spending more quality time together doing something we both enjoy.

Before you Google it, E-MTBs are expensive. As the saying goes, “Don’t ride one unless you’re ready to buy one.” I often compare the E-MTB investment to what I’ve heard of childbirth; it’s painful in the moment, but as soon as it’s over, you’re so overcome with joy you forget about the painful part.

E-MTBs Restored My Youthful Fitness

We had always been active people, but nothing restored our youthful fitness like regular adventure rides on our e-bikes. In fact, I feel more confident about my figure today than I did as a competitive dancer; this is the second major way electric mountain bikes changed my life. Now, once you’re “in” the MTB community, you’ll hear a lot of playful heckling between analog and e-bikers. Skeptics like to say the E stands for cheating, but in reality, having the boost has less to do with effort and more to do with range or versatility.

Being able to travel further and climb faster means getting more out of every ride. Specialized describes the E-MTB as, “an amplification of your efforts.” Think of it like a gymnast performing a floor exercise; the spring floor allows the athlete’s stunts to be more complex because it gives them more airtime, but the spring floor can’t do the stunts for them.

Northwest Arkansas, The MTB Capital of the World

Once you’ve dipped your toe in the MTB waters, you’ll quickly learn about Bentonville, Arkansas. Bentonville is part of a cluster of towns called Northwest Arkansas [NWA], also called the MTB capital of the world. Throughout the year, bikers of all styles and skill levels flock to the Bentonville area to enjoy hundreds of miles of professionally curated and maintained bike trails. These trails are perfectly woven throughout NWA neighborhoods and urban centers like a kind of hybrid system that embraces ambitious entrepreneurs, interactive families, art enthusiasts, and nomadic doggo-parents alike.

We first visited Bentonville during the winter after Nebraska trails had frozen. There was no intent to move to NWA, but exactly five months after our first visit, we were unpacking boxes in our first home just 10 miles from Bentonville’s Town Square. Our E-MTB brought us here, but the community sucked us in for good.

Electric Mountain Bikes Changed My Life

Ultimately, what started as something to do together has flourished into something much bigger. My marriage is stronger, my fitness and body confidence has improved, and we’re waking up each day in one of the most special places I’ve ever experienced (more on that in posts to come). Electric mountain bikes changed my life.