Sterling McCord is well aware of the emotions that fester on both sides of the issue of electric mountain bikes and whether they should be allowed on certain trails.

“There’s some hardcore opinions, for sure,” says McCord, owner of Bend Electric Bikes.

As pedal-assist electric mountain bikes become increasingly popular, more owners of such bikes want to be allowed to ride them on Central Oregon singletrack. But according to the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, electric bikes are prohibited on trails designated for nonmotorized use, including the vast network west of Bend. Still, electric bikes may be used on the more than 8,000 miles of road and an additional 350 miles of trail on the Deschutes and Ochoco national forests and the Crooked River National Grassland, according to the Forest Service.

Although electric bikes are nothing new, the pedal assist allows riders motorized help without having to use a throttle — without even having to think about it. The bike seems to think for them. Once the rider is struggling up a hill, the electric assist offers some help.

The fundamental difference between pedal-assist electric bikes and those with a throttle is that the pedal-assist incorporates torque sensors to calculate when the rider needs some extra power.

McCord and others argue that because pedal-assist mountain bikes are relatively light and operate on just 250 watts, they should be allowed on all trails.

“There’s no 5,000 watts of berm-ripping power,” McCord says. “It’s such a different machine at 250 watts. It’s a true augmented human-electric hybrid, where you pedal and the motor engages, and you stop pedaling and the motor disengages.”

But many others consider mountain biking a human-powered experience, including the Central Oregon Trail Alliance, a volunteer organization whose stated mission is to “preserve and enhance mountain biking in Central Oregon.” COTA volunteers build and maintain much of the singletrack in the area.

Woody Keen, the trails program director for COTA and a retired professional trail contractor, says the topic of electric bikes (or e-bikes, as they are often called) on singletrack trails has become almost a daily conversation for him.

“The COTA perspective is that we fully support the U.S. Forest Service and BLM’s national policy, that e-bikes are defined as motorized vehicles,” Keen says. “We’re a mountain bike advocacy organization, and we define the mountain biking experience as a nonmotorized experience.”

Keen says people riding electric bikes have been seen on the Phil’s Trail network west of Bend and on U.S. Forest Service trails managed for nonmotorized use in Central Oregon.

“Have we seen a lot? No. But we definitely have seen them,” Keen says. “They can all go uphill faster than they could before. No one can argue that. People say, ‘Well, with the e-bike, Joe can keep up with us now.’ Well, maybe you’re looking at it wrong. Maybe you need to slow down for Joe.”

Pedal-assist mountain bikes — which feature a small motor on the bottom bracket — weigh 40 to 50 pounds, according to McCord, whereas regular mountain bikes typically weigh 25 to 35 pounds.

McCord adds that these electric pedal-assist mountain bikes have been popular for many years in Europe, but they arrived in this country only recently because manufacturers were unsure about the U.S. market for them. That has changed as Giant, Trek and other leading brands have seemed to find a growing niche of older riders who like the extra boost.

“You have these huge industrial players involved in trying to create a revenue stream for their companies,” McCord says. “Bosch, Yamaha … they make electric-assist kits for bikes that are streamlined and getting smaller and more effective, and they’re not slowing down with their products. They’re getting better every other year.”

One crucial problem McCord notes is that, in Oregon at least, there is still not a class system to distinguish among the different categories of electric bikes. In Europe, for example, pedal-assist electric bikes are considered Class I, meaning “the electric drive system on the e-bike can only be activated through a pedaling action and is limited to relatively low speeds,” according to electricbikereview.com. Classes II and III are electric bikes that have more power and reach higher speeds, which most agree have no place on singletrack.

“It’s just about having a clear definition of what an electric bike is,” McCord says. “The definition’s been confusing and kind of murky for a while, and it still is.”

But to Keen and COTA, it is quite simple — motorized is motorized. Even if pedal-assist e-bikes have only 250 watts and do not exceed 15 or 20 mph, they are still a motorized vehicle. Yes, they have a quiet, battery-powered motor, but it is still a motor.

“E-bike technology, just like computer technology, they just keep getting more and more powerful,” Keen says. “That will happen to e-bikes as well. People may buy a Class I bike today, but do we realistically think that people won’t tinker with that?”

McCord says he focuses on the positive with his electric mountain bike customers, giving them a map that shows many of the trails and roads on which their bikes are allowed. While nonmotorized singletrack is off-limits, there are still seemingly endless dirt/gravel roads and ATV trails in Central Oregon where electric bikes are legal.

“There’s lots of other trails and roads where you can ride them,” McCord says. “So that’s something that we like to focus on with our customers, instead of the negative.”

Keen notes that there are 10 times more dirt/gravel roads on the Deschutes National Forest than singletrack trails, giving electric mountain bikers plenty of areas to ride legally.

“If there were marked e-bike routes and loops (on those forest roads), then it seems like that need would be filled,” Keen says. “But it’s not up to COTA to produce that, because that’s not part of our mission.”

McCord says that the electric mountain biking community is “too broad of a coalition to be held down forever.”

One aspect of e-bikes that concerns Keen and other mountain bike advocates is the long history of mountain bikers lobbying for access to trails and approval to build new ones. Because it is hard for the layman to discern between a pedal-assist electric mountain bike and a conventional mountain bike, advocates are concerned the sport could get lumped into a motorized category.

“The arguments used against the mountain bike movement are that you move too fast and you get too far into the backcountry in too short of a period of time,” Keen explains. “And what does the e-bike do? It only accelerates that. Early on, land managers wanted to manage mountain bikes the same way they managed motorized vehicles. And we’re arguing 25 years ago to this day, that no, we’re not motorized, we’re human-powered. A lay person can’t tell the difference, and that complicates things.”

Keen says that the electric biking community could take a lesson from what mountain bikers have accomplished over the years.

“They need to do what the mountain bike community did 25 years ago,” he says. “They need to get organized, they need to work really hard, and they need to get approval to build the trails they want.”

— Reporter: 541-383-0318,

mmorical@bendbulletin.com