OPINION: How an eMTB Changed My Life

Words: Jordana Mullan | Chicks Who Ride Bikes

I crashed my bike three years ago. It wasn’t the first time, but it was significant enough to suffer a traumatic brain injury, requiring 6 months of intense rehab and a debilitating after-effect called dysautonomia. If you haven’t heard of it, I don’t blame you (neither had I), but in essence it’s a disorder of autonomic nervous system (ANS) function – which, in my case, affected my blood pressure, breathing, heart rate and temperature control. In short, I was unable to even stand up for more than 60 seconds, let alone walk around the block or ride my bike. 
 

Opinion: The Sustainability of E-Bike Batteries

I thought the life that I knew with riding bikes and hanging out with friends was over. Thankfully, two things happened which would change all of that. The magic of medication to stabilise heart rate and blood pressure, and more importantly, the discovery of e-bikes. 

Of course, I’d heard of eMTBs, but in the same way it’s easy to associate road bikes with MAMILS, I had eMTBs pegged for MAMILs who had somehow ventured off-road. One day, while FOMO-scrolling the Gravity Girls Adelaide Facebook group, I spotted an eMTB for sale. And a spark of hope was lit within me. I messaged the owner and popped over that afternoon to check it out.

She was a black Trek Powerfly, and she was beautiful. As soon as I took her for a test ride, I knew her 500Wh battery, Bosch motor and plus-sized tyres would change my life. Not only was I able to ride again, I was able to do riding I wasn’t able to do before. New level: unlocked.

I hadn’t ridden with my husband before – now I was able to (mostly) keep up. Or at least when he faded into the distance on the downhills, I was able to claw my way back to him on the climbs. 

I could tackle obstacles I wasn’t able to before – especially logs and steps on uphill climbs. Before the accident, I would need to hop off my bike and push/lift my bike over them. With the help of the pedal-assist, I was able generate the force needed to ride entire trails from start to finish – more smoothly than I ever had before. 

More than the technical aspects of riding, I was able to get my life back. I was arranging rides, being social and having more fun. A 60-minute ride no longer wrecked me so much that I had to doze the rest of the day to recover. I could say “yes” again to a beer after the ride, and not secretly be planning to cancel at the last minute.

Since buying the eMTB, I’ve come to love e-bikes so much that I’ve added a e-gravel bike to my stable (n+1 is alive and well). The Powerfly helped me to recapture my passion for mountain biking, singletrack and bombing down gravity trails, but the e-gravel bike opened up an opportunity to explore different trails and scenery with the same ease.

Without e-bikes, it could have easily been the brain injury that ‘changed my life’. And, as someone who has to take medication 5 times a day to control lifelong consequences of the brain injury, it has made an impact. But, however much my brain injury changed my life in the immediate aftermath, e-bikes have changed it back… and, dare I say it, maybe into something better?

With the Powerfly and the my e-gravel bike, every outing is an opportunity to head out on the bike and explore. And if that’s not life changing, I don’t know what is.