How To Travel With Your E-bike

Lots of mountain bikers have discovered how an eMTB can make their riding a lot more enjoyable. What’s not to like about fitting more trails into a limited window of time? The variety of eMTBs has really expanded in the past four years, with a broad mix of travel types, system outputs and bike weights. There would be no argument that Europe is the heartland of e-bikes, from town bikes through to big E-Enduro bikes. And travelling through Europe for bike holidays with your e-bike is likely as simple as booking your train ticket and parking your bike in the bike carriage – with its bike reservation of course.

Here in Australia we have longer distances, more archaic long-distance train options, and a reliance on air travel. You cannot take full size e-bike batteries on planes – however that doesn’t mean you cannot travel with your eMTB. Here are a few tips if you’re planning a visit to one of Australia’s many epic mountain bike destinations with your eMTB.

FLY AWAY TO THE TRAILS 

If you need to fly to get to your mountain bike trail trip, you have two key considerations. Firstly, your battery. Second – weight.

Send your battery to you

While you can’t fly with your battery, if you have a removable battery you can opt to send it ahead. This will need to be done via a courier service for road freight. Check in with what is required for safe transport – and make sure you have somewhere to send it to. This will likely need to be a commercial address, with someone to sign for it. A local bike shop or accommodation provider is a good fit.

Anecdotally, some people have had luck posting their eMTB batteries with AusPost. However AusPost do list a 100Wh limit for Lithium Ion batteries on their website.

Hire a battery

Another option is booking a battery on location. There are a few things to consider though, like the brand of system you have, and the specific model battery that your bike uses. Look up the battery model by searching for your bike brand, model and year online. Better yet – whip your battery out to read it off the unit.

Hire batteries are a growing service, but somewhere like Derby, Tasmania, will have a lot of riders covered. Evolution Bikes has Bosch 625Wh and 700Wh batteries for hire from $59 per day, and also have three different sizes of Shimano batteries for hire as well for the same price. They’re hoping to have TQ batteries available in the near future as well. Just up the road, Vertigo have batteries for the Specialized Levo Gen 2 and 3, from $95 per day, with bundle pricing for longer hires.

It would pay to call ahead to a destination you would like to visit – after contacting a few stores that do bike hire in other locations, I was assured it was something they would happily look into.

Take a Range Extender

You will need to fall under the Lithium Ion battery restrictions, so that means a maximum of 160Wh. Trek’s TQ range extender for their Fuel Exe is an option, as is the SL range extender from Specialized for their SL model bikes. Obviously you will have a reduced range, but you will have something. 

Pack smart

You do still need to consider the total luggage weight for your bike. Despite taking the battery out, most eMTBs are heavier. Batteries tend to weight between 2-4kg depending on your eMTB system and battery size. So if you take a 4kg battery out of a 25kg eMTB you still have a heavy bike to transport. A sturdy cardboard box may be your lightest option for packing, and you can keep the rear wheel on your bike. But you may need a van, SUV or station wagon to get to and from the airport.

Alternatively, use a proper bike bag and just book accordingly for your travel. Virgin do have 23kg luggage limits, but for Jetstar you just pay for your weight plus the bike surcharge. Qantas Silver Frequent Flyers and above have a 32kg per item luggage limit, which may really help.

DRIVING TO THE TRAILS 

Easy, right? Load up the car and go. Whether this is a trip that takes half a day, or a couple of days and a ferry trip, you’d be smart to think about the total weight on your vehicle and the battery health when on the road.

If you’re yet to buy a bike rack, double check what weight bikes it is rated for. You’ll want to check both the per bike weight and total. A number of roof rack systems won’t support the weight of an eMTB, or for multiple eMTBs. Robust tray style racks will cover the weight, but some we have tested have a 16kg capacity per bike. For many, a vertical bike rack is the answer. When we tested nine vertical bike racks we found the per bike weights ranged from 16-35kg. That is a big difference. 

If you’re travelling with a few fellow eMTBers don’t neglect to check the total download limit on your vehicle as well. Typically it is 10% of the towing capacity, but check your manual or online. A number of 5 or 6 bike racks will be overweight if every bike is a 25kg eMTB. There is an easy solution here that makes sense for longer trips.

If your bike allows it, remove your battery from your bike. Not only will this reduce the weight of your bike by 2-4kg per bike, you have the opportunity to look after it better in a potentially more stable environment inside your car – as long as you’re in it. Otherwise, your battery is a bit like a pet left inside a hot parked car. It will die – not right away, but prolonged exposure to high temperatures is not good for your eMTB battery. By thinking about how you transport and store your battery, you’ll prolong its life to make sure it serves you well into the future.

So double check the limits of your bike rack and tow bar – and think ahead about the health of your battery, so you have it for the long haul.

E-BIKES ON AN EV

We love how sustainable using a two-wheel EV with a four-wheel EV is – especially if you’re using solar power and an inverter at home! With some great new EV models coming out, and some generous rebates from state governments, it is a great time to be part of the change. However, many of the current electric vehicles do have some limits around either fitting a rack, or the capacity.

For example, a small SUV EV may have a download a towing limit of 750kg, which may give a download limit of 75kg. This will be dependant on the tow bar fitted, so it pays to check the details if you’re looking at an EV. On many of the newer models coming out, they will be able to take a tray type rack that is strong enough to carry two eMTBs. But until larger capacity electric vehicles arrive in Australia, it won’t be possible to load up a vertical bike rack with eMTBs to head to the trails.

DON’T FORGET THE ESSENTIALS

This one might seem obvious – but don’t forget to pack your charger. While a phone charger is easy to pick up just about anywhere, that is not the same for an e-bike charger. Keep it on hand when packing, otherwise your riding may be cut a bit short!

HIRE A BIKE 

It might seem like a simple solution – and it is. Ten years ago getting a good quality hire bike was difficult. With the boom in mountain bike trail builds around the country, the visitation to trail destinations has supported full-time bike shops with large hire fleets. We have often said that the hardest thing about travelling with a bike, is travelling with a bike. So you could drop in to Evolution Bikes at Blue Derby to hire a Trek Rail, hire a Mondraker Crafty at Hidden Vale Adventure Park, or hire a Focus eMTB from Bright Electric Bikes, or a Trek from Cyclepath Bright for your visit to Mystic Bike Park.

There are lots of options around travelling with your eMTB – with a little bit of planning you can take your new ride on your mountain bike trip. But with how eMTBs are being adopted by bike shops around the country, it may just be easier to grab one when you get there.