Specialized’s new ‘Skeptical’ video shows the Coastal Crew shredding and whipping e-bikes down a gnarly forest track.

The mere mention of e-bikes is enough to start a conversation. Oh okay then, is enough to start an argument. Amongst cyclists there is already a fair degree of sectarianism regarding power-assist bicycles.

A lot of folk hate them. A lot of folk love them. Generally speaking though there’s a whole lot of folk who haven’t ridden one and arguably still don’t fully understand what an e-bike is – and, more importantly, what an e-bike isn’t.

The anti-e-bike brigade generally don’t trust er, anything or anyone really. Which is arguably a sensible and practical stance.

With power comes responsibility and maybe e-bikes are scratching the surface of an undercurrent feeling that mountain bikers don’t trust other mountain bikers to ‘behave’.

Anyhoo, we’ll not debate the subject here. We’ve already done features on the pros and cons of e-bikes already.

About this vid…

The video depicting riders as skilled and fit as the Coastal Crew using Specialized Levo e-bikes to ride technical singletrack at high velocity and with big amplitude almost appears to be a deliberate piece of polemic from Specialized. Something to push the envelope to get people talking.

Video description

Specialized: “What would you do with more power? Would you ride faraway trails, climb steeper mountains, go out longer? What about going bigger? Aboard the Turbo Levo, the Coastal Crew showed us that the only thing lacking in our pedal-assist mountain bike platform is your own imagination. Ride one and you’ll know what we’re talking about.”