I had read and heard a lot about MTB E-Bikes but some for and against them so after talking to JE James Cycles they were kind enough to give me one to try, test and review for several days so I jumped at the chance to really make my own mind up about them.

Before I picked up the bike I had a great chat with Jonathan and Geoff from JE James Cycles about E-Bikes talking about the concerns mountain bikers have with them and what they thought the positives were.
I must say they enlightened me to many positives I hadn’t thought about or maybe because I haven’t had any first hand experience.
For me the main positive they mentioned that stuck in my head was that most mountain bikers love the downhill aspect of riders but aren’t to keen on uphill or flats for that matter and if you go to a bike park where you go to just do the downhill sections but also have to do the uphill’s and loop etc. Not only do the flats and uphills become more enjoyable if not exciting and because the flats and uphills are noticeable quicker which means its takes less time to get to the top so therefore you get more downhill runs!

So after taking it for a ride on all terrain, uphills, downhills and flats I must admit I was sad to see it go!
It made the flats so much more enjoyable, you could have a nice bike ride and properly take in the scenery and the trail without having to push hard like usual. My normal average speed on flats is 14-16mph however with the E-Bike turned of and in action you can put in half the work and achieve 16mph which in my opinion is fantastic.
Then we have the uphills, they were actually quite exciting to go up at a higher speed, and by looking at the Strava timings I was achieving at least 7 seconds quicker which is A LOT!
And surprisingly something that I didn’t expect was to have quicker times on the downhills as well by 2 seconds which isn’t as impressive an improvement as uphill but in mountain biking 2 seconds as still impressive, I think this may have been because I was entering the downhill section at a quicker speed which obviously speeds up the whole run and was down to the E-Bike.

For me on an hour ride it using one of five bars of charge which I thought was impressive, but if you are going on a longer ride and want to be of the safe side you can buy an extra battery for the bike.

JE James Cycles have a impressive array of E-Bikes in an equally impressive presentation room to show them all off, to say they are passionate and know the ins and outs of E-Bikes is an understatement and you can really see they think E-Bikes are the future and it’s hard to disagree with them.
If you have any questions or queries they would gladly help you and provide answers, but I would recommend going and seeing their Rotherham shop (which you can see a picture of on the left second from the bottom) to see their E-Bike room in person.

(I did want to add my own video to show how the bike performed on the uphill and downhill sections but the camera slipped at the start of the ride making the footage useless unfortunately, I will be fixing this for the next bike review.)

Hopefully with the kind help of JE James Cycles again I will be taking another E-Bike to test and review while at MTB Meetup on some proper trails!

You can see and purchase the FOCUS E-Bike from JE James Cycles here

Follow JE James Cycles on social media here:
Instagram: @JEJamesCycles
Twitter: @JEJamesCycles
Facebook: /JEJamesCycles
YouTube: JE James Cycles

Follow Focus Bikes on social media here:
Instagram: @FocusBikes
Twitter: @FOCUS_Bikes
Facebook: /FocusBikesUnitedKingdom
YouTube: RideFOCUS