Marketing is often just about finding a way of cutting through the noise-noise-noise to tell folks that you have the thing they’re already seeking. You make item X, at a quality level acceptable to them, in an appealing enough aesthetic, for just a little bit more than the maximum that they were willing to spend. 

But sometimes there’s a deeper psychology to it. We all think we’re smart enough to know that $19.99 is the same thing as $20.00, but study after study shows otherwise. Function over fashion has become its own aesthetic. And despite everything that’s ever been written, there’s a percentage, maybe a large percentage, maybe even a majority of riders whose main holdup, or aversion, when it comes to beyond-meat bikes is that they don’t look and sound like their meat-powered equivalent. They’re an obvious other. 

It’s down to this that the only BroPed currently on many a rider’s list is the Trek Fuel EXe (the ‘e’ is tiny). It is so quiet and so unassuming, that if you pass folks in the right gear, with the right body language only you will know that you’ve got an extra 50Nm of torque as Trek puts it “hiding in plain sight.” 

It’s worth talking about because with only an extra 3.9kg for the drive system – including the motor & battery – a well-heeled rider can pack 250-300 watts of extra juice at a minimal weight penalty that’s bound to shrink with future generations. For example, at $14,200 ($14,199.99 that is) the motor-and-pedal GX AXS Fuel EXe 9.8 weighs 40 lbs. The meat-powered Fuel EX 7 – a sweet all-around ride with an almost all Deore drivetrain and the classic XT rear-derailleur upgrade – logs in at $4400 ($4399.99, sorry) and weighs 35 lbs. 

A big part of the EXe’s meat-bike aesthetic is that bikes are usually viewed and photographed from the drive side, and the inline harmonic pin-ring drive transmission is so small that it’s hidden behind the 32t chainring. But a bigger feature in the aesthetic acceptance is just how normal the massive 360 Wh battery housing looks now that we’re all used to bikes – carbon and aluminum – with downtube storage. 

Now, it’s not my intention to present this as a positive or negative development. It just is, as they say. It is an engineered shift in aesthetic acceptance that has gone relatively undocumented. It is, along with the near-hidden integration of controls and quieter drive systems, rolling down a path where increasingly the choice to ride a meat-powered mountain bike comes down to taste or treasure, and in North Vancouver that will make it mainly a taste factor. 

I’m taking it on as a fresh motivation to celebrate folks choosing to pedal themselves. I’m paid up for another year of MEATengines and excited to celebrate what’s beautiful and empowering about the self-driven mountain bicycle. Even if increasingly it doesn’t come down to an aesthetic choice.