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Chainsaws, chains, and comealongs. No, not the name of a beard-band from Durango, just some of the gear the Coastal Crew’s Dylan Dunkerton and Curtis Robinson hoof out into the woods in order to make that ol’ trail building magic happen. There’s other gear, too—hammers, nails, and shovels for example—but there’s one tool in particular that’s snuck up and taken them a bit by surprise with its power and downright killer capability. Hold onto your Ambush lids, kids—it’s an e-bike. Specifically, the Turbo Kenevo.
And before you say: “Guys, just ride a real bike,” consider this. To get to the chopper—the primo place where they need to dig, pull stumps, and hack logs in order to build a trail like the one in this video—they have to get all that gear out there. ALL that gear. On their backs, and trust us—it ain’t no itty-bitty bindle to carry.
“We basically turn the bike into a workhorse,” says Curtis, describing the task of getting all the tools of their very specific trade out there. Some context? “When we did MOTIVE [the film] we probably had, like, 100lbs… [maybe] 80lbs on our back,” he says. Eighty pounds! How would you feel about riding out in the woods with a dishwasher or a full-grown Labrador on your back?
“The reality," adds Dylan, “is you'd never ride your normal mountain bike out there with that, but now you’ve got that power, you can actually do it.”
“I think that's the thing with those bikes,” says Curtis. “Once you switch to hauling gear like that, you're just a mule. But it's crazy what you can do without any effort. You're basically just trying to keep your back straight with all the weight on it and the bike's doing all the work for you.”
"WE CAN'T REALLY GET OUT THERE AND DO THESE THINGS WITHOUT HUSTLING IN ALL THIS GEAR. YOU LITERALLY CAN'T DO IT, SO THE FACT THAT WE CAN DO IT WITH THESE BIKES IS THE ADVANTAGE."
CURTIS ROBINSON
The guys weren’t always e-believers—not in the very beginning. “I thought they were super silly,” says Curtis. “We were very skeptical in the beginning stages, simply because we hadn't tried one. We had no idea.” And now, Curtis, what do you think?
“It's such a smooth ride,” he says, “The bikes are so light now that when you unload it, you skip off things and it really tracks to the ground well. And that's what I noticed was pretty neat, because you're actually feeling like you're glued to the ground rather than sliding around. When you're going fast on slippery terrain where we are, it's easy to get out of control, where these bikes kind of don't.”
The guys weren’t always e-believers—not in the very beginning. “I thought they were super silly,” says Curtis. “We were very skeptical in the beginning stages, simply because we hadn't tried one. We had no idea.” And now, Curtis, what do you think?
“It's such a smooth ride,” he says, “The bikes are so light now that when you unload it, you skip off things and it really tracks to the ground well. And that's what I noticed was pretty neat, because you're actually feeling like you're glued to the ground rather than sliding around. When you're going fast on slippery terrain where we are, it's easy to get out of control, where these bikes kind of don't.”