I Bought the Ari Nebo Peak as an E-Bike Skeptic. Here’s What I’ve Experienced

I’m not the most experienced mountain biker in the world, but over the last year it has become one of those hobbies that I’ve found myself getting more and more invested in all the time. Most weeks, I try to hit my local trails two or three times, and while I’ve never owned some crazy high-end mountain bike before, I’ve always pushed myself to get a little better every time I ride.

My first ever “real” mountain bike was an Ozark Trail Slalom FS.2, which depending on who you ask in the mountain biking world, might not even be considered a real mountain bike. Either way, it got me on the trails and hooked on the sport which eventually led me down the rabbit hole of better bikes, better gear, and finding more and more excuses to go out and ride.

A few months ago, I wanted to upgrade bikes. I did a ton of research and was set on a few but with my searches I kept coming across e-bikes. I had a weird relationship with e-bikes and thought to myself that I would never get one. Or so I thought.

It was definitely an internal battle as an e-bike skeptic, especially because fitness is such a big part of why I enjoy mountain biking in the first place. I didn’t want to take something I loved because it was physically challenging and suddenly make it easy just because I could.

I finally caved, and what I’ve realized since buying it is that I was looking at e-bikes almost completely wrong.

After a couple of months and a ton of hard trail use and even a few crashes, here’s why I finally bought an e-bike, why I chose the Nebo Peak specifically, and why it changed the way I look at mountain biking all together.

Disclosure: Some of the links in this article may be affiliate links. If you purchase something through them, I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, everything featured on Overlandaholic is based on my own experience and opinions.

Ari Nebo Peak Review: The Short Version

I bought my Nebo Peak (The Comp v1.5 spec specifically) on June 17th 2026 and picked it up on June 24th and immediately took it out on the trails the next day. After a couple of months with the bike, my biggest takeaway is that it still feels like a mountain bike. It’s still pretty light, still takes effort to do climbs and technical trails, It just allows me to do a lot more of it.

I can still get a legitimate workout by keeping the assistance lower, but when my legs start turning to jello I can turn it up and keep riding instead of calling it a day. I honestly believe that extra trail time has helped me start progressing faster than my previous bike where now even after a few months I’m riding black trails around Bentonville, actual hitting jumps, and easily ride 15-20 plus miles a day much more regularly.

Don’t get me wrong, the bike is heavier than most professional analog bikes and having to remember to charge it is still a little weird, but neither of those things have bothered me nearly as much as I expected. For the kind of riding I do where I just want to hit technical slow trails and then go to fast downhills and racing friends over and over again on the Thunder Dome dual slalom trails in a single session, I would absolutely buy it again.

Why I Was Hesitant to Buy an Electric Mountain Bike

I have buddies who have been on the e-bike train for a while now, and pretty much ever since they bought theirs they’ve told me the same thing: once you get one, you’re going to love it.

They could ride 20 miles in the morning, go do something else for a while, and then turn around and ride another 20 later in the day. They were getting more laps, exploring more trails, and generally spending a lot more time on their bikes than I was able to.

Meanwhile, somewhere around 10 miles was a pretty solid day of riding for me. On a hard ride, that could be enough to completely wipe me out. Honestly, I was okay with that for a while because weirdly for me, being tired was a part of what I loved.

I’m pretty into fitness in general, and for mountain biking I had the same mindset. When I finished a ride, I wanted to feel like I had accomplished something and “earn the miles”.

In my head, going to an electric bike felt like it would take that away but in all honestly the more I rode, I actually realized that mindset was limiting me.

I wanted to become a better rider, and there is only so much improvement you can make without actually spending more time on the bike. I could watch videos about cornering, jumps, picking lines, or technical riding all day long, but at some point you just realize you need more repetitions on the trail.

My main problem was that my legs were usually done well before I was done wanting to ride. That became the first thing that really changed my whole perspective. I started thinking less about whether an e-bike would make riding easier and more about whether it would let me ride more.

Why I Chose the Nebo Peak

For a long time, whenever I pictured an electric bike, I pictured something heavy where you barely had to pedal to actually ride. An my point was proven when I test rode a full power bike one day. Don’t get me wrong, it was fun, but honestly it make biking feel soulless and it wasn’t what I really wanted.

Eventually I came across SL, or light-assist, models and that’s where the whole idea of e-bikes started to actually make sense for my use case. Instead of trying to be the most powerful, these bikes are designed to preserve more of the feeling and handling of a traditional mountain bike while still giving you enough assistance to stretch out a ride and take some of the punishment out of climbing.

I still wanted to work, I still wanted to finish rides tired, I just didn’t necessarily need every climb to completely tire out my legs to the point I couldn’t ride anymore or want to go back to the top of a downhill trail.

After quite a bit of research, facebook marketplace stalking, and looking at local shops, I found the Ari Nebo Peak.

There were a few things that drew me to Ari. Mainly, they just opened a shop in Bentonville where I could actually go ride and test the bikes in person and get service and assistance if I needed it. The bike itself wasn’t trying to be some massive full-power machine, but it also wants so minimal that the electric assistance felt pointless and like they were just trying to get more money out of a bike by adding a buzzword. Getting the chance to test ride one probably did more to change my opinion than all of the research and YouTube videos I watched.

The biggest thing that stood out was that it didn’t feel like I stopped riding the bike and suddenly just was being propelled along without any effort. I was still pedaling, still working, but could just decide how much of the effort I wanted to put in.

Assist Modes: River, Breeze, and Rocket

One of the biggest misconceptions I had before owning the bike was that using the motor was basically an always-on decision. In reality though, I’m constantly changing the amount of assistance depending on what I’m trying to get out of the ride.

The Nebo Peak has three main assistance modes: river, breeze, and rocket. There are days where I want the ride to lean more toward being a workout, so I’ll spend more time in river or breeze and make myself work on the climbs. Other times, I’m less interested in proving anything and more interested in just getting as many laps as I can, so I’ll bump it into rocket and get myself tons of laps and practice.

The coolest thing is that you can actually turn the motor “off” during the rides and since it’s so lightweight, it feels almost exactly like an analog bike.

If I’ve already spent a few hours on the bike and gotten plenty of climbing in, I don’t feel like I need to prove anything by destroying my legs on another return trail. I can put it in rocket and get myself back uphill.

What It Has Actually Changed About My Riding

The biggest change hasn’t just been more seat time it’s actually what those extra miles have allowed me to start doing.

I’m still very much progressing as a mountain biker, and for me the biggest thing I need is repetition. You can understand mechanics, watch videos, read guides, but at the end of the day there just isn’t a comparison between knowing what you’re supposed to do and actually getting comfortable doing it.

To put it simply, the Nebo Peak has simply just given me more chances to become comfortable and build confidence doing trails and obstacles that I would have never even attempted before.

Instead of getting one or two attempts at something before my legs are cooked, I can loop back around and try it again, and again, and again. I can hit a section, think about what I did wrong, climb back up, and then give it another shot while the experience is still fresh and my legs aren’t screaming.

I’ve most noticeable seen my progression the most at Coler Mountain Bike Preserve in Bentonville where I’ve started actually completing black trails. I’ve been riding more technical trails like Copperhead Road and Here’s Johnny (although that’s still a very big work in progress, seriously how do people do the whole thing?). There are sections where I’m still figuring things out, still building confidence, and even occasionally taking a fall on a feature I got a little too confident with. But it’s all a part of the learning experience.

One of my new favorite things is hitting jumps on trails like Fire Line and Cease and Desist, which is something I really wanted to get better at but knew it was going to take building a lot of confidence and muscle memory.

The bike itself is obviously not making me a better rider, but it gives me more time to learn and the confidence to do so which is extremely valuable.

It Still Feels Like Mountain Biking

Another thing I worried about before buying or even testing one of the light assist e-MTB was whether I would constantly notice the extra weight and regret it. Thankfully, I really haven’t.

Yes, the Nebo Peak weights more than an analog mountain bike, but it doesn’t feel nearly as dramatic as I had built it up to be in my head. Once I’m on the bike and actually on the trails, I don’t even think about the weight and only focus on how I’m tackling the next jump or tackling the trail. Which is honestly probably the biggest compliment I can give it.

Battery Life, Weight, and the Things I Had to Get Used To

Owning an e-bike does take some getting used to. For one, the little bit of extra weight is probably most noticeable when I’m loading and unloading it but it’s really not that bad. It has made me appreciate having a good bike rack more though. I carry mine on my Kuat Piston SR with the Hitch Adapter which has really made it so much easier to load and I don’t worry about it getting tossed around in the truck bed.

The other adjustment is probably more obvious: having to charge a mountain bike is still weird. I’ve spent most of my life thinking of bikes as just something you grab and go, so plugging one in still feels a little wrong and gives you something extra you have to worry about. Luckily, the battery life has been much better than I expected even with the smaller battery.

With the way I ride, I can usually get somewhere around three to six days out of a single charge, and those are generally longer days. I’m regularly doing around 10 miles easily and I’m not afraid to put it in the rocket assist mode when my legs start getting tired.

Obviously the battery range is going to depend on the type of riding your doing, the rider weight, climbing, temperature, and what assist mode you use so I wouldn’t treat my experience as some guaranteed number. For me personally though, charging hasn’t turned into a chore that I expected. Still weird, just not particularly inconvenient.

Finally, there’s also just simply more complexity than there is with a normal mountain bike. There’s a motor, battery, electronics, and your standard components that will require maintenance over time. Plus it makes me a little worried of leaving it out in the sun on hot days with the battery, but I think that’s just me worrying too much.

So far I haven’t had any issues with the Nebo Peak, but I still appreciate how simple an analog bike is.

So, Was the Ari Nebo Peak Worth It?

For me, absolutely. I don’t think that everyone needs an e-bike, and I definitely don’t think owning one somehow makes analog mountain bikes pointless.

If you love climbing completely under your own power, you’re already getting as much trail time as you want, and the idea of an electric bike doesn’t appeal to you, there’s really no reason to change anything.

But if you’re like I was and your biggest hesitation is than an e-bike will remove the workout, make mountain biking less rewarding, or leave you feeling like you didn’t “earn the ride” anymore, I think a lightweight e-MTB is worth actually testing before making up your mind.