Bentonville, Arkansas is quickly establishing it self not just a hub for cycling, especially mountain biking, but as a community centered around an outdoor recreation economy. Bentonville embraces biking and is building an economy around it. (Northwest Arkansas was even giving people free bikes and $10,000 to move here in order to grow the community.) So what’s hot in the e-bike shop here? To find out we talked to Shawna Macan, general manager at Mojo Cycling, one of the go-to shops for sales, service, and rentals in this biking destination.
What’s hot for you in the shop right now?
The Orbea Rise. It’s the lightest e-bike on the market. And the Orbea reputation is strong with a lifetime warranty on their frames. And the bike is amazing. It fits from small to their extra large—it even fits people down to 5-foot, which is pretty rare for an e-bike. It’s an aluminum bike weighing around 42 pounds—and the carbon version gets down to 40 pounds—so any person can put it on their bike rack or get it over a tree that’s fallen across the trail. It just makes it a lot easier for a bike to be thrown around when it’s that light. and their carbon ones get down to about 40 pounds. And it has 140mm of travel, so you can pretty much ride it anywhere. It’s been an awesome bike for this area.
What e-bike trends do you see developing that you are excited about?
For this area, any mountain e-bike is very popular. We can’t get enough in our rental fleet. And it’s our best selling category right now—
especially because they’re allowed on all the trails here. People come in from all over and they want to see as much as possible. They want an e-bike to do that.
We even just picked up Mora, for kids e-bikes. We just put a 20-inch, a 24-inch, and a 26-inch into our rental fleet. People are coming in and asking for kids e-bikes because of course they want their kids to be able to keep up with them somewhat out on the trails. To see more people getting out and being active is pretty cool.
Are there any challenges in the shop that you are working to mitigate?
Making sure people are educated on safety and speed so that nobody’s getting in any trouble. The safety side of e-bikes is a big learning curve. With the constant vibrations from an e-bike, we need to make sure people are checking their bolts and their axles a little more often. Just because the bike’s more expensive doesn’t mean that it can withstand more abuse. That’s probably been the hardest thing for us to get through to some of our customers who ride the mountain bike trails often.
