Bosch’s video makes a case for eMTBs with one simple but effective utility: increased terrain access.
“Ride – Explore – Respect” isn’t only about opening new trails and introducing cyclists farther into the backcountry. It’s also about critically examining the effect of human presence in nature.
In the film, Jerome Clementz, Pauline Dieffenthaler, and friends hunt remote singletrack and panoramas in the French Alps through an e-bike lens. “Ride – Explore – Respect” showcases the adventure element of eMTB in a short film that’s part stoke vid, part alpine soliloquy, and part lesson on trail impact.
However you feel about whether electric bikes belong in the backcountry, it’s increasingly hard to detract from the brilliant locations the group finds. Queyras, France local Cyril Ac’h said he waited 15 years to access one remote ridgeline after moving to the region to ride it.
“A favorite moment, a crush of the trip,” he said (auto-translated) in the film. “The first ridgeline that we have done the first day. A secret spot … that I will never reveal!”
The film pops with bright-yellow alpine forest against pale-blue autumn skies. Comradely merriment and imbibing at mountain huts often follows.
But it’s not all fun and games — the film breaks down into three segments, and the third (“Respect”) focuses on stewardship. The group trades in pedals for tools for a day to do some trail work, cleaning up an area scarred by social trails.
Ac’h estimated the mountain pasture sees up to 500 hikers and mountain bikers a day in the high season.
“At the end of the summer, we have shortcuts, new paths, singletrack everywhere. There was only one, but today there are 10,” he explains. “We gather a small team; we help the community maintain the trails.”
Runtime: 14 minutes
