Downhill world champion Greg Herbold: A DH bike with the power of the motorised scythe
Henri Lesewitz
· 04.06.2023
EMTB: Greg, You were the first downhill world champion in history. Back then I still had a cantilever and aero outfit. How did you come up with the idea of building a motor into your bike?
Greg Herbold: The bike was created in the late 90s. I was in my experimental phase then, and as a test rider I needed long downhills. So I thought: why not make things a little easier for myself? That's how the Weed Wacker was born.
What's behind the name?
We say Weed Wacker here to a motorised scythe. I took the petrol drive from it and fitted it to the back of a Koga Miyata prototype that I was riding at the time. I thought the name suited the bike as a whole quite well.
How did the part work?
I was able to control the drive from the handlebars. You drove off with the engine raised and then let the drive roller whizz onto the rear wheel. The rotational movement of the rear wheel was transferred to the roller and started the engine like cranking a classic car. The harder you pressed the roller onto the rear wheel, the faster you travelled. Tyre wear was naturally high and you had to pedal on steep climbs.
Sounds like the thing wasn't very easy to use...
It wasn't actually that difficult. A thumb lever controlled the throttle, a shifter raised and lowered the drive to the rear wheel. I used Gripshift to control the normal gears.
And downhill?
The engine was easy to dismantle and went into the rucksack. But even if you simply tipped out the petrol, you always ended up smelling like an old oil drum.
So why all the effort?
I needed a lot of vertical metres for training and as a product tester. Back then, there were no lifts for bikes, no shuttles. That's why I had to come up with a different solution. Incidentally, you could adjust a lot of things on the Miyata. Bottom bracket height, kinematics - almost like a modern World Cup bike.
And today? Rather Weed Wacker or E-MTB?
Today I have about ten e-bikes. Maybe it was the Weed Wacker that got me interested in bikes with motors early on. Modern e-bikes may be ten kilos heavier, but they are also much more practical for everyday use than the Weed Wacker. But the bike was still a cool experiment at the time.
We found Greg's winning MTB from 1990 on Instagram at @vintagedownhill:
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