Help Cycling Plus and B’Twin Get Britain Riding!

We know you love road cycling. That’s why you buy this magazine, spend as much time as you can on your bike and – when you’re not riding – spend a lot of time thinking and talking about cycling. We also reckon that you, like us, will have some good friends, work colleagues and family members that you’d love to join you for a ride. We’ve teamed up with B’Twin to help make that happen.

We want every Cycling Plus reader – the best advocates for road cycling out there – to persuade at least one other person to join them for a ride in 2017. Perhaps one of your drinking buddies has mentioned that they fancy getting back on a bike, or one of your colleagues has recently tapped you up for some advice on riding to work.

Perhaps you just want to help your partner understand why you spend so much money on cycling, or convince your dad that dressing up in really bright, tight fitting Lycra isn’t a strange thing for a grownup with a job and a mortgage to do. Whatever the reason, we want you to pick a ‘target’ and see if you can get them to ride with you.

Cycling Plus and B’Twin are here to help! Get in touch and tell us all about the person you’re nominating, explaining why you and (hopefully) they want to get on a bike. Send us the details and a picture and we’ll pick our favourites to join the B’Twin Get Britain Riding team. We’ll kit them out with all the equipment and knowledge they’ll need to become road cyclists and follow them (and you) as they begin what you already know is an incredible journey. If your nominee makes the team, you’ll receive a £500 voucher to spend with B’Twin and Decathlon.

So, phone a friend, explain that you want them to become a cyclist, and help Get Britain Riding!

To enter send your ‘Get Britain Riding’ nominations to cyclingplus@immediate.co.uk or post on our Facebook page

We end on a high, satisfied that we’ve sussed the whole e-bike thing

vista, or press on to revel in the speed.

By contrast, the Road-E+1 seems basic, its frame is more like that of a standard bike costing a grand or so. With big tyres and power on tap it doesn’t really matter. It may trundle rather than skim over ground, but a long wheelbase and good brakes give it an air of authority, a reassuring presence between your legs, as it were.

Before we know it, our ride is over, abbreviated by a prolonged attempt to unite an injured sheep with its owner, hindered by locals who ranged from the unhelpful to one possibly possessed individual. (“They eat their young you know,” quoth he, referring to his neighbours, probably.) We end on a high, however, satisfied that we’ve sussed the whole e-bike thing. We are fans.

Better together?

So, yes, an e-bike and an ordinary one can coexist, but the success of the relationship hinges largely on communication and a willingness to be flexible with one’s pace.

Heading up, the Road-E+1 doesn’t merely beat a self-propelled rider, it annihilates them, regardless of fitness. The disparity can be moderated by the exercise of restraint, and its degree is highly dependent on the gradient.

It might not be welcome on your local club ride, but it’s not difficult to imagine that the Road-E+1 might be a great asset to couples where one party cycles casually and the other identifies as a serious cyclist. It could also be a complete boon to a physically challenged rider who just wants to keep cycling. In their current, slightly hobbled incarnation, they are a bit of a niche, but still tremendously capable and, more to the point, a hell of a lot of fun.