SAM FLANAGAN
This month, Sam gets e-vangelical. More time on bikes is good, right?
E-bikes. Love them or hate them, they’re here to stay. From taking your 80-year-old granddad for a ride to strapping on a kids’ seat and scaring the new addition to the family, they have many a use. I’m a fresh convert, and can’t keep my grubby mitts off the thing.
Wise battery use requires you to still pedal hard on the uphills, but you reap the rewards of triple the downhills and much more riding time. With improvements in technology, there’ll soon be a day when huge e-assisted adventure rides will be possible and those old bikes that relied only on human power will be a thing of the past.
But if a ride is e-assisted, is it really a ride? Most definitely, yes! One week in and, after a selection of e-assisted and non e-assisted fun, I have, for the first time in a while, been struggling to drag my tired body out of bed in the morning. Early morning hill rides followed by evening mountain epics have been on the agenda for seven days and that feeling of being knackered but fitter has already started coursing through my veins. I’ve even done some late-night rides to the top of Helvellyn, followed by an e-bike drag-lift to work the next day.
More riding has to be a good thing, right? So long live the e-bike! Just remember to keep it charged, and forget the trusty old relic that is the human-powered pedal bike!