SWIFT ON MY E-BIKE
Comedian Guy Williams hosts NZ Today, available on ThreeNow catchup. He’s more keen on e-bikes than cars
What exactly are you driving?
Strap in petrolheads, and car . . . heads! If you wanna talk about wheels, you’ve come to the right place because I’ve got six. My day-to-day is a Specialized Vado SL e-bike. Wow, I can almost hear the anger through the page
. . . but that’s not all! For long range rides and casual Sunday drives I also have a 2017 Suzuki Swift, which I don’t even own.
Can you talk us through the thought process of buying an e-bike?
I had two goals: get fitter, and drive less. I hit both those birds with one stone, which is great, because we have too many birds these days, and it’s important to conserve stones!
They are both very sensible choices, but which is the most fun?
You can’t beat bombing down hills on the bike, it takes me back to being a kid. You have to remember I live in the city where there’s no open roads anyway . . . even if I owned a McLaren, I would rarely get to enjoy it much. And there’s no better feeling than biking past cars that are stuck in traffic.
Do you ride more aggressively than you drive, or other way around?
I’m much more careful on the bike, obviously. I don’t wanna die. Well one day I do, but not now, not riding a bike down Dominion Rd, that’s not how I want to go. It’s made me a better driver, which is not saying much because I’ve always been terrible.
How far would you realistically commute on the e-bike before you ditched it for the car?
I reckon if the commute was over 30 minutes I would look at getting a more powerful e-bike. You gotta see the e-bike track that runs next to the Western Motorway on a Monday morning. Old ladies are smashing it at like 50km/h! The fastest I’ve ever ridden to work was following an old man on a powerful e-bike, it was genuinely a rush and a big effort to keep up with him.
The Swift isn’t technically yours, so how often do you get to drive it? Are there arguments?
The advantage of living in the city is you don’t have to get in the car much. Brag! The only time I really need a car is for groceries, and to play basketball on the Shore. We rarely need to drive; it’s very easy.
A manual Swift Sport in yellow with a black roof and the full decal set: that’s got to be better, right?
Why would I want to attract more attention to the Swift! Although there are so many Swifts in NZ now it would be nice to be able to find it in a carpark more easily.
What do you always have in the car?
Supermarket bags? What am I supposed to have? Do I need more stuff in there? A tool kit? A Suzuki Swift never breaks down! If it did I would just do what anyone else would do in that situation and remove all the identification tags, before dousing it in petrol and setting it on fire next to the motorway.
What would your ideal twovehicle (they don’t have to be cars) garage be?
I would kill for an EV! My dream car would probably be a vintage car, old American or Australian muscle car with an electric motor in it. Is that sacrilege? I also really want a boat with built-on legs and wheels; can you drive that down the motorway? My house is 20 minutes from the ramp . . . probably 40 minutes in that thing.
You’ve obviously got the plugin e-thing down with the bike. Tell us more about your love for EV cars?
I think electric cars are the future and it’s ridiculous to me that petrol cars are still even being produced. I don’t think they should be banned, and if you’ve got an old car that you cherish and drive on weekends, that’s fine . . . but 98 per cent of cars on the road these days are so hilariously ugly that they don’t deserve to be burning a resource as precious as petrol. If you’re so rich and can afford a car as ugly as a Porsche Cayenne you’re a disgrace and the least you can do is have the decency to put an electric motor in it. (Editor’s note: Porsche does actually make an electric Cayenne SUV. But anyway . . . )
What do you think about driverless cars?
I’m glad they’re using Americans as guinea pigs and not us! I guess it’s more worrying for pedestrians than anyone else.
I feel worried about all our truck and Uber drivers, their jobs will be on the line. Then again I work in television, so maybe they’re worried about me! When will AI be able to write better jokes than me? Probably already can, and that is a true sign of the end of humanity.