- Mar 21, 2017

Electric Bikes - The future!

So I still have to explain to a lot of people in the day about E-Bikes. The common responses are:

-its cheating

-it can't be as good for you

-what's the point etc.

For one you always have to pedal them and also you can choose how much assistance they give you. Below is a recording of my heart rate for a typical hour and a bit ride keeping it in mainly tour or sport mode.

The only difference I find from a conventional mountain bike is I'm going faster. The flat or even slightly up hill areas which are normally boring going like 5 or 6mph you can now blast about at around 15mph. You can put stupidly grippy tyres that are usually only used by down hill riders because of their high drag and weight and not have to worry about it, instead just benefit from ridiculous amounts of grip they offer. Instead of going for a super light carbon frame with low drag stuff on it purely because you know its going to be a pig up the climbs otherwise, you can go for something more trail or downhill orientated and not have to worry about carrying the extra weight up the hills. You can ease back into it on a higher assist mode after a couple of weeks or a month off which would usually kill you again till you get back into it and still enjoy it.

They are perfect for the casual cyclists especially around hilly areas like West Yorkshire or for a good blast around trail centres where you can use that extra grip, suspension travel and even the extra weight really helps with stability and grip on the downhill sections. Since we started dealing with these bikes the only people that seem to diss them are the ones that haven't tried them, no nothing about them or those typical really stubborn British types. The amount of people converted after taking a demo out for the day or even just having a little ride in the car park says it all. They are tons of fun and you always get home wanting to go out again on it instead of wanting to pack it in because you exhaled your lungs and left them on a hill 3 miles back.

Want to have a go on one? Earnshaws is the perfect place to ask for advice and you can even have go on the Welsh Enduro winning E-bike for a day (see pictures below).