Bully's special prize.
- Thread starter Synthman
- Start date
From my recollections of Bulls Eye, the programme always seemed to end with a depressed looking coal miner from Barnsley eying the speed boat that he, "could have won" whilst simultaneously proclaiming that he'd had a lovely day.
It did look very much like that, but it didn't say Electrobike on the frame. Maybe they covered the name up.
Yes, I'd forgotten that the Electrobike name was added much later. I don't remember it even having a model name originally. There were minor variations in it over the years and amazingly it continued in production through into 2009, at a quarter century certainly the longest run of any production e-bike in history.
Someone who lives near to me owns one of these and I regularly see it around town. It climbs hills with impressive speed on throttle alone and seems to be on a par with modern bikes in terms of general performance. Perhaps no wonder it stayed in production for so long.
Yes. they were very capable, not very powerful but driving though the gears made them good on hills yet with the right gearing able to get well over 20 mph.
Interestingly it could be bought as a motor kit at one time, complete with a stirrup bracket that fitted over the down tube to clamp the motor in position, but the kit was discontinued several years ago. There was also an e-tricycle version.
TGA promoted it strongly in the early days before e-bikes became more popular, but failed to promote it in the last six years when the market did pick up and advertising would have paid off. Last price was about £1400, I don't remember the exact prices back in the 1980s but they were quite high against normal bike prices, so similar to today's e-bike market.
TGA are a mobility company but have removed all references to them ever producing the e-bike and don't appear to offer support.
Interestingly it could be bought as a motor kit at one time, complete with a stirrup bracket that fitted over the down tube to clamp the motor in position, but the kit was discontinued several years ago. There was also an e-tricycle version.
TGA promoted it strongly in the early days before e-bikes became more popular, but failed to promote it in the last six years when the market did pick up and advertising would have paid off. Last price was about £1400, I don't remember the exact prices back in the 1980s but they were quite high against normal bike prices, so similar to today's e-bike market.
TGA are a mobility company but have removed all references to them ever producing the e-bike and don't appear to offer support.
Yes, I've just looked at their website. They seem to have gone for the mobility scooter market and abandoned the bikes. Mobility scooters do seem to be getting ever more popular and the number of younger people using them seems to be increasing as well.
It's certainly a very big and increasing market, but frankly I find that depressing. It's very clear that many who use them can walk quite well but just don't want to get any exercise in that way. We have a disabled car park on a central street and a short distance away a multi-storey car park in which the council have a fleet of hire mobility scooters. People with disabled badges can regularly be seen parking in their dedicated car park and then walking across the road and onto the multi-storey where they then take a mobility scooter around town for their shopping. One twerp not finding what he wanted in town even decided to drive the hire mobility scooter to the out-of-town retail park and ran out of battery half way there!
Of course the consequence of all this exercise avoidance will eventually be a crippling cost to the NHS.
They are great for people who genuinely can't get around. I know several elderly people, two in their 90s, who are able to retain their independance, so they are marvellous for them.
However, I agree, it is a sad and depressing sight to see young people, who would more than likely benefit from the exercise of walking, riding around on these scooters. This tends to be a vicious circle, the more they ride, the fatter they get, the fatter they get, the more they ride. Eventually, they will morph into a butter ball on wheels.