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Hmm. So. Here we are in the middle of all these cars with their V8s, brake horses, turbos and sub-ten-second 0-60s, and I’m going to extol the virtues of a bicycle with a 250W motor and a top speed of 15mph? Tricky. Except, of course, this is the future, writes Matt Rudd. This is 21st-century motoring genius. And while you all sit in traffic jams burning off your liquid gold — sorry, petrol — I will be scything past with a fat wallet and a smirk on my face.
The electric bicycle has arrived. Yes, I know it arrived years ago but that didn’t count. Old electric bikes were all a bit, well, electric bike-ish. The Gocycle was an iPod with wheels. Everything else was a Frankenstein cross between a cheap mountain bike with a battery strapped to the back and a slow moped with pedals.
Not any more. Leading bike manufacturers such as Giant and Trek are finally starting to do it properly. I have spent the week in the company of Giant’s Twist Esprit Power. It has no button paper-clipped to the handlebars. There is no awkward motorbike-style throttle. You just start to pedal a bit and the torque sensors kick-start the fully integrated motor. It’s silent, so it feels like magic. The first 100 yards down the street, I’m afraid to say I whooped like a small man in a big Aston Martin. Then I got my neighbour to have a go and he said it was just cheating.
It is cheating. Absolutely. But that’s just what you need when you have a remorseless hill on your daily commute . . . and you’re not getting any younger. There is an “eco” mode, which makes you pedal more, but on the first morning I left it in “sport” — which, ironically, is the mode you want if you’re not feeling sporty. You do 30% of the work; it does the remaining 70%. It is simply joyous to glide up hills you normally wobble or walk up. And if there’s a Lycra lout to breeze past near the top, so much the better. With these new, integrated, bike-style electric bikes, the lout doesn’t even know you’re cheating. It’s heartbreaking for him.
Of course, it would be too much to expect everything to be perfect. On the way home, my five-mile route includes a very, very big hill. And on that first day, I had two microwave meals and a bottle of Blue Nun in my backpack (it was Valentine’s Day). I tried to take the hill in top gear, the optimist’s approach to a serious gradient, but the 250W motor couldn’t cope. We (30% me, 70% bike) almost ran out of puff half way up. We dropped to 7mph, 6mph, 5mph. And the battery, which is supposed to be super-efficient, drained itself of power rapidly.
Distraught, I phoned the manufacturer and it emerged that I was doing it wrong. You’re supposed to tackle really big hills in really low gears. Then everything will be fine, albeit slow. It’s now day three and we’ve got used to the really big hill and we’ve broken seven Lycrists’ spirits.
The Twist’s battery plugs into a normal socket and takes three-and-a-bit hours to charge. I managed a rubbish 14 miles on the first charge but I’ll do 20-plus on the second. If I was more “eco”, I could stretch to 50. A battery lasts about 1,000 charges and costs about £450 (though prices are falling). On an average of 25 miles per charge, that’s 1.8p per mile. Plus a splash of electricity. Bargain.
So the only real drawback is the cost: £1,695 (though Giant has cheaper, less integrated versions from £995). It’s a lot less than anything with a V8 but it’s still a lot more than a bike that doesn’t cheat. This is because not enough of us are buying them. At the moment, it’s still just OAPs and alcoholics with confiscated licences. That will change, because, as I think I’ve mentioned, this is the future.
Although I’m only five days in. There will be rain. There might be snow. And at some point, I’ll run out of power at the bottom of that hill. I’ll come back to you in a month or two — and we’ll see if it’s still the future then.
Giant Bicycles | UK / Ireland
