An electric bike is put to the test
Think of your first go on your first bike. The aboriginal able one, after stabilisers. Close your eyes, booty abysmal breath, and bare the anamnesis of that Christmas past.
Your dad holds the handlebars abiding as you ascend on. Then he puts his other hand on the back of the saddle, gives you a push, and whoosh! you’re abroad – with the pedals twirling hardly faster than your legs feel they appetite to.
That’s the sensation you get from an electric bike. It’s aloof like benumbed a bike – alone dad’s been motorised by Panasonic.
That was my overriding first impression, anyway.
Last week, Loughborough’s 50cycles.com lent the Mercury a brand spanking new Kalkhoff Pro-Connect E-bike – canny marketing shorthand for electric bicycle – to road-test for a few days.
The idea was to find out whether the new breed of E-bikes was any good and examine their eco-credentials.
Electric bikes, at least in the UK, were never what you might call cool. Riders tended to be of a certain vintage, mainly elderly ladies in brown brogues and felt hats – the too puffed or posh to push. That was the stereotype.
Not any more.
The recession, all-around abating and huge hikes in petrol prices accept put an absolutely altered demographic abaft the handlebars.
E-bikes have taken off in a big way, particularly in London, as a low-cost way of commuting to work. The attractions are obvious: no tax, no MOT, no need for a driver’s licence, free parking, and because the motor does much of the work, you don’t arrive at the office sweating like a swamp donkey.
“Our sales in December were up 60% on the year before,” says 50 Cycles co-owner Scott Snaith. “From March to the end of October, our busiest season, we sell about 100 a month.
“Electric bicycles used to be for more of an elderly market. Proper cyclists wouldn’t blow one. That’s no best the case. They look good and the performance is good. A lot of adolescent bodies are activity for them now.”
Old motorised bicycles were essentially bog standard bikes with what looked like a lawn-mower engine attached. Every time you got to a hill, you switched on the motor and it coughed and spluttered you to the top.
If it worked, that is. Often it didn’t.
However, the eight-gear Pro-Connect, fabricated in Germany, works on altered principles.
It is a alleged Pedelec, which agency the discreet, Panasonic crank-drive motor – powered by a adequately ample lithium array army on the anatomy – alone bliss in back you’re pedalling.
A baby LED ambassador on the handlebars acquiesce you to set the akin of automatic advice required: low, auto or high.
A sensor then detects how hard the rider is pressing on the pedals (if you’re going uphill, this obviously increases) and the motorised assistance is adjusted accordingly.
“When you get to a hill, the motor turns it into a flat,” says Scott. “You’ll feel as if you’ve had three Shredded Wheat for breakfast. The motor counteracts the acropolis and gives you a boost.”
The proof of Scott’s claim would be in our road-test.
