{"id":63907,"date":"2024-06-07T15:14:20","date_gmt":"2024-06-07T13:14:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/cyclingplus\/?post_type=purple_issue&p=63907"},"modified":"2024-06-07T17:54:37","modified_gmt":"2024-06-07T15:54:37","slug":"opinion-watts-the-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/cyclingplus\/2024\/06\/07\/opinion-watts-the-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: Watt\u2019s the problem?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
OPINION: THE GOLDEN AGE OF CYCLING?<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n

Watt\u2019s the problem?<\/h2>\n\n

Laura wonders why some fellow cyclists are snooty about her beloved ebike <\/em><\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

We\u2019ve had some adventures, Lily the bicycle and I. She has, without fuss, carried me across rocky fields, through knee-deep puddles, and along countless mud paths. We have commuted hundreds of miles across London, freewheeled to the bike shop with a broken chain, scratched and chipped her paint and left her in places \u00a31,500 worth of bicycle probably shouldn\u2019t be left. We\u2019ve crossed the mighty Cairngorms together, scaled countless steep hills, and carried a shrub across Cornwall in her basket. It might then surprise you to learn Lily is a big, pink town bike, with a battery and a motor. And she weighs 25kg.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

I know what you\u2019re probably thinking, because it\u2019s almost a guaranteed refrain, every time I mention I own an ebike. \u2018But isn\u2019t that cheating?\u2019 people tend to cry. When I first took possession of Lily, I had never ridden an ebike before. She was a hire bike and the company who loaned her to people offered to loan her to me to experience e-assist for myself. I whooshed up the incline towards Southwark Bridge with a \u2018wheeee!\u2019. Hooked, after no time at all, I dreaded the day I\u2019d have to give her back. I was beguiled by her powers against even the fiercest of headwinds. I would smugly leave other riders in my wake at the traffic lights, because even if you\u2019re pretending not to race, such as when you\u2019re off to work, you\u2019re still kind of racing. My other bikes languished under the stairs. <\/p>\n\n

As luck would have it, she was nearing the end of her hire career, and I was offered the opportunity to keep her. As time went on, I got into a more sustainable rhythm with her, and started riding my regular bikes again. I\u2019d use them when I knew I could use the exercise and Lily when I didn\u2019t. She came into her own when I needed to get somewhere in smart clothes, heavy rain (donning otherwise sweat-inducing heavy-duty waterproofs), strong wind or over a longer distance than I\u2019d otherwise consider. Nowadays, we\u2019ve reached a happy equilibrium: some weeks we might travel 100km, but most weeks my other bikes cover that ground. <\/p>\n\n

I\u2019ve met some wonderful people cycling. One woman who uses the same bike lane as me, from Stratford all the way into central London, started out on an ebike, before she built up her fitness and got a vintage racer, sans assist. <\/p>\n\n

Another man had undergone bariatric surgery months earlier, before ditching his moped for an ebike. It not only helped him keep off the weight, but it gave him his fitness back. His ebike commute is something like 20 miles each way: when I peeled off the bike lane that day, he was only halfway home. Over the weeks and months, he gradually turned down the e-assist, as he became stronger. <\/p>\n\n

I\u2019ve seen older rural riders scaling hills they probably wouldn\u2019t have without the motor. I\u2019ve mooted ebikes to people who don\u2019t cycle yet but would like to, friends\u2019 parents with dodgy knees, someone suffering the effects of long Covid, friends in a hilly part of west Somerset, living a couple of miles from the nearest town. <\/p>\n\n

I cycled from Land\u2019s End to John O\u2019Groats over nine days on an eroad bike in 2019, after a sudden debilitating fear, four weeks from the event, that I wouldn\u2019t be strong enough to complete the distance unaided. It was an unforgettable experience, and one I still talk about, whether people want to hear it or not. Seeing the sun rise on the Forth Bridge, scaling the mighty Glenshee, making it across Cornwall\u2019s mean hills without crying, it was all thanks to the ebike. <\/p>\n\n

It\u2019s not just me: research has found ebike converts drive 21% less, and cycle 23-25% more than they did before \u2013 and half of drivers are open to replacing car trips with ebike trips. Regular e-cycling improves our health, even though it offers less intense exercise than regular cycling. I\u2019m not sure what it is about cycling that we believe needs to involve some kind of suffering, why it only counts if we do it entirely unaided, or why any attempt to make cycling easier, that doesn\u2019t involve pricey upgrades, is met with suspicion and disdain. We don\u2019t call someone a cheat if they drive somewhere. <\/p>\n\n

In more cycling-friendly countries, you don\u2019t hear \u2018ebikes are cheating\u2019; people recognise they are part of a smorgasbord of cycling possibilities. So I\u2019m using my column this week to entreat my fellow cyclists not to disdain the e-assist but to treat it with the deference it deserves. One day you too may enjoy a little boost on the hills.<\/p>\n\n

\n\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n
Laura Laker <\/strong>
Transport journalist<\/span><\/em><\/h5>\n\n

Each issue, with her ear to the world of UK cycling infrastructure, Laura reports on the setbacks our community faces \u2013 and how we\u2019re fighting back.<\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

Illustration <\/strong>Harry Tennant<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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