Last week 44|5 welcomed our semi-annual yoga retreat girl, Julia, and 10 of her blossoming yogis. When Julia comes to town she likes to add some cycling for her crew and this time she made everyone rent e-bikes – a good idea if you aren’t a cyclist and you want to climb some hills and see a bit of Provence.
I’m not a huge fan of these machines, but I do understand the attraction and am slowly coming over to ‘acceptance’ of having a motor on your bike (after all, the pros do it…).
And after 3 days of riding with these things I now have a new form of respect and can even see some hidden benefits for me; namely that e-bikes have some serious power, especially when going uphill. I had a hard time keeping up with Jay (front of the photo) on a 5% incline and he didn’t even have the turbo on. He motorpaced me up to the front group on that climb, which was a lot of fun for both of us I’m sure.
I’m still very wary about the skill-set of your average e-cyclist (which adds a lot of potential liability to our little company), but this gang was quite confident on the bike and nobody fell in a ditch like our last yoga retreat.
In other motorized-cycling news, did you see that crazy 80 km exhibition of brass balls that Froome exhibited in the Giro the other day? Just when I was becoming comfortable with disliking him again he goes ahead and pulls something like this.
The Vicious Cycle 
I am still trying to persuade Mrs T to get an e-bike so that she can pace me up any hills we might meet.
Like him or not, Chris Froome deserves great respect for not giving up after a tough first week on the Giro.
Once she gets a taste of that power I’m sure there’ll be no turning back.
Hi Gerry, it’s funny you bring this up. I stopped at a cafe while on a ride Friday and started chatting with three ‘lads’. All wearing their club kit and had been members for years. The one ‘lad’ was 82! Not sure if he was the oldest but they looked great and years younger. They were riding ebikes as it helps them get around around the hills around here. I’m all for ebikes if it helps them get out.
I watched that Froome 80km segment. Epic. I would like to think it’s clean.
Luc, there was a Pinarello in the window of Ventoux Bikes that looked nearly like a ‘normal’ bike, but it was assisted. In 30 years if I’m still standing I might be on something like that. Were these ‘lads’ on hybrid types or road bikes?
Squirrely ebike riders are no different than scooter riders with horrible skills. Or car drivers…or etc. It’s just an excuse by some of the luddite and archaic thinking crowd. ebikes have been around for a long long time in Europe and other parts of the world. us thinks this is something new… act like they have never heard or seen an ebike sometimes. Crazy. It’s like anything else, protest, accept, move forward. ebikes are the future, like it or not to those who are still moaning about it. Don’t even get me started on the strava whores..
😀