The Fountain of Youth

I brought my new e-Bike on today's ride, and a number of people were interested in it.  I've been following the development of these bikes for about a decade, from the fairly home-made devices of the early years, to the very powerful and practical machine that I rented in Switzerland at Christmas time.

In many European countries e-Bikes now make up the majority of bike sales, this being particularly the case where there is a culture of utility cycling.  Good though these are, they weren't what I was after.  I was quite taken by a couple of bikes that I saw in Dieppe the year before last.  These were normal, good quality tourers, that the owner had converted to use a small, very unobtrusive, hub motor.  I asked him how it worked, and he told me that the motor, which was Chinese, was programmed via an App to perform in a particular way, and the battery was in the bottle cage.  There were no motor controls beyond this; you simply pedalled away with a bit of a tail-wind.  Their creator told me that they would do about 100kms, which was plenty for him.

So Orbea's e-road bike was interesting to me.  It was first sold in 2017, with a small motor and battery, and an aluminium frame.  The philosophy was 'just enough', and it seems to have struck a chord.  This year Bianchi, Colnago, Wilier, Look and Pinarello (at least) do bikes of this type, and Ribble up in Preston do one, too.  The pitch is the same for all of them -  a grey haired bloke (it's always a bloke), with a bit of a tan and in reasonable shape, is blasting the bike up an Alp, improbably fast ...

Benefitting from a generous present, I now have this year's Orbea Gain.  Carbon, Ultegra, Mavic wheels and an Ebikemotion X35 motor system.  It weighs 11.3 kilos, improbably light for an e-Bike and lighter than the majority of the bikes in the bike-park  at Elleray Hall this morning.  So, if the battery should run out, it would be perfectly feasible to ride it as a normal bike.

You need to look pretty closely to see that it's an e-Bike.

On today's ride to lunch, pretty flat, it rolled along with the peloton and used almost no battery at all - I had 85% left after 35 miles of riding.  After lunch, I left the group and took a run through the hills.  My general plan had been to ride it until the battery ran out, but that didn't happen.  I finished at 54 miles with 65% battery remaining.

The system is set to augment my efforts by 40%.  It does this very smoothly, and as UK regulations require, assistance ceases at 15.5 mph.  This works fine for me, though much greater power assistance is available, with consequently shorter battery life.  On the rolling run out to lunch, going at 18-20mph, the motor was simply off.  However, when you get to a small hill and drop below 15.5mph, it smoothly begins to help you, so your pace is increased.  For a big hill, you can work as hard as you like, and the motor politely helps you out.

My stats today, on a mixed route, were comparable with my performance of a decade ago.  More than that, I had a great ride - it's a very nice bike to ride.

So, there we are, first impressions.  I'll follow up at the end of the season, with some more miles on the clock.

And, as Keith Richards said, 'Do I look like I've been to the Fountain of Youth?'

Mark