The Guardian asks "Pedal or throttle? The lure of the electric bike"

Category: A2B Launch | Source: The Guardian | Date: 28 May 2010

When this blog's Helen Piddtried out an electric bike, the Gocycle, almost a year ago, she did promise "a proper comparison of different models".

We might not have been fast but we've made it – over the past couple of weeks myself and two colleagues have been testing out three examples of that curious half-way point between the bicycle and the moped. You can hear more about the experience in the nextBike Podcast, out on Tuesday.

Below are some details about the three models, but firstly an observation as someone who had never previously tried out an electric bike: they really are great fun.

There's something deliciously indulgent about, for once, not standing up in the pedals to set off from traffic lights but simply twisting a throttle and gliding away. Travelling up hills, meanwhile, feels almost mystical.

Another immediate thought is that the electric habit soon becomes addictive. All three bikes are set up such that you can either have "pedal assistance", an extra electrical kick as you ride normally, or full on, twist throttle-provided, non-human power. Such was the novelty that within minutes I'd abandoned any thoughts of self-propulsion.

The other half-illicit thrill came while riding a test machine which looks, at first glance, like a slightly standard, if chunky, mountain bike, particularly as my legs covered the frame-mounted battery. It was huge fun to park myself at red lights amid a horde of Lycra-clad whippets and puzzle them by accelerating away in pole position, legs spinning to simulate riding while the traffic roar drowned out the milkfloat whine.

That artifice, incidentally, also brings a drawback: drivers and fellow cyclists alike tend to make a lot of visual assumptions about how fast you will travel on a bike and act accordingly. When you resemble a tortoise but speed like a hare you need to be on your guard.

So before we get into the details, the inevitable question: would I swap my traditional bike for one? No – I enjoycyclingtoo much, it keeps me fit, and I get slightly dizzy thinking how nice a real bike I could buy with the £1,500-plus price tag of a posh electric machine.

A better question is whether I can see why others might use them, and that's a definite yes. You might, say, have an injury, or want to build up your fitness gradually. You might even have a long, hilly commute and prefer not to arrive in the office freshly steam-bathed. Or you might just find them a whole lot of fun.

Ultramotor A2B Metro or as we testers (and, apparently, the people at Electric Bike Sales) call it, 'the Beast". This is, essentially, an electric moped with pedals and gears attached so the law still sees it as a bike. The throttle shoots you to 15mph and there is also a very tempting button marked "boost", officially to be used only when off road, which takes you to something past 20mph