Tuesday, April 16, 2024 Old Dogs Learning New Tricks

Ever since hearing about electric-assist bikes (hereafter referred to as “e-bikes”), I’ve wanted to try one. I still enjoy biking but pedaling uphill is a challenge, and not a fun one. My husband found a place where we could rent a couple e-bikes for an hour to see how we’d like them. We dropped in at the place, met the proprietor, a nice young man named Luke, and set up an appointment for later in the afternoon.

We showed up for our 2:00 appointment in a timely way. Luke was all ready for us, explained the machines, gave us water bottles and bike helmets and off we went. He had recommended that if we really wanted to test the bikes out, we should take the Mars Hill Trail. In retrospect, I’m honored and flattered that he looked at me and thought “Yes, she can definitely make it up that hill.” He was wrong, but bless the man.

There are 5 levels of assist that you get while you are peddling and then there’s also a throttle that will just move you along without peddling. In my mind, I figured that’s what you use when going uphill and the old legs just can’t do the work. There are also all the different gears that you’d expect on a bike and you can always choose a “0” level of assist for the easy parts. We started out with confidence – this is fun! But reality (for me) soon set in.

First of all the trail was a dirt trail, so that added a layer of difficulty all by itself. Secondly, even the more “level” parts of the trail were all going inexorably uphill and then we got the serious uphill part. Kris was ahead of me and I realized pretty soon that level 5 wasn’t going to cut it. I pressed the throttle and prepared to let the machine take me to the top. “Oh no you don’t,” the bike said to me. I got some exciting few moments of momentum and then the throttle feature petered out. I got off the bike and couldn’t figure out how to get started again – it’s a heavy bike and hard to keep balance while trying to start from a standstill on a steep incline. So I walked it up a bit until coming to a relatively level area. I realized belatedly that I had kept the bike in high gear instead of putting it in low gear on the uphill, so that was a problem too. I lowered the gear while we were standing there (Kris came back for me) and tried it again. Keep in mind that the exertion was already such that I was panting and gasping. Kris had to hold the bike steady for me so I could get a good start, but it was to no avail. There was just no way I was going to make it up that hill, level 5 assist/low gear notwithstanding.

We went back down and coming to the intersection where the steep uphill started, we decided to go the other way, which seemed fairly level. But it was really rocky and tough going. And then we came to another hill. I couldn’t face it and of course Kris couldn’t go on without me, so we headed back. It was all downhill, so I mostly just kept my hands on the brakes and tried to keep my balance.

We made our way back to the bike shop, having by now taken up our whole hour anyway. We both decided that we’d prefer riding on pavement to dirt trails. And I had learned that the throttle feature was a short burst feature, better employed on level ground than on a hill. Luke told us that there are bikes with bigger motors that can handle more uphill work. All in all, it was an excellent learning experience.

If you’ve used e-bikes, what did you think of them?

I’m throttling back on this post in the morning.