You might be asking yourself what makes an electric bicycle, or eBike, so special compared to a standard bicycle. There are lots of reasons you might decide to invest in an electric bike. If you’re using your bike to commute to work over a distance, you’ll be expending a lot of energy and might feel the need to freshen up before starting work. This isn’t likely to happen if you ride an eBike.
If your fitness levels aren’t where you’d like them to be, if you’re getting a bit older and don’t have the same energy as you had a few years ago, or if you’d like to bring the kids to school (or the pooch to the dog park) in a trailer, an eBike might be just the thing for you.
Electric Bikes just make cycling easier. They’re not like motorbikes; you still must pedal all the time. They are legally bicycles when it comes to road traffic legislation, so not subject to road tax or insurance. The eBike will assist you as you pedal, so you don’t have to work as hard.
If you’re looking for a workout you can still have it, just reduce the level of assistance from the bicycle and pedal to your heart’s content. This will also extend your battery life. You can decide to increase the assistance on steep hills and reduce it when the road’s more level, as eBikes are infinitely adjustable to suit your needs.
Get advice from the experts in your bike shop when it comes to purchasing an eBike. The type you buy will depend on what you want to use it for. Consider the road surfaces you’ll be cycling on before you decide on a commuter bike or a hybrid-type bike with bigger tyres. Make sure you get the right size frame for your height. If you have mobility issues a step-through frame will help you mount and dismount safely.
With eBikes the adage, ‘You get what you pay for’ tends to be true. Low power drive units and smaller batteries might be fine if you’re cycling short distances on level ground. eBikes range varies from 30km to 120km, and the bigger the battery rating the longer the range. Bosch has a calculator you can use to see the range of an eBike you’re considering: https://www.bosch-ebike.com/en/service/range-assistant/. Replacing some of your car journeys with eBike journeys will reduce your fuel bills, make you fitter, and also help the environment, so all-in-all it’s a win-win situation!
Achill Bikes’ German and Netherland-manufactured eBikes all have high-power Bosch systems, so we can be confident that cyclists will get around the longest and hilliest routes on the island and back to base without running out of power. We must warn you, though, if you use full assistance/turbo mode for the whole day cycling on Achill, and take every spur and detour off-route, you might reduce the distance your battery will assist pedalling, and you may end up cycling without assistance for the last few kms!
