A Love Affair With My New Electric Bike…

I have just bought an electric bike, and I am utterly in love…  Actually, to be accurate, I bought a new bike and had it retrofitted to be electric (a cost of $800 installed).   

Living in Bondi, it’s completely inconceivable that I would ever be a cyclist with my level of fitness, but the electric bike has completely transformed that for me.  It’s now doing wonders for my fitness, as I’m pedaling the majority of the time, and then just applying the throttle when going up a hill.. so I am now able to travel great distances by bicycle, and arrive at my destination not drenched in a pool of sweat and exhaustion! 

I’m now discovering all the different routes around Sydney and am so enjoying that I can combine road, parks & cycleways.  I can now pop down to the beach on a sunny weekend at midday without getting stuck in heavy traffic, and losing hours of my life trying to find a park… priceless!

I chose to retrofit a bike so that I could get the bike I wanted.  I have a ladies frame mountain bike with 21 gears, and suspension.  The battery is held by a metal bracket over the back wheel; a motor installed in the front wheel hub, and a thumb driven throttle sits on the handlebar. 

I began by renting an electric bike for a week to see how it went and how I coped with riding on Sydney’s roads.  As I’d not ridden on a bicycle for many years I signed up to the City of Sydney’s free Confidence Course.  It was a few hours, and we were taken out on the roads in a group and practiced intersections of differing degrees of difficultness.  It was fantastic, and I rode away feeling genuinely confident on the roads.  I highly recommend this to anyone feeling nervous about cycling in Sydney.  Now I’m thinking I’ll use my bike to commute to work from Bondi to St Leonards..!

I highly recommend having a go on an electric bike, and discovering the fun and magic for yourselves. I rented one for 1 week from Electric Velocity on Regent St for $85, and ended up getting a standard push-bike retrofitted by Sydney Electric Bikes in Pyrmont who were fantastic.  

Do it.. You won’t regret it!

Written by Chloe Evans.

If you have an everyday sustainable story to tell, email 400 words and a photo to info@reduceyourfootprint.com.au - receive a solar battery charger for every story published.