Our advocacy of electric bikes continues to cause controversy. Some readers have made the point that they never see electric bikes on the road, so why bother testing them? Had ‘A to B’ been around in 1903, we would certainly be trying the new steam and petroleum-powered automobiles. They’d be slow, unreliable and offer a limited range. No doubt we’d get letters telling us that they were elitist, expensive, never likely to replace the horse, etc, etc.
The petroleum automobile went on to be rather too successful, which is partly why we’re looking at alternative means of locomotion in 2003. It’s always hard to judge the future of transport, but we’re bound to see massive change in the next few years, and we’re convinced that electric bikes will have a serious role to play when the dust settles.
We may look back in a decade or so and laugh about the 8mph pedicabs with a range of 19 miles, but we will also be glad that we experimented with – and in a small way, helped to perfect – such pioneering machines. That’s why we will continue to feature electric bikes.
