Electric Bike for Christmas? Or a Blue Meanie?

So, how many people got an electric bike in their Christmas stocking I wonder - It would be an interesting exercise to compare the number of e-bikes given as gifts over the years as they are gaining in popularity but have never really been seen as Christmas gifts - traditionally sellers of e-bikes have quieter times in December, this is seen more as the territory of children's bikes.

Interestingly here at EBW all the Christmas bikes were purchased in pairs for couples as a gift to each other, and not as surprise gifts. I do think it is a rather nice gift as it should give years of enjoyable cycling to the recipient, compared to the gifts that end up on Ebay or, even worse, landfill. I always remember as a lad of 12 or so waiting excitedly for a new computer game at Christmas called Blue Meanies from Outer Space . It had been heavily advertised and on the TV ad looked absolutely amazing. So this game was to be the highlight of Christmas for me and I had even managed to get hold of a manual for the game which I read over and over again to ensure I was ready to play. I had the poster and all the playground chat was about Blue Meanies from Outer Space....

Well the big day came, I unwrapped the game at some ungodly hour and loaded the tape into my Vic 20. 10,15 minutes or so later the game loaded and it was with tingly anticipation that I plugged the joystick in and pressed play. Well I was dead instantly as I wasn't prepared for the alien onslaught that followed . I played again and was once more dead in the blink of an eye. Again and again and again I was failing to last more than a few seconds. There was no obvious technique - it was high speed random obliteration , virtually unplayable. The joystick was creaking and hot from the effort to play this joke of a game and so was I so I popped the tape out and threw it across the room in disgust. I look back now and can see this was a great example of style over substance - all the money went into advertising the game and not making it. It was a pile of cr*p rolled in glitter, from that day I call such things Blue Meanies; High expectation, poor experience - Electric bikes definitely don't fit into that category though - well our LifeCycle bikes certainly don't !

Happy new year ....