It's all downhill from here ...

On a recent holiday to Scotland I seemed to notice a lot more electric bikes than usual, now this may be because I work in an electric bike shop of course. On the drive up from Southampton there seemed to be many electric bikes on the back of camper vans and cars, usually in pairs. Generally out and about there were also quite a few to be seen, tied up outside shops and parks etc. This is probably expected as we do sell a lot of electric bikes to Scottish customers because it is a hilly place. Whilst stopped at the pretty town of Fort Augustus to watch the boats traverse the lock system I noticed a van belonging to a mountain bike adventure company. They offered tours of the local cycle trails by mountain bike and had the usual image of some steel eyed dude doing a mega drop on the side of the van. When the riders returned after their adventure I noticed they were all riding electric mountain bikes. I was a bit surprised at this as they were all young guys and obviously quite fit. So at some point the bike adventure company had decided to offer electric bikes over or as well as pedal powered bikes. I think this is a good idea, you can cater for less able riders but also it would enable better riders to push their own skills, perhaps tackle those inclines even they may have struggled on. Distance wise you can take the riders further and see more sites as you can cover the distances between places quicker. If we were staying round there I would have had a go as I have only used electric bikes on the road and never on serious trails but we were en-route to other parts of Scotland and were not staying in one place very long. On a previous trip to Scotland I did the world downhill championship course on the Nevis range on a standard mountain bike , I would love to try the same thing again on an electric bike. This is where the Gadget show tested a LifeCycle mountain sport bike and loved it , it's proper off road, not like trundling through the New Forest avoiding the ponies and nordic walkers.