My email inbox swings wildly like a pendulum from the sublime to the ridiculous, but a couple of months back I was asked to do something I was genuinely excited about. Not trialling chocolate, or receiving vodka, or chasing me for a deadline, or an accounting bill, which are all exciting in their own way, I received an email from Mercury asking if I would like to trial an e.bike. Not just one e.bike, but two. Would I like to have an e.bike mini gang for a week, and blog about it? Hell yes, I said.
I am not a cyclist by any means. There was a time in my former life as a young professional that I got quite amongst spin classes at the gym, and when I lived in Wellington I had a vintage silver Mamachari bike called Sylvia, which had a cute basket and would get me to work along the waterfront in about 7 minutes flat. Late last year on an overseas trip, I loved cycling around both London and Taipei on public transport bikes you could pick up and drop off from locations all over the cities, but that’s about the extent of it. When I was in Victoria’s High Country at the start of the year I cycled along the Bright Rail Trail on what was described to me as the ‘Mercedes Benz of e.bikes’. The guy hiring it to me explained that you cycle as normal, but it feels like someone is giving you a gentle push, like a help along.