What is Riding an E-Bike Like? Its Like Being a Child again!

The most common term that we here at EB-UK use to describe what it is like riding an e-bike is that it is just the same as a normal bike, only a gentle hand is on your back at all times ready to help push you up those hills and along those long straights. But the other day I was out on my e-bike thinking about how it made me feel and something else came to mind.

Do you remember when you were just a child and enjoyed riding your bicycle with smiles from ear to ear? You would pedal without any challenge for hours, up hills, enjoying those downhills with wide smiles and maybe a few screams if a got a little bit too fast. As kids, riding was just fun and easy. Then as the years went on I rode less and less until one day I woke up and discovered that I was in my forties, overweight and not having cycled for over 20 years!

It was of course covid and the lockdowns that made me and so many others want to get out and about again. I had a yearning inside of me to just go for a bicycle ride and ride for miles and miles! But then self-doubt crept into my mind, was I too old, too fat and too afflicted with asthma to ever ride a bike again? Sadly living here in Wales there are big hills and many mountain climbs just about anywhere I go for a ride, it seemed as if my dreams of bike riding were truly over.

Then one day, while procrastinating on Youtube I can across a Youtube channel talking about e-bikes. Of course, I was wide-eyed again filled with dreams of going on a bike ride once again and lucky enough I live near an e-bike shop so I went for a test drive. I had a hundred questions for the poor person in the shop, but of course, he was not phased by anything I was telling him, he had heard it all a hundred times. “Just try one out!” he said as he dragged this HUGE thick-wheeled e-bike out into the carpark. While I was a little wobbly at first once I was pedalling and going under my own steam once again and going pretty fast I once again had that huge smile on my face like I was a child again.

People always ask, “What is riding an electric bike like?” Well, riding my e-bike feels like a motorcycle in many ways, or at least it feels like it. But it is actually better because you can actually ride anywhere you would normally ride a bicycle, but it’s so much more fun! Riding fast does not have to be all spandex and sweat. Riding an e-bike is like riding your bike with superpowers and feeling young again. That is what riding my e-bike makes me feel like and it forever changed my life for the better. I am fitter, more active and much better in terms of mental health than I had been for years before getting one. So, when someone asked me now “What is riding an e-bike like?” I tell them it is like being a child again and enjoying all the things I once did, only now as an adult I can enjoy them even more and explore even further.