I done it. I done gone and got myself an ebike. That’s it in the header pic. Flash as, eh? Admittedly, purple wasn’t my first colour choice, but red was out of stock, and purple was my next preference. Red is a popular choice, it seems – purple not so much. In fact, it was the first purple ebike the bike-shop man had ordered for anyone. Not sure what to think about that. However, in hindsight, I’m pleased with it.

I also done gone and got exactly the type of ebike my bro said not to get. I haven’t told him yet, because he’s not only my bro, he’s the eldest sibling out of six of us, and still retains his entitlement to dish the shit. He doesn’t go unchallenged, that’s not our family’s style, but he doesn’t let a small thing like that stop him. That eldest sibling thing gets hard-wired.

Apparently, I should have bought a central drive ebike, and not a rear-drive one. The are various reasons and discussions on-going about this. The central-drive ebikes cost more, and are considered to perform better. The rear-drive ebikes cost less, and are considered more suitable for less robust work. I weighed up whether to potentially over-spend on a bike that I might not use a lot; or under-spend on a bike that I ended up using a lot, and eventually needed to upgrade. I went for the second option.

Whether or not I made the best choice, my new ebike is a real pleasure to ride. Having a bit more power than just pedal-power, is bliss. It’s great to have the means to do a considerable amount more cycling than my unfit 60-ish body would otherwise allow. Even though I don’t have to work as hard on it as I would an un-powered bike, I’m still doing some work – about as much as riding an unpowered bike without a head wind, I reckon. And also getting the benefits and wellbeing that comes from outdoor exercise. I’m lucky to live near the Avon/Ōtākaro River, which has miles of cycling and walking tracks alongside it, so I can stay off-road as much as I want.

Here’s where things start to get a bit lurid, so if you don’t want to read about ‘front bums’ and ‘back bums’, skip this paragraph. For women who might be considering getting a bike – any bike – this might be useful info to know. My understanding is that blokes don’t get a ‘front bum’ problem – they might have their own problems, which I have no idea about. Anyway, any woman who’s done any bike riding knows that there can be a bit of a bike-seat pressure issue on ‘front bums’, which can lead to the same kind of tenderness our ‘back bums’ get, when we’re not used to it. Now, listen up, ladies – I have found that tilting the bike seat upwards ever so slightly relieves this pressure. So much so, that I only have a ‘back bum’ tenderness issue, which I anticipate will gradually disappear as it gets more hardened. I suspect that by tilting the bike seat upwards slightly – and it really is a very slight tilt, otherwise you’ll slide backwards – it displaces the pressure more onto our ‘back bums’, which are better designed for such things.

Back to more mundane things, now. An ebike takes a wee bit of getting used to – like how to use the gears, when and how not to use the power, and interesting things like stopping and starting. I have felt decidedly klutzy over getting to grips with some of this. It annoys me because I am a coordinated person, and it’s just a bike forgodsake, so I expect that I should be able to get the hang of it without too much drama. To aid this, I’ve come up with a plan – you know how men (but #notallmen) have a teeny-weeny tiny tendency to think they’re hot shit at everything? Well – and this isn’t something that I will have said very often in my life – I have decided that I need to be a bit more like a man. As in, I will just go at it like a man does.

I’ll let you know how that goes.

The real sucky thing, though, is that the way I’m enjoying my ebike so far, there’s a possibility that I might prove my bro right. Like, I shoulda paid the extra and got a central-drive one. That’s going to suck big time in one way – but not in another. However, it’s early days yet, so I’ll cross that bridge if, and when, I come to it.

Oh, yeah …… a bridge was where another interesting thing happened, when I inadvertently powered on. Thank god for brakes, and the fact that I still have quick and grabby hands.