When Tony Valente invited me over for a tour of recent cycling developments in the City of North Vancouver, he offered an irresistible inducement: an e-bike experience.
As someone who has never quite seen the need for one (or felt that it was a kind of cheating), I nonetheless anticipated that e-bikes were the wave of the future. In fact, I was surprised they hadn’t washed ashore sooner in a tsunami from some massive factory in Taiwan.
Well, the future is showing up – that wave is coming in on the North Shore. In particular, at Tony Sun’s Reckless outlet in The Shipyards.
Perhaps it’s is a confluence of factors: small powerful batteries, an aging demographic, falling prices, the need for pandemic-safe recreation, the cool factor.
Or even hormones. Once Tony took a few minutes to explain the basic mechanics, I was pressing the button to kick in the e-assist. It was like a hit of adrenaline, the bike felt almost alive, and out of my mouth came an unforced reaction.
Whee!
And what better place to take a test run than the North Shore. They have hills over there. Long ones, like East Keith Road:
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