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Pedal-Assisted Pleasure…

Stepping outside my island hideout, I hoist the bamboo-stiffened tarp like a gaff-rigged mainsail and cleat it off to the side of the shed. In the soft interior light, the bike’s clear plastic fairing throws off reflections with the promise of motorized adventure only two wheels can offer. 

The machine waits, eager and enticing, as I pull on helmet, goggles and gloves and zip my armored jacket to the chin. The charger’s pulsing green light says, “Go!” 

Unplugging the BikeE, I wheel it out under last winter’s ravaged apple tree, swing my leg over its low-slanting frame, and settle back in the semi-reclining seat with a sigh of coming home. A quick brake check and final adjustment of the handlebar mirror gives me a moment to focus and quiet the adrenaline surging through me like the voltage I’m about to feed my pony. 

Reaching down, I punch the big red button on the heavy duty controller bolted to the side of the bike’s box frame. A red glow reflecting on my glove is the only indication that we have ignition. 

I touch the thumb throttle and any doubt disappears in a surge of torque. 

As Honda Chairman Takeo Fukui reminds us, “Even the best internal-combustion engines still waste more than 80% of the energy created by burning gasoline.” 

But electric hub motors can deliver full power directly to the wheel. And if that rotating motivator happens to be just 16-inches in diameter and connected to the front of a low-slung bicycle, you’d better be ready to brace for the kind of acceleration that brings big grins to the faces of all those who believe that fast is good. 

And faster is better. 

Shouting, “Power to the people!” I tuck my feet into the Power Grip straps as the bike moves forward under its own power and each pedal rotates into position. Making for the cove’s paved two-lane road, I swing out of the gravel driveway that earlier last summer judo-flipped me into a 10-week aching meditation on paying attention. (Nothing broken and not a scratch on the bike – and no bruises if I’d been wearing the padded mountain bike jacket I always wear now.) Downshifting the internal rear hub transmission, I keep peddling in laid-back comfort for the long climb out of the “gravity well” leading up the relentlessly steep and scenic hill from Ford Cove. 

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