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I am still on the fence about e-bikes. I think about getting on board one every time I climb up Direct Road, a cruel and merciless grovel that is a necessary evil for anybody wanting to get the best out of a ride in the local patch.
Like tearing off a band-aid, it hurts but it gets the unpleasantness over as quickly as possible, in a generally slow-motion sort of way.
I must have crept up it thousands of times - that is not hyperbole, when I got my first mountain bike over forty years ago and started coming to Rotorua to figure out what to do with it my standard route included Direct. There were no actual trails made for bikes back then, but the roads were rough and ready, and mostly fairly overgrown, and exploring the forest felt like a voyage of discovery every time. I established a loop that was achievable on the primitive sled I had at the time, and it featured Direct Road both up and down.
And after all those ascents, the second little steep pitch still comes as a bit of a surprise. I always think I am at the bit where it flattens out slightly, and realise that I am not, and usually change down a gear if I have any lower gears left.
On the weekend at just about that spot I was passed by a procession of e-bikers. They were hurrying up to who knows where, and going at least twice as fast as I was. There were about two dozen of them, and the weird thing was that none of them said as much as ‘hello’. In fact, nobody even glanced my way. Later in the ride, when I was further off the beaten track, I met up with another couple of e-bikers who have adopted electric assistance after many years of self-propulsion. They both paused for a natter, as you would expect when meeting a fellow bike-rider out doing the same sort of thing.
I guess some of the people getting out on the trails now are new to the sport and don’t feel that kinship I feel for anybody on two wheels.
I have decided I will take the initiative, and try to engage people hooning past me in some sort of communication, and see what transpires. Obviously, those who pass me at the steep bit of Direct will only get a grunt, and if they are in a gang of two dozen some of them might not all get even that much.
But I will try, and hopefully get some sort of a grunt or snort in return.
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