No one who buys these electric bikes is planning to pedal very much

Electric motorbikes - or, de-restricted, illegal e-bikes - are giving us all a bad name, writes CW's columnist

Hutch pedals an ebike with delivery backpack on
(Image credit: Alamy)

Not far from where I used to live in London, there was an e-bike shop. It shut a while ago after a bus crashed into it, which I suspect was an attempt to cut the supply of cyclists off at the source. The bikes in the window of this shop, before they were hit by a Number 19, very rarely looked like bicycles. Usually they were pretty substantial looking, fat-tyred, with a motorcycle style saddle. I dropped in one day to ask what one of them weighed, and was told it was about 50kg but that, “It can carry two people at 40mph”.

Dr Hutch profile
Michael Hutchinson

Multiple national champion on the bike and award-winning author Michael Hutchinson writes for CW every week.

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Michael Hutchinson is a writer, journalist and former professional cyclist. As a rider he won multiple national titles in both Britain and Ireland and competed at the World Championships and the Commonwealth Games. He was a three-time Brompton folding-bike World Champion, and once hit 73 mph riding down a hill in Wales. His Dr Hutch columns appears in every issue of Cycling Weekly magazine