I’ve named a new phenomenon called ‘it must have been an e-bike’.

It happens when you get overtaken by someone who really doesn’t look like he/she should be overtaking you, and you desperately try and check if they are on an e-bike or not to explain their speed…and soothe your ego. 😀

I must confess my ego was bruised yesterday along the canal path for about 8 miles lol. I’m certainly not as fast as I was in my heyday but I can keep up with your average bob. I really shouldn’t have an ego but sadly it seems I still have a small one. A 20-something in skinny jeans (and with no big legs to speak of) overtook me. It was a kind of ‘sit up’ hybrid affair with flat pedals and he was mashing along at about 60 rpm into a strong headwind (20 mph) making it look effortless. I didn’t try and keep up right away but at about 100 m I decided to try and live with him and stayed at about that distance until he turned off. I was pushing threshold to stay with him and managed to catch up a bit when he turned off but couldn’t get close enough to see any battery. It didn’t really look like I expected an e-bike to look (they normally have a fat downtube) but I think now it may have been a Trek District with the battery on the rack but can’t be totally sure.

Either he was strong as ****, ‘cos he didn’t even freewheel once during the turn-off and was mashing the whole time, or even the shitty hybrid style e-bike put out some serious power. I’m even thinking of one day joining this ‘dark side’, a heresy I once scoffed at. 😀

I was shamed a couple of years ago by a middle-aged lady on a city e-bike thing. Long gentle-ish drag (the road, not the lady!) for about a mile. Last quarter of a mile it got a bit flatter and I finally caught up and overtook. Right turn at the next roundabout, up hill again and into a headwind … She breezed past!

There does seem to be an increase in the number of cyclists smashing huge gears into a headwind.

I see a guy on my commute every now an then down the canal into Leeds. I wouldn’t be bothered but this bastard doesn’t even pedal!!

I did get a PR trying to catch him and stay ahead of him though. Was proper shagged by the time I got to work though!!

When climbing the hill into town on my ebike I do tend to apologise to folk as I overtake them

I feel no shame slip streaming the occasional chipped one that overtakes me on my Chester-Connah’s Quay commute. The cycle path bit is about 6 miles long. It has really knocked a chunk of time off once!

There’s a chap at Stirling Uni who uses a Brompton to cycle the couple of miles maximum, uphill, to the other end of BofA.

He can sit at daft speed, easily overtaking me on the CX/road bike…

I went up the Coal Road, Edenfield, on a hired EMTB once. Great feeling speeding past people on normal bikes struggling up it. For those who don’t know it, it’s a rediculously hard climb on a regular bike.

So what we’re really finding out here is that we should be cycling more getting fitter to overcome this shame

As opposed to discussing online wasting training time

Hmmmm

I was shamed a couple of years ago by a middle-aged lady on a city e-bike thing.

Totally confused…. Do you feel shamed when an old lady overtakes you in a car ?

If not, why not?

Riding out towards Ladybower for the annual Dambusters Lancaster flypast a year or so ago and me and a mate on our CX bikes passed a small group of folk all on sort of folding bike things at the bottom of a long gradual climb. We didn’t think anything of it, just said hi, carried on riding.

They were just dressed in casual outdoors kit, obviously heading the same way to watch the Lancaster.

A couple of minutes later, two of them cruised effortlessly past us. Casual shorts, a little rucksack on their backs, one guy had a sort of straw hat thing on. They breezed past, said hello again and it was only then we clocked that they were e-folding-bikes.

Jealous.

I see a guy on my commute occasionally who does the same thing on another long drag. By that point I’m 10 miles into my ride (usually into the wind) and I don’t have a chance of staying with him.