Floating along on my bicycle on a daydream of a country road, up behind me came a man on a hissing e-bike, going fast, headed somewhere important. I thought at that speed – 25 miles (40 kph) an hour, I estimated – and with dusk gathering, he risked hitting a bear that would promptly eat him and the bike. But no such luck.
I saw him later at the crest of the hill that I’d climbed. He whizzed in circles and headed back down while I rested. The hill had been a tough one for me. As you weaken with dependence on the machine, I muttered to myself, I grow stronger. There is one certainty in the cycling world: Trad bikers will outlive e-bikers, who are fools to give up the physical benefits, the spiritual joys, the liberty and independence of a human-powered mechanism.
