A few years ago I decided to take the long way home. I ended up on a country lane miles from civilisation praying I was headed in the right direction.

Just as I was beginning to enjoy my solitude on the country lane another cyclist pulled out in front of me. Darn I thought. I must now endure the mindgame of who will reach the turning first.

So I stepped on it; with age on my side I thought I had it in the bag, the crossroads were in sight, I was in top gear and feeling pretty happy about the whole imaginary race.

Then I heard it, a faint whirring approaching fast from behind and to my astonishment my adversary sped ahead and crossed the imaginary finishing line in self propelled record time.

But he had cheated, he was not completely self propelled, oh no, my opponent was astride an electric bicycle, or to use their correct name ‘electrically assisted pedal cycle’.

I thought he had looked pretty silly back then, the bike was ugly and as with all things the unfamiliar seemed out of place.

However last week I changed my view of the electric bike. I took delivery of two shiny electric bikes; now available for hire at Bainton Bikes (shameless product placement I know); courtesy of our friends at the Electric Transport Shop in Magdalen Road.

With the Smarta LX now in my possession it was time for a test ride.

The first thing I noticed was the weight – in comparison to my aluminium hybrid this thing was a truck. However, there are many Dutch bikes that are also very heavy and I know many a fan of those.

The second thing I saw was that it was designed with comfort in mind, high handlebars for great posture and a big saddle for comfort on those longer rides.

Then for the spec: eight-speed hub gears, hub brakes and finally the real core of the bike – a 37Volt 10AH Lithium Ion battery with four hours charge time and a range of about 40 miles. I could get to London on this baby without breaking a sweat!

Once upon the steed the weight was no longer a problem. But my laziness was. The idea is not to use it as a scooter but to use the added momentum to make a difficult ride more manageable.

I gave up on that idea and scooted happily up and down the road without pedalling once.

I don’t know E-Bike etiquette yet but I feel like I have done something wrong; in fact, one of the reasons the E-Bike is not considered a motor vehicle under UK law is because they have pedals present that are capable of propelling the bike. Otherwise its owners would be sending off for registration and road tax with the rest of the motorised world.

But the great thing about the E-Bike is it’s fast, it’s easy and its eco-friendly; this is personal transportation without eco exploitation.

I have to charge our E-Bikes at the plug but there are ways of using solar panels. One young Spanish man called Guim Valls Teruel is touring the world on a Wisper 905 with just his solar panel in the hope of promoting the use of alternative transport.

Good or bad, E-Bikes have one new fan, they’re just plain fun and I urge you to try one.