Speeding up hills in a matter of moments, criss-crossing the city with ease – who knew exploring Auckland on two wheels could be this fun?
The first time I went cycling I immediately fell over and muttered: “This damn bike!” I was wearing a purple sequinned dress and was five years old. This famous-to-my-family story will never die.
More recently I moved from Christchurch to Auckland with two suitcases and one pushbike. First, I tried to boost up College Hill and literally rolled backwards. Later I flew down a different hill, couldn’t stop, sailed over a curb and nearly crashed into two al fresco diners and the huge cheese pizza that had just been placed in front of them.
After that I rode directly to a random bike shop for a tune-up. Once there, things escalated quickly. Within an hour, I’d put a deposit down on an ebike.
I called my fiance to tell him the good news. As I delivered it, I realised I’d completely lost my mind. I knew basically nothing about ebikes, Auckland, or ebiking in Auckland. “Try before you buy maybe?” he suggested gently. I phoned the shop (shamefully) the next day. The deposit was (thankfully) refundable.
All of this is to say, I like biking and I’m ebike curious. But I’m impatient. I want to be a high performance ebiker immediately. I don’t want to faff around trying to find the right ride. Repairs will annoy me. And if I fall over, I’m done. This is how I found myself chatting to Maurice Wells at Electric Bike Team. He’s an expert.
“The exciting thing about ebikes is that, unlike other transport forms, you can go where you want, when you want and know how long it’s going to take,” Wells tells me. He’s not wrong. When I ask Google Maps how long it will take to get from work to Electric Bike Team at 3pm, Google says anywhere from nine to 29 minutes.
Once I arrive at the shop, which is just next to the Pink Path, Wells asks me a tonne of questions. He’s a matchmaker of sorts. I tell him I’ll be going to and from work, maybe to the gym, markets, random gigs. I won’t be towing any kids because I don’t have any. I will stop for lots of little treats. I might go on longer weekend missions. As we chat, Wells pulls some bikes forward and pushes others back.
Wells is, unsurprisingly, a huge fan of cycling. “People in Auckland know the names of off-ramps, that’s not normal – they’ll say something is near the Greenlane roundabout to describe where it is. When you get a bike you can enjoy different things about living here,” Wells observes. “It’s also just a lot of fun.”
Then he sets me loose to test the theory.
The first ebike Wells selects for me to try is small-ish and white. Before learning all about this topic I would’ve described this bike as “foldy” and maybe a little weird. But it’s a Riese and Müller Tinker2 Vario. An umlaut, I think to myself; this thing must be pretty high spec. Then I notice another brand on it, Bosch. When my family upgraded to a Bosch dishwasher two decades ago, everyone was fizzed. It’s still going strong. “Bosch makes ebike drive units, batteries and control systems,” Wells explains as he shows me how to work it. My mind is stuck on dishwashers though. I retain almost none of his instruction but off I go for a test ride.
From the shop I pedal up the Pink Path. I figure out the controls. I reach 20 kph. Then 30. I pace myself against some big trucks crawling along the adjacent motorway. I’m faster by miles. I loop back and send it down East Street’s dramatic slope. I set off the ‘SLOW DOWN’ sign. I am Evel Knievel.
When I get back to the shop my heart rate is elevated. But in a chill way. I’m not sweaty. This bike is pedal assisted, Wells tells me, so you have to do some work. But you get to choose how much. You can toggle between different riding modes that range from “Eco” to “Turbo”.
Wells pulls out another bike for me to try. This one is pink but more intense. It could hack city streets or a mountain bike park. I chuck this one straight into Turbo, top out at 32kph and feel impressed by the machine and myself. As I hoon around, a new thought bubbles up: high-spec bike, high-spec maintenance?
When I get back to the shop I ask Wells some tougher questions. How much does it cost to run this thing? “Service costs for bikes like these are in the hundreds, not thousands, of dollars per year,” Wells says. “Ballpark, someone commuting every day might spend $400 to $500 a year on parts and maintenance.”
Now, what if you need a repair? This is where disaster strikes, Wells tells me. “Entire bikes get abandoned because repairs are unviable. The rider has nowhere to go because they bought the bike from somewhere overseas that doesn’t have support here. We see this all the time in the industry.”
Parts can be a struggle too, Wells says. “This happens a lot… a bike breaks, it’s from overseas, a part needs to be ordered just to see if the bike can be fixed, but then the rider has a dilemma. Do they risk inefficiently spending money and time trying to repair? Or do they just buy a new bike?”
I recently spilled water on my MacBook, found a random but accredited Apple repair person online, and took it to them. It took five weeks and several imported parts just to determine the thing could not be revived. “Bosch has a service centre in New Zealand, though,” Wells tells me. “There’s actually a team on the ground here. We just did a full day training with them.”
From dishwashers to laptops to bikes, Wells and I have covered some serious ground by this point and I’ve traversed the Pink Path at least 12 times. It’s time for me to depart. I select the white, foldy bike which I no longer think of as weird, but rather as an incredibly comfortable, smooth and swift ride. And I’m about to set off into the concrete jungle of Auckland when I realise I have no idea how to get anywhere.
Wells goes out the back and gets me a special gadget – a smartphone grip. He installs it on the handlebars while I futz around on my phone downloading Bosch’s Flow App. Once I open it, the ebike life feels feasible, familiar even. With my own personal nav system now on the bike I can go anywhere, see my speed, range and time to destination all on one screen as I go. Also, and this cannot be overlooked as my phone is always dead or dying, this grip is charging my phone. From there I zoom back to work. It takes me just 10 and a half minutes, exactly like the nav said it would.
Over the next week I put myself in ebike mode. I commute from town to Morningside for mahi. In business casual. I go everywhere on this thing. And as someone who always drives until the petrol light comes on, I’m not worried by the ebike’s charge ticking down. Range anxiety doesn’t exist for me until one morning I’m about to set off for work when I realise the bike is at 9%. Worst case scenario plays through my mind: I’m pushing the flat battery bike up Bond Street, I’m sweating, I miss my first meeting of the day.
Rather than freak out, I check the Flow App, and realise this bike is smarter than me. The “range control” feature tells me the minimum battery power I need to get to work. I have just enough. I press ‘start’ and the AI tech takes over, adjusting the pedal assist as I go for peak efficiency. I make the meeting. And charge the battery at my desk.
After my non-disastrous work day, I decide on a whim to bike to Baby G Burger in Avondale for dinner. I get there in a rapid 13 mins 23 seconds. But the burgers have sold out in that time. I’m hangry but somehow, not mad. Instead I boost over to Sandringham for a dosa. In the time it takes me to eat the dosa the temperature drops down to five degrees, surely the lowest it ever gets in Auckland. I cycle home, hands and ears freezing. I don’t get home from my food tour until 10 pm. I’ll keep some gloves in my saddle bag from now on, I think, as I fall asleep.
On the weekend I cycle to a cycle class which now feels redundant. And on Sunday I plan a mission to Mission Bay from town. I manage to leave the house by 8.30am, which is really early for me. I cycle along Quay Street, connect up with Tāmaki Drive, ride alongside the sparkly moana, stop for a cuppa, stumble upon a Turkish coffee shop, hit Saint Heliers, reach Achilles Point, and gaze out at Rangitoto. I get rained on (lightly) about five times and clock 35km ridden and 500 kcals burned. I stop at Daily Bread for a ham and cheese croissant to net that out.
On another day I race my colleagues to Burger Fuel for lunch. I win solely because I don’t have to find a car park. I don’t even have to find a bike rack – I use my key to lock the wheel and turn the alarm on via the Flow App. After burgers (Burger Fuel does not sell out) I bike to the Aotea Centre for a work thing. Afterwards, I spontaneously go ice skating alone for an hour and a half. I start my ride home. I reach the base of College Hill. It’s closed for some road works. But I get waved through. I switch into Turbo. I do not roll backwards. I do not fall over. I am having fun.
