We get reviews

"That's an amazing invention!" - some European sounding fellow as I comfortably cycled past him up Great North Road today. Several other times, while stopped at the lights, fellow cyclists have contributed appreciative comments, or asked technical details of how the Silver Machine operates. If you're reading this, thanks for your interest, guys - the reason I might have sounded diffident in response is that I'm painfully shy with strangers.

zzzzz

Downside to a brand new e-bike. You want to ride it everywhere for the first week or two. And then you realise that the hybrid vehicle runs partly on energy stored in your own body, and then you want to demolish a McDonalds and sleep for about a week. And since I'm losing weight, the first is not an option for me. Woe.

I must be insane

Biked to football practice in Three Kings - a 13 km round trip, more or less. I'm surprised I was able to get out of bed this morning. Coming right after my commute to work, I just about ran the battery flat, especially since I was dumb enough to try to ride up Frost Road in Mt Roskill (had to go down to 1st gear and pedal like mad, even with the motor on - slope's possibly even more intense than the top of Queen Street). But it was nice to ride over the motorway overbridge at Keith Hay Park. It's pretty, and a good view at night.

First long-distance voyage

Mt Albert – Papatoetoe, for an end of football season barbecue. Since my friends live right by P/toe train station, I could have done things the simple way (Mt Albert - Newmarket by train, Newmarket - P/toe by train). But I wanted to show off the Silver Machine! So – bike to Newmarket (7.2 k = about 20 minutes with electrics) and take the bike on the train. What could be simpler than that?

Let me see. What if you get totally lost in Newmarket's one-way system and rail-related construction zone, and miss the train? And there ain't another one for an hour, thank you very much underfunding of Auckland rail?

Simple, if you're a crazed masochist like me. Bike to Orakei to get the Eastern Line train. Which I did, and that's another 5 ks to my journey. Oh, and now that I check Google maps, there was a much quicker way I could have gone, down Middleton and Basset and Shore roads. But I had no map so I just went to the Remmers shops and down Victoria Ave anyway. Still, I got there in time; and the extra exercise means I could eat another sausage or two without guilt.

So - no real problems getting the bike up New North Road in one direction, or up Khyber Pass Road (at night) in the other direction. Yes, I at least caught the right train on my way home. And for those interested - the clippie on the train treated the Silver Machine no different to any manual bike, just as I expected. So this is feasible. The only real problem is that I may have come dangerously close to running down the battery altogether with my unscheduled detour. Well, I'll know better next time. At this stage, all mistakes are learning opportunities.

*cough* *cough*

It seems that the Almighty is seeing fit to tease me, as He teased Moses in the desert. The first two days of my ebike commuting life have been afflicted with an unpleasant cold.

Hasn't held me back, though. On Monday - feeling like death warmed over - I got from Western Springs to the Grey Lynn shops (up what is apparently known as "Chinaman's Hill") in third gear. Today, I did it in sixth. Praise be for the electrics.

Yesterday I was wearing a knee-length skirt, knee-length socks (yes, the Zettai Ryouiki look, anime fans) and high heels. And pedalling was not any sort of issue. Okay, it was also scarily windy, and the skirt blew up past what might have been considered bounds of decency on the way home, but that didn't bother me much. Today, it's a short dress over slacks with flat shoes - no significant difference.

Everyone loves the bike to death at the office. It may well be that I'm providing my suppliers with endless free advertising. The most common comment, though, is that I'm apparently foolhardy and brave riding a bicycle on the same road as Auckland drivers. But, if we don't cycle for fear of lunatics driven by petrol, those lunatics will have no incentive to change their ways.