[Music]
we all know how much the fastest bikes
on the planet cost speed clearly does
not come cheap a great climbing bike
does seem at least to be slightly less
expensive than an aero one and certainly
you could save a couple of hundred bucks
by not buying Aero socks for a start but
rewards if a properly basic bike could
be fast and not just fast but actually
close the gap between you and the best
Riders on the planet
you know what I'm hinting at let's find
out
yes the cheapest e-bike we could find on
Amazon is back it has not caught fire
yet and technically it does still work
although I could not call this bike in
any way good it is cheap it is cheerful
and it does exactly what it says it's
going to do which is that this enormous
battery here provides energy to power
that back wheel to supplement what I've
got in my legs when I wrote it I
couldn't not like it many of you seem to
agree many but not all some of you I
think thought this was the work of Satan
but before you type madly in the comment
section once again just wait are you not
even mildly curious to know whether or
not a cheap e-bike has got what it takes
to beat a super bike and a super climber
up a horrible climb
it is time to wheel Out The Twig gcn's
resident Uber climber surviving only on
Cups of Tea and jam sandwiches Andrew
feather has amassed more koms than any
other man on the planet and right now
ominously he's nearing Peak Fitness our
climb today is one that you don't
actually hold the record on so perhaps
you'd like to explain yourself yeah so I
checked the other day and um yeah I no
longer hold the Cowan it was taken by a
certain Ed labrant the other day because
you know what he's doing that lad he
doesn't know what he's doing so um I'm
here to say Revenge today okay well I
mean
and you've got some stiff competition so
I taped on talk us through the client
then what what is it so the climb is
called Hessel Beacon it's um 2.2
kilometers long so it's quite quite a
long climb it's a gradual incline to
start with then it really ramps up
you've got some really steep 20 25
sections pretty bad surface
um so you should be around those size
could be quite slippery as well with the
rain this morning so again placed your
favor so um
are you feeling nervous about taking on
someone wearing baggy shorts from right
on the cheap mountain bikes a little bit
yeah yeah yeah so along the line here
Andrew there is
okay so here's the thing right the
average speed for the Kom is about 20
kilometers an hour now if you remember
the e-bikes like this are restricted to
25 kilometers per hour which means in
theory I should be able to ride up here
at 25k an hour
trouble is when you dive into the
details of this climb as Andrew said
it's a bit Steppy so when I looked at
his previous run up here he was doing
over 30k an hour at the bottom and over
30k an hour at the top which I am not
going to be able to do on this so
actually although it's going to be able
to give me 250 Watts it's not going to
be able to give me 250 Watts the whole
way up
so whilst I was feeling confident
I'm not so confident anymore
[Music]
right
you ready I'm ready it's a lot of riding
on this I know
three
two
one go
there we go Motors just kidding
oh God okay oh I met
I met 25k an hour
and he's obviously just dancing away
I'm gonna call foul it's a bit of slip
streaming going on okay don't panic I
knew this was gonna happen I knew what's
gonna happen
or they
he's got a lot more power than me
on the Steep stuff
worryingly I can't feel much coming from
the motor
you still see him
let's go and see
working pretty hard
okay here we go
he's inside
foreign
[Applause]
oh
no just cut out
I need a top come on baby
my hamstrings
anything
[Music]
oh God
come on
foreign
just got him at the end
oh
what a good range oh my gosh so close
you are absolutely flying and stupid no
you know the motor didn't even work
didn't it that was just that was just me
yeah honestly when you came past me at
the top it was literally like you're on
a motorbike oh my word it's funny that
she just shoots it's the same for me
that feeling when I hit that seat bit
and you came around me I was like well
I'm never gonna be able to keep up with
him but I knew
at the top it flanned out a little bit
so I knew if I could just keep you
within my sights
I might be able to get you oh man um but
what a good race that was amazing really
good
so most important bit
has Andrew got the Kom
let's have a quick look
so 644 to beat 6 44. you got 644 yeah
same time same time tied no way tied
yeah tied K1
lavrick you weren't having a you won't
have a notification
there you go I wonder what your time
would be actually probably pretty pretty
close to I thought well yeah what I
probably was about 20 seconds off by the
end
I might have been in the previous camera
helped by Andrew further
you're fourth oh shame it no Fifth Fifth
on the big one
let me just quickly uh change it to
e-bike
so is that a good result for the e-bike
I don't know to be honest clearly on the
Steep sections the extra 250 watts in
the motor was enough to put some serious
time into feather even overcoming the
extra 10 kilos of body weight and 20
kilos of extra bike in fact on anything
over 10 percent the miyatu was almost
unbelievably faster
I was having to try quite hard to on the
very steepest section we calculated that
me and the e-bike together were having
to produce over 700 Watts it was
painfully clear that I wasn't able to go
over or even very close to 25k an hour
and so my average speed for the whole
segment was just 19.6 kilometers per
hour less than I'd hoped for but in the
context of a bike that cost 529 pounds
not bad at all
however put me back on a Superbike in
Lycra I think that perhaps I'd actually
have been able to go up that hill in the
same time maybe another race is called
for well I'm absolutely buzzing off that
what a race if you enjoyed it please
give it a big thumbs up especially if
you want to see Andrew back on the
channel for more I'd be really
interested to know whether or not that
was the result that you were expecting
it's not the one I was expecting
I thought I was going to get the win if
I'm totally honest but you know I'd
rather have a good race than a
meaningless Victory but yeah get
involved in the comment section also has
it changed your perspective on what you
think of e-bikes are they better for
this or worse for this and I know many
of you will probably not enjoy the
prospects of e-bikes racing normal pedal
bikes anyway get stuck in really look
forward to reading what you've got to
say anyway that's it for us do make sure
if you haven't subscribed to gcn already
that you do so and we'll see you on the
next one