Chris Bullick
Digital agency owner, petrolhead, keen cyclist
“You will always make a clean getaway.”
I am a keen cyclist – in fact I probably spend as much time on my mountain and road cycles as I do on all of the motorbikes I own (or blag a ride on!) But keen cyclists don’t usually get it. Perhaps you need to ride powered two-wheelers to ‘get it.’ Almost every cyclist I know has only disdain for electric bicycles: ‘It’s cheating’. One guy I know who road races bicycles is in complete denial. He won’t even bring himself to look at it or acknowledge electric bikes exist let alone swing a leg over one.
What I learnt riding the Gocycle is the part of the brain that it tickles. It isn’t the dopamine drenched part that thrashing your bicycle produces, it is the petrolhead part of your brain. A recent automotive acquisition probably helped (AMG C63). OK, so a 250w electric motor isn’t going to have quite the same effect as the sound and fury of the V8 in the C63 (one of the best reasons to own this car) but the sound of the electric motor (something Star Trek about it), and the ‘hand of God’ feel when it kicks in has exactly the same effect as the little programmed-in roar the C63 does when you fire her up. You just can’t help smiling. So much so with the Gocycle in fact that the Gocycle crew – accustomed to doing so many demos – call it the ‘Gocycle Grin’ – no one comes back from a demo without it.
The Gocycle becomes a desirable thing to own the more you get to know it. Firstly, it’s a brilliant talking point. Just getting a sandwich round the corner from the office, I simply cannot escape if there are people at the pavement tables without someone asking about it or complimenting it. I packed it away in the boot of the C63 when it went for a service, thereby avoiding all of the tedious wait for a lift back to the office, the need to pay for a loaner, and of course – the traffic. But the Gocycle got more attention at the dealership than if I had rolled up in a gullwing Mercedes. Exactly the same thing happened when I went to the Land Rover dealer to buy a part for ‘er outdoors’ Disco.
The other reason for the joyful ownership is the no compromises design and attention to detail. Gocycle have sourced the best components available and where they couldn’t find exactly the right thing, designed something better. Take the PitstopWheel. With the bike on its stand, you can remove the wheel in about three seconds with one hand. The single-sided forks at both ends of the bike that allow this are pure automotive design at its best. For me it’s evocative of the practicalities of working on a Le Mans car during a pit stop, and the design ingenuity of a McLaren F1 (Richard Thorpe worked as a design engineer at McLaren cars).
The other feature that impresses me a lot is the gear change and the accompanying electronics. Gocycle have adapted a 3 speed hub gear set from Shimano which works incredibly well. It has a predictive action on down-shift. As you accelerate, you can pick the moment to up-shift, but as you slow, the bike will cycle to second and then first itself – just like a good auto box in a car. The huge benefit of this is that unlike the derailleur systems fitted to most electric bikes, you can’t end up at the lights in the wrong gear.
Anyone familiar with derailleurs gears knows how even experienced cyclists can get caught out. An unexpected change of traffic lights as you are accelerating though the gears doesn’t give you the time to shift back and get to the right one to pull away from a standstill – you have to pedal to achieve this. OK, with an electric bike your standing start is assisted, but the electric motor will labour from being in the wrong gear just like you will – not good for your battery life.
With the Gocycle, not only will you be in the correct gear, but the motor is mounted directly on the front hub, separating what it is doing with what you do with the pedals. So it’s actually a two-wheel drive system. Throw in traction control and you have the kind of drive sophistication you might expect from a Porsche Carrera 4. You will always make a clean getaway.
Which is what I did with the Harleys. Now we all know that Harleys aren’t designed for cornering. But that lead Harely rider ‘sat me up’ for the roundabout like Marc Marquez finding a back marker on the apex during a qualifying lap. So I rode round the outside of him; the Gocycle’s fat, round ‘slicks’ giving masses of grip. Thus I exited that Guildford roundabout leading a convoy of shade-wearing, tassled and tattooed Harley riders. I even maintained my lead for the 100 yards before pulling onto the pavement for the sandwich shop. Get a kick out of that? You betcha – a very automotive one though.
