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Your storiesYou are in: North Yorkshire > People > Your stories > An electric ride...  Steve Punchard: keeping us in suspension An electric ride...By Jane Downs Steve Punchard is on a mission. He wants to electrify your bike. Why? Because, he says, you'll ride further, faster and help save the planet. Meet the self-confessed 'bike nut' who wants to convert us (along with our push bikes) to powered riding. Electric bike enthusiast Steve Punchard has decided to follow his dream and make his greatest passion his business, too. Alongside his day job working in the bike hire shop at Dalby Forest, he's now launching an online store, selling powered cycles and offering a service to add a motor to ordinary mountain bikes.
Help playing audio/video  Steve models his own electric bike Buying or converting a bike can be a pricey business, but once converted, bikes have a range of around 20 miles on a battery charged with mains electricity costing around ten pence. Increasingly, commuters are experimenting with powered cycles as petrol prices rise and green travel becomes more fashionable. Powered mountain biking, however, isn't so common. Steve says he's determined to transform the face of the sport - and he's come here from Somerset to do just that. Mountain biking is a hugely popular pastime in the rugged countryside of North Yorkshire. Steve hopes to tap into the market and convert as many enthusiasts as possible. He's even planning to persuade his bosses at Dalby Forest to let him install an exhibition in the visitor centre there, extolling the virtues of turbo pedal power.  Batteries for the motor are in a bag Now living in Farndale, Steve says he's spent a good percentage of his life on bikes, particularly enjoying mountain biking. But when he tried an electric bike for the first time, it changed his life.
"When I met my partner, Maria, she was living in North Yorkshire. We used to go out biking together up on the moors and I soon discovered the terrain was very, very full-on! Boggy, muddy holes and really steep hills; hills that even seasoned mountain bikers were pushing their bikes up. When I saw an electric bike for sale, I thought 'I wonder if having a bit of power assistance would make riding the unrideable possible?' "I loved it. You cycle the bike normally, but they have a twist throttle on the handlebar like a motorbike would. You just twist the throttle and you get power to the back wheel. It doesn't stop you pedalling, you can pedal too - it just really helps you out and means you can get the same adrenalin rush going up a hill that you can going down it.  Twisting the throttle fires the motor "I'm aware that some hardcore bikers would probably think it's namby-pamby. But I think they need to try it before they write it off! You can go faster and you can go further. People with injuries can use it to ease them back into riding, commuters can get to work without feeling sweaty or harassed. It enables anybody to get out there and go mountain biking. "Once you've pulled back the throttle and you're going like stink in boggy, inhospitable terrain... you might not think it's namby-pamby anymore!"  The wheel houses an electric motor It doesn't come cheap, however. Steve's complete motorised town bikes cost around Β£600. A full conversion for a mountain bike is nearer Β£1000 - including a Heinzmann motor being installed into a back wheel, then a cable being attached to a battery pack (weighing about four kilograms) housed in a rucksack. The process can also only be carried out on a bike with a V-brake system rather than a disc brake on the back wheel. But for Steve, it's the way forward: "It's not just about biking or fitness. It's about green issues too. If we can incorporate battery technology into as many vehicles as possible, we're on the way to electric cars. Vehicles running on fossil fuels really do contribute to the problems around global warming." last updated: 22/05/2008 at 11:36 Have Your SayWhat do you think? Are motors on mountain bikes a useful tool on difficult terrain... or do they mean riders are cheating on tough routes?
mike wheatland
John Naylor
Stu Mitchell
Roger Osborne
Spiker
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