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The Eagle Lifestyle LSR-50

Tune up, pedal down and motor on...

I’m a cyclist. I commute ten miles from the mean streets of south-east London to Marylebone almost daily. It’s therapeutic; means I can eat as much cheese as I like; and has the added bonus of not requiring me to talk to anyone for at least an hour in the morning and evening. Well, I am a Londoner.

However, last month while tearing down The Mall, smugly passing slower cyclists with better bikes and brighter lycra, I was overtaken by a gentleman in a suit. On a bike. Not even pedaling. Flicking up a gear and expelling as much energy as I’d planned to use all day, I caught up with the rascal to get a closer look at his vehicle to find the words ‘GoCycle’ emblazoned on the frame. And before I could ask what that meant, off he went, accompanied by the sound of a small motor. As I caught my breath and stared at the crest of the oncoming incline where suited man had already reached (smoking a thin cigar, probably), I remembered being contacted by GoCycle earlier in the year. On reaching the office and checking my emails, I also remembered turning my nose up at a push bike that dared to offer ‘assisted electric pedaling’. ‘What, a motorbike?’ I quietly cursed.

30mph and enough battery life to last 40 miles on one charge

As the way coincidence usually works, I got a call later that day asking if I’d like to road-test another electric bike. ‘Of course’, I said, knowing full well that without that morning’s experience, the person on the other end of the line would have been met with a sneer. An Eagle Lifestyle LSR-50 arrived two days later and looked like it had been designed by Batman. On the handlebar, a turbo button that, when pressed, gives a speed injection that gets the bike up to around 30mph and has enough battery life to last for 40 miles on one charge. The next morning I went looking for my arch nemesis, myself in work attire rather than leggings and GoreTex, and as I turned onto The Mall, there he was, pedaling without a care in the world but flying past people that looked like they should be wearing yellow jerseys. Pressing the turbo button I caught up with him, pressing it again, I flew past him. ‘Ha! In your FACE! I’m the king of the commuters!’, my internal smug-o-meter reaching 11 out of ten. As I reached the crest of the hill I was stopped by a red light and alongside me rolled up one of the lycra-clad racers I had overtaken a mile back. ‘Why don’t you just get a motorbike?’ he said, as it started to rain, soaking my work clothes…

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