Now, it\u2019s all a bit different. In cycling, the big change has been the proliferation of the best e-bikes<\/a>. But, to make it complicated, there are at least four varieties of e-bike. There are legal, private e-bikes. There are public hire e-bikes (legal). Cargo bikes (legal). And there are de-limited e-bikes that aren\u2019t e-bikes at all, but electric motorbikes (not legal).<\/p>\n Article continues below <\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n Modernity doesn\u2019t really end with cycling. We\u2019ve got other new categories of battery-power road user \u2013 what I\u2019ve come to think of as e-pedestrians. This is a trend that started in about 2001 with the Segway, the self-balancing two-wheeled thing that looked like it came from the future, but which we quickly dragged down to our level. After that we got the ludicrously named \u201choverboard\u201d which was just a daft electric unicycle without the slightest hint of either hover or board about it. Then we got the scooters.<\/p>\n Former multiple national time trial champion, aero expert and best selling author, Dr Hutch hasn’t yet succumbed to an ebike. But it’s only a matter of time.<\/p>\n And of course, we still have a few people who plod along on their own two feet waving their walking sticks angrily at everyone else, as God and the Daily Telegraph prefer.<\/p>\n Quite honestly, all of this has produced a continuum that stretches all the way from dog-walker to motorcyclist with very few places at which you can really find an obvious break-point. Is an illegal e-scooter more or less motorised than a legal e-bike? Where is a 50 mph de-limited e-bike in relation to a motor scooter?<\/p>\n Naturally, all of this has knock-on effects. One of the most pressing is the question of where exactly on the road or pavement or path we should be doing any of this. We used to have three categories trying to make the best of a system designed for two \u2013 pedestrians and motor vehicles \u2013 in which cyclists were the losers. Now we\u2019ve got far more categories enjoying, essentially, a free-for-all, and I think we\u2019re all losing.<\/p>\n On a shared path, four different people on four different \u201cvehicles\u201d can converge on each other, and even supposing any of them subscribed to the principle that the most vulnerable has priority, no one would be able to work out which of them that actually was<\/p>\n A further effect is that there are even more dimensions to the dislike we can nurture towards each other. The matrix is much more complex. Five different sorts of cyclist where once upon a time there was only one? Just do the maths. We can even hate other cyclists now, with a clear conscience. (And if you\u2019re saying to yourself, \u201cFive? Illegal e-bike riders don\u2019t count as cyclists!\u201d I say, \u201cExactly.\u201d)<\/p>\n You might hope that all this blurring would mean the focus of the anger might end up being less on the modes of transport that people choose, and more on their individual behaviour. That we could perhaps get away from the identity politics that sets us all against each other. That we could more easily see the wood rather than the trees, and start to divide the world not into \u201ccyclist\u201d and \u201cdriver\u201d, but into \u201cmoron\u201d and \u201cnot-moron\u201d.<\/p>\n What to read next<\/p>\n To which I say, fat chance, moron. There\u2019s a lot of anger in the world and it has to go somewhere.<\/p>\n How To\u2026 Upgrade<\/p>\n The upgrade is a simple pleasure. For less money than buying a new bike, you can buy a fresh component to put on the one you already have that will give you just a little bit of a new-toy thrill and make your bike just a little bit better and more distinctive.<\/p>\n![\"Dr](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/hSPLqVjnkWwNR3C7UKCbEk.jpg\")
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