I?ve ridden my fair share of electric motorbikes. Some have been really good, others not so. But even the best ones haven?t had the range that most would consider necessary for a proper motorcyclist. An electrically powered road bike, ridden properly, isn?t going to give you much more than an hour of fun; before you?ve got to charge it up, that is. That?s not going to be enough for most ?proper motorcyclists?. Not by a long stretch. And the off-road electric bike segment hasn?t yielded a lot that?d get my vote either. Until now. Because I recently discovered a bit of a game changer. And that game changer was the Electric Motion Epure Race that Fagan and I rode at Inch Perfect Trials.

Ok, I know a trials bike isn?t going to rock everybody?s world (growing up, I thought they were stupid? until I had a go on one) but the fact that an electric bike can now genuinely compete with a petrol powered machine, even if it is only in trials, is pretty big news. And it seriously can compete.
I?ll admit that I went into my day of riding on the Electric Motion with a bit of a closed mind. On paper, it ought to have been good; with its 73kg of weight, and its 600Nm of torque (no that?s not a typo – six hundred newton meters). But I just wasn?t convinced. Could it really be as good as a ?real? motorbike with a real ?motor?"

Well, yes, I think it can. After about 30 seconds on the Electric Motion I discovered that, for someone with my limited ability on a trials bike,...