e- b i k e c h a l l e n g e

One of thesemen is riding asuperbike
What better way to test the relative merits oftechnology and humanity than to pit battery against
brawn on a bicycle ride to Brighton?

“i employ him as mypuncture-repair man”

w w w . S h o r t L i s t . c o m

4 1

e- b i k e c h a l l e n g e

The Last
To Go

The jobs thatmachines willturn theirnoses up at

RJ: “Cycle from London toBrighton on an electric bike,” theysaid. “It’s only 63 miles,” they said.
This is how better men than I havedied – by signing up to endurance
challenges for fear of looking likewimps. Despite being aware thatI risk becoming the latest
significant cultural figure todie in 2016, I sign up.
HC: As a cyclist, I’ve been
watching the rise in e-bikes with
fascination and more than a littlehorror. What will it mean for thefuture of pedal power? Are e-bikes‘cheating’? What will ‘mechanicaldoping’ mean for the sport?
Why hasn’t someone madea bike Transformer yet?
So when I was offered thechance to cycle from London
to Brighton against an e-bike,providing the opportunity to beat
the machines, I took on thatchallenge with a view to claiming
a victory for pedal power.
RJ: My ride for the day is theCarrera Crossfire-E electric bike,the battery for which can last up
to 80 miles, if the website is to bebelieved. Sixty-three miles on a
4 2

“we set off in beautiful
weather, me wearing an outfit
that makes me look like amember of ukip’s youth wing”
bike that does all the work? Pieceof p*ss. I’ll be in Brighton by 3pm
for hot dogs, and Howard –competent cyclist he may be – will
be eating my electric dust, panting
like a sausage dog in a sauna.
HC: On my Boardman Road Pro
Carbon, weighing just 8.3kg, andwarm thanks to Rapha’s wintergear, including its Pro Team WinterTights and Jacket (as opposed tolooking like an extra from Downton
Abbey), I’m ready to face down themight of Ralph and leave hisweighty bike in my tyre tracks.
RJ: The weather is beautiful: blue
sky and no wind. We set off fromClapham Common at 10.30am,me wearing an outfit that makes
it as difficult to cycle as possible:
shirt and tie; mustard Beretta coat
and waistcoat; Beretta plus-fours;
Beretta scarf; fat gloves; andshoes that basically say ‘far too
impractical to be used for cycling’.
It is a get-up that, as our deputy art
editor says, makes me look likea member of Ukip’s youth wing.
HC: As the challenge begins, andRalph sets his bike to ‘donkey’ orwhatever setting uses least energy,
I attempt to forge ahead. This
being London, within two miles myride is nearly ended prematurely bya white van cutting me up in orderto park on a double yellow. I tamper
down the anger, instead reserving

w w w . S h o r t L i s t . c o m

the energy for later when I’ll needit to get me up the formidable
Ditchling Beacon ascent.
RJ: The Crossfire has four settings:
camel, squirrel, cheetah andmountain goat. Each offers a higher
level of battery assistance, and I findmy default to be camel. (Because
the bike is ludicrously heavy, theonly time I can turn the batteryoff is when careering downhill.)
HC: As I leave the capital’s suburbs
behind, I realise my first problem

ralph jones gently
motors through thesussex countryside– navigation. I have to make regularstops to check I am on route,whereas Ralph, being savvier,has memorised it, leading me towonder if he is the T-1000 sent
back from the future to win thischallenge, thereby securing therise of the machines and setting inprogress the robots’ future world
domination. When I take a wrong
turn, and re-navigate back on theroute to see Ralph whizz past, it
dawns on me that perhaps myworst fears are being realised:
this is a quest for the future ofhumanity. Or, at least, tasty hot
dogs in Brighton. Ralph is ahead.
I have my work cut out.

howard calvert catches
his breath atop thefeared ditchling beacon

photographs: richard stow, pa, rex features

here is nothing today thattechnology can’t help you with.
From sex to shopping to shopping
for sex, there’s a gadget, app or
robot army out there to makethings quicker, easier and cheaper.
But can microchips and batteries
truly replace muscles and brains?
To find out, we sent two writers on
a 60-mile, two-wheeled odyssey
from London to Brighton. Ralph
Jones, a keen cycler of shortdistances at a leisurely pace, is tobe assisted by an electric bicycle;
Howard Calvert, the kind of man
who would cycle to the moon if itwere possible, will use nought but
what nature gave him to propela carbon-framed road bike. The
prize for success: hot dogs by thesea. Who will prevail? Let’s find out.

England manager
However
resistant theirarmour, no
metallicmachine willbe thickskinned
enough todeal with thepsychologicaltrauma ofmanaging ateam that will
never notdraw 1-1 withSlovenia.

RJ: I reach the outskirts of London
and I feel sublime. I should cycle toBrighton more often: I’m not tired;
the weather really is striking and, if
my maths is right, the battery
should last the journey.
I stop for a breather
after roughly 20 miles. My
battery level is 54 per cent.
That should be fi... wait.
Fifty-four per cent. Oh God.
I’m not much farther thana third of the way throughthe journey and I’ve usedhalf my battery. I'm alsobehind time, which means I
need to speed up, using morebattery, so I reach Brighton
before dark. And, as you mayknow, the London to Brighton
cycle route closes with a beastby the name of Ditchling Beacon:a mile-long, 158m-high climb. (It isan ascent so taxing, says iZaP on
cyclechat.net, that “A person has
died while climbing it”.) For thisI will need my mountain goatsetting, an option that guzzles
battery. This could get interesting.
HC: By the time we reach the M25,
I have caught the electronic rider,and we are more or less neck andneck but, worryingly, Ralph seems
to possess more energy thana pre-transmission CBeebies

Vlogger
It isn’t thatrobots couldn’tvlog, it’s just that theywouldn’t. One good thing
about machines: they areprogrammed to prioritise
the jobs that truly matterto humanity.
Sumo wrestler Say
what you like about
sumo wrestlers;
they must be
human andthey musthave lots offloppy fat.
Robotscannotsimulate
thewobbly
mounds ofa sumo champ.
Donald Trump’s barber
The machine has not
yet been built that can
successfully navigate
the foul and terrifying
intricacies of Trump’s
Norwich City-yellow
noggin carpet.
Journalist You reallywouldn’t want to do it,robots. It’s not worth it.
Just focus on other jobs.
You’d hate journalism.
Yeah, you’d hate it. It’s
just lots of writing
and that.

presenter. This is apparent when
we tackle one of the first big
climbs up to Nutfield. I am apanting, red-faced, sweaty messas Ralph glides past, impeccably
dressed without a sweat stain insight. We are halfway to Brighton,
and I am getting concerned thatmy legs will fail me.
Then I begin to experiencea condition feared by every
cyclist: I’m bonking, big time.
Concentrating on beating
Robobike has meant I’ve neglected
to take on board any carbs. My
glycogen stores are depleting
rapidly – I need food. An apparition
appears: The Grange Farm Shopat Crawley Down. I stop and wolf
down sausage rolls, flapjacks
and sandwiches – ironically, like amachine – in case Ralph overtakes.

“with my focuson beating
robobike, i haveforgotten to
take on anycarbs. i needfood, quickly”
RJ: As the sun filters through thetrees, I retain a strange sense ofoptimism. Ignorance, I think it’scalled. While careering down amassive hill, I clock my maximum
speed: 28mph.
HC: Internal batteries refuelled,
I peer down the road, searching fora tweed-based robot gliding into
the sunset. And that is our next
problem: failing light. We’d vastly
underestimated the time it would
take us to reach the coast, andwith no bike lights, we need to getthere before darkness descends.
So now I’m racing nature as well asa battery-powered phenomenon.

RJ: At long last, at 6pm, I reachthe foot of Ditchling Beacon. I ama shadow of my former self. I checkmy battery level: 3 per cent.
Summoning my last vestigesof energy I begin to tackle themonster. Within about half asecond I realise my legs aren’t
moving. They are as empty as mybattery. Even if the juice wasn’t
going to run out 50 yards up thehill, my body would give out andI would start rolling backwards all
the way to Clapham Common.
HC: Hill cracked, it’s a gentle glide
down to the Brighton seafront.
And there it is; the gaudy lights ofBrighton Pier twinkling in the night.
And those hot dogs. Sixty-three
miles in 5hrs 23mins, and no signof the machine. I’d done it: a victoryfor old-fashioned pedal power.
RJ: Howard is in Brighton. I havelost. And so, freezing cold,
exhausted and, with the evening
light rapidly fading to darkness, I calla taxi. For a long time they can’t findme as I can't give them a precise
postcode. Genuinely near tears,I wheel my bike to a B&B. This is themoment someone murders me,
I think to myself. Fortunately, after a
wait of about half an hour, the taxi
rescues me. We head up Ditchling
Beacon and into Brighton. Even if
I’m not technically riding it, mybike is in the taxi – so this basicallycounts. It’s certainly theclosest I’m ever going to get.
Ralph rode the Carrera Crossfire-E,£1,000; Howard rode the Boardman
Road Pro Carbon, £1,500, bothfrom Halfords. Clothing courtesyof beretta.com and rapha.cc
one giant ride formankind: a victorious
howard in brighton

RJ: Slowly but ever so surely, therealisation sinks in. I might not
make it. The light is fading. I’m tired.
The temperature has dropped,and my plus-fours are letting thewind rush up my nether regions. At
one point my battery inexplicably
drops from 28 per cent to 18 percent in a second. Fortune isp*ssing on me from a great height.
HC: Dusk is well underway as I face
the Beacon. I’d heard a lot about
this ascent: average gradient 9 percent, maximum gradient 16 percent. It is as bad as that sounds andis the one time on the ride I could
have – it pains me to say – used anelectric boost. But then, I remind
myself, where would the sense ofachievement be at the summit?
w w w . S h o r t L i s t . c o m

4 3