Cycling is a passion for me, my wife Su, and my daughter Hui Xian. We have three bicycles and recently we added a fourth that was different, and a little bit special - an electric bike (EB).

Su wanted to buy one after reading about it online as she wanted to reduce our family's carbon footprint. Her intention was to use it for daily commuting between school and home which is about 5km each way. Her only reservation was that she would be too sweaty by the time she got to school.

However after the test ride, she was won over. The salesman said that pedalling the EB was similar to back-spinning on a conventional bicycle and he was right. The EB features a pedal-assisted motor that "kicks in" when the control unit senses that enough pedalling effort has been put in. When that happens, the bicycle accelerates without any increase in effort. Maximum speed is 20km/h which is more than sufficient for most trips. Best of all, this EB also features an energy regeneration feature that charges the battery whenever you stop pedalling and "coast". Sounds familiar?

Su takes about 20min for each trip and she has been having a blast. She has even used her EB as a tool during Science lessons. When fully charged, the Li-ion battery has a range of 40-50km. Each full charge takes about three hours.

Best of all, on weekends, we still take our "normal" bicycles out for a ride so as to get much-needed exercise. Do a Google search on "electric bicycles" and you will find much information about them. If you decide that an EB is right for you, make sure you buy one that is LTA-approved (look for the blue tag).

This is definitely another great way of going "green".

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