Bikini to swimsuit. Factor 15 to 50. Paperback to Kindle.
The answers to my holiday prep questions have changed over time, but this year there was one extra decision: pedal bike or electric? I was off on a four-day cycling tour in the South Tyrol with my 16-year-old daughter. Her idea of a holiday errs more towards Instagrammable moments involving beach sunsets and flower-shaped ice-creams. Pedalling up hills in 30C was a much harder sell.
View image in fullscreen ‘Steep gradients melt away and it’s as though you’re riding on the flat,’ says Lucy Rock. Photograph: Lucy Rock A friend suggested we hire e-bikes. What a cop-out, I thought.
How wrong I was. These eco-beauties transformed our 30-40km trips from grumble-filled endurance tests to enjoyable jaunts with plenty of puff left for bonding chit-chat as we rode. E-cycling still feels like a workout.
You’re pedalling and pumping out endorphins, but on full throttle, steep gradients melt away and it’s as though you’re riding on the flat. And so it turns out that e-biking along lanes bordered by grapevines and apple trees, with pit stops at a winery for a glass of freshly pressed juice (or Müller-Thurgau in my case), or at a lake for a cooling dip, is very appealing to teenagers – and their mothers. As is arriving at your destination hotel, lying by the pool in the late afternoon sun and looking forward to an evening of pizza, pasta and gelato after all that fresh air and exercise.
At the start of our tour we .
