OPERATION BIKE RIDE

There are days when you carefully plan an adventure.

Routes are studied. Batteries are charged. Weather forecasts are inspected with the intensity normally reserved for a NASA launch.

And then there are days when you look outside and think:

Welcome to Operation Bike Ride.

No expedition.

No enormous masterplan.

Just me, Torque, some Staffordshire countryside and the very important business of disappearing down a trail for a few hours.

Torque is my Scott Aspect eRIDE 910.

Midnight Grey.

Bosch Performance Line CX motor.

600Wh battery.

And, because leaving things completely standard apparently isn't something I am capable of doing, a growing collection of orange details.

Orange pedals.

Orange grips.

Orange valve caps.

A bike that started life looking sensible and has gradually been absorbed into the NIX universe.

It now looks exactly how I wanted it to look.

A little stealthy.

A little industrial.

And just bright enough to suggest that somebody has been interfering with it.

Perfect.

There is still a peculiar idea floating around that an electric mountain bike somehow isn't proper cycling.

Nonsense.

The motor doesn't ride the bike for you.

It doesn't steer.

It doesn't choose the line through a muddy section.

It doesn't stop you riding straight into something stupid.

And it certainly doesn't pedal unless you do.

What the motor does is make the world slightly bigger.

That hill you might normally avoid?

Ride it.

That extra five-mile loop?

Why not?

That trail disappearing into the trees?

Let's see where it goes.

For me, that's the magic of an e-MTB.

Operation Bike Ride begins before a wheel moves.

Battery?

Charged.

Tyres?

Checked.

Helmet?

On.

Water?

Packed.

Phone?

Charged.

Lights?

Ready.

Camera?

Almost certainly somewhere nearby.

The Bosch system wakes up, the display lights, and suddenly the bike sitting quietly in the garage becomes a machine waiting for instructions.

⚡ TORQUE READY.

One of the cleverest parts of the Bosch Performance Line CX system is that you don't simply have “motor on” or “motor off”.

You choose how much help you want.

ECO stretches the battery and keeps things relaxed.

TOUR+ quietly adjusts assistance depending on how hard you're working.

eMTB is the sweet spot on proper trails, dynamically giving you power when you need it.

And then there is TURBO.

Turbo is less subtle.

Turbo is basically the bike saying:

Naturally it must be used responsibly.

Naturally.

This is one of the things I love about living around Stafford.

You don't have to travel far before the roads start shrinking.

Houses disappear.

Hedges arrive.

Fields open up.

Then somewhere ahead there will usually be a track, bridleway, woodland entrance or suspicious-looking lane begging to be investigated.

That is where Torque makes sense.

Tarmac becomes gravel.

Gravel becomes dirt.

Dirt becomes trail.

And suddenly you're not travelling somewhere.

You're exploring.

There is a particular moment on a bike ride when everything clicks.

The legs have warmed up.

The bike feels settled.

You've stopped thinking about tyre pressures, battery percentages and whether you remembered everything.

The countryside starts moving past at exactly the right speed.

Fast enough to cover ground.

Slow enough to notice it.

Birds disappear into hedges.

Trees flick past.

Gravel rattles under the tyres.

The Bosch motor quietly adds its push in the background.

And for a while the rest of the world becomes pleasantly irrelevant.

That is the bit I ride for.

One number inevitably lurks somewhere in the back of an e-bike rider's head.

With a 600Wh Bosch battery, Torque has plenty of capacity for the sort of riding I enjoy.

But range isn't a fixed number.

Hills matter.

Mud matters.

Temperature matters.

Tyre pressure matters.

Rider weight matters.

And perhaps most importantly...

The clever game is finding the balance.

Use assistance where it makes the ride better.

Back it off where your legs can comfortably do the work.

Finish the ride with enough battery remaining that you know you could have gone further.

That final part is rarely achieved.

Because if the battery says there are adventures left...

there are probably adventures left.

One of the biggest changes I've noticed since getting Torque is that I'm not particularly interested in riding fast.

I like riding far.

I like finding places.

I like stopping.

Taking photographs.

Looking down tracks.

Changing the route halfway through because something looks interesting.

Sometimes technology can turn hobbies into spreadsheets.

Average speed.

Heart rate.

Elevation.

Calories.

Power.

Segments.

Personal records.

And yes, I record rides on Strava.

Of course I do.

This is NIX.

There will be data.

But the data isn't the ride.

Torque has gradually become another part of the wider NIX world.

Vanilla handles the road trips.

The drones handle the sky.

The cameras capture what happens.

And Torque handles that wonderful territory in between.

The places a campervan can't reach.

The paths that disappear into forests.

The lanes where you wonder where they eventually come out.

It is exploration at human speed, with just enough electricity quietly helping from underneath.

And I rather like that combination.

Old-fashioned wandering.

Modern machinery.

That's perhaps the best thing about Operation Bike Ride.

There doesn't really need to be a destination.

Sometimes the objective can simply be:

Turn left because you've never turned left there before.

Climb the hill because it's there.

Stop for a photograph.

Carry on.

Find a pub.

This is advanced navigation.

Of course, sitting conveniently nearby is one of the best playgrounds you could give a mountain bike.

Cannock Chase.

Forest.

Fire roads.

Climbs.

Descents.

Singletrack.

Mud.

Roots.

Wildlife.

And an almost unlimited supply of opportunities to confidently ride down the wrong path.

Torque and Cannock Chase are becoming very good friends.

The rider occasionally just hangs on.

Eventually every bike ride has that point where the direction changes.

You're no longer riding away from home.

You're heading back.

The legs are a little heavier.

The water bottle is considerably lighter.

The bike is usually considerably dirtier.

And Strava is quietly collecting evidence.

Back at base, Torque gets parked.

Bosch system off.

Helmet off.

Ride saved.

And then comes one of life's small pleasures.

Looking at the map and thinking:

There isn't a complicated objective behind this one.

I want to ride more.

Explore more.

Find more local tracks.

Spend more time outside.

Get fitter without turning fitness into a punishment.

Take photographs.

Discover places.

And occasionally deploy an entirely unnecessary amount of Bosch assistance up a hill.

Torque has already proved something important.

Adventure doesn't always need a ferry booking, motorway, campsite or thousand-mile itinerary.

Sometimes adventure is sitting in the garage.

Charged to 100%.

Waiting for you to open the door.

Machine: Scott Aspect eRIDE 910 “Torque” Motor: Bosch Performance Line CX Battery: 600Wh Mission: Ride somewhere interesting Navigation: Highly flexible Destination: Classified Chance of mud: Significant Chance of unnecessary Turbo: Also significant