Setting off, and stopping

1Watch

The first two feet

Nothing in that shot is going fast. Watch where the rider’s second foot is when the machine has already moved.

2The idea

Find every control before the wheels move

Sit on it with the motor off and put a hand on each one in turn.
The power switch, on and off.
The assist-level selector.
The throttle, if it has one.
Both brake levers.
The cut-off, if there is one, and where it is.

Then work out which lever stops which wheel, because it is not the same on every machine. Roll the machine along beside you at walking pace, squeeze one lever on its own and watch which wheel locks. Do the other. That takes about twenty seconds and you only do it once.

3The idea

Two different ways of making it go

Pedal assist only adds power while you are already pedalling, so the machine waits for you. A throttle does not wait for anything. It delivers power with no rider input at all, which is why the drill below starts with the throttle switched out of the picture.

The drill is power on, ride a straight line, and stop. Then again. Lowest assist level, an empty lot, nothing to hit. Adult riders learning motorcycles do the same drill in the same order, and they do it until it is dull, because dull is the point.

4Look

The number you set before you push off

That number decides how much of the next three seconds is you and how much is the motor. It is set while you are stopped, with both feet down, and not while you are already rolling.

5The idea

The torque surprise, on purpose, once

There is one drill you do the other way round. With an adult there, in a lot with nothing in it, start from a standstill with the machine already in its highest assist level and feel what it does. Once. Somewhere it cannot cost you anything.

The reason is that you want the first time to be there rather than at the end of your drive. Massachusetts Safe Routes to School puts it in one line: throttle-powered e-bikes can accelerate quickly, so start slow and stay in control. Feeling it once is what makes that line mean something.

6Decide

First ride of the week, and the machine is still on the level you finished on.

7The idea

The stop is both brakes, and your weight goes back

Both levers, together, squeezed rather than grabbed. The aim is the shortest straight-line stop you can make without locking the front wheel, and that is a thing you get better at by doing it, not by reading about it.

As the brakes bite, your weight moves forward, which takes weight off the back wheel — so you push yourself back to put some of it there again. Consumer Reports names that forward transfer as the thing that unloads the rear wheel and lets it skid. Weight back is the free half of the fix.

8Your turn

Power on, stop, repeat

Try the front lever on its own once. Then stop doing that.

9Find them

The first minute on a machine you have not ridden before

Tap the ones that count.

10Do it

Before you leave this page