Do e-bikes make cycling too easy? I convinced my mum to ride the hardest stage of the Tour of Britain

The Tumble, near Abergavenny in Wales, and arguably the hardest climb tackled by the peloton during the 2025 Tour of Britain, was tackled not once but twice during the Queen Stage of the UK’s premier professional cycling event.

The likes of Geraint Thomas, Oscar Onley and eventual stage winner Remco Evenepoel may have made it look like not much more than a false flat but this famous Welsh climb's stats are not to be scoffed at: 4.9 kilometers, an average gradient of 8.5% and sections regularly troubling the double digits.

It's fair to say that this is not a climb that my mum Louise would enjoy, and yet as we sat on the sofa watching the pros battle it out she muttered “I’d like to be able to do that”.

She of course was not referring to the relentless attacks, or the eye-watering speed but rather the ability to ride the thing; for granted the uncharacteristically sunny Welsh weather did make it look an appetising prospect.

Little did she know that I was due to film a video on that very climb the following week and as we watched Remco Evenepoel shower the crowd in champagne I hatched a plan…

For context my mum regularly rides a bike, with her usual training rides measuring around 30-40km and her commute 10km to her work and back. However, with more than a 10kph difference in our average speeds I’m guilty of not joining her on the roads anywhere near enough.

The thought of accompanying her around the 138.76 kilometre Tour of Britain stage, with its 2,246 metres of elevation, was far-fetched to say the least. Until a new bike arrived at the office, that is.

That bike was the Canyon Endurace ON:FLY CF8, which looks like a normal carbon fibre bike but is anything but. Hidden beneath its sleek lines is TQ Systems' new HPR 40 mid-drive motor, the German company's first system designed specifically for the needs of road cyclists. The perfect bike for mum to use on The Tumble!

What this means is that aboard her borrowed steed, mum would have an extra 200 watts and 40Nm of torque at her disposal from what TQ Systems calls the smallest and most efficient mid-motor system ever to be found in a bicycle. But would that enough to even the playing field on an entire Tour of Britain stage, and can it even last that long? There was only one way to find out!

An early start rewarded us with a chilly but crisp start atop the Tumble. (Yes, the actual stage start was a bit further down the valley in Pontypool but we don’t get the luxury of team busses to ferry us about and so a common start and finish point made things a lot easier logistically.)

I popped the wheels back on the bikes, connected the Canyon to the TQ Systems app to check the battery charge and before I knew it mum had buggered off – clearly excited to try out her new toy!

To be fair, this came as little surprise, mum has been wanting to try an e-bike out for some time now and it’s only been my reluctance that’s prevented it. I tried a few e-bikes several years back and quickly decided that they were rather ugly machines with ride characteristics can only be likened to being kicked up the rear by a horse – powerful but not exactly controlled, something I felt wouldn’t pair well with a less than confident cyclist.

Then there’s also the fact that in the UK our pedal assistance has to cut out at 25kph which is fine on gravel or when mountain biking but on a road bike, half the thrill is propelling yourself along at speeds far greater than that. Which means you can end up lugging around a load of heavy bits that you can’t even use.

Of course, e-road bikes have come on a long way since I last had any serious interaction with them and now they’re much lighter – this one weighs just over 10.5kg, they look better, they’re more efficient so they don't sap your energy above that 25kph and power delivery is far more natural.

In fact, the new TQ System has all kinds of sensors so that it can intelligently apply its power in a smoother and natural way, so as I finished my bacon bap on the start line the TQ HPR40 system was learning mum’s every pedal stroke and adapting the power delivery to her pedalling style.

Fourteen minutes, the aforementioned bacon butty and a flat tyre later I set off in pursuit. I wasn't worried, of course, as I had plenty of time to catch her.

However, as the kilometres ticked by I quickly realised that mum was either very lost or riding a fair bit faster than usual. Pontypool came and went, as did the Shirenewton climb out of Usk, then Itton climb as we tracked north out of Chepstow. It wasn’t until 70km later that I finally made the catch, on the long, fast descent into Monmouth.

I suggested a food stop – at first mum had been hesitant about riding an e-bike and I was keen to discover how she’d found it. Like a breeze it turned out – mum had even doubted that it was working until the first climb of the day where she was convinced that she’d had a tailwind. Her average speed told the full story, a full 5kph faster than she usually rides despite the hills.

The bike had proven easy to use too, with just one button and a row of coloured lights there’s a limit to what can go wrong, in fact the TQ Systems bar plug mounted controls are just about the only tell-tale sign of the bike's hidden abilities.

As we set off feeling refreshed it became apparent that even in Eco mode (the lowest of three) mum was more than a match for me on the climbs, so we decided that we’d ride the remaining 70 kilometres together before a final dash up The Tumble to finish.

Little gave away the fact that mum was on an e-bike – she was still telling me to go careful EVERYWHERE! The bike, though, was quiet and there were no sudden surges, just the fact that I was travelling at my usual speed rather than hers.

Now, you might be asking whether that battery was going to run out before the finish and good question, I was asking it too.

Unfortunately for me the answer was probably not, the Canyon has a 290 Watt hour battery range which is enough for big rides with plenty of elevation, especially for a smaller rider like mum. Clearly, exactly how long it lasts is going to depend on how much you rely on it and what mode it’s in.

If we were doing a bigger ride – for example I’m keen to show mum some Alpine climbs – then we’d probably want to get TQ’s range extender which fits where the rear bottle cage goes and offers an additional 160 Watt hours.

After another few hours of sun, sour sweets and chat we approached the foot of the Tumble for the final time. I’d calculated that with the extra 200 watts of assistance we might be in for a close battle up to the finish but my maths were clearly very wrong as I failed to take into account that mum plus the e-bike was still significantly lighter than me. I stuck with her until halfway until she selected turbo mode and sailed away into the distance.

I was greeted at the top by a smitten face and a sarcastic clap so you might be expecting me to say that e-bikes make cycling too easy. But no, I don’t agree with the regular naysayers in the comments section.

Sure I’d been beaten, but I’d also got to watch first hand as my mum conquered more kilometres and elevation than she ever had before. A few days before, this ride had seemed impossible and now here she was smiling next to the famous sign we’d seen on the TV.

Ask mum and I’m pretty sure that she was absolutely knackered, but the truth is that thanks to an e-bike she rode about 95 kilometres further than she otherwise would have done, spent roughly three times longer on the bike than normal and, of course, the most important thing, had plenty of quality time with me… and who wouldn’t want that!?

The only thing that I would change about e-road bikes? I wish they'd been this good about 15 years ago because I think if they had been, I’d have done a lot more riding with my Grandad!