Video: can an e-bike help Dave beat Chris Froome up the Alpe du Zwift?

Utility e-bikes, and e-mountain bikes are good for many things: helping you tow a load of booze back from the supermarket, or getting you to the top of a trail so you can hoon it down the other side, for two. 

But e-road bikes are becoming more and more of a thing, promising that you'll be able to stay with your faster, fitter mates. One such bike is the Canyon Endurace:ON, which is the German company's first foray into e-road and retails for £2,799. 

But If your plan is to keep up with your faster mates, just how fast can they be? That's what we decided to find out. Guinea pig for this was our Dave, who races in the third cats when we're allowed outside in groups and during lockdown is currently somewhere above race weight, in the same sense that the top of the Eiffel Tower is somewhere above the Champ de Mars. Anyway, we gave him the bike; after some jiggerypokery he managed to make it work on his direct drive trainer and promptly pointed it up the Alpe du Zwift, to see if he could beat Chris Froome's time from the Team Ineos race last week. Froome crested the climb in just over 35 minutes, behind race winner Rohan Dennis who posted a time of 34:15 for the 12.2km climb.

So, was the application of what some might call 'cheating' enough to turn Dave into a peloton-beater? Watch the vid to find out...