Chris Ramsey, from Plug In Adventures, has smashed the 12-hour e-bike distance record on a VOLT Pulse hybrid e-bike. He managed to nearly double the existing record – 110.60 miles, set in November 2016 by Prasad Erande in Maharashtra, India – achieving 180.75 miles at the Grampian Transport Museum in Alford, Aberdeenshire on 30 August.

Chris is an environmental campaigner and self-proclaimed adventurer; he and his wife Julie were the first people to complete the Mongol Rally in an electric car, helping to promote electric vehicles and contribute to a reduced carbon footprint. Speaking of his achievement Chris shared: “I am absolutely elated to have smashed the world record on home soil. I’m not a keen cyclist, and, in completing the challenge on e-bike, I was able to demonstrate that even challenging routes and commutes are now within reach of the mass public. Normally people would shy away from a 10-mile cycle—now, that’s nothing on an e-bike.

“I hope what I have shown here today makes people see crazy endurance challenges and, instead of shying away, think, ‘Hey, maybe that’ll work for me. I can do that.’ It’ll be brilliant if seeing someone else accomplish these kinds of things will inspire their imagination and motivation much more than just reading about it would.”

It’s certainly a success story, and the record-breaking ride was overseen by 6 independent witnesses and adjudicators, and catalogued for entry into the record books. It’s an odd thing to have a record for, though: e-bikes are limited by EU law to 25km/h, so theoretically the longest possible assisted ride in a 12-hour period is 300km, or 187 miles, which Chris got pretty close to. Any faster than that and you’d be doing it under your own power, and the British record for a non-assisted 12-hour ride stands at an astonishing 321.44 miles, set by Adam Duggleby earlier this year. He probably had to work a good deal harder than Chris did though...