Ok. I’ll admit it. I’m vain.

I’m fortunate to be in good enough physical condition that I’m able to ride my bicycle most places where I want and need to go, under my own power. But, deity-forbid, if my health did decline precipitously or I suffered an injury that permanently affected my mobility, I REALLY wouldn’t want to be seen riding something that looked like this:

I know. It’s awfully pretentious and terribly unenlightened of me.

It’s not that I frown on e-bikes. In fact, I’m a big proponent of them, for the environment’s sake, and because, in some cases, people who have never considered cycling due to health concerns find that an e-bike is a revelation and a vehicle — pun intended — to better health. Since the new generation of power-assisted bicycles, at least one of which I’ve test driven, very cleverly only supplies power as needed, folks who had otherwise resisted cycling due to poor health find that their health improves using the e-bike, and in some cases they make the transition to a regular bicycle.

But for me, having been a cyclist for so many years, riding a bike like that would be like going from being a marathoner to using a walker.

Nice to know, then, that a company in Spain has designed an e-bike that looks almost exactly like a mountain bike ready for some demanding single track.

Via Inhabitat:

Would you guess that this bike was equipped with a 250-watt brushless motor backed up by a removable Samsung 324-watt hour lithium ion battery powered by regenerative braking? Weighing in at just 53 pounds with a 56-mile electronic range, we’d love to take one of these for a ride on the open road!

Yeah, I could ride that on my daily commute…with dignity!