Who Am I?
Hi, My name is Bob Marshall and I am the founder, owner, secretary, accountant, mechanic etc. of Border e-Bikes a tiny, new company based in Carlisle dedicated to making owning an e-bike both accessible and affordable.
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Being naturally modest, I am not prone to self-promotion but the website app and marketing books say it is a good idea to say a little bit about yourself so you, potential clients and friends, feel comfortable with both the company and the person behind it. So here it is... a bit of background. Hopefully, you'll manage to stay awake until the bottom of the page.
Raised and schooled in Carlisle, I have led an eclectic life in some far off places. After university in Liverpool, I travelled overland to the Far East and lived and worked in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, pottered about for a few years in Mexico on a boat and had a short stint back in the heart of Cumbria in The Lake District.
After many years of living and working abroad, travelling to fascinating, unusual and sometimes dangerous places to satisfy that urge to explore and learn but never really settling, I determined to return to the place I grew up in and deal with the ravages of ageing and the inexorable passage of time and finally settle with my patient wife and forgiving son in the place I have always called "home".
The last two years since the onset of the pandemic have been tough for almost everyone on the planet. It has caused, this author included, many to have a good look at how they live their lives and re-evaluate what is important. My own journey home was part of that and it took a health scare to bring it (and me) home. I had originally wanted to return approximately the same way I went out to Asia, 30 years ago: overland but this time, not by train but on a bicycle. Age, the pandemic and the fact that the Russians wouldn't grant a visa to a lone Englishman to cycle across their country thrust a spanner into the spokes of that idea. So, after cycling the length of the island of Taiwan and realising that hills were harder to get up than when I was a kid, I looked into e-bikes still harbouring the near-improbable notion that I could take one across Russia.
None of the bikes out there on the market interested me much until I took another look at my own and thought "You know what? If that old bike, simple as it is, can carry me, my belongings and a chair the length of a country without complaining, then why not put a motor on that?" So I did.
The Russians still wouldn't grant a visa so I had to trim down that trip substantially, fly to Amsterdam, see my mother in the northeast of the Netherlands and cycle back to Cumbria from there. Converting the bike was a Godsend as I was pulling a trailer and my wife's suitcase. The trailer was also used as a place to put a solar panel to charge my batteries on the go.
Converting my bike to electric has changed how I look at cycling and now I go out and get the fresh air and exercise needed without worrying about hills or heart attacks. I'm as attached now to my bike as I was when I got my my first bike at the age of 11- a Raleigh Scorpio 5-speed racer.
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And it's great.
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This company has come about through a desire to share the experience of rediscovering cycling, overcoming anxiety about fitness and keeping the joy of discovery and travel, as well as myself, alive for a bit longer.
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And to do that, I simply get on my bike.
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Cheers,
Bob
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