Think of your first go on your first bike. The first proper one, without stabilisers. Close your eyes, take deep breath, and unwrap the memory of that Christmas past.

Your dad holds the handlebars steady as you climb on. Then he puts his other hand on the back of the saddle, gives you a push, and whoosh! you're away – with the pedals twirling slightly faster than your legs feel they want to.

That's the sensation you get from an electric cycle. It's just like riding a bike – only dad's been motorised by Panasonic.

That was my overriding first impression, anyway.

Last week, Loughborough's 50cycles.com lent the Mercury a brand spanking new Kalkhoff Pro-Connect E-bike – canny marketing shorthand for electric bicycle – to road-test for a few days.

The idea was to find out whether the new breed of E-bikes was any good and examine their eco-credentials.

Electric bikes, at least in the UK, were never what you might call cool. Riders tended to be of a certain vintage, mainly elderly ladies in brown brogues and felt hats – the too puffed or posh to push. That was the stereotype.

Not any more.

The recession, global warming and huge hikes in petrol prices have put an entirely different demographic behind the handlebars.

E-bikes have taken off in a big way, particularly in London, as a low-cost way of commuting to work. The attractions are obvious: no tax, no MOT, no need for a driver's licence, free parking, and because the motor does much of the work, you don't arrive at the office sweating like a swamp donkey.

"Our sales in December were up 60% on the year before," says 50 Cycles co-owner Scott Snaith. "From March to the end of October, our busiest season, we sell about 100 a month.

"Electric bikes used to be for more of an elderly market. Proper cyclists wouldn't touch one. That's no longer the case. They look good and the performance is good. A lot of younger people are going for them now."

Old motorised bicycles were essentially bog standard bikes with what looked like a lawn-mower engine attached. Every time you got to a hill, you switched on the motor and it coughed and spluttered you to the top.

If it worked, that is. Often it didn't.

However, the eight-gear Pro-Connect, made in Germany, works on different principles.

It is a so-called Pedelec, which means the discreet, Panasonic crank-drive motor – powered by a fairly hefty lithium battery mounted on the frame – only kicks in when you're pedalling.

A small LED controller on the handlebars allow you to set the level of automated help required: low, auto or high.

A sensor then detects how hard the rider is pressing on the pedals (if you're going uphill, this obviously increases) and the motorised assistance is adjusted accordingly.

"When you get to a hill, the motor turns it into a flat," says Scott. "You'll feel as if you've had three Shredded Wheat for breakfast. The motor counteracts the hill and gives you a boost."

The proof of Scott's claim would be in our road-test.

So how did the Kalkhoff perform in the to and fro of a daily commute from Syston to Leicester and back?

It's a 13-mile round trip I make on my normal push bike every Monday to Friday without too much trouble.

Last week, though, the Kalkhoff would have it all to do. I was pathetically enfeebled by man-flu as I got ready for my first ride home. The last thing I felt like doing was throwing my achy limbs over a bike frame and trudging it up the Melton Road into a head-wind.

Yet, unbelievably, it couldn't have been easier. The bike really does do all the donkey work.

Imagine being on a tandem with Chris Boardman. He's on the back, doing most of the legwork. You're at the front, coasting along.

The tilting scenery told me I was going up a hill, but the bike glided along like the incline was a figment of my fevered imagination.

Leicester to Syston is hardly the Pyrenees, but even the sharp gradients of footbridges were effortlessly levelled out by the appliance of German engineering science.

Fellow cyclists, puffing and panting, gawped in disbelief as they were effortlessly outpaced by a podgy bloke who wasn't even breaking a sweat.

Solid, comfortable and well built, the Kalkhoff rides like a bike that can handle a much tougher and longer commute than mine.

Scott says the E-bike can cover up to 40 miles on one charge and (after the first night when I drained the battery by constantly fiddling with the settings) I couldn't dispute that.

Syston to Leicester and back only knocked one light off the power indicator, suggesting there was plenty of juice still in the tank.

The motor worked without a problem and getting to grips with its operation took little time – once I got used to the slightly strange sensation that the bike wanted to run away with me.

The first question, then, has been answered conclusively in the affirmative. This is a very good bike indeed.

Now for the second one – the eco-conundrum. Is it environmentally friendly? Can you put a motor on a bike, one of the greenest forms of transport available, and still make a claim for it being green?

Scott insists you can. Electric bikes might not be as eco-immaculate as their entirely pedal-powered rivals, but they are cleaner than almost every other transport alternative.

Recharging the battery from flat would take about five hours, says Scott, but if you keep it recharged it takes nothing like that.

"You're looking at a couple of pence to recharge the battery, possibly 4p, depending on your electricity supplier," he explains. "This bike is not a huge drain on electricity."

At £1,595 for a 2009 model and £1,895 for the latest incarnation, the Pro-Connect's not exactly cheap.

"It's still cheaper than running a scooter," says Scott, "and it's a lot cheaper than running a car. We think these bikes pay for themselves in about 10 months in terms of money saved on petrol."

Now for the big question. After trying an E-bike for a week, do I want to buy one? No, because I enjoy getting to work entirely under my own steam and the hour's daily cycle is just about the only exercise my increasingly flabby body gets.

You could always switch the motor off, but the temptation to let it do all the hard work would be difficult to resist.

If I was a bit older, I lived a bit further away from the office, or there were a few more hills between my home and office, I would definitely invest in a Pro-Connect. And I definitely wouldn't come out in guilt bumps about it.

www.50cycles.com