When Jason Anderson and his son Justin decided to open a family business they only needed to look at the railway trail beside their house at Somerset Bridge for inspiration.

?We used to see all of these bicycle tours come by and people looking pretty miserable so we said ?how could we provide people with a bicycle experience without all the bicycle pain?,? Jason Anderson said.

The duo searched the Internet and attended the International Bicycle Show in Las Vegas and and found their answer ? 7-speed, Charger electric pedal-assisted mountain bicycles. They run on a small battery-powered, 24 volt electric motor which kicks in to boost a cyclists pedalling power up to four times the cyclists own strength.

Mr. Anderson, who formally ran the ad agency The Spot Shop and his son, who studied motorcycle mechanics at the British Columbia Institute of Technology and most recently worked in the parts department of Bermuda Motors, both quit their day jobs to launch EZ Rider Bike-n-Hike sightseeing tours in March. More recently, they opened the EZ Rider Bike Shop in Somerset.

Already, they have done more than 1,000 two-and-a-half hour tours which begin at Dockyard and take in Ireland Island, the Heydon Trust as well as Somerset Village. They also include a hike to Fort Scaur and a ferry ride back to Dockyard via the Cavello Bay ferry stop.

?We give people a tour of the Somerset area and they like it. We are yakking all the time about the flowers, and houses, why the roofs are white, basic tour information, birds, flowers, trees, whatever they ask tell them,? Mr. Anderson said.

As for exercise, cyclists can choose how much effort they wish to put into the tour. The bike has four levels of assist and cyclists ? such as an 80-year-old who recently took the tour ? can also choose to go without any assistance at all.

?The idea is to let people in the age group of 45-55 to be able to ride a bike and enjoy a bike experience without killing themselves,? Mr. Anderson said. ?When I first got the bike, I rode it all the way from Hamilton to Somerset no problem. If I was on a normal mountain bike, I only would have made a quarter mile.?

The bike shop offers a radical line from California, PHAT, which includes California-style bikes beach bikes, choppers, stretch bikes as well as electric bikes. The shop also carries the electric bikes ? an item which Mr. Anderson said might quickly draw local interest as an alternative energy vehicle older people can easily ride to work.

?It beats $6 gas. We figured out the bikes cost one cent a mile to operate,? he said adding that with a 20-mile range and the ability to recharge in four hours, ?You could ride to work from anywhere on island, take the battery pack to the office and by the time you leave it would be more than charged.?