I have had my electric bike for almost two and a half years now and, apart form the regular hassle with disc brakes and the odd puncture, have nothing to complain about. It brings great, if undeserved, joy.

But oddly enough, yesterday, it began to make a regular beeping sound. At first I thought it was a particular bird tweet, then realised that the same bird had to be stationed in every second bush that I passed, all about five seconds apart, and very much in sync with each other. I dismissed this theory and realised that it was was my bike that was emitting the sound.

Now I knew already that e-bikes made in China had to beep by law, due to the hazard they might present in an urban environment. This was commonly at speeds of 15kms and over. But my bike had been re-gigged (obviously) to eliminate the sound before I had bought it.

It is strange indeed that it has taken 30 months for this feature to mysteriously re-appear. It is a fairly annoying sound and disabling it means fiddling about with screw drivers and boxes and wires in awkward places. I want to disable the beep, not my bike. I'll give it some thought.