m0gwai
New Member
I recently purchased a Greyp 6.1 E-Bike. Back in my glory days, I used to do a lot of MTB but my interest slowly faded away mainly because of a general lack of time and new priorities, family/work, you know the drill.
I was on an international assignment in Dubai with my company for 3 years and we recently moved back home in Switzerland which is when I started to look into using an E-bike as an alternative to public transportation.
I purchased a Moustache X-Road 5 as a commuter bike and was really impress by the technology. Until then I was generally aware that electric bikes were a ‘thing’ but not aware of what could they could do, it quickly became my main mode of transportation across the city and to/from work. I live in a pretty steep city so I had some doubts about how effective an E-bike would be to get me back home but the Bosch Powerline CX made any type of climb a breeze despite being entirely out of shape.
It didn’t take long for the MTB itch to reappear and it was pretty clear from the start that taking the Moustache off-road wasn’t going to cut it at all, this is when I started my journey into looking an E-MTB. I knew from the beginning I wanted to ‘treat’ myself since back then I was a broke student and getting a bike, maintaining it and upgrading was a constant challenge.
It took a while to get back in the ‘scene’ a lot of brands I knew disappeared, new ones appeared and there was a whole lot of new things to learn and to consider when getting an E-MTB. Luckily some fundamentals remained and I had some sort of idea of what I was looking for, a full-suspension bike, versatile so I could do some trails but also some downhill with a wide range since in most cases my starting point would be from home.
This is how I came across the Greyp line, it seemed like a match made in heaven since it combined two of my hobbies, tech & bikes. My dealer had one in stock and in my size and by then my mind was made, this was the bike for me!
The Greyp bikes are a concept, an idea, a vision and like everything innovative it comes at a price, not only from a money perspective but also from the overall experience. Aside from their R&D team and a selected group riders, you will be the one of the first end-user to actually ride their bike and no matter how much testing they did, it’s only when the product gets in the hands of the general public that a company can get some feedback with scale.
The Greyp 6.1 is full of contradictions, it has a 700W battery which has by far the best implementation to plug/remove that I could test but at the same time the battery has no locking mechanism, anyone can steal it in a few seconds which means anywhere you go the battery has to follow and it’s not light. The bike is packed with new technologies, yet you can’t fit a water cage on it.
From a pure hardware perspective, the bike comes with quality components and the design is definitely a head-turner and a conversation starter, I had more than a few people who approached me being curious about what this beast was. The main question that anyone looking for a new EMTB should ask themselves is how much of a premium costs comes with all the added gadgets, I didn’t compare but it’s fair to assume you can get a similar spec’ed bike for a much cheaper price, then it’s up to the user to decide if the design and software are worth the upgrade or not.
The motor is impressive and packs a lot of punch, it’s definitely more powerful than my 2019 Bosch Powerline CX and it shows very clearly on the climbs, It’s relatively silent and smooth, so overall I’m very satisfied with its performance. The big question mark is going to be reliability and performance over time, other manufacturers have shipped millions of units so they have a pretty long track record of common problems, with the Greyp only time will tell how the sustained is the performance and obviously availability will remain a question mark, god knows where Greyp will be in 5 years while you can be guaranteed that if you need your Bosch motor serviced pieces or replacement units will remain available far down the line.
If you have been into MTB for a while, you know that over time you also have to learn basic mechanic skills, change a tire, replace disk brakes, change or upgrade pieces. With the Greyp you also need to learn another set of skills, why is my bike not connected to my phone? Why did the application crash? Why is the bike not responding to the commands?
This is where Greyp has a lot of work to do, their application is only available for Android and apparently will come to iPhone next year. The last app update was in July and some functionalities are still not yet fully available or fixed and of course one their selling point is that your bike can be updated through software, for now, the bike is still running a 1.0.0 version so time will tell if those firmware update will have a material impact on how the bike behaves.
As mentioned at the heart of the Greyp is your cellphone, I’m not entirely convinced that using your cellphone is the best option but time will tell. First cellphone screens are not offering the best performance when it comes to readability especially in direct sunlight, I also have some concerns with riding in the mud & rain and how a cellphone will cope with those extreme conditions, one thing is for sure is you will need to invest into a heavy-duty case and screen protectors. In addition, the angle of the cellphone holder can’t be changed and for my taste the angle is far too vertical, I usually run my GPS relatively flat in relation to the road, so I can take a quick glance at some stats without taking my eyes off the road for too long, with the Greyp implementation you really need to look down to read the screen.
The app design is pretty sleek and responsive, once your cellphone is plugged into the bike you can control the data points and interface through a joystick next to your left brake lever, it’s pretty intuitive and easy to use. I wish the joystick was a bit more ‘clicky’, it doesn’t give any tactile feedback and it can be challenging to know if your input registered or not, especially when wearing gloves. As far as the interface you get all the must-have information, speed, battery level, range, motor assist, distance, time and more, the bike comes with wrist strap that reads your heartbeat and can adjust the motor-assist based on fast your heart is beating, I didn’t test that feature yet but seems like an interesting option. You can also access the front and back camera through the app, the back camera is particularly useful when you ride the bike on the road so you can see the traffic behind you, it’s also very crisp and wide-angle. The concept behind the front camera is that it records for a specific period of time and apparently could save some clips if the app detects that something ‘cool’ happened, It didn’t play much with it but seems pretty gimmicky at first glance. Last there is a mode they call ‘potato’, don’t ask me why, which basically calculate the range your bike can cover based on the elevation and battery level/motor assist, based on Greyp feedback this is not working properly yet and is being fine-tuned, the most valuable features for me would be the ‘point of no return’ that would tell me how far I can go, until I have to turn back to reach my point of origin, apparently this is a feature on their to-do list.
If you’re interested in tracking your ride and performance, it’s likely you’re already invested into an existing eco-system such as Garmin and the same goes for video, if you like to share your videos with friends/online then it’s likely you already spent some money on a GoPro or similar brand. So the big question is can the Greyp replace those tools, for me the answer is no. I have been using Garmin for years and I want to continue tracking my performance under the same unified platform, I personally don’t use videos but I suspect that the video coming out of the Greyp might be of lower quality then of one dedicated action camera.
Overall the Greyp is an interesting bike with lots of good ideas but the company has a lot to learn, for the same price you can get a bike with better specs and the added value of the software as of today doesn’t justify the price premium. I don’t have any regret purchasing it but if I had to do it again I would look into different options and better value for money.
If you have any questions or comments, drop a message on the thread I’ll be happy to answer.
I was on an international assignment in Dubai with my company for 3 years and we recently moved back home in Switzerland which is when I started to look into using an E-bike as an alternative to public transportation.
I purchased a Moustache X-Road 5 as a commuter bike and was really impress by the technology. Until then I was generally aware that electric bikes were a ‘thing’ but not aware of what could they could do, it quickly became my main mode of transportation across the city and to/from work. I live in a pretty steep city so I had some doubts about how effective an E-bike would be to get me back home but the Bosch Powerline CX made any type of climb a breeze despite being entirely out of shape.
It didn’t take long for the MTB itch to reappear and it was pretty clear from the start that taking the Moustache off-road wasn’t going to cut it at all, this is when I started my journey into looking an E-MTB. I knew from the beginning I wanted to ‘treat’ myself since back then I was a broke student and getting a bike, maintaining it and upgrading was a constant challenge.
It took a while to get back in the ‘scene’ a lot of brands I knew disappeared, new ones appeared and there was a whole lot of new things to learn and to consider when getting an E-MTB. Luckily some fundamentals remained and I had some sort of idea of what I was looking for, a full-suspension bike, versatile so I could do some trails but also some downhill with a wide range since in most cases my starting point would be from home.
This is how I came across the Greyp line, it seemed like a match made in heaven since it combined two of my hobbies, tech & bikes. My dealer had one in stock and in my size and by then my mind was made, this was the bike for me!
The Greyp bikes are a concept, an idea, a vision and like everything innovative it comes at a price, not only from a money perspective but also from the overall experience. Aside from their R&D team and a selected group riders, you will be the one of the first end-user to actually ride their bike and no matter how much testing they did, it’s only when the product gets in the hands of the general public that a company can get some feedback with scale.
The Greyp 6.1 is full of contradictions, it has a 700W battery which has by far the best implementation to plug/remove that I could test but at the same time the battery has no locking mechanism, anyone can steal it in a few seconds which means anywhere you go the battery has to follow and it’s not light. The bike is packed with new technologies, yet you can’t fit a water cage on it.
From a pure hardware perspective, the bike comes with quality components and the design is definitely a head-turner and a conversation starter, I had more than a few people who approached me being curious about what this beast was. The main question that anyone looking for a new EMTB should ask themselves is how much of a premium costs comes with all the added gadgets, I didn’t compare but it’s fair to assume you can get a similar spec’ed bike for a much cheaper price, then it’s up to the user to decide if the design and software are worth the upgrade or not.
The motor is impressive and packs a lot of punch, it’s definitely more powerful than my 2019 Bosch Powerline CX and it shows very clearly on the climbs, It’s relatively silent and smooth, so overall I’m very satisfied with its performance. The big question mark is going to be reliability and performance over time, other manufacturers have shipped millions of units so they have a pretty long track record of common problems, with the Greyp only time will tell how the sustained is the performance and obviously availability will remain a question mark, god knows where Greyp will be in 5 years while you can be guaranteed that if you need your Bosch motor serviced pieces or replacement units will remain available far down the line.
If you have been into MTB for a while, you know that over time you also have to learn basic mechanic skills, change a tire, replace disk brakes, change or upgrade pieces. With the Greyp you also need to learn another set of skills, why is my bike not connected to my phone? Why did the application crash? Why is the bike not responding to the commands?
This is where Greyp has a lot of work to do, their application is only available for Android and apparently will come to iPhone next year. The last app update was in July and some functionalities are still not yet fully available or fixed and of course one their selling point is that your bike can be updated through software, for now, the bike is still running a 1.0.0 version so time will tell if those firmware update will have a material impact on how the bike behaves.
As mentioned at the heart of the Greyp is your cellphone, I’m not entirely convinced that using your cellphone is the best option but time will tell. First cellphone screens are not offering the best performance when it comes to readability especially in direct sunlight, I also have some concerns with riding in the mud & rain and how a cellphone will cope with those extreme conditions, one thing is for sure is you will need to invest into a heavy-duty case and screen protectors. In addition, the angle of the cellphone holder can’t be changed and for my taste the angle is far too vertical, I usually run my GPS relatively flat in relation to the road, so I can take a quick glance at some stats without taking my eyes off the road for too long, with the Greyp implementation you really need to look down to read the screen.
The app design is pretty sleek and responsive, once your cellphone is plugged into the bike you can control the data points and interface through a joystick next to your left brake lever, it’s pretty intuitive and easy to use. I wish the joystick was a bit more ‘clicky’, it doesn’t give any tactile feedback and it can be challenging to know if your input registered or not, especially when wearing gloves. As far as the interface you get all the must-have information, speed, battery level, range, motor assist, distance, time and more, the bike comes with wrist strap that reads your heartbeat and can adjust the motor-assist based on fast your heart is beating, I didn’t test that feature yet but seems like an interesting option. You can also access the front and back camera through the app, the back camera is particularly useful when you ride the bike on the road so you can see the traffic behind you, it’s also very crisp and wide-angle. The concept behind the front camera is that it records for a specific period of time and apparently could save some clips if the app detects that something ‘cool’ happened, It didn’t play much with it but seems pretty gimmicky at first glance. Last there is a mode they call ‘potato’, don’t ask me why, which basically calculate the range your bike can cover based on the elevation and battery level/motor assist, based on Greyp feedback this is not working properly yet and is being fine-tuned, the most valuable features for me would be the ‘point of no return’ that would tell me how far I can go, until I have to turn back to reach my point of origin, apparently this is a feature on their to-do list.
If you’re interested in tracking your ride and performance, it’s likely you’re already invested into an existing eco-system such as Garmin and the same goes for video, if you like to share your videos with friends/online then it’s likely you already spent some money on a GoPro or similar brand. So the big question is can the Greyp replace those tools, for me the answer is no. I have been using Garmin for years and I want to continue tracking my performance under the same unified platform, I personally don’t use videos but I suspect that the video coming out of the Greyp might be of lower quality then of one dedicated action camera.
Overall the Greyp is an interesting bike with lots of good ideas but the company has a lot to learn, for the same price you can get a bike with better specs and the added value of the software as of today doesn’t justify the price premium. I don’t have any regret purchasing it but if I had to do it again I would look into different options and better value for money.
If you have any questions or comments, drop a message on the thread I’ll be happy to answer.
