New 7 speed Middrive motor! Is this the future?

[ElevenAD]

i would love to give one a go just to see whats doing!

These motor are built buy a company in France called Valeo, this is the first time i have seen a middrive with a built in transmission.
Performance actually seems impressive but they have to do something with the motor noise before i would even consider buying.
Ill be curios to see how these perform real world!

 

[Deacon Blues]

I like the motor/transmission combo, but as you mentioned, they need to work on the motor noise.

 

[onlineaddy]

An earlier discussion:

Valeo: motor & transmission in same unit

They holy grail? With both motor and transmission in the same mid-drive unit, the Valeo Smart E-Bike System is intriguing and potentially, if they can bring it to market, revolutionary. Other similar designs have yet to caught on. This one, in particular, is not too shabby in the power...

electricbikereview.com

 

[Stefan Mikes]

An earlier discussion:

Valeo: motor & transmission in same unit

They holy grail? With both motor and transmission in the same mid-drive unit, the Valeo Smart E-Bike System is intriguing and potentially, if they can bring it to market, revolutionary. Other similar designs have yet to caught on. This one, in particular, is not too shabby in the power...

electricbikereview.com

A 2020 thread and now we are in 2023? "Hell is paved with such inventions..."

 

[ElevenAD]

I like the motor/transmission combo, but as you mentioned, they need to work on the motor noise.

They say they are working on the motor noise and the final product will sound better, I really hope so because for me this sound would take the enjoyment out of riding, it's just too intense. The noise is not audible in the older review video maybe because they are riding 4mph.

 

[m@Robertson]

Erik Buell has this enormously positive reputation in the motorcycle world, but his ebike efforts strike me as consistently undesirable, to put it kindly.

 

[SC00CHB00CH]

Why would a mid drive need a transmission? Your gears on your bike is the manual transmission. Plus you can change out the cassette to match your driving area. Live in hills all around , increase the rear cassette ring size. Live on mostly flat terrain get smaller cogs. Or have one cog with all sizes. At some point these are just e-motorcycles disguised as bicycles.

Find me an ebike that can be pedalled without power comfortably and now we're talking.

 

[teskow]

It is hard to stop progress and my take is this is the ultimate all in one drive train principle and the future for refined electric bikes. It just makes sense.
Nothing stays the same! Never has and never will.
When Ford Motor Co. designed the Ford tractor without a frame with the motor, transmission and rear end all in one piece it revolutionized the tractors normal design. It also brought down the cost of the tractor.

 

[PDoz]

Why would a mid drive need a transmission? Your gears on your bike is the manual transmission. Plus you can change out the cassette to match your driving area. Live in hills all around , increase the rear cassette ring size. Live on mostly flat terrain get smaller cogs. Or have one cog with all sizes. At some point these are just e-motorcycles disguised as bicycles.

Find me an ebike that can be pedalled without power comfortably and now we're talking.

1 derailleurs are evil stick magnets with the ability to know exactly where the furthest point on a ride is.

2 unsprung weight is bad.

3 what's wrong with learning from motorbike technology? I think the last time I needed to manually swap between multiple sprockets on a motorbike would have been in the 1960's ....yet my expensive emtb has an archaic cable operated spring loaded maladjustment mechanism hanging from the chainstays.

4 If you really don't want to think of it as motorbike tech, how about drooling over human powered bikes with central gearboxes? https://zerodebikes.com/pinion-gearbox

 

[PDoz]

Meanwhile, some of the other options.

Gearbox EMTB's that you can buy (+IGH bikes)

There seem to be several manufacturers now developing motors with integrated gearboxes, such as Valeo with the combined Effigear box (7 speeds/450%) at 4.9kg's but with 130nm of torque (More than the TQ HPR 120S) !! Heritage bikes were the first to release an EMTB using the Valeo system with...

www.emtbforums.com

I'm thinking it'll be 2/3 years until this becomes mainstream / affordable / reliable. But I was thinking that in 2018

 

[PDoz]

Erik Buell has this enormously positive reputation in the motorcycle world, but his ebike efforts strike me as consistently undesirable, to put it kindly.

I'm thinking we should blame Ed Laben - director of sourcing and manufacturing?

Or perhaps Francois ? A background in cost optimization and , marketing etc? It looks like he's the non buel factor.

I just can't imagine a QR front end coming from anyone associated with the creation of the original Buel motorbikes

About us

www.fuell.us

 

[Deacon Blues]

I thought the Pinion gearbox with a hub motor was a great idea, but this is even better. Overall it looks to be far superior to a derailleur/chain/cassette setup. but having said that, I don't think it's ready for 'prime-time' yet.

 

[m@Robertson]

I just can't imagine a QR front end coming from anyone associated with the creation of the original Buel motorbikes

That hit me like a brick as well but right after they showed it they said it was only on the prototype and the production bike would have a thru axle, so I sat back down again

I thought the Pinion gearbox with a hub motor was a great idea, but this is even better. Overall it looks to be far superior to a derailleur/chain/cassette setup. but having said that, I don't think it's ready for 'prime-time' yet.

Honestly I think the Pinion is still the awesome sauce. there is a Bullitt variant in Germany where the company sells a modified frame that houses a Pinion gearbox, and then they put in a nice big DD hub motor. So yeah sure you lose the gear advantage but you don't care because the hub motor is big enough to do the job. And for me I'd put a front motor on too so at that point the pedaling is about exercise only and I'd be dialing the motor power back accordingly (until the time when I decide not to).

Agree completely on being ready for prime time. This is not the first one of these I have seen but right now they are only on stupidly expensive oem EU bikes that haven't quite gotten the whole concept right yet. Definitely this is the future of mid drives though.
Why would a mid drive need a transmission? Your gears on your bike is the manual transmission. Plus you can change out the cassette to match your driving area. Live in hills all around , increase the rear cassette ring size. Live on mostly flat terrain get smaller cogs. Or have one cog with all sizes. At some point these are just e-motorcycles disguised as bicycles.

Why would a mid drive need a transmission? Your gears on your bike is the manual transmission. Plus you can change out the cassette to match your driving area. Live in hills all around , increase the rear cassette ring size. Live on mostly flat terrain get smaller cogs. Or have one cog with all sizes.

Because if done right it totally eliminates the drivetrain alignment issues that a mid drive can visit on a chain. Right now I have a bike whose stays are so short I cannot get to the smallest or largest cogs (11-48T) under heavy load without the chain jumping, despite the fact chainline is dead straight back on the middle cog. The performance-oriented geometry of the bike just will not let a full 10s system work (do it on a cheap ass Chinese frame with long stays and results would improve, but the frame geometry would be Wal Mart quality). I am by no means the only person who has experienced the reality of chain line problems. The common practice of re-ordering cogs comes to mind.

Yeah sure I can do a belt and an IGH but there are torque and equipment issues to contend with.

Take it to the next level and combine a front transmission with a low-range derailleur and rear cluster and now you've got a 21st century touring cycle.

 

[mschwett]

…
Take it to the next level and combine a front transmission with a low-range derailleur and rear cluster and now you've got a 21st century touring cycle.

what am i missing - why would you have the transmission up front and an RD? isn’t the point of this to basically combine a pinion type mid-gearbox with a mid-drive motor? it’s a very cool idea given that mid-drive motors already have gears, you’d think there would be a way to optimize and remove some parts/friction/weight/cost.

on the other hand, the bikes offered with this look to be in the 80lb plus range, barf.

 

[ElevenAD]

I thought the Pinion gearbox with a hub motor was a great idea, but this is even better. Overall it looks to be far superior to a derailleur/chain/cassette setup. but having said that, I don't think it's ready for 'prime-time' yet.

i agree, it needs some refining, get that awful noise sorted first then we can talk! Pinion is cool until your in an area with a bunch of steep climbs then it may be tricky for some riders especially riders like me.

 

[SC00CHB00CH]

That hit me like a brick as well but right after they showed it they said it was only on the prototype and the production bike would have a thru axle, so I sat back down again


Honestly I think the Pinion is still the awesome sauce. there is a Bullitt variant in Germany where the company sells a modified frame that houses a Pinion gearbox, and then they put in a nice big DD hub motor. So yeah sure you lose the gear advantage but you don't care because the hub motor is big enough to do the job. And for me I'd put a front motor on too so at that point the pedaling is about exercise only and I'd be dialing the motor power back accordingly (until the time when I decide not to).

Agree completely on being ready for prime time. This is not the first one of these I have seen but right now they are only on stupidly expensive oem EU bikes that haven't quite gotten the whole concept right yet. Definitely this is the future of mid drives though.
Why would a mid drive need a transmission? Your gears on your bike is the manual transmission. Plus you can change out the cassette to match your driving area. Live in hills all around , increase the rear cassette ring size. Live on mostly flat terrain get smaller cogs. Or have one cog with all sizes. At some point these are just e-motorcycles disguised as bicycles.


Because if done right it totally eliminates the drivetrain alignment issues that a mid drive can visit on a chain. Right now I have a bike whose stays are so short I cannot get to the smallest or largest cogs (11-48T) under heavy load without the chain jumping, despite the fact chainline is dead straight back on the middle cog. The performance-oriented geometry of the bike just will not let a full 10s system work (do it on a cheap ass Chinese frame with long stays and results would improve, but the frame geometry would be Wal Mart quality). I am by no means the only person who has experienced the reality of chain line problems. The common practice of re-ordering cogs comes to mind.

Yeah sure I can do a belt and an IGH but there are torque and equipment issues to contend with.

Take it to the next level and combine a front transmission with a low-range derailleur and rear cluster and now you've got a 21st century touring cycle.

I had to run the chain-line with the smallest cog on my e-bike build. This eliminated all cog slippage on every gear. This goes against the standard middle cog chain-line on non motorized bicycles. Before that I had slippage on the 11 tooth cog even on flat roads under throttle power. After the chain-line was dialed in, it never slipped again. Even in extreme conditions, that I wouldn't recommend, was climbing hills under load using the smallest cog, it didn't slip at all.

My dream build would be a high end geared rear hub like a Rohloff style that was capable of handling the 120-160nm of torque of mid-drives. Then you could run a perfect straight line chain/belt off the front chain-ring. I ran a 52T front Lekkie BBSHD chain-ring modified to fit a BBS02 motor. I had to use 4 spacers as well to bring the chain-line out far enough. Then I ran the chain-line to nearly a direct line over the 11th tooth smallest.

Note* This is a custom bike and not a LUNA bike. The only part from LUNA is the battery. I've since painted over the annoying LUNA logo.

 

[m@Robertson]

what am i missing - why would you have the transmission up front and an RD?

For exactly the same reason double- or triple-front chainrings have been used on road bikes more or less forever. In many if not most cycling circles 1x drivetrains are new kids on the block - and red-headed stepchildren at that - when compared to a traditional front derailleur and multiple front chainrings.

Doing a transmission on a mid drive would give back the range a bike loses with a 1x front ring, but we could keep the crazy-wide 1x rear cluster if desired. That opens up huge possibilities for configuration. Like for instance going completely in the other direction and bring back the straight block.

In Memoriam: The Straight Block – Velominati

www.velominati.com

 

[scrambler]

A very recent update, 7 db quieter

French E-Bike Specialist Valeo Rolls Out Updates To Cyclee Motor-Gearbox System

French e-bike specialist Valeo has updated its Cyclee system. The motor-gearbox system is reportedly quieter, more efficient, and more high-tech than before.

insideevs.com

Valeo presents at CES 2024 the latest update of its Valeo Cyclee™ Mid-Drive Unit solution with a new HMI and reduced noise and vibration

Valeo Cyclee™ is adaptive and understands what the rider wants. With a 7 speed gear automatic transmission and responding with a 130Nm torque - the highest level available on the market - Valeo Cyclee™ boosts all the rides, even the hardest ones.

www.valeo.com

A review of the valeo motor on an unusual bike.

Rethinking mobility – The Ultima Mobility Multipath Trekking Allroad ebike with Valeo motor and Effigear automatic gearbox in review

The Ultima Mobility Multipath Trekkin Allroad E-Bike with a plastic frame from European manufacturing and a Valeo motor with automatic transmission in the first test.

downtown-mag.com

Motor feedback towards the end

 

[JRA]

That Ultima bike looks very sensible and would make a fine bike for alot of urban and commuter types as well as cargo bikes due to the powerful motor. Does lack a way to insert a belt but that could be modified fairly easily via a coupler in the seat/chain stay or going to an elevated stay? Not a fan of non-removable batteries but I imagine they are if you take out the motor but a pain if you don't have access to a charge point for the whole bike easily.

Pretty interesting that it is pretty much all sourced in France and makes one wonder why such an effort can't be developed here in the states instead of leaning so heavily on Asian development and manufacturing?