One Motor
Hi everyone, I just picked up and installed my new one motor electric bike friction drive unit on Saturday and was most favorably impressed . It worked way better that I had ever thought possible and more then lives up to its promise.
It’s an amazingly well thought out device with what I can see will take me a while to figure out how to use , although on the other hand, I left Jeff Guido’s Studio, got right on my bike, and without any problems ebiked it all the way through Manhattan from the Wall Street area to the upper west side , roughly 6 or so miles through Streets, Bike paths, Parks and traffic for a fantastically enjoyable ride on a beautiful Spring day.
I think I went through what a lot of other people on this forum wrote about in that I purchased the one one motor unit on the very first day I received Jeff’s initial email, October 12 of last year. I too thought I would get it in the 6 to 8 weeks that had been initially stated and went through frustration and impatience and even doubt as the time stretched on. I was buoyed by Grace’s many wonderful email updates and her obvious decency and sincerity clearly came through her writings and continually reassured me so that at some point I just had the strong thought that it really didn’t matter when I got the unit as long as I got it eventually.
Well, Ladies and Gentleman , I got it ! And now that my long wait has finally ended and now that I finally have the one motor in my hands I can honestly say that had I known how fantastic this device would be that I wouldn’t have minded waiting twice as long as I did.
The installation went smoothly and easily although in all honesty i can’t take any credit for that as Jeff pretty much did the whole thing with the exception of my handing him a bolt or a tool that fell to the floor from time to time. None the less, watching Jeff put it all together I could see that once you figured out what went where, it was really an exceptionally easy process.
I have to say, one thing that strikes me as significant and important about the One Motor is that, as Jeff wrote to me in an email
“ I sometimes have worried that I made the product to complex. That people didn’t want or need all the features I built into it, and that I should have instead just built something simpler and less functional... “
Well, personally I like being treated as an intelligent human being and I appreciate a product that rather then being dumbed down for me to use without thinking,instead let’s me grow and reach and strive to master, not unlike any computer or tool or vehicle that requires a learning curve to use.
You can increase or decrease power levels with much more information, then most ebikes, throughly monitor battery levels, cadence, lighting and more and
I just got the unit two days ago and I’m still figuring out all that it does. But the thing is that the OM is designed to be an intelligent, but not difficult electric bike based on a practical and through understanding of what a biker needs and wants and uses.
The way that I got into all this was that I first purchased an electric Brompton bike from NYCE wheels ( who mysteriously closed their doors and vanished into the night a few months ago) . It’s a 3 speed Brompton with the crystalyte hub motor replacing the front wheel. I’ve really enjoyed riding it but with the motor and the battery and this that and the other thing the weight crept up into the mid to high 40 lb plus range. As a senior citizen living in a walkup building (stairs only, no elevator) this was an important consideration for me and it wasn’t so easy for me to just grab the bike and run out the door, I need to really brace myself for the climb up or down and it’s not an easy thing for me to do.
At some point I thought it would be helpful to just get a plain non electric light weight bicycle that I could easily walk out the door with and just as easily carry back upstairs.
OK, so I found a used brompton S 2 for a reasonable price and started using that however, despite the increased ease that I had in getting my bike to and from the street, once I was there I realized that of course peddling an electric bike is obviously and of course far far easier then peddling a non electric bike.
So after a while I started thinking about a light weight friction motor and actually tried to contact several companies that seemed to carry them but they were based in Asia and non of them even wrote back to me.
After sometime I received an email offering the One Motor and I purchased it right away that day and then of course with the previously discussed extra long wait to receive it. Anyway, what’s done is done and if I got mad at everybody who wasn’t on time I would be angry at half the human race. So what if it took a little longer then I thought it would and as I wrote to Grace in one email, it was wintertime anyway and I wasn’t planning to go out bicycling in 35 degree weather !
It’s much quieter than I thought it would be and the peddle assist ( which I don’t have on the crystalyte ebike ) works smoothly and efficiently and reminds me of way over a half century ago when as a boy I was learning to ride a bike for the very first time. My father would run behind me and hold me from loosing my balance and falling over while also give me little gentle pushes from time to time until one day I looked back and realized that I was peddling on my own !
That’s the type of feeling I get when the One Motor kicks in and just gently pushes me forward and for a split second i almost imagine that I feel weightless and I’m flying on my bike. Oh me oh my, maybe I’m slipping into my second childhood here, are people allowed to do that on electric bike forums ?
I also really like that the bike is still a bike with normal wheels, and how you can so easily slip the one motor unit on and off and although I can easily fold up my Brompton and take it with me if I had a regular sized bike I could lock up the bike and in seconds take off the one motor unit and just put it into a back pack or just carry it as everything simply snaps together using strong and long lasting magnets. It’s really cleverly designed and just seems so easy to use despite having layers and layers of subtle complexities
Well, I suppose I’ll have more to say about this later as I use the one motor in the weeks, months and years ahead
I think this will definitely fill a niche in the electric bicycle world and this is one of those times in life where I’m so happy that I hung in there and waited. I guess I thought that I would get something puny and noisy and that would barely equal my hub motor ebike but I figured if it was light weight enough I could use it locally to get around in my neighborhood and that I could use the crystalyte unit for longer trips like biking to Brooklyn to see my grandson. After 10 minutes on the One Motor I surprised myself by thinking that I might sell the crystalyte and just use the one motor for all my biking needs, both near and far . It’s far exceeded my expectations and who would have thought that a lowly friction drive unit would be equal or surpass the electric bike hub wheel, the king of the ebike world . Well, news flash, the king is dead, long live the lowly friction drive ! Unless someone invents an anti gravity, flying bike I think this is going to be at the forefront of ebike evolution for years and even decades to come. So thanks again Jeff, you really aced it with this one or should I say with this one motor.
