TAIPEI CYCLE 2024

[Explorer-1]

 

[Explorer-1]

Motors of the Future?

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Motors of the Future?

I especially liked that man Leo who said he invented a system in which your 10 second worth of pedalling wouls store as much energy as you could ride assisted for the next 10 km

The Hell is paved with new inventions that never find their way to the industry. For one, I have not heard from a single EBR Forum member that he/she owns a mid-drive motor with the internal gearbox yet...

 

[Mr. Coffee]

...

The Hell is paved with new inventions that never find their way to the industry. For one, I have not heard from a single EBR Forum member that he/she owns a mid-drive motor with the internal gearbox yet...

And you probably won't for a while. My understanding is that there is (at best) very limited availability of any of those gadgets so far. I spoke to a Pinion rep about their e-drive last December and he told me it probably wouldn't be available in the States before 2025 and that availability in Europe would be very limited until later in 2024.

My understanding is that the Tout Terrain Pamir, which looks like an extremely promising e-bike for loaded touring is only going to be available in extremely limited quantities at first. Oh, and Tout Terrain has been around for a while making great expedition touring bikes, so they do know how to build bicycles.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

bicycles

Can they build e-bikes, too?

 

[Mr. Coffee]

Can they build e-bikes, too?

Yes, I suspect so.

My own observation is that a bicycle company, on the average, will make a better e-bike than a non-bicycle company would. A lot of that is because I am pretty confident that the engineers at an actual bicycle company have, at least recently, and probably quite frequently, actually ridden a bicycle. I also get the impression that a lot of the "cheap Chinese garbage" that you criticize was "designed" by someone taking an existing pretty generic frame design and moving the geometry around a bit to fit a battery and bolting components on it without much thought to making a decent bike, or even knowing how to do that.

Anyone who knows anything about bikes should be cringing at that last sentence. Changes of a few millimeters in bicycle geometry can make the difference between a shred sled and a medieval torture device

 

[Stefan Mikes]

My own observation is that a bicycle company, on the average, will make a better e-bike than a non-bicycle company would. A lot of that is because I am pretty confident that the engineers at an actual bicycle company have, at least recently, and probably quite frequently, actually ridden a bicycle.

There's more in an e-bike than in the bicycle. Integration of the battery, motor, and the peripherals. Making the e-bike structurally strong but not overweight and so on. You will certainly agree with me that many early e-bikes made by bicycle companies were simply horrible?

This is a new model by Marin. Marin is respected as a bicycle company but I would never buy a MY 2024 e-bike looking like the above.

Then it comes the whole electronic complexity, making the thing waterproof etc. Ensuring local support and warranty handling. Trust me, I yet have hear from anyone who bought a gearbox mid-drive motor e-bike, and it is not only the Pinion MGU (I have already forgotten what the other "miracle" was)