E-Bike News
The New Riese & Müller Culture 0
A brand new model from Riese & Müller has just landed, the Culture. This is a model we've been very excited about sharing since we heard of it's launch, and it's now in store, available to view and/or test ride! So let us tell you a bit more about it and some of the features.
Circular Design principal
The first Riese & Müller model based on their Circular Design principal, this is the idea of attempting to develop products which are not only high quality and long lasting but also come from/have more then one product life cycle.
So how is the Culture based on this? It's frame is largely manufactured from recycled Aluminium! A new and unique concept in the bike industry, their hope is to improve environmental and human rights conditions along the supply chain, and also save energy: the production of recycled aluminium requires only 5% of the energy needed to produce primary aluminium!
They've opted for powder-coating with this model, which is more resource-efficient then painting. For instance, 95% of the excess paint powder and water used can be reused.
When selecting add-on components, R&M rely on suppliers who meet their high quality and sustainability standards and who also manufacture predominantly in Europe. This enables them to prevent CO2 emissions caused by transporting their components on container ships or by air freight.
Who's it for?
The culture is designed as a relaxing everyday bike. Whether that be commuting, riding round town or exploring your local area. It's designed with a minimalist and simple to use concept, fewer features and configuration options creating an understated but high quality looking and feeling bike.
Features
It comes fitted with the brand new Bosch SX Motor, their smallest, sleekest and lightest motor yet! This is paired with a completely integrated and protected, theft-resistant lightweight 400wh battery. Want more range? It can also be fitted with a removable 250wh Range Extender as an optional upgrade.
It's fitted as standard with integrated lights and mudguards. You can also choose from a number of optional extras such as a rear rack, wheel lock, upgraded suspension forks and much more.
Variants
It comes in 2 frame shapes with a selection of 3 different colours between them.
Biscuit, only available in the crossbar
Blossom, only available in the mixte
Denim, available in both
It can be ordered as a Touring, Silent or Vario.
Touring, Chain and 10 Speed Derailleur
Silent, Belt Drive and 8 Speed Nexus Hub
Vario, Belt Drive and Enviolo Hub
See the models, full information and tech spec here, Crossbar and Mixte.
Or contact us for more information info@elctrc.co.uk, 01273 625060.
- Jake Rowe
eBikes and Safety 1
You’ve probably seen recent News stories where eBikes are blamed for causing death. Whether it’s Cardiff, Manchester or now Cambridge. Inevitably, this will cause great concern, so we thought it important to dig a little deeper on the facts and also to explain our approach here at elctrc.
Safety has always been a key factor in determining which eBikes we wish to sell. Consider that we have 70-80 eBikes, each with it’s own battery in our Shop at any one time! Soon after we opened back in 2015, we learnt of an eBike Shop in Germany that ignited and since then, Safety has been paramount in our selection of products. We sell reputable branded eBikes, with Motors and Batteries from reputable companies: EG: Bosch; Yamaha and Fazua.
Let’s look at some of the issues:
FIRE:
So what is the issue with Fire? Most, not all, eBikes have battery cells made with Lithium-Ion. At a chemical level, L-Ion be dangerous and it can ignite if mis-treated. One issue, is that if l-Ion ignites, it’s VERY hard to extinguish. Often it just has to be left to burn out and the Fire Brigade will probably focus on limiting the damage of the surrounding area!
Every household now has many devices with batteries: Lap-tops; tablets; mobile phones; kick-scooters; cars and eBikes are just a few. There is nothing fundamentally different with an eBike battery, compared to other devices. You may remember some years back that a leading Mobile Phone and Tablet manufacturer had some products that ignited. But currently the News cycle (pun intended) is all about eBikes!
Commercially, consumers want ever more battery capacity and ever shorter charging times. Weight and profit also come into it. This creates a desire to pack ever more capacity into smaller spaces and also to create Cells that have a greater energy density. The engineering of the battery matters and of absolute importance is the Battery Management System (BMS). It’s the BMS that controls ‘how’ the battery charges – which is determined by a very complex set of parameters.
Whilst no scientific expert, I believe the BMS is one of the key differentiators of a high-quality system. For sure, we know that the batteries on lesser eBikes, have significantly shorter life-cycles and cause a much large number of issues, than the better quality eBikes that we sell.
I had a long chat with the Uli, the technical Lead at Bosch eBikes many years ago and they were absolutely adamant that Bosch would never succumb to the commercial pressures, that can compromise safety. We see the evidence that Yamaha (and others) also follow this approach.
So for sure, there are risks involved with most things in life. The challenge is how to mitigate those risks. As a business, we can make good margin on selling some of the cheaper eBikes, but being aware of ALL of the benefits of issues they create, have always maintained a strategy to sell mid-range upwards. We’re aware that sometimes this results in us losing a Sale, but it also means we’re confident in the products we sell.
Good precautions to take when charging include:
- Only use the Charger that came with the Bike – or an ‘original’ replacement.
- Make sure all wires and connections remain undamaged.
- Make sure the power-point is not over-loaded.
- Ensure that the Battery is not located on soft, or inflammable materials.
- The Charger should/will turn off when the battery is fully charged. If it doesn’t, its faulty!
- Make sure that the physical battery has not been damaged. It’s cheaper to get a replacement battery, than a new home!!
If you do have a Battery that is damaged, or end of life, your local authority are likely to have specific Battery re-cycling facilities – NEVER put them in the domestic rubbish!
Illegal Products; Speed and the Police.
For any vehicle to be used on UK Roads and Public Spaces, all ‘vehicles’, of any description, must pass appropriate safety tests. This is all controlled and managed by the Government Agency known as the: Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA). There are numerous categories of vehicles, ranging from Articulated Lorries, to Mobility Scooters and Bicycles. Each one has a set of criteria that must be fulfilled before approval is granted.
In addition to the normal Construction & Use criteria that all Bikes must fulfil, eBikes must also meet additional criteria. You can read the details here:
Sadly, there are many products for sale that do not meet the required standards. There are some products that are simply dangerous. Sadly, there’s people in society that prefer the thrills of speed, more than they care about the responsibility of safety! This is developing into a major issue and needs tackling at multiple levels. The Police have responsibility for enforcement of the Laws, but as is all too obvious, some of the people riding these Bikes don’t want to be stopped. The Police therefore have to make ‘real-time’ decisions on whether to pursue, or not.
We’d also encourage a much greater involvement by the Trading Standards Authorities, so that the issues can be addressed long before it becomes a life-threatening situation.
Locally, we engage with the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership (SSRP), which is pre-dominantly funded by the Police. We recently hosted a session whereby SSRP were looking at some real-life examples of eBikes and the Law and also how to engage their colleagues and inform strategies.
In Summary
We’re very confident that overall eBikes make a great contribution to society. Of course, it’s tragic that people die in any Fire, or Gas leak or even of Air Pollution. But it is important to keep this in perspective. If you buy an eBike, from elctrc or other reputable Retailers, it is highly unlikely that you’ll have any safety issues.
- Jake Rowe
Beryl BTN Bikes- Brightons Public eBike Scheme 0
As you may be aware, Brighton & Hove City Council (BHCC) yesterday launched Beryl BTN Bikes, their publicly funded e-Bike sharing scheme. This offers the chance to rent an ebike for short journeys around the city all through an app on your phone.
Beryl BTN Bikes could be a great way of getting people to experience eBikes and hopefully will increase the number of people using sustainable modes of transport to get around the city. We love "Active Travel" as it's called - it even features in our Business Plan before we opened back in 2014.
But it's worth taking a moment to ask yourself: How does "Beryl" compare to owning your own eBike?
Cost: this will be an important factor for many people looking to use an ebike for Leisure and/or Commuting. Beryl is charged at 15p per minute. Let's see whether that's good value? EG: a typical commute is 20 minutes each way - a total of 40 minutes a day. This equates to £6 a day, £30 a week for a 5 day commute or around £130 a month.
Let's compare this to one of our best selling models with the Bosch motor system. If you purchased this with a £0 deposit, using our V12 finance scheme, this can be purchased from as little as £61.03 a month. Yes, that's about 50% the cost of a Beryl BTN Bike!
Choice: Want something a bit more capable so you can explore the South Downs National Park as well? The Haibike AllTrack 4.0 can be purchased from as little as £69.35 a month!
In fact, for the £130 per month that Beryl BTN Bikes cost in our example, you could choose any Bike up to approx £4,600 - which includes some incredible models, with amazing technology!
What other benefits will you have?
- Convenience: You'll have access to the Bike 24 x 7, this can be an issue with bike-share schemes, there's not always one available at your desired hub when you need it most! And there's no additional cost of riding more, further or longer :-)
- Flexibility: You can ride and store it where you want and don't have to worry about paying a fee for using it outside the permitted zone or any additional 'drop off ' fees.
- Condition of the bike is under your control, instead of being at the mercy of the previous rider/s and how they treated the bike.
- Type: Not only do you have choice of what model/style (usually of a better quality spec) you want, it can also be set-up and customised for your usage to add your own accessories etc.
- Public v Private: With Council Tax under such scrutiny, some people believe that local authorities should be leveraging the Private sector to achieve their aims, rather than investing their precious resource(s) in Public Bike schemes.
Of course there are other factors to consider, such as maintenance costs, storage and security.
We offer a 50% discount on our Workshop labour rate for customers that purchase from us, so a typical annual service is £50.00.
We can also supply high quality, gold rated locks from as little as £54.99.
Check out our full range of eBikes here, with a finance calculator on each bike. If you'd like any more information contact us on 01273 625060 or info@elctrc.co.uk.
We're also available in the showroom 7 days a week, to help take you through our range.
- Jake Rowe
Spotlight Series: The Riese & Müller MultiTinker 0
Introducing our new series of Blog Posts; The Spotlight Series! Every other week we will be focusing on a model we currently have in stock (at the time of writing) and highlighting everything great about it. Sometimes the world of Electric Bikes can be quite overwhelming so we will be breaking it down! If you have any models that you are particularly interested in, leave a comment and we will be happy to Spotlight it!
Up this week in the Spotlight Series; The Riese & Müller MultiTinker!
Brand new out and in store now, The MultiTinker is designed as a city car replacement, whether this be for families carrying children on a school run or someone just looking at a bike that can carry more. Whilst similar to the MultiCharger we know and love, the 20" wheels create a low centre of gravity making the bike agile to ride, even when loaded.
It can either be specced as the Touring or Vario model. Touring coming with a chain and 10 Speed Shimano Deore deraileur and Vario coming with a Enviolo hub gear system and belt drive!
Both models come as standard with suspension forks, the Bosch Cx Motor (new Smart System), a 625wh battery, lights, a kickstand and the unique long rear rack. The longer rear rack is designed to carry up to 65kg and can be kitted out in multiple ways.
The safety bar, ideal for younger children, can also be combined with child seats.
The passenger kit, ideal for older children, around 7 and above.
The cargo panniers, giving up to 84 litres of volume, ideal for bigger shopping trips or even longer distance bike-packing.
As always with Riese & Müller theres also a number of different ways to customise the bike as part of the configuration process, including 4 colour combinations, 2 display, different front carriers and of course Riese & Müller's normal GX option (Off Road Tyres) to name a few.
This bike is now in store and ready to be seen and test ridden, come and have a look for yourself or contact us for more information.
- Jake Rowe