NEC Cycle Show 2018 - mini show report

MattyB

E*POWAH Elite World Champion
Jul 11, 2018
1,266
1,279
Herts, UK
Thought I would write a mini report on all things electrical that I saw at the show yesterday. Unfortunately it's more of a story of who wasn’t there…

EMTB track.jpg


EMTB absences

Whilst there were plenty of EMTBs on show, almost none of the big newly announced bikes were there. There was no Haibike, Lapierre, Giant or Specialized at all which was disappointing, and the large Vitus presence from last year had also gone AWOL. Marin’s new HT ebikes were also MIA (apparently there are only a couple of protos in the whole world at this point).

Probably the most interesting EMTB present was the Rocky Mountain Powerplay which I had never seen up close; it is very well engineered but a little less aesthetically polished than the offerings from the bigger brands. It still looked good, but I would be very nervous about paying out that kind of money though given the proprietary motor unit and very small UK distributor network.

RM.jpg

There was also a Bosch powered Kona Remote Ctrl that could have been a Trek Powerfly FS if you’d changed the paintjob.

Kona.jpg

And a Corratec which I'd never heard of...

Corratec MTB.jpg

Fantic and Orange were both there; the welds on the Orange were as brutal as always.. ;)

Fantic.jpg Orange.jpg

Finally, there was a brand called Wisper with two all carbon STEPS E8000 powered EMTBs, the Wildcat FS and Wolf HT. I rode the Wildcat on the outdoor urban ebikes test track; obviously it was impossible to learn much about its trail manners, but it felt light and checkable at just over 21kg. At £5.8k with a Yari fork and Deluxe RT shock it looks decent value for a dealer supported bike.

Wisper.jpg

e-Road bikes are definitely a thing

Last year Orbea had their prototype Gain, and that was pretty much the only drop bar ebike I saw. This year you could barely move for them. A few were lesser known brands like Wisper, Corratec and the Cairn gravel bike (a brand I believe belongs to Hunt Wheels)…

Cairns.jpg Corratec Road.jpg

…but there were also ebikes from Pinarello, Look, Bianchi and Ribble.

Look.jpg Bianchi.jpg

Ribble.jpg

Encouragingly many of these were Fazua powered. That is good news for us as I doubt premium brands would jump onboard with a company who couldn’t support the product long term. Hopefully the investment they are getting from these partners will in part go into building a support network for Fazua across the EU, meaning we can buy Fazua powered EMTBs with confidence.

PS - The only rideable drop bar ebike on the day was the Gain. It had a very natural power delivery and friction free running beyond 15mph from its hub motor. I still wasn’t quite convinced on who will buy these bikes outside of those who live in a mountainous area though; maybe they are after Dentists in the Alps! ;)

Watch out for Whyte

I couldn’t resist ribbing the guys on the Whyte stand about the absence of EMTBs this year after they had confidently talked about them last year. They confirmed things had taken longer “because some of the key components we want to use were delayed”, but that there were mules out in the wild undergoing final testing and that there would be a range released in summer 2019 (the 2020 model year).

He also confirmed they would use Bosch, Shimano and Fazua across their range of EMTBs and urban bikes, though which would get what he wasn’t prepared to divulge. I would imagine a Fazua powered version of the Roadplus Portobello and Glencoe could be stunning...

Portobello.jpg

I was very surprised when he said Bosch, as the dimensions and weight of the current units wouldn’t seem to sit well with Ian Alexander’s philosophy on geometry. Does this point to a new Bosch motor in 2019? It might (I hope so as riding the Cubes on the test track convinced me they are now well behind the competition), but I guess it will be some time until we find out.

And my favourite ebike? That was the Spectral, it rode superbly. Right afterwards I rode a retro full suss MTB on the same track - it was fun, but extremely scary!

Spectral.jpg F64EED5B-A124-42A5-AD55-77A5E099AA76.jpeg
 
Last edited:

galaga187

E*POWAH Master
Apr 15, 2018
794
594
Wroughton
Thanks for posting. It looks like you saw more than me. I didn’t realise they were letting people ride the Proflex, gutted as I used to own one but with yellow elastomers. I agree the Canyon was impressive.
 

R120

Moderator
Subscriber
Apr 13, 2018
7,819
9,185
Surrey
Did whisper have their 2019 bikes their - i believe for 2019 the EMTB's from them have a bigger internal battery - they had them at Interbike
 

MattyB

E*POWAH Elite World Champion
Jul 11, 2018
1,266
1,279
Herts, UK
Thanks for posting. It looks like you saw more than me. I didn’t realise they were letting people ride the Proflex, gutted as I used to own one but with yellow elastomers. I agree the Canyon was impressive.
Yeah, it was all a bit low key - I just wandered over after riding the Spectral:On, asked him about the bikes and he offered me a go on whatever I wanted. He recommended the Proflex as the best of the available bunch though. The seatpost was very low (it had broken earlier and he’d had to fit a shorter replacement) but it rode pretty well for a 20+ year old bike.
 
Last edited:

rmh1009

New Member
Aug 17, 2018
234
97
West Wales
Thought I would write a mini report on all things electrical that I saw at the show yesterday. Unfortunately it's more of a story of who wasn’t there…

View attachment 5775

EMTB absences

Whilst there were plenty of EMTBs on show, almost none of the big newly announced bikes were there. There was no Haibike, Lapierre, Giant or Specialized at all which was disappointing, and the large Vitus presence from last year had also gone AWOL. Marin’s new HT ebikes were also absent (apparently there are only a couple of protos in the whole world at this point).

Probably the most interesting EMTB present was the Rocky Mountain Powerplay which I had never seen up close; it looks very well engineered but a little less aesthetically polished than the offerings from the bigger brands. It still looked good, but I would be very nervous about paying out that kind of money though given the proprietary motor unit and very small UK distributor network.

View attachment 5783

There was also a Bosch powered Kona Remote Ctrl that could have been a Trek Powerfly FS if you’d changed the paintjob.

View attachment 5777

And a Corratec which I'd never heard of...

View attachment 5773

Fantic and Orange were both there; the welds on the Orange were as brutal as always.. ;)

View attachment 5776 View attachment 5779

Finally, there was a brand called Wisper with two all carbon STEPS E8000 powered EMTBs, the Wildcat FS and Wolf HT. I rode the Wildcat on the outdoor urban ebikes test track; obviously it was impossible to learn much about its trail manners, but it felt light and checkable at just over 21kg. At £5.8k with a Yaris fork and Deluxe RT shock it looks decent value for a dealer supported bike.

View attachment 5785

e-Road bikes are definitely a thing

Last year Orbea had their prototype Gain, and that was pretty much the only drop bar ebike I saw. This year you could barely move for them. A few were lesser known brands like Wisper, Corratec and the Cairn gravel bike (a brand I believe belongs to Hunt Wheels)…

View attachment 5772 View attachment 5774

…but there were also ebikes from Pinarello, Look, Bianchi and Ribble.

View attachment 5778 View attachment 5788

View attachment 5782

Encouragingly many of these were Fazua powered. That is probably good news for us as I doubt premium brands would not jump onboard with a company who couldn’t support the product long term. Hopefully the investment they are getting from these partners will in part go into building a support network for Fazua across the EU, meaning we can buy Fazua powered EMTBs with confidence.

PS - The only rideable drop bar ebike on the day was the Gain. It had a very natural power delivery and friction free running beyond 15mph from its hub motor. I still wasn’t quite convinced on who will buy these bikes outside of those who live in a mountainous area though; maybe they are after Dentists in the Alps! ;)

Watch out for Whyte

I couldn’t resist ribbing the guys on the Whyte stand about the absence of EMTBs this year after they had confidently talked about them last year. They confirmed things had taken longer “because some of the key components we want to use were delayed”, but that there were mules out in the wild undergoing final testing and that there would be a range released in summer 2019 (the 2020 model year).

He also confirmed they would use Bosch, Shimano and Fazua across their range of EMTBs and urban bikes, though which would get what he wasn’t prepared to divulge. I would imagine a Fazua poered version of the Roadplus Portobello and Glencoe could be stunning...

View attachment 5795

I was very surprised when he said Bosch, as the dimensions and weight of the current units wouldn’t seem to sit well with Ian Alexander’s philosophy on geometry. Does this point to a new Bosch motor in 2019? It might (I hope so as riding the Cubes on the test track convinced me they are now well beyond the competition), but I guess it will be some time until we find out.

And my favourite ebike? That was the Spectral, it rode superbly. Right afterwards I rode a retro full suss MTB on the same track - it was fun, but extremely scary!

View attachment 5784 View attachment 5798

Great report mate. Just taken delivery of my Spectral:On 7.0 so glad you hear you rate it as well. Thought it was fantastic on my outing at Brechfa yesterday.
 

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