slickrock
Well-known member
So it appears that Leo is finally taking covers off what he's been working on and more importantly perhaps a reveal of the resurrected Pole brand itself. In some ways, what we see here is not that surprising if one has been following the Pole FB group and YT vids and his clear obsession with the Maxon motor. He had clearly stated that he wanted to put the Maxon into his Sonni, and based this glimpse it appears that that is exactly what he did. I do like the look of the bike overall, and appreciate the more, ahem, androgynous/neutered profile of this bike compared to the Sonni. The sharp bend where the downtube meets the motor is characteristic of motors where the transmission is transverse to the the motor, like with Fazua. Still it could be a leaner and more svelte in that area compared to some other bikes I've seen with this motor. Then again, this may not be the final iteration of the bike, much like the Voima went through a number of changes before it went GA.
The unknown here, ASAIK, is the current state of the Maxon battery platform, which I hoped by now the Swiss company would reveal a better set of batteries and mounting platform. I particular, what size battery is inside this bike?
The other dimension of this reveal of the fabrication tech used, namely that Leo seems to have stayed the course with the full CNC, glued 7075 aluminum approach, which to some may still be controversial. 7075 is not easily weldable or repairable, and as such requires company that is a going concern and can stand behind a warranty program. Pole has lost goodwill here as none of the warranties on all the current bikes out there survived the company's receivership. The original swingarm design of the Voima was known for cracking issues and were replaced with an improved design under warranty before the company when under. One could argue this is general issue with any company that goes belly-up, whether they use carbon fiber or not (YT comes to mind). Needless to say, I have not experience any material issues with the Poles I've owned.
Finally, though, I'm really glad that this bike is a Sonni successor rather than Voima, because I've owned both and can clearly say that the Sonni is the far better bike, scaling back on some of the extremities of its predecessor. And that the Sonni never got it's moment because only handful of them were produced before Pole went under (my bike literally arrived the day the bankruptcy was announced). Maybe someday I will do full review of the Sonni, but until such time, this new Pole will hopefully put a newer, lighter version of it in other people's hands.
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You and I hammered Leo on the FB group about striking out in a different direction regarding fabrication, but he clearly wasn't having it - he likes what he knows it seems. While I'm not a material engineer, I thought more about a change in fabrication approach as projecting a change in company direction; that things will be different this time. The fundamental problem is company viability again. We tend to modify our priors only when there is evidence that future won't play out the same way again. If it's the same leader, with the same brand, pushing the same fab techniques, this is going to be an uphill climb to rebuild goodwill just on perception alone.
