Cytronex E-Bike: The Lightest Electric Bicycle
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A truly new technology feels like magic. (Anybody who uses an iPhone will apperceive this effect). So account this: you’re cycling forth in a failing single-speed bike. You’re enjoying the way a one-speeder transfers your legs’ power to the tarmac with minimal efficiency losses (a transmission, in contrast, costs you around 10% in efficiency).
But then you see a steep hill. Normally, you’d be forced to stand on the pedals, or to dismount. But on the Cytronex I was demography through arresting Winchester in countryside England, what I did was columnist a button on the right-hand ancillary of the handlebar. And lo, what felt like the hand of God gave me a push, and I just went up that hill. Like magic, indeed!
The Cytronex abstraction is simple. Take a quality, low-weight bike, for example as made by Cannondale. (There is no substitute, as Cytronex’ Mark Searles says, for lightness). Add an electric hub motor to the front wheel. The clincher is a battery that looks like a standard bicyclist’s water-bottle, and is easy to insert or remove. The result: a normal, efficient electric bicycle you’ll pedal without electric bike support on level ground and up light gradients, and that doesn’t weigh you down with unnecessary ballast (the Cytronex package weighs 5 KGs). But when you hit a hill, or encounter a headwind, you can retrieve the motor’s 180 Watts of electric assistence.
Other e-bikes are more complicated and heavier; in fact, Cytronex claims to make the lightest electrics in the world. Electric bikes can be of two kinds. Firstly, there are the quasi-mopeds, complete with twist-grip throttles. Millions of Chinese bodies use these, and they accept their accessible purposes, but you won’t acquisition yourself pedaling abundant on these abundant machines, alike if you can. Then, there are the so-called pedalecs that employ a sensor which knows how hard you are pedalling: push harder, and the electric motor provides more assistance. Pedalecs can be OK-looking, but at atomic in Europe, they are in crisis of actuality stigmatised as senior-citizen transport.
No such danger in the case of Cytronex. The hub motor is inconspicuous, and the array is ingeniously stealthy. You wouldn’t look like you own one just because you’re too lazy to pedal a normal bike or too poor to own a car. Cytronex’ capital raison d’etre is to access your active radius. As Searles says, “I capital to accredit added bodies to drive by bike”.
Cytronex offers a range of bikes equipped with its electric system. In addition to the single-speed Genesis Day One,
I test-drove a gearshift-equipped Cannondale as well, and it formed beautifully, admitting after the artlessness of the single-speed one. For actively arresting area though, a shifter is absolutely better.
Searles is also working on a package which will enable any well-trained bike mechanic to install electric components to a range of bikes — even onto pre-owned ones. Initially planned for late 2009, this seems to be a bit more complicated than expected: some bikes are not well-suited to electrification. Expect Cytronex kits to ability the bazaar in 2010.
In late November, I visited Cytronex in Winchester for some test rides and for a quick Q&A session with company owner Mark Searles.
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