Grace Bike from Germany

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itselectric

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Location
Calgary, AB, Canada
The World’s first and finest e-Motorbike.
SideView [800x600].jpg
Price at $5,877 euros, close to $9,000 USD
Handmade in Berlin/Biesenthal
3 different frame types
64 different colors
1.3kW brushless hub motor
45 km/h (street legal)
63 km/h (race track)
30 to 50km range
Patent pending cnd-aluminum diamond frame

Here is the web site
http://www.grace.de/#/main/home/

Here is the youtube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItPAhJMbSto

Anyone can figure it out who makes the hub motor? The motor cover plate has been replaced.
 
First and finest? Looks like a painfully rigid frame with a heavy weak hubmotor.
 
Yet another männlichverbesserungprodukt... this one matches your ipod.
 
Unless there are a bunch of batteries hiding in the frame I doubt it would get you five miles no pedeling. Nice clean design though. and speaking of batteries in the frame, could be done right?
 
Ja, it has lithium cells in the frame, controller too.

Par-for-the-course: the overpriced trophybike has an equally slow and overdone flash website that doesn't work right.
 
The more I look at it, the more it becomes clear what a POS design this is.

For a laugh, check out the dog-leg they put in the rear wheel stay to clear the after-thought of a rear disk brake. Can you say stress riser?

And the crown on the forks... Even if they used titanium rather than aluminum (doubtful), that's gotta be one of the worst designs I've seen to date. Rigidity varies at the cube of diameter, and they went for "style" on the crown of that fork over a design that will function...

I love the claims they make on the site. Thank you for the link, it's been good for a laugh. :)
 
They are using an off-the-shelf RC toy battery charger with a seperate 12v power supply to run it...

This is and OK way to do it, and the way many of us LiPo running guys charge when we first get started and don't have a better way yet. They boast about it being some sort of brilliant universal charging solution. lol
 
1: We have currently in this one off Prototype you find on our Site with integrated 154 Moli Cells, in a 14s11P pack with 53 Volts, inside the frame.
This gets the Bike easy up to 60. We had the Bike with higher Voltages at 90km/h and the Frame stayed very stable even
at high speeds. For legal reasons we got to stay below 48Voltes in the series.

2: The frame is IP67 Waterproof, you can throw it into a swimming pool, and take it out a month later, plug in the
Engine and start it. Dear TylerDurden try that with your beautiful cop stopper. By the way our welders need one day by hand just to produce the frame.

3: The Bike is fully Street Legal after European regulations, if you get caught over here with a Bike like Tylers, you gotta wait for 3 month at least to get your
car licence back.

4: The off the shelve "toy" charger is after a lot we tried absolutely brilliant. Next year we can charge with >20 amps and an integrated balancer. That in the size of a 3,5" Harddrive, got a better idea?

5: The Fork is used for years in International Mountain Bike races very successfull. For Grace the manufacturer German:A has changed it to be even more strong. There is companies that live for physics and and also live of it:) The Fork is CNC carved and cost 1475$ "of the shelve".

6: Last but not least we hope to find some clients that are interested in Design and Handcrafted machines and park there Porsche for a bit. Luckily some people like Art, good food, nice clothes, etc. Is there more in live then Pizza and Linux Penguins? :D
 
matrixxed said:
1: We have currently in this one off Prototype you find on our Site with integrated 154 Moli Cells, in a 14s11P pack with 53 Volts, inside the frame.

You fit 154 of the 18650 E-moli cells inside the frame? Kudos to good cell stacking! They are normally good for aboud 1.3Ah at 3C, which would give a usable 740Wh. Pretty decent. Like having a $400 LiPo pack (7 x $56 20C 6S5Ah, 5.25Kg pack weight), except roughly 35% more weight (your pack being 7.2Kg) and a 1/3rd of the specific power. Still though, Im impressed. I love LiMnCO battery chemistry, and you made an excellent choice in respect to saftey and performance. This was for a 1-off proto-type bike, what does a standard $9,000 bike get for a battery?

This gets the Bike easy up to 60. We had the Bike with higher Voltages at 90km/h and the Frame stayed very stable even
at high speeds. For legal reasons we got to stay below 48Voltes in the series.

Don't tell it to DoctorBass, he likes to think he has as world record at <60mph. :) Kudos on making a test bike with some speed. On my homemade E-bike with 8" of suspenion front and rear, I'm thankful for that rear suspension everytime I'm on a typical road. You must have some pretty choice roads to do 60mph on a hardtail.

2: The frame is IP67 Waterproof, you can throw it into a swimming pool, and take it out a month later, plug in the
Engine and start it. Dear TylerDurden try that with your beautiful cop stopper. By the way our welders need one day by hand just to produce the frame.

Finally a bike I can take in the pool with me! ;)

3: The Bike is fully Street Legal after European regulations, if you get caught over here with a Bike like Tylers, you gotta wait for 3 month at least to get your
car licence back. Does it get registered as a motorcycle then? You pay insurance and registration taxes on it? Is it legally bound only to areas for motor vehicles then? IE, no bike paths?

4: The off the shelve "toy" charger is after a lot we tried absolutely brilliant. Next year we can charge with >20 amps and an integrated balancer. That in the size of a 3,5" Harddrive, got a better idea?
If that si the 12S hyperion, I also have one, and they are fantastic. Now I charge from a 2KW CC/CV power supply which also fits in my backpack, though I have to dial it back for regular 15amp power outlets. :(

5: The Fork is used for years in International Mountain Bike races very successfull. For Grace the manufacturer German:A has changed it to be even more strong. There is companies that live for physics and and also live of it:) The Fork is CNC carved and cost 1475$ "of the shelve".
Excellent! A fork optimized for cross-country bike races. Perhaps 25-30mph on a 18lbs bike? I'm glad to hear they changed the design a bit for the very differnt types of loading an E-bike endures.

6: Last but not least we hope to find some clients that are interested in Design and Handcrafted machines and park there Porsche for a bit. Luckily some people like Art, good food, nice clothes, etc. Is there more in live then Pizza and Linux Penguins? :D
Click to expand...
Sounds like the right buyer group for your product. ;)
 
Really nice looking bike. The neck could be a little higher.


However where did they find that jerk riding it?


ouch.jpg


I PMSL when I saw this part of the youtube video, seriously???

.
 
I don't think you're offering a bad product, and I respect that you took the time to properly answer our scalding reception to your product.

The distaste is sourced from the perception of value.

We see a hubmotor of moderate size, a frame with intigrated steel enhanced axle drop-outs (good idea). ($300-500)

A frame internal battery setup, with something like 500-700Whrs? I think most of us like to run at least 1KWhr, many at the 2KWhr mark, and my personal extension pack putting me at 4KWhrs. Either way, it's a lot of battery for a production E-bike, and while in LiPo it would be $400 to match it, lets give it a value of $800, as it is a great safety chemistry.

Controller, throttle, electronics etc. Lets say a 100v 100amp programable controller, and premium throttle and wires. ($500)

Donor bike to convert. Lets pick a quality hard tail bike sized to our body with a strong fork and 8" brakes. ($1500-2000)

This would lead to $3,100 - 3,800 to build. This makes a $9,000 price tag seem difficult to swallow, as it's tough to pay and extra $4,000 to tuck the batteries in the frame and take it swimming. For some buyers I'm sure the extra $4000-5000 seems well worth those advantages.


The folks here interested in performance wouldn't build a 600Whr hardtail bike with a 1,300w hubmotor. For about 1/3 the cost, we build full suspension downhill bikes with 2,000Whr bikes with 5,000-15,000w drive systems.

None the less, for a buyer who can't make anything, and has pleanty of money, and demands something off-the-shelf they can simply buy and ride, this looks to be one of the better options.

Thank you for taking the time to respond to our questions/jeers.

Best Wishes,
-Luke
 
Ahhh I wont just leave it at that post.

This is what the world needs is a fool proof water proof good performing street legal bike. The battery thing will have a few confused, please entertain us here about how this is done and what you do to change them.
 
helmet.jpg
 
317537 said:
Ahhh I wont just leave it at that post.

This is what the world needs is a fool proof water proof good performing street legal bike. The battery thing will have a few confused, please entertain us here about how this is done and what you do to change them.
Click to expand...


It appears you can remove the seat post, and take a few screws out of the top tube end-plug, then I assume a tube of batteries slides out. Likely some sort of push-in connector in the front head-tube for the electrical connection (hopefully including a balance connector.)

The lower tube pack I would assume lifts out in 3 sub-pack sections through the area which is likely the controller mount and lower tube battery access point.

An additional pack could slide down the seat tube area if very pinched for space.
 
liveforphysics said:
Thank you for taking the time to respond to our questions/jeers.

Best Wishes,
-Luke
Click to expand...


Honestly a guy riding along 45kph, no helmet, no pedals, on his balls and with that head on his shoulders doesnt strike a note of humour for you?
 
317537 said:
liveforphysics said:
Thank you for taking the time to respond to our questions/jeers.

Best Wishes,
-Luke
Click to expand...


Honestly a guy riding along 45kph, no helmet, no pedals, on his balls and with that head on his shoulders doesnt strike a note of humour for you?
Click to expand...


Hey, hit refresh, I made a too-cool-for-helmet joke :p
 
A good place to sell E-bikes is outside the court house on mondays after the weekends.

I often have people yelling out at me about what the laws are as I ride past the people who have lost their licences.



You would need $18,000 dollars for that bike as you need one for the GF too. That guy riding on his balls obviosly doesnt have one though, erhhm or no longer needs one .
 
I guess we strike a note here.

I had no idea what a Euro was worth.

"PRICE"

Ebiking is can be a very selfish pursuit and often is only designed for one person. "The owner operator" We have joke about owner operators here in OZ.

I try to at least have two bikes running so I can share the experience with another family member. It is more fun to Ebike with someone else. Nothing like a cool afternoon cruisng down the road with one of your loved ones.

Given that all the tech on this bike is obviously very good, would there be a way to garner the good features of this Ebike and say make it more affordable for the average Joe Blow or old mate at number 8?
 
matrixxed said:
Last but not least we hope to find some clients that are interested in Design and Handcrafted machines and park there Porsche for a bit. Luckily some people like Art, good food, nice clothes, etc. Is there more in live then Pizza and Linux Penguins? :D
Click to expand...
Q: Is there more in life than hucking ornaments for well-heeled suckers that cannot change a flat tire?

A: Yes. There is real art; not some '80s regurgitation of Bauhaus dumbed-down so far below boring that any notion of 'Design' has been submerged in banality completely bereft of character.


Beispiel, art: creativity inspired by passion.
Electric Bike.jpg




Compare to:
GraceFAIL1.jpg
 
I am definetly not starting a discussion here if you guys like the design or not, we got enough orders in to say that people like it. And on our launch party on the 12.11 in Berlin which took place in a well known Art Gallery, a lot of good people liked the product.

1: the Bike is not a corporate project backed up by venture capital... Its a cooperation between my little company and Germanies best framebuilder Nicolai http://www.nicolai.net . So dont become to agressive on it.. Its not the new Mircosoft Bike.

2: The Batteries get in over a hole in the standing tube into the upper tube, as well as via the seatpost, and the CNC Controller Housing takes in another 2 packs. The cabeling of the Bike is quite an effort. So please give me a brake with your selfbuild, cable jungle, batterybackback bikes. Leave those outside in the rain for 3 years... We are talking to companies that are interested in Grace for very professional applications, especially our Frame is a real argument, for City Rental services, Airports or even the police. They won`t buy Tylers bike, thats for certain. :lol:

3: The guy on the Bike is a very good friend of mine who also made the sound to the Video, the video was shoot an cut by another friend with a Canon D5
Foto Camera. The Modell in the Silver suit is Franca, a very nice lady from Berlin, the suit was handmade in Hamburg by another friend.

4: The Photo is a interpretation of a famous shot by lamborghinie in 1967. We had to wait a few weeks to get a sky like that, and we took it in Finowfurt, the largest Airfield outside Russia for Migs in the cold war, which is 5 miles north of our little Grace factory.

5: It do not understand why you guys yell that loud, because we try to make it street legal, waterproof and a real product??? Here in Germany you need TÃœV (and a helmet), sorry guys that I do not live in California, I was born here. But especially in the US the product liability laws are very tricky.

Last but not least.
All lot of stuff you guys write sounds so frustrated why is that? Especially jason with this super ugly Bike with the 24Volts molicell bike, whats the point of that? What does it proof? What was the idea, the effort, were is the GRACE of this?

All the best to you from Biesenthal Berlin :wink:
 

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Aaahaha.. this thread rocks !..

matrixxed, welcome to ES and congradulations on a beautifully built bike, we are a very tough crowd of critics on here and yeah.. not an easy bunch. :wink:

This reminds me of the optibike http://www.optibike.com/

$$$$$ but not crap.

Keep up the good work Matrixxed ! 8)
 
liveforphysics said:
matrixxed said:
1: We have currently in this one off Prototype you find on our Site with integrated 154 Moli Cells, in a 14s11P pack with 53 Volts, inside the frame.

You fit 154 of the 18650 E-moli cells inside the frame? Kudos to good cell stacking! They are normally good for aboud 1.3Ah at 3C, which would give a usable 740Wh. Pretty decent. Like having a $400 LiPo pack (7 x $56 20C 6S5Ah, 5.25Kg pack weight), except roughly 35% more weight (your pack being 7.2Kg) and a 1/3rd of the specific power. Still though, Im impressed. I love LiMnCO battery chemistry, and you made an excellent choice in respect to saftey and performance. This was for a 1-off proto-type bike, what does a standard $9,000 bike get for a battery?


In Series we use Lithium-Mangan labeled Konion in Germany, they are delivered by Sony, and are good for 25C at 1.3AH. We liked them way more then the Molis, I heards the other day that stronger Molis are on the market, we will test them soon.The Lipos would not
fit our frame as far as I know the do not exist in 18650. Also A123 we tried, but the 18650 are not as reliable and drift free as the Konions, and you can drill a hole into them without anything happening. A123 26850 we can not put into this frame, but wait another year, thats my next Bike with 85mm Tubing:)


This gets the Bike easy up to 60. We had the Bike with higher Voltages at 90km/h and the Frame stayed very stable even
at high speeds. For legal reasons we got to stay below 48Voltes in the series.

Don't tell it to DoctorBass, he likes to think he has as world record at <60mph. :) Kudos on making a test bike with some speed. On my homemade E-bike with 8" of suspenion front and rear, I'm thankful for that rear suspension everytime I'm on a typical road. You must have some pretty choice roads to do 60mph on a hardtail.

Building a hardtail for us would not be a problem, check Nicolais Website have you ever seen more rigid hardtail bikes? (By the way, check the frame prices with Nicolai, you can order frames for the same price that GRACE costs as a complete bike and he sells a lot of them worldwide.) But for our purpose between 45km/h and 65km/h Frame and Fork are more then stable enough.Even in Berlin with very bad roads, the hardtail is very cool. 6 meters from my companies front door is one of Germanies longest Biketracks, 300km through massive forests on brand new Tarmac (EU Project) I did not even need the front suspensoin on the 90km/h rides. I had a nice summer with GRACE, thats for certain

2: The frame is IP67 Waterproof, you can throw it into a swimming pool, and take it out a month later, plug in the
Engine and start it. Dear TylerDurden try that with your beautiful cop stopper. By the way our welders need one day by hand just to produce the frame.

Finally a bike I can take in the pool with me! ;)

3: The Bike is fully Street Legal after European regulations, if you get caught over here with a Bike like Tylers, you gotta wait for 3 month at least to get your
car licence back. Does it get registered as a motorcycle then? You pay insurance and registration taxes on it? Is it legally bound only to areas for motor vehicles then? IE, no bike paths?

4: The off the shelve "toy" charger is after a lot we tried absolutely brilliant. Next year we can charge with >20 amps and an integrated balancer. That in the size of a 3,5" Harddrive, got a better idea?
If that si the 12S hyperion, I also have one, and they are fantastic. Now I charge from a 2KW CC/CV power supply which also fits in my backpack, though I have to dial it back for regular 15amp power outlets. :(

5: The Fork is used for years in International Mountain Bike races very successfull. For Grace the manufacturer German:A has changed it to be even more strong. There is companies that live for physics and and also live of it:) The Fork is CNC carved and cost 1475$ "of the shelve".
Excellent! A fork optimized for cross-country bike races. Perhaps 25-30mph on a 18lbs bike? I'm glad to hear they changed the design a bit for the very differnt types of loading an E-bike endures.

6: Last but not least we hope to find some clients that are interested in Design and Handcrafted machines and park there Porsche for a bit. Luckily some people like Art, good food, nice clothes, etc. Is there more in live then Pizza and Linux Penguins? :D
Click to expand...
Sounds like the right buyer group for your product. ;)
Click to expand...
 
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