John in CR said:
The optibike is cool, way over-priced but cool, however, that sound has to go. Anyone with a 2-4 yearold with a ride on toy is intimately familiar with that same sound. How can a $6k vehicle be allowed to sound like a $25 kids toy baffles me. The riding sensation would double if they figured out how to silence that thing to hub motor sound levels.
Aussies, don't try to bring up your home grown Stealth Bomber, because if you do then you get smacked with Brett White's monstrosity too. The Optibike is in a whole different class in terms of bike-like agility.
My question is, since Optibike has been the cream for going on 2 years, where the hell is a carbon composite monocoque with respectable power (5-10kw peak output), and maybe 10kg more weight (concentrated in the triangle where it makes little difference), at half to 2/3rds the base price. IOW why can't someone already buy something that kicks the shit out of the rich kids toy Optibike? I know there's lots of guys around here that can do it, and probably have something close for their own ride, but why aren't they building and selling them?
Come on, Opti needs to be dethroned by December. Someone please explain how that base price tag helps the electric revolution. Don't forget their "special edition" model that went for whopping $12k. Idiotic priced DH bikes as a comparison isn't acceptable as justification either, so don't bother with that kind of response. These are bikes, as in B-I-C-Y-C-L-E for goodness sake. Look how much ICE vehicle can be purchased for a similar amount. Laziness, greed, and possibly way overpriced labor are the inexcusable reasons.
Someone knock me off the soapbox...please.
John
I thought the exact same thing for a long time. I originally told my investors it would take around $5K USD to build a bike that will handle what you're talking about, and here's the kicker....be reliable and foolproof to operate. That was for parts and tools! Once I sensed that they were interested, I really started looking harder at what I'd come up with. If I had built my first design, people would have been hurt. I'd spec'd a cheap knock off DH bike, an Angi motor, a big 200A Kelly or Curtis controller, a couple of sprockets, some chain, wires, throttle, then as much Kokam Lipo as I could afford(what BMS???!). It would have been fun but scary. It would have weighed 125 lbs and had marginal suspension, brakes, shifting, and I would have had to modify the frame extensively anyway.
I'm glad I got serious and researched it all harder. I actually got on my marginal quality normal bicycle and bombed some very rough terrain at high speed, and also went as fast as I could down the road. On a big hill, with my wife following me to monitor speed, I pedaled to 42mph and completely tucked on a 10% grade I got to 45mph. It was scary. At that speed, a 2 inch bump feels like a curb with a Suntour SR front fork and off brand coil rear. When I got to the bottom and tried to stop, it took a loooong way and smoked the brakes.
I came to the conclusion that e-bikes should go 20-30mph max speed and can reasonably be built for under $1500, and could run light trails, small hills, slowly. If you want to reliably and semi-safely go fast off road on trails but don't necessarily care about MX racing, hitting 100 foot triples, or busting back flips off the top of parking garages, you don't need an e-bike, you don't need a Zero or Quantya, you need an ultra light pedal assist electric dirt bike. Those cost a little more to build
When you price down hill type suspension, which is complicated and time consuming to produce yourself, and is basically the minimum required to safely handle rough stuff at 30-45mph, you'll find that $1500 will get you a decent fork. Look at 6 kilowatt motors that will fit between the cranks and are under 10 lbs. Batteries aren't cheap. Price some gear shifting systems that don't have derailleurs so they don't throw the chain when you're bouncing over the tops of cinder block sized rocks. What about 8 inch rotor, 4 piston hydraulic brakes? Tires that are light enough but have a big enough contact patch to take advantage of the brakes and smooth out the bumps a little? Rims? Just to give you an idea, it took about $6,000 to get all of the parts rounded up for my build.
Is your soapbox feeling like one of the boxes HK ships their lipos in now? Kind of squishy, falling apart underneath you, slowly crushing it's contents to oblivion? :lol: Just a joke.
As far as videos go, helmet cam ones give me vertigo like crazy. I saw a snowboarding video where the guy held a camera on a stick so you could see him, his board, and where he was going. It would be cool to attach one behind a bike somewhere, or maybe on a tiny trailer.
More single track vids!
but I think I could make it tough and very functional. I can see the costs associated with bikes like the Stealth and even the Opti . They are just out of range for me right now. If I was commuting with it then that would be a whole other story.
