Optibike's "twist" on 2012 Pikes Peak ride

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itchynackers

100 kW
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Dec 27, 2009
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Janesville, WI
Well, up until now, I was unsure why many people here are soured on Optibike. After riding in the 2012 ride and finishing 3rd http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=41798
I had a nice time, and talked with the Opti guys at the top.

However, after reading their latest news article, I'm fairly disappointed at the blatant lies. See below:

"Team Optibike at the Pikes Peak Ascent

Team Optibike was lined up for our 4th ascent of Pikes Peak. Since 2006, Optibike has held the record for the fastest electric bike ascent of Pikes Peak in Colorado. Team Optibike consisted of 3 Optibike 1100R's and one Optibike 850R, 3 of these bikes were "stock" ie, the same bikes that are available to the public. One of the 1100R's was modified with narrower tires and handlebars as it is used as a pace bike for professional cyclists at indoor velodromes.

In previous rides up Pikes Peak, the race started in Manitou Springs, with a course length of 26 miles, and 8500 vertical feet of elevation gain. 2012 was the first year of the new shortened course, the total ride was only 12 miles and 4500 feet of elevation gain. This new course was significantly easier than in previous years, opening the field of electric bikes to include hub motor powered bikes and other direct drive bikes which could never complete the old course due to their inherently inefficient fixed gear ratio design.

In addition to the 4 stock Optibikes, there were a pair of 4000+ watt 3 wheeled trikes made by a new company called FFR Trikes and a homemade hub motor powered E-bike with an astonishing 128v motor and 3000w of power! With 4x the power, the trikes easily summited in first and second places, followed by the 3000w hub motor powered bike, which was on the verge of overheating at the summit, according to its pilot. John Sagebiel, Optibike owner, was in 4th place overall with a time of 31 minutes. John used approx. half of the battery capacity of the stock Optibike 1100R he was riding (which happens to be the same bike that Jim Turner, Optibike President, commutes on daily!)

The "velodrome" Optibike 1100R came in just after John, followed by the Author on a stock 1100R. Local Optibike customer Jason L. was the final Optibike to summit on his stock 850R that he uses as a daily commuter. In the end, the whole Optibike team finished, and we could not be happier to be the first place production electric bike to summit, once again.

It just so happens, that Optibike production manager Kyle Hale rode up the only other Colorado 14,000+ ft peak with a paved road on the same day, Mt. Evans. He chose not to come down to Pikes Peak because the new shorter course looked "boring." Look for his story, complete with pictures soon!

We are already looking forward to next year! "

I highlighted the lies in red. I'm not sure why they think the other bikes could never compete. Maybe next year they'll lengthen the ride and then I guess we'll see. Next, I didn't have 128V 3000W 4x power. In fact, at the top I told them I started at 124.5v, and ended at 110v (2800w PEAK) which is closer to 3x the peak power. While I was drafting them (first couple miles) I was using about 1/2 throttle. I peaked at 118C. This seemed to have stabilized. I'm not sure how they think they know it is on the verge of overheating. So sorry Opti, twist/lie the facts away. Unfortunate too, you seemed like stand up guys! If I had to lie/twist the facts, I'm not sure I could sleep at night. I guess you have to do what is necessary to keep bringing in the money (like some other ancient professions). Too bad. P.S. Why havent you posted any of the many ride videos you have? Still chopping/twisting it to show something that didn't happen?

I would put out a request to all you Endless guys out there to flood the field with home-builts. I'd like to see how they twist/lie that they finished 20th or worse.

Signed,
Disappointed
 
Don't you just hate bad losers?

Says more about the company than any amount of advertising, and seems pretty dumb of them to put it up on their own site. I can understand them being pissed at getting soundly beaten, but all those sour grapes just makes them look bad.
 
in fairness, it seems they are referring to the 4kw trikes, not yours when they mention the '4x power'... but other than that, sounds like they're just winging about being beaten. kinda sad really, they've got great bikes (well, I personally think they look like crap, but they do perform well, if a tad noisy), and they did quite well given they are comparatively well down on power. its kinda like saying 'oh that guy only beat me at the drag strip cause his car was better'... well, no shit Sherlock. Maybe they rely allot on their domination of the PP races in their marketing...
 
Yeah I dont really understand their point of view.. They enter a "fun ride" up pikes peak and turn it into a race and wrote several articles about winning the "race". Obviously they were talented riders, but they were on electric bikes against all non-electric bikes. Now that other electric bikes have joined, and beaten them, they're saying it's not really the same class because there's a big power difference...? When they were beating the non-electric bikes you didn't hear them saying they were 1st 2nd and 3rd place out of 3... They included the non-electric bikes.
That being said, you had to expect this.. They are a business and they need to make money and keep their sales going. This type of thing happens all the time in marketing. Who is going to buy a $10,000 Optibike when you will get destroyed by a $1600 electric bike made by a guy in his garage? Sure they'd still sell bikes, but a big part of their sales is from the reputation of being "the best".
Hopefully next year tons of people from the endless-sphere forum show up and take all of the front spots right along with FFR Trikes.
 
Bad form Opti, bad form...
 
They clearly just worded things to make themselves not look as bad. "Fastest production bike"...... Sure, the trikes are not bikes. But you still got beat badly by the trikes.

As for blatantly making up lies about the fastest bike/ hub motor - that's really weak. What kind of professional company throws sh*t?

I dislike people/businesses that use every possible opportunity for marketing. If your product is so good, it speaks for itself and doesn't need much marketing.
 
Ya,
I'm so mad I want to enter again next year with a pink womens cruiser bike while wearing a sumo suit.
 
OK, all the respect they earned when i visited them in person is nullified.
liveforphysics said they'd pull some shit like this, and guess what, they did.

Let's beat them even harder and more numerously next year. :mrgreen:
I'll deal with Pat for that.
 
itchynackers said:
... followed by the 3000w hub motor powered bike, which was on the verge of overheating at the summit, according to its pilot. ...
Click to expand...

Were you on the verge of overheating or is that a lie as well? When did you become a pilot and not a rider?!?!? :?
 
I don't know why people are so Anti-Opti and HPC.

Yes, they are expensive... and yes they might over state their specs a bit, but what automotive brand doesn't do that?

If your knowledgeable enough about fabrication, bicycles and electronics... building an ebike is for you. But 99% of the population isn't like that and just want a turn key solution. Once these type of companies grow big enough, their prices will come down.

These are the type of companies that are going to enable the everyday rider to buy an ebike and go.

Lets stop being ebike hipsters.
 
Well if they lie, then I guess I will too. Binlagin likes goats. Offended? Where does it end? Its just shitty.
 
Yeah I agree with itchynackers. At the risk of being cliche, you can bend the truth, but never break it. If your product is great, people will see it. But you do not need to put others down or cheat, steal, and lie to make your product great.
 
Well, lie number one is only an expression of thier opinion. So that doesn't count. Your opinon of the capabilities of a hubmotor may be quite different.

The second one may just be a miscommunication, or mis remember, of a conversation that happened at 14,000 feet elevation more or less. Nahh, that couldn't happen, nobody gets goofy at 14,000 feet. Likely you said the word overheating at some point in the conversation, most likely saying you were monitoring for it.


Sooooooo, maybe you expected them to go and say, " the hubmotors really kicked our asses this year"? Not very likely.
 
binlagin said:
I don't know why people are so Anti-Opti and HPC.

Yes, they are expensive... and yes they might over state their specs a bit, but what automotive brand doesn't do that?
Click to expand...

Might have something to do with years of them constantly bragging about their >$10,000 ebikes, marketing them as if they're the only thing capable of going up mountains, and talking down to the hobbyist community.

I believe you are not aware of the history of all this.

Racing improves the breed. As an ethusiast and ebike evangelist, i do not want the world to think that an electric bike capable of climbing mountains costs almost as much as a car. That's bad for ebikes.
 
Hmm

To be honest this is quite normal really, e-vendors never ever say it like it is guys they are no worse than any other in this respect, we all know that a well built home brew bike with a super light and fit rider will trounce the opti bike but like others have said not everyone has the ability or confidence to make a bike, we all take it for granted of course.

I have ridden the opti bike and whilst I found it pretty underwhelming I can understand that for others they arent, I think you have to cut manufacturers a bit of slack in these economic times we live in, its hard to compete with a 50 dollar hub motor and a stack of cheap lipo, if just 1 person buys and opti and doesnt commute to work in their car then its job done for me.

There is a big difference between out right lies and marketing speak, the opti bike is for sure more of a true power assist bike than 4KW trikes are no matter how expensive, without saying so I guess they are saying so without saying so :lol:

Its so funny how folks get about a race :lol: and without coming down on anyones side here the old course was tough for a hub motor, there is no getting away from that thats a fact, sure bigger John in CR type motors would most likely survive but thats an electric motorbike not a pedal assist.

The optibike is very expensive but its a US based company trying to produce a bike in a very niche market that needs to survive, you cant all beat on a US evehicle manufacturer because they are trying to defend their business.

4KW and upwards hub motor bikes and trikes are motorbikes not power assist bikes IMHO you cant compare them to an opti which is a true power assist machine albeit a very expensive one.

I think to really say you beat them is to try and do the same with an equivalent powered hub motor (good luck) or other geared motor then you can compare your results and be happy when you win :D
 
binlagin said:
I don't know why people are so Anti-Opti and HPC.

Yes, they are expensive... and yes they might over state their specs a bit, but what automotive brand doesn't do that?

If your knowledgeable enough about fabrication, bicycles and electronics... building an ebike is for you. But 99% of the population isn't like that and just want a turn key solution. Once these type of companies grow big enough, their prices will come down.

These are the type of companies that are going to enable the everyday rider to buy an ebike and go.

Lets stop being ebike hipsters.
Click to expand...
put it this way... stealth bikes are pretty much at the same price point compared to opti. yet every time someone bashes them (particually on price), there's a overwhelming groundswell of support. so you gotta ask why...

it comes down to the attitude of the guys running it. making blanket statements about hubs that simply are not true (yes hubs are not brilliant climbers, but they are not 'inherently inefficient'), and generally sounding like sore looses is what changes peoples attitude towards them. they also mention that their fastest bike had used 'about half the battery' which means it would have struggled to make the old course at that pace too.

Had they made a statement more like 'we're stoked to see some more competition, and were still happy to be the fastest production bikes at the race. We'd love to see how the top 3 bikes would fare racing us on the longer course, where we've dominated in the past...' as apposed to 'the only people that beat us had more power, thats the only reason they won, and they nearly broke their bikes doing it!' then there'd be less backlash from the community. one sounds like 'yea we can be beaten, but not easily, and not by anything in production' the other sounds like 'wa wa wa wa wa wa' .
 
an 850W DD hub motor and a geared system we all know its no insult to DD motor owners (myself included) to admit that the geared ones by comparison makes the DD motor look horribly inefficient when climbing we all know this :) and opti are not going to pander to the whims of us on here in that respect when they are selling their bikes to folks who are more than most on investor and property forums :lol: and would never read this lest pay any regard to it.

The opti gets flak mainly based on its price, if it were a sub 1000 buck Taiwan produced bike (and I am amazed they haven't tried to copy it yet) then I reckon folks attitude would be totally different, call it a bit of ebike snobbery if you will.

I think if you need a 4KW motor to beat a 1KW motor then its pretty pointless by comparison, a true measure would be to work out the efficiency of each system, so place equivalent weight riders on the bikes, with the same battery and max power and see who wins, if my house were on it and I had to pick a bike to win that race then it wouldn't be a DD hub motor...as much as I love them and also own many of them, I just don't need to climb any mountain at any time and I need to leave my 100 dollar hub motor outside the dentists and not worry about it, that why I love and ride hub motor based bikes.
 
Don't be shocked if kit-bikes and trikes get banned next year...
 
knoxie said:
...as much as I love them and also own many of them, I just dont need to climb any mountain at any time and I need to leave my 100 dollar hub motor outside the dentists and not worry about it, that why I love and ride hub motor based bikes.
Click to expand...

That is why Itchy's accomplishment is doubly impressive. He wasn't riding a super hyped up bike. He was riding a volkswagen and he beat the Porsches!
 
what was the pack voltage of itchys setup and max amps of the controller? like i said if you have 3 times the power you cant compare them, I agree they shouldnt say hub motors would never make it but if you run 3 times the power then sure you have a chance but its not a fair comparison.
 
Blatent lies? Hardly.

128v vs 124.5v : My memory of our conversation was off by 3.5v. My apologies. I was not exactly taking notes. My 3000w calculation was based on my erroneous voltage and the current draw I was told. Again, my bad.

4000+w (4x power) was a direct reference to the FFR Trikes, which I have congratulated on several occasions both in person, and here.

I was told at the summit by itchynackers that his temperature was climbing for the entire ascent, with the exception of the flat/downhill part. I also remember hearing that the temp gauge stopped working about a mile from the summit but that itchynackers was very concerned about finishing.

To me, when a motor shows an increase of heat to the point where the heat gauge stops working, I regard that system as inefficient. Given that fact, I do not believe that a hub motor could have completed the old, longer course without overheating. The first place Optibike used 500wh to summit, just as a comparison.

I am not trying to discount anyone's victory- I have congratulated everyone at the race, both in person, and online. Of course, we are still an easy target- so fire away.

Craig Taber
Optibike
 
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