Optibike, Electric Bike with an Attitude

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Christen da Costa Avatar

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Key Takeaways

optibike400Usually anything with the word “electric” preceding it means “sluggish, slow and kind of lame”. That applies to cars, planes and uh, well, everything. See, electricity pretty much sucks. It’s useless.

Except in this bike, it seems. As far as electric bikes are concerned, this one does a decent job. It won the Tour de Sol, pretty much putting its competition to shame. It comes packed with a ton of features any one of us would like on a regular bike, let alone an electric one:

full suspension and disc brakes, a run time of two hours in “economy mode” (although, strangely, it was in the “three-hour range” category in the Tour de Sol), an electronic display with lots of goodies, a powerful headlight, optional automatic shifting, an integrated charger with a built-in power cord, and even a computer port for diagnostic! All that in a 58 pounds package, which was the second-lightest bike in the Tour de Sol.

It gets better:

On a test ride in Boulder Colorado, a fit road cyclist was able to climb the notorious Old Stage Road at 10 MPH sitting down with an easy spin on the Optibike. On his ultra light road bike, he had to stand and grind all the way to go 5 mph!!! Twice the speed – half the effort, Optibike has the power.

So um, yeah, sure, riding a bicycle is all about exercising. Still, I wouldn’t mind a little electric help along the way.

The website is here. Story VIA Treehugger.

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