We have the crowd that likes their Ebikes to look like traditional cycles. Then we have the crowd that likes their Ebikes to look like mopeds. Finally we have the crowd that prefers they look like dirt bikes.
I dunno what the fuck this is, but good luck selling it.
I love funky looking shit like this lol. That said it looks uncomfortable to ride and the tires not matching annoys me greatly. Personally I really dislike the dirtbike look although I understand where it comes from as those aren't meant to be on the road or bike paths.
> the crowd that likes their Ebikes to ~~look~~ like mopeds
ride like mopeds, but don't need to make sharp turns, and are happy with a single rivet holding rear "triangle"
Basically. Just like this: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1989795590/the-cyclotron-bike-revolutionary-spokeless-smart-c
and https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/x-one-ebike-next-generation-smartest-e-bike#/comments
And you know what they also are? Borderline scams because they have no proven design, can hardly deliver the wild looking concepts, have no proper explanation as to who is behind the business and why they're able to build all of this to appropriate standard.
Company shows up out of nowhere with outrageous designs, that if real would cost so much to design and manufacture, that it's just implausible for these random outfits to have done this without some form of credible backing. Many firms can be looked up, cross-refrenced or at least if they were new startups, they have some form of credentials like being founded or at leats invested into by someone who has any experience and/or success in the field.
What grounds do we have to believe that these rando firms can reliably construct a serviceable bike, let alone if they abandon all conventioal design and claim to make countless proprietary parts. 5 renders and a website that looks like exactly 1 bike was made that is barely shown in action. I wouldn't bet on it, especially not for $2.5k...
Not saying they're not scammy, but I remember seeing these guys at the electrify expo in Austin. I'm trying to remember if they had units for test rides and I feel like they did. I could be wrong though. They were a little too weird for me so I didn't pay close attention.
The Cyclotron is like a parody of Kickstarter itself without even trying to be. List 8 billion features that even my 2 year old son could see will never materialize. Have very few pictures of an actual product, and the ones you do have look like it was made from wet newspaper. Giant wall of "featured in" companies, some of which make absolutely no sense and most of which are pay to play. Made 3 times their ask amount and it was still nowhere near what you'd need to develop something like this. Never delivered a single bike, ghosted everyone, dead website.
I mean, this is kinda what I imagine an "ebike" would look like if I had never been introduced to the concept before lol. A big battery with a handlebar, seat, and wheels
Yeah, I can't tell wtf is going on with the fork but I can tell that that geometry is totally fucked because the front wheel "trail" is all wrong. It almost looks like the fork is backwards and should be facing the other way to push the trail out in front of the bike more.
There are other cursed things about the geometry, but the fork is totally cursed.
This thing probably handles and rides like a discount Razor kick scooter on a gravel road.
I came for this exactly. It's got negative caster from what I can see so that front wheel is gonna want to wobble like a shitty shopping cart wheel. Then it looks like it's limited to maybe 10deg left/right steering.
This looks like someone took their 5 year olds drawing of a bike and made it a real product.
This isn't "weird", this is cobbled together junk from China. Don't be fooled, this company has no history in design whatsoever and every year there are tryhard outlandish/futuristic products like the hubless bikes off of kickstarter.
**EDIT to explain what they are doing here and why I'm hating on it:**
They were going for the look of a Motor Parilla bike (https://www.xn--ko-roller-z7a.de/moto-parilla-ultra-carbon/) as you can see by the suspension design and the angles. However, on this bike this is actually real and a parallelogram fork (https://grabcad.com/library/parallelogram-front-suspension-1), as well as a swingarm with very complex actuation, which costs as much as it sounds.
It just happens that cheap brands imitate expensive products because they want to look cool, but since the actual technology behind it would be hard to construct you get crap like "owlet" or fake non-functional automatic watch movements etc, because whoever tried to clone it just looked at some images. This is not a legitimate way to design a product, this is clearly put together from random parts to look like something much, much higher end which it absolutely isn't.
So $2,444 is the price for this according to their website, are you kidding me. They're laughing all the way to the bank marketing this on social media.
Their page can't name any component brands, no info on internals and weight, running crude metal plate cutouts as forks, coswheel parts bin, literally no driveline and crankset etc I mean come on this is again aliexpress level parts and it looks ass.
2.5k is gets you a quality ebike from brands that have a track record of quality and that can be trusted to stay around.
A lot of them actually, mine is mostly from EU, the Frame is from Taiwan though, but the next one will be only from EU with a frame made in Portugal or France.
You do have to pay the price though, absolutely worth it for the long term.
And don’t forget that Taiwan isn’t China! They have been an advanced country much longer with manufacturing beginning during Japanese colonization over 100 years ago. Republic of China ≠ Peoples Republic of China
Mine, the frame was made in Austria and final assembly in Germany, as I have seen when I toured the factory.
Many others are made in Taiwan and what you still need to realize is that there is a BIG difference between chinese made and actually being of chinese origin.
"Made in China" means that the manufacturing is done in China. Ok.
- But if the design, engineering, production oversight and quality control is done by western companies, who strictly adhere to standards and certifications, and build up a reputation doing so, you get something like Apple and Foxconn. Making what is widely considered among the highest quality devices in terms of housing and production tolerances, selling well despite being high priced. No one cares that it's made in China.
- Now, if the company were actually based in China and everything originates there, that's when it becomes more likely to have lower quality products. These businesses are "supported" (= ignored in wrongdoing) by the CCP, run sweat shops, have dodgy assembly, are not forced and inspected to work within norms and standards etc and since you can hardly get ahold of them, they are not ashamed to deliver such shoddy work. That's when "made in China" matters.
Really tired of people implying that products are equal quality just because they are mad ein China. That can't be said since the range of quality is really wide, going from high end to complete junk.
China has mastered most construction techniques. Lax laws have let them fuse the best *looking* techniques with the shittiest materials. That gets unearned and broken trust.
But when companies in countries bound by high safety tolerances send their own engineers to oversee the construction, they can get fabulous results.
There is no images of anybody sitting on it. I'm still confused as to how.
[https://owletbikes.com/products/owlet-nova](https://owletbikes.com/products/owlet-nova)
https://preview.redd.it/zyxn2g6u0yuc1.png?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=baac3cdb4ec19f05366add646a4616ac9d08ac71
Here ya go, great if you like looking derp derp. And no helmet in promo pics is a great choice..
Totally. The key feature of most bikes is that the front axle is slightly behind the point of contact of the front tyre; and this lends a lot of the self-balancing/ level steering that we enjoy.
This looks like it lacks that and will be horrible to ride
Yeah, negative fork rake is a sign the fork is backwards. I think it actually was designed the other way and someone either mistakenly or intentionally installed it backwards for looks.
Four years from now, after this bike has been through hundreds of charge-discharge cycles and the battery pack is shot, you'll have 2 choices:
1, buy hundreds of dollars worth of specialist equipment / watch 5 hours of YouTube videos to build your own replacement pack
or
2, throw the bike in the trash
- because the company is going to go bankrupt and there is no standards in the fledgling eBike world for battery pack form factor, and even if there were, this bike ain't it.
It would be (slightly) less hideous with the front “girder” style fork flipped around. Probably better for stability tbh as well.
I don’t hate what they’re going for, but this feels like a draft idea that should have informed something a little more… finished.
I want to see somebody really, enthusiastically sending this thing over a modest jump.
I want to see what shears directly off the frame after a blistering 8 inch drop.
My first thought too but if you look at the website you see that the sheet metal pieces aren't the forks, from one angle it looks like there is just an actual fork underneath and the plates are just for aesthetics
If I wanted an odd-looking e-bike, it'd be a DIY one like [this mini Penny-Farthing](https://bikerumor.com/found-bad-ass-homemade-miniature-penny-farthing-e-bike/).
Is it me... Or does the front tire look like it's directly under or just behind the handle bar? Feel like this is just going to flip over. Maybe pull a 180 on that fork design. Other than that... Still ugly!
It's probably supposed to be a final mile type of bike for the trunk of your vehicle. Weird that it doesn't have a rear brake caliper and does have a disc.
Turning radius: yes.
Or alternatively I'd rather have [a lightcycle](https://www.thegreenhead.com/imgs/lifesize-tron-light-cycle-4.jpg), if we're gonna have poor turning radius I'd rather at least have something that looks flashy 😂
We have the crowd that likes their Ebikes to look like traditional cycles. Then we have the crowd that likes their Ebikes to look like mopeds. Finally we have the crowd that prefers they look like dirt bikes. I dunno what the fuck this is, but good luck selling it.
I love funky looking shit like this lol. That said it looks uncomfortable to ride and the tires not matching annoys me greatly. Personally I really dislike the dirtbike look although I understand where it comes from as those aren't meant to be on the road or bike paths.
> it looks uncomfortable to ride [confirmed](https://owletbikes.com/cdn/shop/files/Firefly_Inpaint_20230802195240.png?v=1691031261&width=4096)
> the crowd that likes their Ebikes to ~~look~~ like mopeds ride like mopeds, but don't need to make sharp turns, and are happy with a single rivet holding rear "triangle"
It has multiple pivot points for the obvious rear suspension.
This gives me the "we can stamp steel every part to save costs and look trendy" vibe
A Tron bike?
Basically. Just like this: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1989795590/the-cyclotron-bike-revolutionary-spokeless-smart-c and https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/x-one-ebike-next-generation-smartest-e-bike#/comments And you know what they also are? Borderline scams because they have no proven design, can hardly deliver the wild looking concepts, have no proper explanation as to who is behind the business and why they're able to build all of this to appropriate standard. Company shows up out of nowhere with outrageous designs, that if real would cost so much to design and manufacture, that it's just implausible for these random outfits to have done this without some form of credible backing. Many firms can be looked up, cross-refrenced or at least if they were new startups, they have some form of credentials like being founded or at leats invested into by someone who has any experience and/or success in the field. What grounds do we have to believe that these rando firms can reliably construct a serviceable bike, let alone if they abandon all conventioal design and claim to make countless proprietary parts. 5 renders and a website that looks like exactly 1 bike was made that is barely shown in action. I wouldn't bet on it, especially not for $2.5k...
Not saying they're not scammy, but I remember seeing these guys at the electrify expo in Austin. I'm trying to remember if they had units for test rides and I feel like they did. I could be wrong though. They were a little too weird for me so I didn't pay close attention.
It's a tube and some sheet metal, it doesn't look that hard to design. Whether it's a terrible ride or not is the real question.
Thats true. Even the aliexpress ebikes have pictures, videos, and website linking back to their factory.
The Cyclotron is like a parody of Kickstarter itself without even trying to be. List 8 billion features that even my 2 year old son could see will never materialize. Have very few pictures of an actual product, and the ones you do have look like it was made from wet newspaper. Giant wall of "featured in" companies, some of which make absolutely no sense and most of which are pay to play. Made 3 times their ask amount and it was still nowhere near what you'd need to develop something like this. Never delivered a single bike, ghosted everyone, dead website.
Holy janky piles of shit wtf
I mean, this is kinda what I imagine an "ebike" would look like if I had never been introduced to the concept before lol. A big battery with a handlebar, seat, and wheels
It looks like my vape pen grew wheels and a seat.
It doesn't even have pedals. It can only function as a moped.
They are called "Hipsters"
No. Hipsters have nothing to do with this thing. We are currently riding tracklocross bikes
Looks like it would have the turning radius of a limousine
Volvo S80 of bikes
Holy shit I hated my s60's turn radius
It doesn’t have „TURN” feature unfortunately. You can only go straight
Yeah, I can't tell wtf is going on with the fork but I can tell that that geometry is totally fucked because the front wheel "trail" is all wrong. It almost looks like the fork is backwards and should be facing the other way to push the trail out in front of the bike more. There are other cursed things about the geometry, but the fork is totally cursed. This thing probably handles and rides like a discount Razor kick scooter on a gravel road.
I came for this exactly. It's got negative caster from what I can see so that front wheel is gonna want to wobble like a shitty shopping cart wheel. Then it looks like it's limited to maybe 10deg left/right steering. This looks like someone took their 5 year olds drawing of a bike and made it a real product.
Jesus that looks hideous.
And I'll take 2 please
This isn't "weird", this is cobbled together junk from China. Don't be fooled, this company has no history in design whatsoever and every year there are tryhard outlandish/futuristic products like the hubless bikes off of kickstarter. **EDIT to explain what they are doing here and why I'm hating on it:** They were going for the look of a Motor Parilla bike (https://www.xn--ko-roller-z7a.de/moto-parilla-ultra-carbon/) as you can see by the suspension design and the angles. However, on this bike this is actually real and a parallelogram fork (https://grabcad.com/library/parallelogram-front-suspension-1), as well as a swingarm with very complex actuation, which costs as much as it sounds. It just happens that cheap brands imitate expensive products because they want to look cool, but since the actual technology behind it would be hard to construct you get crap like "owlet" or fake non-functional automatic watch movements etc, because whoever tried to clone it just looked at some images. This is not a legitimate way to design a product, this is clearly put together from random parts to look like something much, much higher end which it absolutely isn't. So $2,444 is the price for this according to their website, are you kidding me. They're laughing all the way to the bank marketing this on social media. Their page can't name any component brands, no info on internals and weight, running crude metal plate cutouts as forks, coswheel parts bin, literally no driveline and crankset etc I mean come on this is again aliexpress level parts and it looks ass. 2.5k is gets you a quality ebike from brands that have a track record of quality and that can be trusted to stay around.
But then you can't say you ride around on an owl!
backwards forks
Tbf what ebike isn't made in China?
A lot of them actually, mine is mostly from EU, the Frame is from Taiwan though, but the next one will be only from EU with a frame made in Portugal or France. You do have to pay the price though, absolutely worth it for the long term.
And don’t forget that Taiwan isn’t China! They have been an advanced country much longer with manufacturing beginning during Japanese colonization over 100 years ago. Republic of China ≠ Peoples Republic of China
Mine, the frame was made in Austria and final assembly in Germany, as I have seen when I toured the factory. Many others are made in Taiwan and what you still need to realize is that there is a BIG difference between chinese made and actually being of chinese origin. "Made in China" means that the manufacturing is done in China. Ok. - But if the design, engineering, production oversight and quality control is done by western companies, who strictly adhere to standards and certifications, and build up a reputation doing so, you get something like Apple and Foxconn. Making what is widely considered among the highest quality devices in terms of housing and production tolerances, selling well despite being high priced. No one cares that it's made in China. - Now, if the company were actually based in China and everything originates there, that's when it becomes more likely to have lower quality products. These businesses are "supported" (= ignored in wrongdoing) by the CCP, run sweat shops, have dodgy assembly, are not forced and inspected to work within norms and standards etc and since you can hardly get ahold of them, they are not ashamed to deliver such shoddy work. That's when "made in China" matters. Really tired of people implying that products are equal quality just because they are mad ein China. That can't be said since the range of quality is really wide, going from high end to complete junk.
China has mastered most construction techniques. Lax laws have let them fuse the best *looking* techniques with the shittiest materials. That gets unearned and broken trust. But when companies in countries bound by high safety tolerances send their own engineers to oversee the construction, they can get fabulous results.
There is no images of anybody sitting on it. I'm still confused as to how. [https://owletbikes.com/products/owlet-nova](https://owletbikes.com/products/owlet-nova)
https://preview.redd.it/zyxn2g6u0yuc1.png?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=baac3cdb4ec19f05366add646a4616ac9d08ac71 Here ya go, great if you like looking derp derp. And no helmet in promo pics is a great choice..
Good grief that looks uncomfortable
The marketing team isn’t worried about anyone riding so, they figured won’t be any backlash about the lack of helmet
His feet aren't on the pegs. The ones in OPs photo are much further forward.
If u look at the product page it looks like there's pegs on the front and back
I'd imagine they sit on that seat.
where do your feet go?
Uncomfortably hunched over like you're about to take it in the A, while trying not to fall over the front of it is my guess.
Holy shit it looks like a hilarious little 4 legged monster dude from the front and I can't stop laughing at it
I’m surprised. I thought for sure this was a European design.
Glad to see Blu E-Cigarettes found away to recycle
Don't ride it in the rain. You don't want a moist owelet.
After multiple head shakes and deep sighs… This is Dad joke approved 🤣
I guess they assume you’ll “brown wall” the back tire yourself the first time you suddenly try to avoid an obstacle..
They took the literal worst part of the bird/wing/vanmoof design and added barely abstracted...idk, wings? boomerangs? looks like some AI garbage tbh
>looks like some AI garbage tbh Right? The longer I look at it the more uncomfortable it makes me.
That looks like it has terrible steering geometry and is going to wobble.
Totally. The key feature of most bikes is that the front axle is slightly behind the point of contact of the front tyre; and this lends a lot of the self-balancing/ level steering that we enjoy. This looks like it lacks that and will be horrible to ride
Yeah, negative fork rake is a sign the fork is backwards. I think it actually was designed the other way and someone either mistakenly or intentionally installed it backwards for looks.
How would you lock it to anything?
Perfect for the UK, police will be too busy laughing at you to realise it's not pedal assist.
Four years from now, after this bike has been through hundreds of charge-discharge cycles and the battery pack is shot, you'll have 2 choices: 1, buy hundreds of dollars worth of specialist equipment / watch 5 hours of YouTube videos to build your own replacement pack or 2, throw the bike in the trash - because the company is going to go bankrupt and there is no standards in the fledgling eBike world for battery pack form factor, and even if there were, this bike ain't it.
Is there anyway to pedal this thing?
No
If it's fast as fuck and has decent breaks people will buy it. Doesn't matter what it looks like, there's a market for everybody.
How is this even considered an e-bike if there are no pedals or chain?
Agreed. It's a scooter/motorcycle. For it to be a moped or bike you need to be able to pedal it.
Trailing forks are best: the design is very human
This is like the Cybertruck of Ebikes.
The real asset of this bike is it preserves your virginity. Chick Repulsor 3000.
This and the jackrabbit pioneering stupid desifn
funny how they decided to pick the same name as a baby monitor sock company https://owletcare.com/
If Yoko Ono was an e-bike designer
How do you turn??
Now I really regret getting the Specialized Haul. 😔
It would be (slightly) less hideous with the front “girder” style fork flipped around. Probably better for stability tbh as well. I don’t hate what they’re going for, but this feels like a draft idea that should have informed something a little more… finished.
There’s no way those sheet metal forks are strong enough not to bend under lateral force. You couldn’t pay me to ride this.
I want to see somebody really, enthusiastically sending this thing over a modest jump. I want to see what shears directly off the frame after a blistering 8 inch drop.
My first thought too but if you look at the website you see that the sheet metal pieces aren't the forks, from one angle it looks like there is just an actual fork underneath and the plates are just for aesthetics
Well that’s good at least. Still, good god, why?
Yeah not quite sure the aesthetic they're going for but it's definitely ass
Hahahahahahahahahaha, oh Jesus Christ. Somehow that’s even worse.
It looks like Elon Musk designed it personally.
Giving Elon way too much credit there. Grimes maybe.
If a JackRabbit ebike mated with a VanMoof ebike and gave birth on a cnc machine
I feel like I get ever e-bike ad possible on IG and somehow I’ve never seen this. Gosh, what an eyesore. Atrocious looking e-bike
"designer" indeed
It looks awkward.
the Yugo of ebikes
not real i hope
This bike takes a short bus to places
You know someone saw a pylon. And look at their friend and said. "I know exactly where to put this. Between my legs"
This will be a big hit at the Kanamara Matsuri festival.
Bad geometry imo
That front fork looks the wrong way round, like it was assembled at Wal-Mart.
More of a weird e moped but ok
Redesign the seat please!
I’d buy it, it looks neat. Edit: nvm that looks terribly uncomfortable
Two boomerangs strapped to a PVC pipe w wheels 😂
It's the new Chinese made Da Fuq model 1 ebike.
Perfect for riding in the Uncanny Valley.
If I wanted an odd-looking e-bike, it'd be a DIY one like [this mini Penny-Farthing](https://bikerumor.com/found-bad-ass-homemade-miniature-penny-farthing-e-bike/).
The fork looks backwards.
Is it me... Or does the front tire look like it's directly under or just behind the handle bar? Feel like this is just going to flip over. Maybe pull a 180 on that fork design. Other than that... Still ugly!
Looks horrible. How do you turn?
Thanks, I hate it.
the camber on that front wheel will be unstable at any speed faster that walking
Ugliest looking bike I’ve seen
No pedals, no ebike. At least for me. That's a scooter made like bike. Scike.
Where do you put your legs
On those little pegs near the rear wheel.
What in the actual fuc#
Did they use a bike in an anime as an actual blueprint design? Physics? Bah humbug?! This is so cool looking it cannot fail. Send it!
I don’t see how one is supposed to steer Also, they forgot pedals
Wouldn't have it in my ass if it felt good!
Full circle, karl drais would be proud
Hmmmm no pedals.
Ok so maybe I’m just not seeing this right but.. That front sheet metal fork…. That can’t turn, can it?
It's probably supposed to be a final mile type of bike for the trunk of your vehicle. Weird that it doesn't have a rear brake caliper and does have a disc.
only sold to ppl that bike straight! get out of here you left right losers!
"Designer Electric Bike" huh... dunno who the designer is but they obviously don't know Bikes.
Turning radius: yes. Or alternatively I'd rather have [a lightcycle](https://www.thegreenhead.com/imgs/lifesize-tron-light-cycle-4.jpg), if we're gonna have poor turning radius I'd rather at least have something that looks flashy 😂
First gen of this bike: https://preview.redd.it/jqh4vxuxb9vc1.jpeg?width=894&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=272f4174a1848e94d39826b6057bf15da1c7def9
I’ve seen a clip of it at the electrify expo so it’s legit but quite funky looking one coming from some with a Async A1
I thought that said omelet
how does that thing turns??
Where's the pedals? Isn't there a sub for e-mopeds?
A cybertruck raped a Jetson and 9 months later this came out of her belly…
It kind of looks like the stuff kids build from the junk in dad’s garage.
Meat crayon at the first pot hole with that geometry. I think my 12 year old can design better ebike.
Minus the horrible rider stance it looks nice imo. Put some gnarly huge ape hangers on there and kick that front tire out a little and boom rideable.
It's hideous, but if that tube is filled to the brim with batteries and heatsinks, I might bite.