- I'm here at the Taipei Bike Show
and I'm on the hunt for all the latest and greatest
urban cycling tech.
There's loads of weird and wonderful stuff here
including this four seater bike.
This is designed to be fun for the entire family,
so I'm just gonna go for a quick ride on this
with all of my mates.
(upbeat music)
Some misinformed people think that eBikes aren't very cool.
Well, they're wrong.
Look at this.
Absolute beast.
From Coast Cycles I'm riding.
I mean, this is probably the coolest bike I've ever seen.
People always go on about 23 millimeter tires
and then it was 25's the fastest.
Then it was 28 is the fastest.
This has got four inch tires and they feel amazing (laughs).
It's so much grip and like,
it's like one of the like motorbike tires.
They're incredible.
Coast has really thought differently about bike design.
So, rather than have the traditional diamond shape,
well it's got something completely different,
but this is a bike designed for urban environments
and to be really practical.
So, it's interesting to see
the different design choices that've been made.
So, you've got these massive fat tires
that, well, are really good for low speed,
short turn maneuverability.
They got loads of grip and loads of puncture protection.
Both are really comfortable
and then you've got the suspension as well
to add even more comfort.
This massive seat that's like a sort of chopper,
it may have multiple passengers on a bike like this.
You can sit, yeah you can put pegs on the wheels
so you can have footrests for those passengers
and there's mount points for luggage as well
and carrying loads of luggage isn't a problem
because you've got a motor to assist you.
So, it's great.
And for added practicality, the Gates Carbon Drive
down here as well.
So, many more maintenance compared with if you had
a normal chain drive system on the bike as well.
Nice.
Tell you what though, I could really see myself
cruising around the mean streets of Bathe on one of these.
Probably form a gang,
get some leather jackets, but waistcoats.
Let us know in the comment section what you think
our gang should be called.
Let's find some more tech now.
Good lights are essential for cycling safely
in an urban environment.
So, I wanted to illuminate you
about some flash new lights that CatEye has.
So, these are CatEye's new sync lights
and they've got a number of really cool
sort of high tech features built into them
to make them better.
So, they all sync together
and they can also sync to your phone
and one of the advantages here
is that you can turn them all on or off
with the press of a single button on any of the lights.
So, I'll show you.
It doesn't end there, though.
The Kinetic Rear Light also has
an accelerometer built into it,
which can detect when you're getting slower
and therefore make the light brighter as a safety feature
which well, perhaps it should be called a deccelerometer.
Also, when you sync the lights to your phone,
you are able to see the battery life
on each individual light which is really awesome
because it means you don't have to worry
that you're not gonna have enough battery for your ride
and your lights are gonna run out half-way through,
you can see exactly where you're at,
but there's some also some cool stuff over here,
so I'm gonna show you that.
(tape whirring)
- CatEye also has this new computer called The Quick
which is designed specifically for commuting
and riding in an urban environment
and it displays all the sort of essential information
you need such as speed, time, average speed, distance,
but it's an inexpensive
and very sort of elegant and clean design.
I like it.
This wheel is called the Hycore T1
and it's a new product here at the Taipei Show.
Now, at first it might just look like
a really high tech trispoke wheel,
but it's much more than that.
It's actually an eBike wheel,
so by inserting this wheel into your bike,
you can turn it into an eBike
which means you don't need to buy an eBike.
You can simply use your existing bike
and just get one of these wheels,
which is really cool and a really novel idea.
Now, the way it works, is it actually integrates
the entire eBike system into just the wheel.
There's no need for any additional parts
that you would have to stick to your frame.
It's sort of contained within here, which is really neat.
So, this is the battery here and then there's two motors.
One there and one there and through beveled gears,
they actually spin into this central gear box
and that's how it just generates the forward motion.
I'm just gonna spin it up so you can see it turning.
It's also got some rather cool lights on it as well
as an added bonus,
but each one of the motors is capable of producing 180 watts
which means what 360 watts of assistance in total
and the makers reckon the battery is good enough
for 50 kilometers of riding, which is pretty impressive
'cause it's quite a small battery
in such a neat and self-contained unit
and to charge the battery, you can simply take it out.
You can open a panel on the back and remove the battery
and charge it and if you've got a spare battery,
you can put one in as well.
This is called The Cyclo and according to the makers,
it's the only thing you need on your handlebars.
Now, it's a really innovative piece of tech
that's designed for the commuter market
and it's just absolutely jam packed full of features.
So, fundamentally it's a bike computer for your handlebars,
but it also features a camera and a light,
but it also can do navigation,
like so many features I'm gonna have to look behind me.
It's a power bank for your mobile phone,
it does all your sort of metrics
like your speed and your distance and all that
and your calories burned,
but it's also a theft alarm, all right?
So this is actually securely on your bike
and it's designed to be left on your bike
and it links up to your smartphone,
and if someone tries to steal your bike,
an alarm goes off that's 100 decibels
and it automatically sends a notification to your smartphone
to tell you that a naughty person
is trying to steal your bike.
Size matters and if you don't believe me,
take a look down here
because this is the world's smallest eBike
according to the makers, Lekuma.
The makers also recommend this is the smallest
eBike motor in the world and attached to that
are well, pretty much the smallest wheels in the world.
You get 250 watts out of this though,
and 15 kilometers range, which is awesome
and this bike is designed to kind of address the needs
of people who want to use a bike
as a mode of transport in an urban environment,
but also other forms of transport as well
such as trains, buses, and even airplanes
and to that end, the battery that's fitted
neatly into this tube,
is designed to be safe to be taken on airplanes.
So, obviously it's no where near as fast
as a full-on rode bike,
but it's still a lot faster than walking.
Ebikes, if you haven't guessed already,
are really big here at Taipei this year
except for this one which is really small,
so let's see how small it goes down when it's packed up.
(tape whirring)
How cool is that?
That is really compact and it's got these wheels
on the back down here,
so that you can use it as like a trolley
to move it around to make it easier.
For an eBike to go that small, that's incredible.
It's like a transformer.
I'm over on the KMC stand.
Now KMC are the largest manufacturer
of bicycle chains in the world
and they've got a new chain that's specifically designed
for single-speed eBikes
and they've decided to try and make a chain
that's better suited for well, urban cycling and eBikes
by making it more durable and less likely to drop off
and they way they've done this is new designs on the pins
and also on the plates on the side of the chain
that have a sort of, well they're wider
and don't sort of sham fit in, like on a traditional chain,
which means there's less chance of it dropping
once it's been worn,
but it's great to have a chain for your eBike
that well, gonna last longer and isn't gonna wear as fast.
As a cyclist, discovering that your pride and joy
has been stolen is well, an even worse feeling
than accidentally reversing
over your family on Christmas day.
So, I'm always really happy to see new bike lock tech
and here at the ULAC stand, they've got this
and this is a D-Lock with a thumbprint scanner
which you use to unlock it and lock it.
Well, it's not just a thumbprint scanner,
it's also a fingerprint scanner
and you can store up to 20 different fingerprints on there,
which is well, really awesome,
but should the thumbprint scanner fail
or be damaged by a horrible thief,
then there's actually a backup key
that you can use to lock and unlock the lock too
and the battery life for the thumbprint scanner
last for 2,000 scans which is really long
and there's a USB port to charge it
so you can also charge it out and about
if you've got a power bank.
In addition to this little one,
there's also a big chain lock
and some larger D-locks as well.
There's a full range, but yeah, really cool.
D-locks and chains are great for securing
your frame and your wheels,
but the smaller items on your bike
that are held in place by Allen bolts
can be hardest to secure against those pesky thieves,
but fortunately, Hexlocks has a really neat
and innovative little tiny gadget
that can solve that problem.
You can take a standard Allen bolt
or hex bolt anywhere on your bike
and you can turn it into a security bolt
with this simple insert.
They're available for different sized bolts
and they're made from a medical grade stainless steel
to stop them corroding which is a really nice feature
and I just think they're really great for securing
something like your seat post so that thieves can't
steal your seat post.
Oh, and if you were wondering,
what happens if a thief gets ahold of one of these keys,
they can just go around unlocking all these bolts,
well, they can't because the keys are all different
and you need to have the right key.
I've spoken about Gates Carbon Drive on GCN before
and one of the best advantages of it
is that it offers much lower maintenance
over a traditional drive train with a chain
and this makes it great for urban cycling and commuting.
Well, you want less hassle,
but in the past, it's been quite a premium product
and Gates is looking to rectify that with these
which are more affordable chainring sprockets
for use in the drive train.
They're now made from a composite material
which reduces manufacturing costs
and it's great to see this kind of tech
becoming more affordable and more mass market
in bikes that are gonna cost much less money
than they did before
and over here I've spotted, you can see on the wall,
that's one of the Schindelhauer bikes
from the Red Hook Tech Video.
One of the trends we're seeing
is that urban and commuter tech
is becoming increasingly low maintenance and hassle-free
which is exactly what you want for that kind of riding.
And Schwalber have got a new tire system
which is particularly exciting.
So, this is an airless system
and it's basically designed to avoid punctures.
The system has three main components,
so you've got the traditional
sort of tire rubber outer layer.
Then, you've got this blue strip down the middle,
which hold the bead in place
and then, in place of the air,
you've got this material that sort of fills the void
which is the same sort of material
you might find in your Adidas trainers.
The main advantages of this system
are that you avoid punctures
and you don't have to pump up your tires
regularly before rides.
There are a couple of disadvantages.
So, it weighs considerably more
than a standard inner tube in a tire
and there is increased rolling resistance,
but it's designed mainly for eBike use
and for commuting, well, it's a welcome trade-off.
All right.
Well, I hope you enjoyed our look at the latest
new urban cycling tech and if you have,
then please give this video a thumbs up
and subscribe to the channel.
If you wanna watch more of the latest new tech from Taipei,
then click down here.
I've gotta commute home now
through this urban metropolis in the rain.
It's kinda just like being in England.
Bye.