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Comments (127)

• moezd
  10 km Sports and 50 km Eco range is a no go. Plus they explicitly deny carbon fiber bikes, bikes with suspension, and tire choice is rather limited. You could've invested in a decent trekking bike with a standard motor instead, at least you get that hind wheel storage space free.
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  bri3d
  Friction drive e-bike conversions were popular years ago.They generally:* Wear tires surprisingly quickly* Absolutely suck in any form of weather or terrain condition (dirt, rain, etc.)* Have ~20% less efficiency than any other drive form.But, they are easy, and they do work.
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  LeoPanthera
  Clive Sinclair designed one of these in the 90s. It actually sold reasonably well, but was limited by the available battery technology of the period.https://rk.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/vehicles/zeta.htm
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  yazaddaruvala
  Ouch, love to see a great product like this. However, hate to see that bike theft wasn’t discussed at all.“Easy installation” with two screws seems like a benefit to customers except when they come back to their parked bike only to find their expensive mod also had a hidden feature: “easy uninstallation”.
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  NDlurker
  If I ever convert my bike to electric, I'll probably go with this https://www.swytchbike.com/
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  low_tech_punk
  It is decoupled from drivetrain. So, without torque sensor, how does it know when the rider wants to speed up vs. slow down?
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  Lwrless
  I have to say, this looks really well designed and easy to use, I want one! But why Asus? I really want to know how they landed on this.
• camkego
  The web page doesn't seem to load correctly in the Safari browser for macOS 26. Seems like something they might want to fix.
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  kiddico
  That might be the easiest ebike retrofit/conversion I've ever seen. I have concerns about the grip in wet conditions but this looks like a great way to get that ebike I've wanted and not put my perfectly good frame to waste.
• Zigurd
  A couple other people here mentioned that theft is an issue. That's yet another reason why folding bikes seemed like the best use case for this. Not as good as a folding bike that's made for being an E bike, but if you've already got a good folding bike and a bit more zip on your commute is what you need, this seems like a interesting product.
• amoorthy
  I just bought a Boost conversion kit from the UK and am excited to install it in a couple weeks. If anyone has installed this kit would appreciate a comment on the experience.(I'm in the US and have been unimpressed with the kits available here. The Boost one looks compact and well designed).
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  angry_octet
  If I'm carrying around a giant battery I ought to be able to charge my devices from it, but it is silent on that front.The design doesn't work if you have a mud guard or pannier rack. Also unclear how easily it is detached. Do I have to take it off everytime to prevent casual thievery? How do I take it off to charge inside? Does it have anti-theft bricking?I'm struggling to understand who the target market is.
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  Helmut10001
  This would be great to add to my 9 year old's bike. We couldn't do long bike tours anymore because he would stop biking after 100m, telling is he is completely exhausted and must go home. I was looking for something like this!
• anon
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  mannanj
  All these sites have hype about AI features like AI Chat. however I use the chat, and it wastes about 3-10 seconds just to load, then I ask for the price, and it fails to understand even the page we were on (edit: "I don't understand what product you're referring to, please tell me the product"). Then I literally paste the page's product from the page into the chat, and it finally wastes my time more and sends a whole essay blob about why it can't tell me the price.Is this what investors sell to the board about how they are using AI for greater efficiency? Just to waste consumers time even more?
• theendisney
  They should turn it into a phone lan gaming platform with dedicated games. That would make it instantly awesome.
• dreamcompiler
  If I bought this I might want a brake upgrade. Even though it probably provides only about 150W (I always assume ebike power ratings are inflated), the extra weight alone warrants disc brakes IMHO.
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  arjie
  Haha, I like all these adapter designs though my favourite was the Copenhagen Wheel[0]. I saw someone ride one near Mission and S Van Ness and loved it. Sleek device. This particular one in the OP is definitely built for safe societies, right? Definitely not for the North American market, haha!0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_Wheel
• amazingamazing
  Similar things are on amazon today 300-500. Not worth it imho. If you are going to keep it on, convert your bike with middrive or hub motor once.
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  dalmo3
  Am I missing something or that thing can be trivially stolen?
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  gedy
  So ah, can we buy it? What's the price? Not seeing unless ad blockers are hiding something.
• calvinmorrison
  They aint new. I had one that was driven by a honda gx35 4 strokethere was another company named "bee" something that did these (gas as well 2 stroke)and many early scooters, conversions, that all followed the friction style
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  tokai
  I love bicycle tech. Almost everything was invented in the 1890s, and every couple of decades someone tries another old idea.https://onlinebicyclemuseum.co.uk/tour/cyclemotors-motorcycl...
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  d--b
  some bike vendor told me that the biggest problem with regular to ebike conversion was that regular bike frames were not strong enough to support the additional forces that the electric bike imposed. And it was why the ebikes were much heavier than regular bikes.Does anyone know if that’s true and if that applies to conversions like this one?
• anon
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  uwagar
  i have a folding cycle and a fat bike. my only two devices still analog and keep me reasonably fit. i dont wanna e-bike them. but if i wanna long distance, this could be nice.
• singpolyma3
  lol. A friction drive in current year?
• darrenchiu
  [dead]
• pranav_tech26
  [dead]
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  UltraSane
  These suck, just buy an e-bike they are awesome.
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  righthand
  Anything for the world to actually avoid the health benefits of riding a bike. What is wrong with a standard human powered bike? I expect a global obesity epidemic in 10 years as people begin buying/building WALL-E-style beds.
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  numpad0
  How do these things work legally? Wouldn't the bolt on process count as manufacturing or modifying a motorcycle, depending on where you are?