Yes, this is how weird (and how elegant) e-bikes are getting

Few things in the bike world are as hot right now as e-bikes. Every manufacturer seems to be sensing that now is the time for electric bikes to finally catch hold in North America.

Here’s the latest evidence: Two approaches to ebikes, from both an industry leader and an upstart, that are almost complete opposites.

Here’s the first one: Bosch, the German company that has led the way toward pedal-assist ebikes in the past decade, has a new version out that seems built to address the problem of consumers worried that e-bikes just look weird.

Bosch has a new line of electric drives that seem to be based on the need to make e-bikes look as much like a bike as possible. Photo by Bosch.

The company’s new drive unit is 20 per cent smaller, 19 per cent lighter, and features “a cleaner, (more)  integrated look, to more closely resemble traditional bikes,” according to a media release from the company.

It comes with other improvements, such as an improved range and, perhaps most significantly, no longer has resistance on the pedals when the motor is turned off.

But still, the headline here seems to be that Bosch is betting that consumers will be more willing to buy an e-bike if nobody can’t tell it’s an e-bike.

Bosch’s new electric drive offers more improvements, including a wider range. Photo by Bosch.

On the other end of the spectrum is Ukrainian company DelFast, known for making courier vehicles. It just launched a new fundraising campaign on Kickstarter for a bike designed to address what it sees as a problem with distance, damn the appearance.

It’s launching an e-bike with a claimed range of 380 kms per charge, using a massive battery pack that can push the bike to 55 km/hr (which, it should be added, is more that twice the bike-lane speed-limit in many cities). While this thing does have a brute eastern-European charm, it’s a monster, accurately described in the press release as “a hybrid between a cross-country motorcycle and a mountain bike.”

So if you’ve been contemplating an e-bike, but have been holding off because they look too much like a, er, bike, and you feel the need to travel 400 kilometres on one charge at motorcycle speeds, this may be the bike for you.

There you go: two bikes at opposite ends of the conspicuous spectrum. Maybe e-bikes have truly arrived after all.