I’ll admit, I don’t know all that much about bicycles, but I respect them as extremely clever transportation machines, and think they definitely have a place here on our little transportation-focused computer-web-internet-nook. But even as someone outside the bicycle-geek community, I can still appreciate what appears to be a genuine, unmitigated shitshow. And the Reevo e-bike definitely seems to be such a shitshow.
The Reevo hubless e-bike was the result of an IndieGoGo campaign that raised over $6.7 million for the project, which, to give credit where due, did result in developing a product to the point where products were actually shipped.
Of course, far fewer of those products were actually built and shipped, with only about 150 getting delivered of the 2,700 that were ordered, and then the company seems to have disappeared. Their website definitely has.
Still, it did sure look cool with those mind-bending hubless wheels, and it had lots of fun tech, like fingerprint locks and automatic LED brake and turn signal lamps. The promo videos sure make it look cool, right? Look:
That’s all fun, but let’s get back to the shitshow.
I was clued into the Reevo’s shitshowmanship by some posts on the internet referring to a review of the e-bike by noted bicycle Youtuber Berm Peak. This review is one of those rare and beautiful reviews where someone who knows their subject matter well is presented with a complete fiasco of a product, something that has that magical combination of being overpriced, overhyped, under-engineered, and, as a bonus, quite dangerous.
It’s the total package, and maybe just watch it before we go any further.
Wow, right? That’s all pretty stunning. This bike absolutely seems to have been designed based on what looked the most cool as opposed to anything that may have made it a, you know, good bike instead of an overcomplicated pile of crap. And hats off to Berm Peak for making a really unflinching video that I think manages to be fair to the bike while not shying away from showing all of its considerable failings.
There are just so many incredibly lousy things about the bike: it’s heavy, has incredibly high rolling resistance, is noisy as hell, and based on the video it seems like we’re talking near car-levels of noise from this thing, but in bicycle spaces and contexts, which has to make it seem even louder.
And then there’s the astonishing part where if you are off the bike and pushing it, like happens often when you’re riding a bike, if you get it going at even the sort of slightly quick clip one may use while walking a bike across a street, the electric motor engages and the bike wants to just take off on its own, which is genuinely dangerous.
Oh and the brakes! Dear lord, what miserably inadequate brakes! This bike is heavy and capable of some real speed thanks to the electric motor, but check out the brakes it has:
I’m pretty sure the Huffy I pedaled around in 1978 had the same basic brake setup. and, thanks to that cool-looking hub, you can’t have anything really better like disc brakes, because there’s no axle to mount the disc onto!
Most of these problems stem from the fundamental decision to have those cool-looking sci-fi hubless wheels, which may seem futuristic but really are pretty inane, seeing as how bike wheel hubs are about as perfected a technology as anyone could want, and if spokes really bother you then, well, maybe cycling isn’t for you.
These things cost about $2,000 so it’s not like they were a bargain, by any means, either. The whole things is such an incredible example of how designing something just to have a certain sort of futuristic look by no means equates to something that is actually better; in fact, it often means making poorly-considered sacrifices to an aesthetic that impair the final product significantly.
Oh, that reminds me, if anyone would like to send me a medal or perhaps a Taco Bell gift card for my incredible, near superhuman restraint at not comparing this pile to a Tesla Cybertruck, you can send those to me, care of Autopian Headquarters, 15 Bottom of Mariana Trench Blvd. Pacific Ocean, 81009.
You’re welcome.
I never thought I’d find a bicycle more dangerous than David’s Aztek, but here we are. I love the idea that if you just walked fast enough it would take off entirely on its own. 10/10, these startups always crack me up.
I love attempts to solve previously solved issues.
One of my favorites is “vertical axis wind turbines”. As if the almost 2000 years of development on windmills didn’t exist…. some people want to sell you a new thing.
Respectfully, that’s just not right.
Vertical axis wind turbines are quieter, have less moving parts, are omnidirectional, and capture more than double the power than traditional horizontal wind turbines. Over those 2000 years, manufacturing technology has advanced significantly allowing for advanced blade profiles, and converting wind into electricity is vastly different than pumping a water pump.
If Vertical axis wind turbines make sense why is the overwhelming majority of electricity generated via wind done so with horizontal axis turbines? Because Vertical axis wind turbines are not very efficient. They produce less energy compared to the more common designs.
What was the point of this thing? Who thought there was a market for it.
2700 people put down money for it, its stupid sure, but its easy to market to stupid people.
Since I am a bike expert, one look at this thing is all I need: it was designed by people who know nothing about bicycles. Bicycles have been perfected and only small tweaks and improvements in materials are even possible.
Also, you’re giving them partial credit for delivering 150 bikes that are crap after stealing $6.7M of investor money? Raise your standards, it was a scam all along.
Used to hang at a friends bike shop and marvel at the poor design/engineering decisions made on the crappy amazon bought ebikes that came in. Most he wouldn’t touch for liability sake. Most common issue was always the same: crappy center-mount, side-pull brakes that have no business on anything anymore, let alone heavy, over-powered, ebikes.
What’s a band-aid solution? Here! Hubless wheels are the gift that keep on taking.
I haven’t seen brakes this inadequate since the model s plaid. or the model 3 sport. or whatever that one Chinese ev was
Outside of the whole “it looks cool” element. I never got why they even attempted to make a bike hubless. The bicycle is maybe the most solved technology on earth. And the hub is fundamentally to operation and wildly reliable. I have 90k miles pedaling according to Strava. One hub has ever failed on me. A Mercury Axis rear hub, if you’re wondering.
But yeah, it’s obvious who ever made this knew nothing about bikes. In a bike with no suspension. Your main damper is actually the tires. Airless tires, to function, have minimal deflection. Your second damper is the spokes and rim deflection. The stiffest wheel I’ve ever ridden, The Mavic Kyrusium Pro Carbon SL UST, had 5mm of deflection at the rim. Even on 34c Pro ones, it rode kinda like an ass. This probably has a functional deflection of basically none. It probably rides like three 2x4s taped together. Most of this would resolve with a basic air suspension fork.
Also, rolling resistance on what’s probably a giant cheap needle bearing would be awful. And airless tires have massive watt loses as well. As tire efficient is really a measure of how thick a tire is. Which is why a Vittoria Corsa is like 10 watts faster than a Pirelli P Zero at 30 kph. This airless tire is probably upwards of 40 plus watts lost at 30 kph, compared to a Corsa which is around 10.
Also, brakes, Jesus lawsuit waiting to happen Christ.
Kickstarter bike shit is always crazy stuff like this. There’s a reason bikes have remained functional the same for so long. It works real well.
Well shit, now I need to see an analysis of bike engineering in terms materials analysis, frictional losses, overall efficiency, and other technical performance analysis.
I tend to think this way (i.e. transfer of energy) in all things, and it can be pretty helpful. And now I want to know more!
Then let me introduce you to the dark world of bike chain waxing. If you’ve ever wanted to see grown adults put a bunch of wax in a crock-pot, dip a chain in it. Then go directly to the internet to argue with wax is marginally faster. It’s a hot topic r/n. Yeah, it might be over like 1% increase at a 300 watt effort, but it matters dammit!
I wax my chains *only* because it reduces maintenance and cleaning as well as extends the lives of my chains and cassettes. If you’re the bozo worried about 1% increase at 300w, there’s a little race over in France every year you should try out for…
TBH, 300w is usually around the 4 w/kg mark for your average Dude who races in America. I’m about 7 years removed from racing bikes a job, and can still hit 5 w/kg over 20 minutes if I’m feeling good. Jonas is pushing over 7 w/kg at the tour. There’s an argument that it matters if your around that P/1/2/3 range. And if you’re like me and on the wrong side of 30, still racing dudes who are getting paid to be there. You can use all the help you can get. Really how many people are in this segment, maybe a couple hundred. That said, I don’t actually wax my chain anymore. Mainly cause I often ride in the wet, and it was time consuming.
I’m up for the launch of Bikeopian! We can write about new actual good bikes, restoring old bikes, hoarding bikes, weird bike history, find someone really obsessed with cable-stops! It’ll be great!
I need my platform on why the new Colnago, and in fact all bikes with a floating seat mast are an affront to humanity. And I need it now! Also I have very strong opinions on various road tires that all look the same, but they’re not! And I look forward to sharing them.
My name is Captain Muppet, and I hoard bikes.
I have 5 Orange MTBs, a Pace RC200, a 90’s Kona Cinder Cone and a Giant CADEX. I have no more space. Also none of my Oranges are actually orange, so I badly need to either fix that or buy a Whyte that’s painted orange.
I also obsessively rebuild 90’s MTBs for anyone who’ll let me. My brother bought a battered 90’s Marin to “get working” and I delivered it not only completely stripped and rebuilt, but also with a snowflake front wheel built with new double butted spokes, because obsessive. I will now list all the advantages of a snowflake wheel: its much more annoying to build. I’ve built dozens of them.
Wheelbuild Wednesday could post up to 17 times per year.
I built a pair of 32 spoke 2-leading-2-trailing 26” wheels last year. I’ve never seen one before or since. Benefits over a traditional 3-cross: more confusing to build and look at, slightly lighter, slightly weaker.
I have no idea who I’m doing this for.
There are some bike nerds in the comments and I am here for it.
I rode snowflake wheels on my ’90’s-era MTB (Wheeler 8000 comp frame, Halson inversion fork, Mavic rims on Ringle Bubba Hubs, wide bullhorn handlebars) That bike was awesome in 1995.
Based on my experience, snowflake wheels may be hard to build, but they’re impossible to true up later.
I’m still riding the 2-cross snowflake I built in 1996 on my Orange Clockwork. I’ve never had to true it.
But they are a nightmare, adjusting one spoke affects the one it’s twisted around.
This vid came up on my YT feed the other day, haven’t gotten a chance to watch it yet. I will tonight when I get home. They could have made disc brakes for this, just make the discs 26″ and bolt to the hub less rims.
Also occurred on my feed. Just watched it last night.
So, YouTube has successfully figured out The Autopian crowd…
I already subscribe to Berm Peak and a bunch of other bike related channels, so they already knew me
Buell inside-out brakes!
The Juicero of bikes
This bike looks like it would be a nice piece of art.
But yeah… there is a reason why hubless wheels aren’t popular.
It’s because they’re a terrible idea in practice.
https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-hubless-center-less-spoke-less-wheel
If you watch the entire video, you get to see him pull the color-matched tape off the cladding to reveal the parent company logo. They were too embarrassed to put their name on this stupid thing.
Great article, excellent tagging. Arcane, overly specific, and slightly mean tag archives are a fun easter egg that remind me of the earlier days of the old site. I anticipate that the “crap” category will be worth a scroll through from time to time.
On the good side, at least they didn’t try electric steering like the “Tesla” e-bike some clueless graphic designer came up with. That abomination used fixed handlebars with pressure sensors that used a motor to steer, and it had hubless wheels. That is this thing’s only redeeming feature. A cheap Bikes Direct mid drive would blow this out of the water
Airless tires? On a bike without a suspension? That explains the terrible ride. This is a bike that an app designer that had never ridden a bike designed.
lol $2 stamped side pulls on a bike that needs a lot more. my cargo bike has 180mm 4-piston DH brakes on it and that’s adequate.
“shitshowmanship” That’s priceless!
I wonder what “genius” came up with the idea of: Hubs=bad
Sbarro originally put hubless wheels on a show car around 30 years ago. The chopper builders began using hubless rear wheels with friction drive, for extra stupidity. Then hipsters started sticking them on bicycles.
Here I am imagining the Sbarro pizza restaurant chain having made a show car with hubless wheels. Perhaps to store pizzas inside the hubs?
While that is an incredibly funny image, it was Franco Sbarro’s car company that made them
*Current events had nothing to do with inspiring the term*
While it was always going to be bad being hubless. The $2k price tag confirms it. A top spec e-mtb is in the $10-15k range, without being radical design wise in any, way, shape, form or material.
Anyway, Seth is rad, does great content. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he pulls it apart at this point, which will be interesting to see.
I’m surprised it has claw brakes. Like, the thing weighs eighty five pounds. My cruiser bike weighs sixty (thanks, Huffy, for using 3/8″ steel tubing for everything) and that fat bitch needs me to slam to coaster to get it to stop. I can’t even imagine trying to get something that weighs as much as a cargo bike to stop using only claws.
Watch the video. The brakes hardly stop it. The is not really another option cause no where to mount brakes.
I did watch the video. You can use a wedge brake on such a design, but they were so insistent on making it “sleek” that both the front and rear hoops had to be the same, so the rear hoop the wheel mounts on isn’t designed to fit a wedge.
Hell, at the very least they could’ve used two claws per wheel and a tension cable to connect them to double the surface area of the pads (a common mountain bike mod back during the X-games days), but again, being sleek won out over being able to slow down eighty five pounds of poor purchasing decisions.
Two hundred and eighty five pounds, with the poor purchaser.
Try a brake setup like Buell motorcycles?
yeah, I think in the vid he might be talking about that? Even with a thin bike rotor I think you’re adding more pounds.
I had bikes I found in a ditch that were better.
Okay, fine, as the owner of an Itera Plastic Bicycle, I concede. I know when I’ve been beat.
I still want to try one of those. Out of morbid curiosity.
It is unnervingly flexible, with the handlebars being the worst offenders. This was a common complaint when they were new but now there’s the added concern, never far from mind, that the plastic hasn’t exactly gotten less brittle with age. I’ve ridden it short distances at low speeds a couple of times but I don’t have enough confidence in its integrity to do more than that.
I bought it locally mostly because I was surprised that anyone both (1) actually had one in the Seattle area and (2) was willing to put it up for sale on Craigslist. I don’t regret the purchase but I also don’t see it as viable transportation, despite my low personal standards for what can constitute viable transportation.
Those brakes make me cringe.
Those brakes are woefully inadequate for any bike likely to be as heavy as this thing. If it’s going to have to use rim brakes, the designers even remember that cantilever brakes exist?
My first thought was “they could have at least used V-brakes…” but then I wondered if the rims were strong enough to withstand the clamping force.
I wonder if they were counting on the inherent rolling resistance to provide more than a little assistance.
that is a good point, there is so much friction in it
All that “innovation” and it has $2 side-pull brakes. That’s freaking hilarious.
Brakes stolen off their kid’s walmart special.
Ironic that something that supposedly augured the future didn’t have one.
Silly me, I had been sending fan mail to the Atlantic ocean. No wonder delivery notifications kept telling me they were dropped off at Stellantis Headquarters. I didn’t think anything of it since a CARLOS T. was signing for them.
As for the bike, seeing that typical bike brake setup is hilarious, but why did they not provide for a regenerative braking system? Is that not a thing for E-bikes in general?
One way or another, you made like Fisker and dumped money into the Ocean.
Yeah, poor design also sank the Canoo
The track record for nautically-named vehicles is not very stellar.
I’m confused.
The Mercury Villager Nautica looks nothing like a Hyundai Stellar.
You two are Cruiseing for a bruising.
Eh, lighten up, Penelope.
Karma’s a beach.
It’s also a Gyesera and a Revero.
But that zip belongs to Pueblo Colorado?
Everyone knows that the zip codes to the Guam – the closest island – is in the 96910–96932 range.
I think this is a scam.
Like that $2000 bike.
Did you say Pueblo Colorado?
https://youtu.be/fEp0aKCsrig
Maybe it has one, set on Full all the time?
Unless there is no rider – then all braking is disabled.
Few e-bikes have regenerative braking, as it’s usually not effective enough to justify the cost and complexity.
Not generally.