Ghosts in the Machines

Audi’s electric bike is certainly making the rounds at this point, and like any good piece of mysteryware, it’s leaving us with a lot of questions. My “us” of course I mean “me.” Something about this freaky vehicle is staying with me, and I’m having a tough time figuring out why.

Questions I’m left with include:

• Is it real? Because it’s hard to say anymore. I just saw the Hulk punch Thor in the head the other week, and it looked pretty realistic, too.
• What the hell’s going on with that transmission? Isn’t that an Acros hydraulic shifter and rear derailleur with the super-wide gap between the top part of the cage?
• Are those Magura brakes?
• Those are different wheels–where did the wheels in this new pseudo-CAD drawing come from?
• Is that an inverted fork that actually works? Are there inverted forks that work?
• What the hell’s going on with that Herman Miller Aeron Hammock Saddle?
• Tufo tubulars?
• Is that a tapered IS headset? Is that lower cup bigger than 1.5-inches? Is that a new standard?
• Who picked out those low-profile pedals?

I common thread, faint but unmistakable, runs through all of those questions–a sneaking suspicion about the mysterious origins of the bike.

This bike has a lot of German stuff on it.

And also: somebody who’s into bicycles built this thing.

Seriously. The German stuff is a no-brainer. All the German companies always rally when one of them builds something new. But I haven’t seen Porsche spec Tufo tubular mountain tires on their overpriced city bikes. Somebody really went to town on this thing, and it was somebody who knew what’s currently pretty hip.

Look at the head tube on this frame. That is not the head tube an out of touch poindexter would spec.

About the only things that aren’t completely up to date with current uber-high-end bike technology and fashion are the carbon weave and the rear suspension (Audi, I’m available!). Everything else shows a remarkable understanding of what doesn’t suck.

Weird.

I really does make me wonder who came up with the concept and who made this bike happen.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the e-bike coin, Bicycle Retailer and Industry News has been easing into coverage of electric bikes, and there’s an article about China, written by Nicole Formosa, on the BRAIN site currently. It includes some interesting data, like this:

Last year, Giant sold 1.87 million bikes in China, said Kevin Zhu, general manager for domestic marketing in China. That represents a market share of about 6.75 percent . . . . Of the 1.87 million bikes Giant sold in China last year, Zhu said about 30 to 40 percent retailed above 2,000 yuan ($320). Meanwhile, the company sold just 100 bikes for 50,000 yuan ($7,940) or more.”

Here we have a few polar opposite approaches to electric bikes (I’m going to go ahead and assume that Audi will cost more than $320, and probably a good bit more than $8,000). The wild dichotomy between the two approaches isn’t the interesting thing, though. The interesting thing is that we now officially have a new category of vehicles that can support that type of diversity.

That suggests the electric bike–whatever it is–has arrived.