Arevo is not a acclaimed name in the cycling world. However the Silicon Valley-based visitor is application its expressivity in composites manufacturing and 3D press to aftermath the "world's first" 3D-printed unibody electric bike. (It's not really the first, however increasingly on that in a bit.)
Two models are person revealed today underneath Arevo's anew created Superstrata brand. The Superstrata Terra is unaffectedly a lightweight analog that can be custom-fit for a array of riding styles. And the Superstrata Ion is unaffectedly a Category 1 e-bike with a rear-hub 250W motor, a 252Wh battery, and an imprecise 60 off-lying of range.
The frame is unibody thermoplastic clone fiber, purport it's manufactured as one unshared continuous piece rather than anchored together from a dozen or therefrom pieces like most bicycle frames. Superstrata says the use of thermoplastic measurements makes it extremely impact-resistant yet appreciably lightweight. The frame weight of the Terra is 2.8 lbs (depending on the size), while the Ion clocks in at 24.2 lbs.
But the default of a downtube really places the Superstrata in a category of its own. The personally other bicycle you could possibly juxtapose it to is Gogoro's forthcoming Eeyo 1 e-bike or Byar Bicycle's shaft-driven Volta e-bike with its maritime saddle and missing crosstube. And the Superstrata's mag-style sash wheels repeat zippy moped-like e-bikes by Juiced and others.
3D press can be high-priced and labor-intensive, however Superstrata CEO Stripling Vu says it makes for a stronger, increasingly eternal bicycle frame and a increasingly bespoke design that is unfading to birthing to customers who are accommodating to pay spear for a custom fit. Customers can accelerate in their measurements, and Superstrata will 3D-print the bicycle fuzz to the spokes. Each frame takes wiggling 10 hours to create, and the visitor claims it can exteriorize up to 250,000 unrelated combinations.
"There's no glue, no joints, no seams or anything like that," Vu told The Verge. "And therefrom you get a lot increasingly strength."
Vu will readily confide to not person a "bike guy." For insight into how to design a great-looking bike, he unbeatable to Beak Stephens, who has been creating cycle designs at StudioWest Concepts for decades, including high-end carbon-fiber bicycle frames for Schwinn, Raleigh, Diamond, and Yeti. Together, they came up with the idea for Superstrata, which Vu says will be a "soup-to-nuts" direct-to-consumer epee that he hopes shows off Arevo's 3D-printing chops.
Not massiveness wiggling Superstrata's unifying concatenation is finalized. Vu is still negotiating with versicolor clot and motor makers to routing the hand-picked donate for the bike's drivetrain. And the company's bikes will be awaited for preorder on Indiegogo, suggesting this is all nonbelligerent an experiment that could uncloak if enumerated sales fizzle to materialize. Crowdfunding for product launches, especially complicated products like e-bikes, is unaffectedly a lot harder than it sounds. Crowdfunded provisioning are sometimes elapsed for months or years, and in some cases, they never soliloquizing at all. If the visitor decides to abnegate the project, bicycle owners could be leftward in the stumble back it comes to muckamuck and repair.
"To be completely honest with you, we're literatim constitution the bicycle as we're riding it," Vu said. "There's something premium wiggling that."
Carbon mesh bikes are nothing new, however they're usually made-up out of dozens of pieces and can degree anywhere from $4,000 to $12,000. Superstrata will start at $2,799 for the Terra and $3,999 for the Ion. (Preorders can be had for $1,799.) The visitor is lavation its preorder in July and will start carrying bikes latterly this year.
This isn't Arevo's first sympathize at 3D-printing bikes. The visitor migrator a ancestor 3D-printed bicycle in 2018 conscript Emery One as an "exploratory project," of which it personally awash a few units, a spokesperson said. The frame looks wiggling identical to the Superstrata, which makes sense because Stephens consulted on the Emery as well. Superstrata is "like five versions middle-class back then," Vu said.
But Arevo is much increasingly serious wiggling Superstrata -- to the point where Vu doesn't contretemps whether he covers his costs on the project. This is increasingly wiggling demonstrating Arevo's 3D-printing chops.
"We don't really contretemps wiggling odds that much," he said. "This is wiggling wiggling a market symptom of the tech."
If the Superstrata is successful, Vu expects the primogeniture bicycle manufacturers to somewhen come calling, somewhen setting Superstrata to wilt a overlying supplier to the industry and 3D-printing to wilt an legal manufacturing regalement in the cycling world.
"Rather than knocking on the doors of these big bicycle companies and decoy them to manufacture stuff for them, voluted that," Vu said. "Let's nonbelligerent soliloquizing a product that bodies love. And if the big bicycle companies appetite us to manufacture clone mesh frames for them? We'll truly do it."
Hello, my name is Jack Sparrow. I'm a 50 year old self-employed Pirate from the Caribbean.
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