131 - Will Motor Gear Boxes (MGUs) Change eMTBs Forever?

There's a ton of talk right now about motor gear units (MGUs) coming out of Eurobike, but we haven't found content with enough depth to satisfy our questions. So in this episode, Dane and Josh go deep on MGUs, comparing five major players — Gobao, Avinox, Pinion, Owuru, and IntraDrive — and explaining how the different types of MGUs (stepped gearbox, CVT, and eCVT) actually work.

The guys cover both sides of the MGU topic in detail, and argue over a few points along the way. On the positive side, they may: be way easier to maintain, facilitate better battery range, offer wider gear ranges than cassettes, allow shifting anytime, and move weight toward the center of the bike (lowering the center of gravity and moving mass from unsprung to sprung - which could mean better suspension performance). On the negative side, they may have: extra pedal drag, a wider Q factor (think pedal strikes), and real uncertainty about repair/replacement when the whole drivetrain is one sealed unit. 

If you want the real detailed MGU breakdown behind the Eurobike headlines, not just another "derailleur is dead" hot take, this episode delivers it.

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Transcript

Cold Open And Bike Night Plans

Host - Josh Anderson 0:14

So you're never gonna believe this. What's that? Please came to my house today. Oh shit.

Host - Dane Higgins 0:19

Okay.

Host - Josh Anderson 0:20

All right. And they said, uh, hey man, uh your dog is uh chasing a kid on a bike. Oh, okay. And uh shut the door. Oh, really? You know why? No, why? My dog doesn't even have a bike.

Host - Dane Higgins 0:38

I've seen your garage.

Host - Josh Anderson 0:39

I'm sure your dog has a bike in there.

Host - Dane Higgins 0:41

There's a lot of bikes in there.

Eurobike Hype For Motor Gear Units

Host - Josh Anderson 0:44

Yes, yes, yes. All right, so uh Tuesday night on the MCP we're gonna pull a double header before we go ride and eat biria. Got my Red Bull. You got your Red Bull going. I got uh Pacifico. Nice. I've been trying to find a beer that in the United States that's close to the Costa Rican Imperial. Okay, because we drank a ton of those Imperials and it just was amazing. Can't you get that? I can't find it really in Tucson. No. I'm sure maybe I could order it like total wine or something, but I don't like it that much. Yeah, yeah. So someone told me to try Pacifico, so I'm giving it a go. Nice. Yeah. I'm kind of off the IPAs now, um, which is good going back to my roots. Anyways, uh Tuesday night, we're gonna do a double header um and then eat some biria, which I've been cooking all day, and then go for a ride. Nice. Uh cross-country ride on big giant bikes.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:35

Yeah, yeah. We're gonna go ride the tamest trail in town on our enduro downhill bikes.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:40

Yeah, the biggest meanest bikes I have. Um, but anyways, uh we uh, you know, coming out of Eurobike, which is going on um right now, it when by the time we release this, it'll be a couple weeks. Eurobike will be over for a couple weeks. But um one of the things that we saw a ton of hype about, uh, and actually I'd like to claim credit you do, you get it from a few episodes ago. Maybe I I in I tried to find the episode, I couldn't find it, but I did at one point predict that the future of e-bikes was gonna be uh gearboxes uh integrated with the motors. Yep. Um, which which we're gonna call NGUs, motor, motor gear units. Yep. Motor gear units. Um, but that is all the hype um coming out of Eurobike. And so we thought that it would be good for us to just kind of do a little research and share what we know. Yeah, just I I mean honestly talk it out. Yeah, because a lot of people are. So yeah, just talk it out. So um there's kind of like two, I think like the general approach we're gonna take here for this episode is um we've thought through like maybe some of the just just the generic pluses and minuses of an MGU itself. Yeah, like any MGU, and then we can go into some specifics of like a handful of different MGUs that we know that are coming from different companies.

E-Bike Motors And Gearbox Basics

Host - Dane Higgins 2:55

Yeah, can I do a quick little history? Yeah, go for it. Okay, so a couple things. Just uh uh one for the people that aren't into e-bikes. I'm sorry. Uh I apologize for this episode because this is pretty much 99% uh e-bikes. Um, e-bikes in general usually have two different ways of delivering power to the wheel, either a hub motor or uh a motor in the cranks, which is called a mid-drive. Okay. Yep. And so I'm just the motors in the middle of the bike or on the rear hub of the bike. Yeah, and all that or on the front, is it the front hub too, or just the rear? It's rare. Like sometimes they'll do that like on a trike or something, uh, you know, like the old person trikes and uh uh just for convenience, but most of the time they won't. And I've seen people put two motors on, like a front wheel and a rear wheel. Just to get it juiced. Yeah, I yeah, they do weird stuff. But in general, like the common is uh rear hub motor or a mid-drive, which has got a motor in the in the bottom bracket. And these motors, uh, the mid-drive ones do have gears in them. So a lot of people think that they're not geared, but they have a a motor in them uh that is spinning too fast for your bike and for your cranks and doesn't deliver enough torque. And so they have uh usually a gearbox, believe it or not, that's built into them that changes that motor speed into torque, and then it matches closer to what you'd use on a bike. And so that bulky thing that they're bolting in there, that's what it is. So now your bike, uh, the Rocky does not have that. Your bike, your bike has a different specific motor that's got a lot more torque, and it's got one step down chain, like a timing chain. Yep, and then that's it, and you have a normal, normal uh setup. And so yours is one of the only ones on the market that's different, like that's the dynamay dynamay threes and fours. So um, so that's a quick history on those. We're gonna be talking about the the uh for the most part, we're gonna be talking about mid-drive stuff. Uh I'm gonna mention some other stuff that are hub drive, but just for examples.

Host - Josh Anderson 4:51

And there's a little bit, I mean, so you say it's just for e-bikers, kind of, but like gearboxes in general are not just an e-bike thing.

Host - Dane Higgins 4:58

Yeah, so okay, so yeah, let me back up. So um, and then now if we talk about gearboxes, not motors, uh, gearboxes are something that they've been doing for years and years and years. Again, there is a hub version and a mid-drive motion version. So it's funny because we're gonna talk about these two things. They're they're they both are doing both ideas, and uh pinion is the most popular gear drive. Mid drive, sorry, gearbox. And so they're pretty awesome. They use a bunch of gears, and basically uh as you're riding, you can hit a hit a uh you can you can shift while you're not pedaling, which is really cool. Yeah. So you can shift down while you're not pedaling and get into that gear. And uh they're using gears in there, and then they usually run some sort of chain transfer chain or belt to the rear of the bike, and there's no derailer and no cassette. And so that's the big selling feature. Uh super low maintenance, they're usually sealed, um, really, really durable. Uh just, I mean, you can run through mud and they still work great. But why haven't they taken off? If they're so great. Yes, yeah. So this is why you and I argued about whether or not they'll go into e-bikes. E-bikes, because I've been watching gearboxes forever and they always have big drawbacks. The biggest advantage is that durability, especially in like muddy, nasty can terrain, that is such a small specific amount of people. Right. And it's much heavier in most cases, and it's also creates a lot of drag and noise. And so when you, you know, when you actually put it on the bike, it it has so many things distracting from the one thing that it's amazing at, yeah, that it's been a hard choice.

Host - Josh Anderson 6:41

And so much so that um, you know, Gates has a has a hundred thousand dollar bounty for anyone that wins on a on a belt drive. On a belt drive. Now it doesn't have to be a gearbox, but on a belt drive.

Host - Dane Higgins 6:54

But the idea is the the belt the gearbox opinion, especially, has been really active in this, just trying to make these things as good as possible so that these downhillers can win a hundred thousand dollars.

Host - Josh Anderson 7:06

So And there's a quite a few, even on the tour, the World Cup this year, that are using gearboxes. On the downhill, yeah.

Host - Dane Higgins 7:12

You won't see them on the cross-country bikes, right? No, hell no. Because they just don't make any sense. The other gearbox that's out there is like the hub ones. So, like, you know, probably a lot of our listeners have had like a hub motor or sorry, a hub hub um like a three-speed. A three-speed, six-speed, twelve speed, L fine, yep, yep. Stirmy Archer, like one of my old bikes has a Stermy Archer three-speed. So those have been around forever, and that's the hub-based ones. Again, no derailleur. You're getting rid of the complication of the derailleur. So the derailer, I feel like, is is is like the weakest link, right? I mean, uh Shram is trying to make it so that you can take a hit with it. Um, Shimano designed their new derailleurs to take a hit and then come back. You know, it's like Rocky. Yeah, you know, that you know, they get they get knocked down, they get it's chumbawumba. They get knocked down and but they get up again. Um so like so, like these uh derailers are kind of are kind of the weak link, and so they've been trying to get rid of them. You can't take a belt very easily and make it shift gears. So belts are usually have to be a single speed uh transfer of power. And so uh the hub motors let you run a get a belt, or I'm sorry, the hub. Um the gearbox. Yeah, the yeah, there's uh three-speed hubs, uh multi-speed hubs, I guess is what they're called. I'm I'm flubbing on my words. Um, you can run a belt drive on those. So commuter bikes are really popular, but in the mountain bike space, neither of these things have been very popular because even though the derailer can take a hit and it can cause problems, it's the most efficient design. So, and that's why you and I argued because I'm like, why would they get rid of that?

Host - Josh Anderson 8:58

That efficient design.

Host - Dane Higgins 8:59

Yeah, that efficient design has beaten out everything over decades and decades. Yeah. I don't think the MGU will come out. I think it'll be too um complicated, heavy, expensive, won't work as well, whatever, whatever my brain is trying to figure out, thinking that it won't come out, and then I was right. Well, yeah, we we think. We think because you know, one thing that was interesting in our research, doing my research on this was all of these other systems are out there, and uh these um gearbox systems have been out there, and even some of the the bicycle MGUs have been out there, correct? But they haven't been implemented in the mountain bikes, and I'm kind of curious why. So there's drawbacks out there that aren't super clear. Yeah, we'll talk about that.

Why Gearboxes Failed On Pedal Bikes

Host - Dane Higgins 9:45

Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 9:45

I want to make I want to hammer one point, see what you think about it. Okay. I think that the reason that they haven't taken off gearboxes, haven't taken off on acoustic bikes. There's a there's a couple of them, like weight or noise, whatever. I don't think it's weight or noise.

Host - Dane Higgins 10:00

Okay.

Host - Josh Anderson 10:00

I think it's really just there's additional resistance when you pedal. Yes. So it makes it harder to pedal.

Host - Dane Higgins 10:06

Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 10:06

Um, and so like, but but that's getting better. And as a matter of fact, I just rode like Rob, one of our buddies, local buddies here, he's got a hardtail uh steel frame. I can't remember the name of the brand, but it's got a pinion electric gearbox. It's not an e-bike, but it's got a pinion electric gearbox. It's got an electric shifter. Electric shifter, yeah. Yeah. Uh, and I rode that thing around the neighborhood, or I'm just around the parking lot, and really didn't feel like a ton of resistance. So it feels like they're getting better. I've written some of the older ones and they were super um, like you could definitely feel the difference.

Host - Dane Higgins 10:39

Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 10:39

My hypothesis on why I thought they were gonna take off was the weight doesn't really matter so much on an e-bike. We're already dealing with sound on an e-bike, and that extra resistance the motor can overcome for you. Yeah. So it's it's not it's a win-win.

Host - Dane Higgins 10:53

Yeah. I I think I think you were spot on because you know, again, I'm applying that that beauty of that derailleur being efficient, and you know, I don't think the uh the an MGU will overcome that, but then I forget that these motors have gotten so powerful.

Host - Josh Anderson 11:09

Yeah, if they gotta if they gotta blow a few watts on overcoming some gears, they can do that.

Host - Dane Higgins 11:14

Yeah, and and again, I don't think we'll see in the near future any of this show up on like cross-country bikes. Uh, whenever you're weighing a bike, I don't think that's gonna be. Yeah, that won't be one of the components. Yeah, um, but um but again remember too, I'm a little resistant because my dream e-bike is you know 35 pounds, hundred and whatever newton meters, you know. Yeah, it wouldn't be very planted. It it would be, it would be very planted if it had a MGU. Yeah, that was a center, low center of gravity.

Host - Josh Anderson 11:45

All right, so what we're talking about, so that was a little bit of background. Yep.

What An MGU Replaces On E-Bikes

Host - Josh Anderson 11:49

If you guys could follow us at all. Yeah, I know who knows. I know, but what we're specifically talking about today is the combination of a gearbox and a motor in a combined unit for the most part, implemented on e-bikes. Yes, right, and there's five different companies that we know about, maybe, maybe more. We'll talk about each of them. Um, so basically, you get rid of the derailer, you get rid of your cassette, you get rid of your that's it, just derailer and cassette go away. Yeah. You still have some kind of either chain or belt that will drive the system. But all the other all the gears are held in this little gearbox that's roughly the same size as your e-bike motor today.

Host - Dane Higgins 12:31

Yeah, yeah, not too much bigger. Uh a little wider. A little wider. From what we've seen.

Host - Josh Anderson 12:35

From what we've seen so far. So um to start with, like, let's talk through. I've just got a list here of of like advantages and maybe disadvantages of an MGU. Okay. And so, like, the first advantage, I think, is you you are always in the right gear. Yeah. So, um, because a lot of them are automatic or have an automatic uh shifting option.

Host - Dane Higgins 13:02

Yeah, and so the the the thing to wrap your head around is there is no gear.

Host - Josh Anderson 13:07

Right, you're all you're always in the yeah, there's no physical gear, but you're always in the right you're yeah, let's just use the term gear. It's weird. You're always in the same gear, yeah. Like if if you have one through twelve, you're always in the right number for what you're pedaling. And the theory there is that that is going to um result in a better, efficient use of the battery, which then is going to extend your range. Because on a derail your system, you could be pushing the wrong gear and making the motor work harder than it has to for the same speed, which then will use the battery more less efficiently and reduce your range.

Host - Dane Higgins 13:50

Yeah, and and we've seen this with some customers. They'll with most e-bikes you need to increase your cadence. Right.

Host - Josh Anderson 13:57

From what most motors like a higher cadence, right?

Host - Dane Higgins 14:00

Yeah, and some of them, you know, like the Rockies are around 70, 70 to 80. Um, those SX Bosches like like 90, you know. Oh, really?

Host - Josh Anderson 14:08

Yeah. I haven't ridden one of the Bosches.

Host - Dane Higgins 14:10

Yeah, and uh they want to be at a higher cadence.

Host - Josh Anderson 14:12

Yeah, they want you to be screaming.

Host - Dane Higgins 14:14

Yeah, it helps the motor. Um, because it it the motor wants to go faster and doesn't have a lot of torque, and so um, and so this is kind of interesting because these these new MGUs. So the pinion MGU has just taken a an e-bike motor. Yep. And then remember I told you that e-bike motor has to step down its speed to create the torque to be a so then they instead of doing a gearbox on it for that, they just integrated it into their pinion dry box. Yeah, and then they have a lot of years now, because it's been out for a while, of trying to figure out the right ratios and also durability and things like that. Lots of testing going on to try and figure it out to get it to where it's useful. And those do have step gears. So those when you shift on one of those, they are going into certain gears that Pinya has figured out. So you have set uh gear ratios that you click into.

Gearbox Versus CVT Versus ECVT

Host - Josh Anderson 15:12

So this might be a good time to talk about. There's kind of like as I understand it, two different flavors of MGUs, motor gear units. Three. Okay, two two mid-drive? Is that what you mean?

Host - Dane Higgins 15:26

No, so there's the pinion gearbox, uh, which is stepped gears, it's just a gearbox, right? Yep. Then there's CBT, uh, which is continually variable transmission. Yep. And continuous variable transit transmission. And so those have two different pulleys that can change um. You're talking about CVTs now. CVTs. Yep. They can have two different pulleys that can change height. So as one pulley changes and makes and gets bigger, uh the band around it is now the think when I say these things change um height, what I mean is like if you think about your drivetrain, if you're old school and you used to get in your granny gear up front and then your big gear in the rear, that would be your easiest setup for climbing up a wall, right? You'd put in the granny up front and your biggest gear in the back, and that would be this uh CVT system will then change the front one to the biggest and the back one to the smallest.

Host - Josh Anderson 16:25

Tell me if this uh works for you. This is the way that I understand CVT. If I've got a traditional chain system, I'm moving that chain up my cassette, yes, and it's moving one step at a time. It doesn't clink, clink, clink, clink, clink. It doesn't it doesn't have steps. So that's the No no no no, I'm sorry. On a regular cassette, yes, I'm stepping one gear at a time. Okay, gotcha.

Host - Dane Higgins 16:46

Regular cassette.

Host - Josh Anderson 16:47

Yeah, and then on a CVT, instead of having geek like like steps, uh-huh, it's like a cone. Yes. And then it's just kind of sliding up that cone.

Host - Dane Higgins 16:55

Yeah, on the front and the back. Yeah, they do some visual things of of that cone. Yeah. Uh in cars, it's actually a pulley that can open and close. So like the middle of the pulley gets wider and narrower, and then the belt itself or the chain is like V-shaped. Yep. And as the pulley gets tighter, the the belt moves, gets a bigger circumference or uh diameter. Yeah. And so uh so it's effectively the same thing. In yours, it's almost like the belt. Um both of them, the belt doesn't really change. Yep. But in yours, they would go up the cone and they would be at an angle, and they'd always want to climb to the the most least resistance. Does that make sense? And so the cone isn't the best way to visualize it. It's the pulley system, because otherwise the thing's gonna try and come off.

Host - Josh Anderson 17:44

We've probably lost all of our listeners here. I think the key thing you need to know is you're not in a CVT, and in this is a similar concept on many cars, yeah. It's all three is a little similar, and snowmobiles have continuous variable transmissions. So this technology scooters are been using it forever. So this is this has been out for a long time, but like you're not stepping up. I think the thing you need to understand is you're not stepping up specific gears. No. It has a way to change the resistance that's not that.

Host - Dane Higgins 18:15

Yeah, it's it's fairly smooth, and and then the drawback is they're kind of got a kind of rubbery kind of like del I guess a delay uh to their power transfer. Yeah. So like uh Or some of them have had that elastic kind of feel. And then um, those are CVTs, right?

Host - Josh Anderson 18:32

Okay, so the first one is a gearbox that's got just gears. Actual gears. Then there's then there's CVTs, which is what we just explained. Yep. And then the third kind is ECVT.

Host - Dane Higgins 18:44

And what they're doing is they're getting rid of that band and the pulleys. And they're using instead of having a a band um transfer the power from one to the other uh and change, they're using a planetary gear, and then they use the torque of the motor to change uh basically the speed at which either one turns.

Host - Josh Anderson 19:06

So you have kind of two electric motors and a planetary gear in the e C V T. Yep. You have this pulley system and the C V T. Yep, and you got gears in the gearbox. Yep, exactly. Just to make it like super simple.

Host - Dane Higgins 19:16

And and it's kind of crazy if you I mean you there's lots of different variances that you could say that these are like each other, but the eCVT is using no rubber band. There's no pulley, there's no chain, there's no um belt, nothing. Yep. Uh it's mechanical and it's using gears, similar to the gearbox, but it's done in a way that it doesn't uh reuse the same gear. It it uses one set of planetary gears that work across across it, and then it uses the motors themselves to change the speed of things. Gotcha. So you don't have those stepped uh you don't have those steps like that. We have definitely lost our listeners, right? So so uh to make it simple, the ECVT is using two electric motors and planetary gears and a planetary system to transfer power from each motor, and then the motors can speed up and slow down. Yep. And here's the crazy part, and uh this has been happening for a while, and they use it in cars, is if you have if you're rolling downhill and you're introducing um you know rotation to that motor and you're not giving it power, it can become a generator and it can actually pull power out of your kinetic energy. So then it regenerates your battery. Yes, what's just called regenerative uh they they call it regenerative braking on e-cars on um on cars, yeah. Um, but essentially you can get that kinetic power to recharge your battery. It's there's a lot of loss there, so people get all excited like they're gonna roll down the hill and have a full charge. That's not how it works. But you might get it, you might get a little bit. You get a little bit, and you can also use that motor kind of uh in cars at least. I don't know if they're doing this, gonna do this in the bikes. You can actually use those motors to create braking power. Yeah. And so it's almost like an engine brake on a semi. Just imagine if we all of a sudden started having like wireless rear brakes, you know, where it was in your, you know, your lever. Oh, now you're getting crazy. Right? Now you're getting crazy. Your lever sent a signal to your to your motor. To your motor, and your motor put the brake on. So man.

Host - Josh Anderson 21:18

I know. I hadn't even thought about that. That's crazy. Okay.

Range Claims And The Feel Debate

Host - Josh Anderson 21:21

I think everything I've been seeing is that we're gearing up for an MGU battle. Yeah. Over in the e-bikes. In the e-bikes. Yeah. Over with two different flavors, the gearbox flavor and the e C V T flavor.

Host - Dane Higgins 21:37

I I if I were you, I would not invest any money in pinion right now. So gearbox like it it's it's it's not it's loud. It's so loud. They're the first, but they're getting just left behind by technology in from a different industry. So that's the big thing that I'm seeing in all this research is all this technology has been coming from cars, and they have. Have been using these systems and the these uh bicycle motor companies are just shrinking it, you know, just shrinking it. It's super cool.

Host - Josh Anderson 22:07

And and the CVTs, you know, I I I interviewed last night a uh car mechanic who understands this technology really well. He's actually a previous guest on the podcast. We called him Uncle Dick. You had to go way, way back into the archives if you want to find the Uncle Dick episode. But um he kind of explained to me and and was talking about like all the problems that they had in the mid-2000s when the car companies, Subaru and Nissan and others, when they introduced the CBT, and all the they had lots and lots of problems with them, but I but they've learned.

Host - Dane Higgins 22:36

Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 22:36

And so, you know, a lot I don't know this for sure, but logic would would indicate that we've probably taken those lessons and integrated those into the designs that are being used here. So we're gonna see a battle, I predict, another prediction, or maybe it's not a prediction, everyone's talking about it, between gearboxes and e CVT MGUs. Yeah. Which one's better?

Host - Dane Higgins 22:55

I don't think I think it's gonna be so. Here's my prediction. I think it's gonna be a battle of MGUs versus traditional. And I think Oh, I think that's dead. No, I well, yeah. I don't want to say that you're wrong because this is a pretty big thing, but there's gonna so here's I was doing some research, and one of the things that I could not get a lot of info is a lot of these gearboxes and you know, hub uh shifting systems and and things like that have been out for a long time and they have not taken over for various reasons. Um one of them is a company I was looking at, uh Nu Vinci, and uh they've changed their name to Envelo. Envil and Enviolo Inviolo. Inviolo. Assume that's an Italian company. Yeah, and so it's a um it's a CVT design uh for their hub transmission, and it's um it's not uh MGU, so it's not combined, but the system works really cool the way that it works. It actually doesn't have any friction parts, it's a sealed unit, and it uses this oil that rotates and creates friction between these balls that are in there. It's it's a crazy, but they've been out for a while, and I I know I've seen Nu Vinci's, I've worked on bikes that had them. Um, and the you know, then I've I got into it a little bit more, and it's like, you know, it's 800 grams heavier than like a comparable uh roll-off hub. Yeah, you've heard of roll-off hubs, and uh 800 grams, that's two pounds heavier it than an already heavy system. Pretty close to a kilogram. It's 200 grams less. Yeah, look, I could do math in my head too. Um, so uh, but uh but yeah, the um that so these these things have been out for a while, they haven't taken over. The Sturmy Archer, you know, has been making three-speed hubs and kickback hubs. Listen, all of the sins, all of these all of the sins are gonna be absolved by the motor. This stuff has been out there and it hasn't taken over for various reasons. Not necessarily wait, not necessarily here's part of like what I know.

Host - Josh Anderson 25:11

You tell me if I'm way wrong by it, because you know I get something stuck in my head and I can't get off it. Yeah, yeah. Like I've been thinking about my next bike, my next e-bike when this one dies, which I'm pretty sure I'm gonna kill it soon. Okay. Um, I'm gonna wait until I get an MGU.

Host - Dane Higgins 25:23

Yeah, yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 25:24

Like, so keep it going. And I've heard a lot of people say that.

Host - Dane Higgins 25:27

Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 25:27

So if we're all saying there must be something there.

Host - Dane Higgins 25:30

I have friends that don't even want an e-bike and they want to and you know, they want a bike with an MGU.

Host - Josh Anderson 25:35

Well, they they wanted the gearbox bikes opinions or what have you. So maybe we'll get some more e-bike owners because they can now get gearboxes.

Host - Dane Higgins 25:43

So what I guess well my big issue is what are we missing?

Host - Josh Anderson 25:48

What why isn't this um well because they haven't combined it into a mid-drive motor gearbox? Yeah, but why do you think Bosch has not done that? I have no idea. Bosch has been around doing forever, they do automotive, they know cars. I don't know. I mean, it was the first thing I thought. Yeah, like when I got into e-bikes a year and a half ago or whatever, I'm like, dude, they should make this a gear bike. It was the first thing I thought. Like, why aren't they doing this?

Host - Dane Higgins 26:11

Yeah, I I that's one of the things. So um, one thing that I've seen lately with e-bikes in general is they're all starting to look similar. You know, they're uh, you know, Santa Cruz dropped their new Vala bikes and their bullet and they got away from their VPP and and went with a horse link, you know, four-bar.

Host - Josh Anderson 26:29

Is that because we're figuring out that like a certain suspension design works best with bikes that are of this weight?

Host - Dane Higgins 26:36

Um or have this No, I I well, I don't think it's the weight. Um I think uh from what I've heard of people in industry, is that there's always a challenge of trying to put the pivot where you want it when you have to buy a motor that you have no control over.

Host - Josh Anderson 26:53

Uh, I got you. And so like So this just gets the pivot up out of the way. You've said that before, actually. Yeah. The horse link actually just gets the pivot up out of the way and it doesn't interfere with the with the motor, so they don't have to mess with it.

Host - Dane Higgins 27:02

Your your bike, in fact, um, the first version of your e-bike, the Rocky 3.0, had their own motor system and they could put their own bottom bracket in. So Rocky's did had an independent crank and bottom bracket system. You ran race face cranks with a race face bottom bracket, and they had a little clutch that you'd put on the spider. But other than that, there was no um if your crank bearing, you know, went out, you just went to a bike shop, got a set of crank crank bearings, normal bottom bracket, and put it in the bike. There, whereas a Bosch system, if you're if your crank bearing goes out, the whole motor has to come out, be sent off to a service center to get repaired or replaced. Yeah. And so, so that's that's one thing, you know, that we're not considering is what happens when something goes wrong. Two, when they make these things and try and fit them in the bikes, what kind of limitations, you know, or advantages. Now that if a MGU you don't need a derailleur anymore, the back end of the bike is gonna look different.

Host - Josh Anderson 28:02

So let's start to let's let's run through some of the advantages because we've got that. So so just to recap what we talked about before, three different types for for the most part CVTs, e C V Ts, and MG and uh MGs. And gearbox, traditional gearbox, yeah. Uh MGUs, all different flavors of MGUs. We I I believe that e C V Ts and Gearboxes are gonna have a battle for MGUs, and there's gonna be people because there's already people on both sides of the story arguing. Really what's what are they saying on the uh the people that like the gearbox is it feels like a bike because you can feel it shift. Yes. So it's just a closer experience to like a what we're used to in bicycles, and when you're on a CVT, it's sliding. Yes, so sort of, yeah, and so it doesn't feel like you can't feel that shift, that gear shift.

Host - Dane Higgins 28:51

Yeah, uh I love that because that's what I'm talking about. Those little differences. In fact, a lot of the people that I saw at Eurobike were like, I really want to see how this does on a trail. Because I don't I think it's great in the parking lot, but uh not riding it on a trail. And so, like, uh I know that when uh my first e-bikes that we were bringing into the shop way back when I rode a pivot and I rode oh a Rocky. And um, I rode both of them on a trail, local trail called 50 year, and riding the Rocky uh had almost zero delay. And and so when you go to pedal, you get almost instant power when you're pushing down. Yeah. And when you stop pedaling, you lose your your power stops. It doesn't like push you forward.

Host - Josh Anderson 29:37

Some of the systems do that.

Host - Dane Higgins 29:38

Supernatural, like normally, normal feeling bike. And I was riding a techie section on the pivot, which had a Shimano motor at the at the time, and it kind of pushed me through where I wanted to go and and took my timing away, you know. And I was really upset about it because I pushed through the core. You gotta relearn how to ride the bike. And and again, for me, I don't have just one bike, I have multiple bikes. So now if I have to relearn that every time I ride it and then go back to something else, yeah, it's hard. Guess which bike we brought into the shop, you know. Yeah, it was the Rocky. Because I'm like, I don't like that delay, you know. And so that's but everybody's getting better at that delay nowadays. Well, so what they're now doing is incorporating delay. I still don't like it. I don't like having one bike that I have to get used to. I got you every time I get there.

Host - Josh Anderson 30:25

So you're saying it's still happening.

Host - Dane Higgins 30:26

Yeah, but what they're doing is they've gotten it so much better now and you can control it so much more. Turn it on or off, yeah. Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 30:33

So we talked about the three different types of MGUs with ECVT and gearbox battle coming. We

Weight Placement Changes Suspension And Handling

Host - Josh Anderson 30:38

talked about the fact that you're always in the right gear, better battery efficiency, more range. You can shift anytime when you're stopped or under load. Yep. Um, and so let's talk about the weight. Um, I saw a couple analyses, about three different analyses, and two of them said that the MGU system was slightly heavier than a motor and a derailer and a gearbox or in a cassette.

Host - Dane Higgins 31:03

Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 31:03

Um, to the tune of around around three to four hundred grams on a couple different systems. And one guy say it was actually less weight on the Gaobao system, which we'll we'll talk about the five systems, yeah. So go bau, sorry. Yep. Um, so okay, so so it might be a little less, might be a little more, but it's relatively close. Um but it is moving that weight, it's moving it from the back of the bike to the center of the bike and low on the bike.

Host - Dane Higgins 31:34

Yep.

Host - Josh Anderson 31:34

And so you're moving your um you're moving that weight uh to a centralized location in a lower location, which is then lowering your center of gravity, which Dane's gonna argue with me on this.

Host - Dane Higgins 31:46

Yeah, well don't use don't use the word wrong. I'm gonna use it use it correctly.

Host - Josh Anderson 31:51

Which is gonna make the bike feel more planted. Yes, yes. I don't know if I used it wrong or right, but that's what I think. Lower center of gravity, heavier center gravity, better center of gravity, more planted.

Host - Dane Higgins 32:01

Yeah, if you say a heavy bike rides better because it's planted, that's the wrong way to use that word.

Host - Josh Anderson 32:06

Okay, I don't know. That's how I understand it. So you'll have to help me understand that. But um, it also, and I think you can help our listeners really understand this. In addition to moving it to the central, to the center, and lowering your center of gravity, making it feel more planted, it is also moving it from unsprung weight to sprung weight. Yeah. And maybe you can explain what that does from a suspension perspective.

Host - Dane Higgins 32:29

Yeah, it's so basically is the weight on one side of the shock or the other. And so, for instance, on the rear of the bike, the more weight you have, that acceleration when it goes through its stroke, uh, the travel of the rear shock has to be maintained. And so you have different valving that's gonna do that if it's lighter. If it's lighter, you can have a much lighter system. Uh, it can be more supple. Suspension system. Yeah, exactly.

Host - Josh Anderson 32:55

So you're gonna have lighter suspension and this is how I understand it. Tell me if I'm wrong.

Host - Dane Higgins 33:00

Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 33:01

Better performing suspension with better traction.

Host - Dane Higgins 33:04

Yeah, it's it it yeah. I don't wanna I don't wanna label it that way just because you can kind of control those systems by changing the damping of the the um shock. But um one of the reasons I think that the podium, the fox podium one is one of my favorite foxes, but in general gets such rave reviews is because the wheel is moving much more fluidly because there's less weight to inertially stop and restart in different directions. And so the it has just a better responsiveness.

Host - Josh Anderson 33:38

And so that'll happen now on the back of the bike because we pulled that weight off the back wheel and moved it to the center of the bike.

Host - Dane Higgins 33:44

And what if you I mean, what if you get rid of like um, you know, you can so so the one thing that that's kind of crazy in suspension in the rear is the wheel path is really, really critical. Yep. And this is kind of tricky because uh we're getting really close to motorcycles at this point, and there's gonna be a lot of people that are like, this is just a motorcycle now. You're just making a motorcycle. There's no derailleur, there's no I mean, at some point you don't even need cranks with these things because if you just had a button. Just a seuron. Yeah, it's just a seuron. And that is that is that may be one of the things that keeps these from permeating too too deep, honestly.

Host - Josh Anderson 34:23

Well, I would argue it's gonna impact trail, it's already impacting trail access. Yes, yeah. And so they get to the point where it's like, listen, I think it's already like if you're not pedaling, yeah, you shouldn't be on the trail.

Host - Dane Higgins 34:34

If you if you on a mountain bike specific trail or multi-use trail. But um, when you look at motorcycle suspension, it is very different from bicycle suspension. Very different because they are not having so much um relative weight. Well, yeah, and they're not they're not as focused on the rider input to the the suspension system. Whereas on a bicycle, you are as you ride. So the first first generations of full suspensions look like motorcycles. They had beams that came off and they were awful. They just did not work well. Um, but we were so excited to have them because we wanted to smooth the ride out and it felt better and it didn't beat us up and stuff. Um, but man, when you put the pedal down, you got 50% of your power went to the wheel. The rest, the bike soaked up. The suspension actually would soak your power up and you would you would not work out. And and so uh I don't know if this system is gonna change how we design suspension to where we don't need to be concerned about that anymore. We're still pedaling it. Um as the unsprung weight make it worse. Do we have to be even more sensitive? I haven't figured that out.

Host - Josh Anderson 35:44

Like that'd be interesting.

Host - Dane Higgins 35:46

Yeah, like is so so a big thing that is happening that's happened in a few years is what's called idlers and high pivot or mid-pivot bikes where they run the pivot up uh higher than the crank and so a couple inches up, yeah. And then so then they have to run the chain over that. Uh, and then I'm seeing that in the downhill gearbox bikes where they're doing a lot of that. So it's giving them a rear-world, rearward uh wheel path that allows the wheel to be to move more fluidly over bumps.

Host - Josh Anderson 36:16

And so I wonder, and um, we're we're deep, deep into the tech and shit right now. Well, so this little start thinking about pedal kickback and like have they compensated for the pedal kickback in the gearboxes already? Yeah, and so we don't have to have like an O-chain or some special hub because it the gearbox is handling that.

Host - Dane Higgins 36:31

Well, yeah, and does it automatically regenerate your battery?

Host - Josh Anderson 36:36

So then do they every time you get yeah, the bumpier the trail, the faster your battery gets because you're getting regenerative breaking colors. Because they design it to do that way. So pedal kickback is a feature.

Host - Dane Higgins 36:46

Yeah, so these are the things that are gonna come out. This is the barriers that we will see happen. Is that's why these guys want to ride these things on the trails to find

Shifting Under Load And Q Factor

Host - Dane Higgins 36:56

out where the drawbacks are. Because when I wrote a pinion on the trail, yeah, I didn't like it. I mean, it just it had a lot of drag in the gears I wanted to be. Yeah. Uh the other thing about the pinion, uh, this is why I don't think they're a player in this. I think they're they need to they're the only one that you can buy right now. Yeah, they they need to they need to do some serious soul searching right now because the one advantage is they're making something for non-e-bikes. Yep. Right. And so that's their market. They either need to go deep and hard into that, uh, or they need to change what they're doing in the e-bike realm. Because one of the problems that I have with pinion is when you have to pedal, you or when you have to shift, you have to lighten up your pedal stroke, which is not a big deal uh if you are a normal rider, right? We all do that on our drive trains so that they don't do it today. Yeah, we do it today on our on our XT drive trains so that we don't munch up our gears. But that's all going away. Transmission doesn't need that anymore. And then these CVTs, ECVTs are certainly not going to need it.

Host - Josh Anderson 37:56

So this may be another advantage of the EC ECVT over a traditional gearbox is you don't need to lighten your shifting in our load, basically. Yep, exactly. Yep. Okay, um, so we talked about a bunch of stuff. I won't recap it, I'll recap it at the end here. But like the next thing I read um that was was interesting is that the Q factor, which is like how far your feet are apart, like how far the pedals are apart, yeah. Uh is actually a little wider with these MGUs than it is with a standard motor.

Host - Dane Higgins 38:28

Yeah, and that's just them fitting stuff in there.

Host - Josh Anderson 38:30

Yeah.

Host - Dane Higgins 38:30

So I wonder, I don't I don't know. I I don't think that's gonna be as big a deal because like my downhill bike has an 83 bottom bracket. So I already have a wide Q factor on that. Yep. And and I will tell you that I don't like it. Uh so it does affect me because when I go through pinches, uh my big crash on that bike where I broke my leg in half was m hitting a crank on a rock and the bike stopping abruptly. So it's definitely a Q factor problem. It wasn't like a rider line selection or anything. Uh no, I mean I mean, I was I was going way too fast. Way too fast.

Host - Josh Anderson 39:04

So it was so it was a rider problem.

Host - Dane Higgins 39:07

Uh well, so um when I ride, I'm now sensitive to that, so I pay attention. And that bike in particular, because it's got the wider Q factor, definitely wants to hit rocks on the side of the trail more. I have to be more aware. Yeah, you know.

Host - Josh Anderson 39:21

Part of it's just getting used to where it is. If you if you're used to your things being skinnier, you're thinking that you just naturally and even subconsciously, you're thinking you've got clearance when you don't.

Host - Dane Higgins 39:30

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. This is, I think, why I'm into those uh plastic pedals more now. Yeah. Because they slide off and they don't bind on. Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 39:38

Speaking of plastic pedals, I'm trying out the new Saints tonight, which have like the plastics inserts around skid plates around the inside. All right, so the Q factor is one thing. Um, from a maintenance perspective, it's an interesting trade-off, right? They're saying, like we don't know yet, but they're saying like you only have to like change the oil occasionally, maybe every 10,000 hours. Yeah. Something crazy.

Host - Dane Higgins 40:00

Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 40:01

And then um, but what I don't know is like if you break your derailer, you're just replacing a derail. If you break your chain, you're just replacing a chain. If you mess up a cassette, you're just replacing the cassette. It's a relatively inexpensive like portion of the overall system. But if you break a gearbox, are you replacing the whole gearbox? Yeah. And I the whole motor gear unit.

Host - Dane Higgins 40:23

I mean, the way it is now with uh e-bike motors is if you have a problem with one, the whole thing comes out. Um, on uh again, I I keep bringing up Rocky because they're an outlier, they make something totally different from everybody else. But we had a a customer come in and he broke his drive ring off of the Rocky, and I fully expected Rocky to send me a new motor, you know, because it was going to be a warranty. Yep. They didn't. I had they gave me instructions to pull that whole thing apart and take just the drive spindle out, replace it, and put it back in. And I was like really surprised. Did you do that? Oh, yeah, yeah. In fact, it made me want Rocky again because they're the quality, the all the machinery. Maybe you want to want to own a Rocky again.

Host - Josh Anderson 41:07

Yeah.

Host - Dane Higgins 41:07

Because you sell them in your shop today. Yeah, we sell them, but because they haven't changed them in so long, they're not, they're old news, you know, and so they're not as exciting, you know.

Host - Josh Anderson 41:15

Yeah, that'll change.

Host - Dane Higgins 41:16

Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 41:16

I mean, they went through restructuring new ownership, so new bikes will be coming, I'm sure.

Host - Dane Higgins 41:20

Well, and they're currently at 109 newton meters, thousand watts. So they're already competitive, super powerful. Yeah. So, but anyway, uh my point being is now you have to take the the motor systems out and send them to service centers if you can find one to get them repaired, or they get replaced. So e-bikes currently are very uh warranty-based. So I don't know, would this extend the warranty? That'd be a good positive. Don't know. You know, if if they're telling you 10,000 hours and that's like 10 years, are you gonna get like a five to seven-year warranty?

Host - Josh Anderson 41:51

It's gonna be like a car. You have like five years or five thousand, fifty thousand miles or fifty thousand hours or something. Yeah, something like that. That's interesting. Um I will tell you the ones I've heard, all of them are louder than just a motor by itself. Yeah. The pinion system is like super loud. Super loud, like so loud, I don't think I could do it. Yeah, honestly. Um talked about the big debate, talked about CVTs failing earlier. There was belt and clutch issues back in the day. All right, so all the generic stuff we talked about, uh always in the right gear, battery battery efficiency, more rain, shift any time, stopped under load, uh, slightly heavier probably than uh than a than a motor and and other uh drivetrain, you know, uh derailer and and a cassette. Um it is centralized, lower CG for that weight, makes the bike feel more planted and moves the weight from unsprung to sprung. Uh wider foot stance, the maintenance stuff every 10,000 hours, but are you gonna have to replace the whole thing versus just parts? And it's pretty loud. Are there any other general things you can think of that I missed? Uh drawbacks? Drawbacks or or or positives.

Maintenance Risk And Noise Tradeoffs

Host - Dane Higgins 42:59

What about cost? We don't know yet.

Host - Josh Anderson 43:02

That's I have some cost estimates here, but they're based on the bikes and they're really incomplete.

Host - Dane Higgins 43:06

Okay. Yeah from what I've seen so far, the only systems on the market are commuter bikes. Well, you can buy opinion E1.12 MGU today. Yeah. And so there's that one, and then all of them have to have them made for the bike. So it's not like you can just add this to a bike. Well, now you you yeah, you brought up one.

Host - Josh Anderson 43:30

There might be, there might be one. So we'll get to that. But there might be one that is in it that in some cases you might be able to pull your motor out and put an MGU in.

Host - Dane Higgins 43:39

Yeah. Yeah. Um and then um the two big disruptors right now that are causing this whole podcast and conversation and and the whole world to talk about this is Go Bao, right? Go Bao. Go Bao Great and um Avinox. They're the two that announced this. Go Bao, do you know how there was more than that, actually.

Host - Josh Anderson 43:58

Those are the two biggest ones.

Host - Dane Higgins 44:00

Yeah, the yes. There was one other one that I remember.

Host - Josh Anderson 44:03

A woo-oo? Yeah, a wooeroo and then Intra drive. Okay.

Host - Dane Higgins 44:08

Or five. But I mean the ones that are being talked about. The big ones being talked about are Gobau and Avinox. Yep. Exactly. Yep. And uh so do you know uh Avinox? Everybody knows.

Host - Josh Anderson 44:18

Uh I they if they don't know it, they they've never listened to this podcast before the e-bikes and they never want to. They've never listened to this podcast before. Because you you're you have like a man crush on Avinox. I do.

Host - Dane Higgins 44:29

I do. It's a good motor. And then um the Gobao I didn't know about till recently.

Host - Josh Anderson 44:33

Do you know what who they're I don't know anything about them other than it sounds like specialized, or the rumor is is that specialized is going to use Gobao MGUs on their future eBay.

Host - Dane Higgins 44:44

Big claim to flame. Uh the new another hot bike that hit the market this year is the Aventon uh current.

Host - Josh Anderson 44:52

Okay.

Host - Dane Higgins 44:52

And that's who makes the their motor.

Host - Josh Anderson 44:54

So no shit.

Host - Dane Higgins 44:55

Yeah. Okay. So so now you've got, I mean, they so so I like hearing stuff like that because then those two companies aren't these, you know, splash in the pan. We just showed something at at the trade show, and then you never hear from it. Established companies. Yeah, and they're they're already making stuff for for bike.

Host - Josh Anderson 45:13

And so we can say Pinion, Gobau, and Avinox are established companies as far as we know.

Host - Dane Higgins 45:20

Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 45:20

The other two that we mentioned, O Ruru, I don't know what their heritage is.

Host - Dane Higgins 45:24

They have one, oh man, I can't remember the name of the bike, but they're they're the ones that mostly commuters right now. Yep. And then the other one I have an intra drive. Intra drive. This is a Scottish company. Oh, it's Scottish, if it's not Scottish, it's crap.

Meet The Five MGU Contenders

Host - Josh Anderson 45:39

All right, so let's talk about each one of these, like what we know about them. So, first of all, of the f of the five, we don't know whether Avinox is using a geared box or a C V T. They've been the most secretive.

Host - Dane Higgins 45:54

We don't know. Yeah. We think shape wise, they're they're either using CVT. There's another one that we didn't talk about, which is the True Zero, I think it's called. And that is the only thing that I can think of that they're using that's not an ECVT.

Host - Josh Anderson 46:08

Okay.

Host - Dane Higgins 46:09

So, and uh just a tight, small thing. This new type of CVT, E C V T. ECVT, but it's a different one, uses a different system that's way more efficient. And it has a true zero, which means that uh when it's man, I don't even know. I I tr really tried to memorize this stuff, but it's really hard. But this is the cutting edge stuff that's coming out. Okay. And this would that would be the only thing that I think they would have other than an ECBT.

Host - Josh Anderson 46:39

Okay, so we don't know what what Avinox is, yeah, but we know that Pinion has a stepped 12 speed, and we know that IntraDrive has a stepped eight speed. So they're they're gearboxes, yeah, effectively. Um we know that Owoo is an ECBT, and we know that Gobao is an E C Bt. Do we know Owoo is E C V T or is it C V T? E C V T. Okay, all right. E C V T.

Host - Dane Higgins 47:05

That's pretty big because all the drawbacks that your buddy said and that happened early on were mostly on CVTs. Yeah. And I think the ECBT really fixes that.

Host - Josh Anderson 47:15

So but it might introduce a whole bunch of new shit.

Host - Dane Higgins 47:18

Well, so it's way more um software-based. Okay. So now a company like Avinox, who's just got a huge software reputation, I don't think they're gonna have a problem. Gobao, I don't know. But uh interesting about them is that that bike that they're in, that current, uh, I remember a presenter telling people about a drawback to it, and then needing to do a uh follow-up saying, hey, after I I I film this, they've already changed it. By the time you'll see this, they've already changed this feature. So they're updating the firmware uh that quickly. So I think that's gonna be the big thing, is it's gonna be mostly software, and so you know, there's drawbacks to that. A gearbox like a pinion uh has a motor in it, but realistically, you don't have a lot of software driving everything. And so that is an advantage if you want to want to talk about a more robust system that's not relying on, you know, if you get a bug. What if I mean what if that's the new thing? You know, we we have to watch out for viruses.

Host - Josh Anderson 48:25

Yeah, you get a roll by, I'm gonna this is you laugh, but I'm gonna figure this shit out. I'm gonna roll by you one day. I'm gonna be like, have a little clicker. Yeah, I'm gonna click something. Like a little blue, it's Bluetooth, it's pretty open. Your your system, I'm just gonna shut down your motor. Anytime you're way, that's what I'm gonna do. When I anytime you're blowing me away, I'm just gonna like shut your motor down.

Host - Dane Higgins 48:42

That could happen. It could be like e-bike terrorism.

Host - Josh Anderson 48:44

That was already happening with like um with shifters. I'd heard the ro like some of the roadies, uh, maybe it was some of the early systems, maybe some of the early Shram systems would cross-connect and they would roll up next to their buddy and shift their bike from their bike.

Host - Dane Higgins 49:00

I haven't heard of that. I think they were all worried about it. But I remember when talking to Shram when they were introducing access and the wireless shifting, how they were saying that, like in the tour to California, they were they had a van with 20 systems following the Peloton uh trying to get Crosstalk and they wouldn't. They couldn't get a crosstalk.

Host - Josh Anderson 49:18

So they got those unique identifiers.

Host - Dane Higgins 49:20

But Mavic had a wireless system way back when. Uh-huh. And I bet you they had more problems because the protocols weren't as figured out.

Host - Josh Anderson 49:28

They weren't as figured out back then. So it's all interesting

Software Updates Security And Readiness Levels

Host - Josh Anderson 49:31

stuff. There's a couple more things that we know. So, first of all, um, one of the things that I uh I researched, we call it in the defense industry or in or in the space industry, we call it technical readiness level or manufacturing readiness level. TRL or MRL. So it's technical is like prototypes in in the works. Okay, so like the technical readiness is like how mature is the design, okay, and the manufacturing readiness is like how mature is the manufacturing process. And you can have a di a system that's completely designed, uh-huh, but is not manufacturable yet. Like they can't figure out how to make it. You gotta f you gotta work on the process of making it. Okay. So if we just think about this, there's a whole bunch of different numbers and it's complicated. We think it's really simple. There's like prototypes, pre-production, and production.

Host - Dane Higgins 50:18

Okay. Okay.

Host - Josh Anderson 50:19

Think of those three phases. Yeah. And I looked at each of these systems, the pinion MGU is in production. Yep. Yeah. You can buy it today. Yep. Uh it's on bikes today. Um the Oru Owoo and Gobao and IntraDrive are all pre-production. Yeah. And the Avinox, they're saying is in prototype, but they concept. They don't even call it. Well, so he so I I my my system told me that the research told me that it was a concept.

Host - Dane Higgins 50:52

Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 50:53

But they're riding it.

Host - Dane Higgins 50:54

Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 50:55

People were riding it at um at Eurobike. Yeah. So they have working prototypes.

Host - Dane Higgins 51:01

Yeah, but they had concept, you know, cars, you know, that's a big deal. Concept car to show you what the future is, and then you never see that car go into production.

Host - Josh Anderson 51:08

I guess just in my vernacular, when I think of concept, it's like on paper.

Host - Dane Higgins 51:12

Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 51:13

But this they like these things are in bikes working. Uh to me is a prototype.

Host - Dane Higgins 51:17

I gotcha. Right. I'm relating to the cars where you can have a concept car. You can drive it. I've seen people drive them. Yes. But don't get too close.

Host - Josh Anderson 51:25

Yeah, we're just we're just we're merging the vernaculars from multiple different industries here. But like, yeah, they've built they built at least a few of them. Yeah. Because they have and they work. Same. Same for the GoBao. Yeah, those are all pre-production. Yeah. Um, and the Avinox is not yet pre-production, it's in prototype phase. So it'll it'll mature a little bit more before it gets to pre-production. Like they're saying that the Uuru, the GoBao, and the InterDrive are going to be released relatively quickly. Well, at least the the Ouru, they're saying late this year. Okay. GoBao early next year, um, IntraDrive early next year, and they don't know on Avinox. Yeah, we heard a year. So that would make sense. And and but it could be 28. It could be 28. Because the only thing that because that that's what that's what the analysis suggested was twenty-eight, but I challenged it, and I challenged it because what we're seeing is that Avinox is releasing products way faster than the typical bike industry deals with.

Host - Dane Higgins 52:29

Yes. Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 52:30

And so because that I and I think my hypothesis is because they're used to like the commercial product release schedule, like for drones and the other products that they have, those they turn those products much faster.

Host - Dane Higgins 52:41

Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 52:42

The bike industry moves much slower than typical consumer products. So I think DJI or Avinox, same company, right? They are just accustomed to releasing things faster. Their systems are set up to go faster. I think this thing will come out faster. And they've proven that already. Avinox and Amphilo have released bikes faster than any other company we've seen. Yeah. New bikes come out.

Host - Dane Higgins 53:02

Yeah, annoyingly.

Host - Josh Anderson 53:04

So yeah, because it yes, because that interrupts the buying cycle. Because the new because you still have product on your floor and they're already coming out with the next one. So the consumers are all like, oh, give me the new shiny thing. Yeah.

Host - Dane Higgins 53:16

I don't want to buy your old. Also, the consumers uh don't, you know, they're uh they've they've been trained. Yeah, effectively.

Host - Josh Anderson 53:23

Yeah, they're custom, they're like, they're not, they're not ready.

Host - Dane Higgins 53:25

Like, I got three or four years on this product, and then I'll look for the new one, and it's happening in a year and a half or two years. It's uh I've already had two customers be frustrated because they had bought the and they get FOMO.

Host - Josh Anderson 53:37

They're like, I'll have the new thing. I don't I want the even if my even if my existing bike is perfectly like I don't know, what year did my Rocky come out originally? Oh it's it's a it's a Dynamay V 3.0. It's a 4-0. Oh, is it mine a 4-0? Yeah, okay.

Host - Dane Higgins 53:50

So you have the Jumbotron, you have to 2020, 2021. Yeah, somewhere in there. Yeah. Okay.

Host - Josh Anderson 53:54

So it's six, five years old.

Host - Dane Higgins 53:56

Yeah, yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 53:56

And guess what? I'm not feeling the need to go buy anything new.

Host - Dane Higgins 54:01

It's it's amazing. And the new one is almost identical to yours, the current new one that just until the MGU comes out, and then I'm gonna want that. Yeah, yeah. I I do too, honestly. You know, like I didn't want to poo-poo MGUs, you know. I I just didn't think, based on what Pinion was doing, that they were gonna take over.

Host - Josh Anderson 54:19

Ah.

Host - Dane Higgins 54:20

And so based on Pinion's example, I was like, this isn't gonna take over. It's still got a lot of lot of ways to go. But now these these two new systems are and the fact that they're ECVTs.

Host - Josh Anderson 54:33

ECVTs that takes even some of the loudness and some of the concerns you had with the pinion out of the equation.

Host - Dane Higgins 54:39

Yeah, yeah. I would say the biggest thing that they're gonna fight right now is that pe they're gonna have to program in shifts. So that's what they're talking about. They're gonna put in shifts where you can have a button so you can shift. So you you don't have to have it, but so many people are gonna be used to that that they don't want them to not enjoy it. Yeah. Uh so they'll have it available.

Host - Josh Anderson 55:02

That was a weird thing to get used to the first time I rode a snowmobile and blew it up on a mountain 20 miles from nowhere in the middle of Wyoming. Uh-huh. Uh, that was an interesting, fun situation with flames coming up in the crotch. So uh shout out to Uncle Dick and and Uncle uh Brandon who rescued me and uh stopped the fire from burning.

Host - Dane Higgins 55:22

Was it in the snow? Couldn't you just jump?

Host - Josh Anderson 55:23

It was totally in the snow. I jumped up. Put some snow on it. Put some snow on it to put it out, but then the bike was like the sled was like 20 miles out in the middle of nowhere. So I hopped on the back of Richie's and we abandoned the sled. Were they rentals? They were rentals. Oh, what are the rental companies? Oh, they so we're we're in a big uh we have time, we're in a rabbit hole, but like how was it your fault? Okay, they were like, it's totally your fault. You were riding with the emergen you were riding with the emergency brake on.

Host - Dane Higgins 55:49

What's an emergency brake on a is it a drum brake or something?

Host - Josh Anderson 55:53

I don't know, but there is an emergency brake. Okay, or or like a parking brake. Okay, right? So where the hell is that? Yeah, fuck, I don't know. So you got skized on the front. Here's what I know. Here's what I know. When you engage the brake, uh-huh, the parking brake turns off. Okay, on this particular snowbills riding.

Host - Dane Higgins 56:14

Okay.

Host - Josh Anderson 56:14

We were going down a cliff that was like super steep.

Host - Dane Higgins 56:18

Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 56:18

And you know I'm a big speed wimp. Okay. Like I was going 60, 65 miles an hour. Yeah. And they were taking turns waiting for me. Oh, really? Right? They're like like like Lacey and her brother. They were just so far ahead of it. Yeah. So we're going down this cliff.

Host - Dane Higgins 56:33

Uh-huh.

Host - Josh Anderson 56:33

And I I'm riding the brakes 100% because I'm shitting my pants.

Host - Dane Higgins 56:37

So they think you were using the party.

Host - Josh Anderson 56:38

They said I was riding with the parking brake on.

Host - Dane Higgins 56:40

But you were just riding the brakes.

Host - Josh Anderson 56:42

I was for sure riding the brakes. Okay. But it was not the parking brake. I can guarantee that. Because I was squeezing that handle in the and the oil reservoir is right above the brake drum. Yeah. And the theory is that we get the we melted the oil reservoir. Uh-huh. And then it the oil went down on the brake drum, which was super hot because my fat ass was like, you know, riding the brake going down the cliff. And then that's what the fire caught. And I didn't even see it. I was just riding, and my brother, my Lacey's brother rides up next to me and goes, dude, your crotch is on fire. And I look down, there's flames shooting up between, like I was wearing snow, you know, snow. Oh, so you didn't feel it because of the. I didn't feel it. Yeah, I didn't feel anything. Anyways, I don't even know how we got on that. Um with a big big rabbit hole. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was a fun story though. Typically, it's you on the rabbit hole.

Gear Range Torque Confusion And Power Wars

Host - Josh Anderson 57:25

So I this is good. I got a rabbit. It's good on you. But um, the other thing I want to talk about is uh gear range. Yeah. So um, and help me here, because this is new to me, but as I understand it, and this depends on like what cassette you have and what your ratio is in the what what cog you have in the front, consider cons assuming that you have a one by or like one by twelve, like normal mountain bikes are somewhere around 500%, 510, 520%. Does that sound right?

Host - Dane Higgins 57:54

Yeah, I'm I'm not a hundred percent sure, but when we look at a like a cassette, Shram was stamping on there like 500 and something percent. Okay, you know, so that's what you're talking about. Okay. So um I I don't even know how so this is the thing. They'll put stuff like that out, but I don't know how to articulate what the hell that means. So so that means that it's a difference between the low and the high? Correct. Okay.

Host - Josh Anderson 58:16

Like what how much variation do you have between the lowest gear and the highest gear? Okay, how can you have 500%? I don't know. That'd be five times. Five times So it's five times harder to pedal in the hardest gear than it is in the easiest gear. Is how I would think about that. Okay. An interesting thing with these systems is they can actually go more. So you can have a bigger, like an easier granny gear and a harder hard gear with a motor with a gearbox, and so they can go up to like six hundred percent.

Host - Dane Higgins 58:57

Well, so like some of the e-bikes now are delivering six hundred percent um what do they call it? It's it's the power they give you. Six hundred percent of what you're doing, or something like that.

Host - Josh Anderson 59:10

Yeah, and so box is different. This is gearing ratio, but you're talking about wattage output.

Host - Dane Higgins 59:15

Yeah, I guess so.

Host - Josh Anderson 59:16

Yeah, yeah, you're right. 600% of that watts you put in ten ten watts, it gives you sixty watts or yeah, whatever. Yeah, okay, okay. Yeah, a hundred watts. Yeah, right. This is just the gear ratio.

Host - Dane Higgins 59:26

Okay, all right. And so um so a single speeder does two to one. Yeah. Which would be like a sixteen in the back and a thirty-two up front.

Host - Josh Anderson 59:35

So that would be one hundred percent. Because it's because there's no there's no range. It's I thought it'd be one to one. It's it's so it's zero. That would be your because there's there's no range. Oh, so we're not talking the gear ratio. No, we're talking about how hard it is like the difference between the different gear steps.

Host - Dane Higgins 59:51

Okay, like how hard you're pedaling. The range of how okay, all right. So so this is why I was saying I like it.

Host - Josh Anderson 59:56

This is complicated. Yeah, it is. So if if a standard mountain bike has got a 500% range, okay, this can go to a six hundred percent range. Okay. So you could have an easier granny gear, okay, and a harder, like whatever the opposite of a granny gear is. Okay, yeah. Your your you know, your your downhill power. Top gear, whatever. Yeah. Speed gear. So so the limitations that we have with size and weight in this traditional gears, that can be overcome a bit in the gearbox and it can give us a wider range.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:00:29

Okay. So yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:00:31

So so we might be able to have like a super granny gear, yeah, or just a crush your nuts hard pedaling speed gear.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:00:38

Yeah, so that I guess that's relative, right? If you're if it can't produce the amount of torque you need to get up. Oh, now you're getting crazy. But yeah, you're right. You know, you're right. Like then, you know, are you gonna be like like not able to get up so much? And maybe you don't care about the range, because this is one thing that we like Well, range in e-bikes tick tends to focus on how far you can ride. And that's why I say that. Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, yeah. The the gear range. Gear ratio. Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:01:05

Because like one of the things that we la I laughed about when you first got your Avinox with the M2S motor. Yep. Yeah. Is that you didn't shift for like 20 miles.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:01:15

Yeah. So so that's kind of that actually is one of the reasons that this makes a lot of sense because they've come out now. Some of your examples don't have 150 newton meters.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:01:29

They're like 80. But you can't so this is the nuance, and I was gonna skip the torque altogether. Okay, because they don't yet have a consistent way to measure torque at the rear wheel with the MGUs the same way that we measure torque today with mountain bikes or with e-mountain bikes. Okay. So if I say like my Rocky's got 107 Newton meters of torque, is that right?

Host - Dane Higgins 1:01:52

109.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:01:52

109 newton meters of torque, they don't know they don't yet have a consistent way across all the brands to say this is the amount of torque that this MGU is putting out at the rear wheel. Okay. So they don't have an apples to apples comparison. So the numbers I have in my analysis here are like what's happening in the box, how much torque is being put out in the box, but it's not the same number as what the torque is at the rear wheel, and that's the torque we care about. Yes. Is it the torque that's on the that's that it's hitting the ground when we pedal, right? Yeah. That I think will get worked out. So I don't want to quote the numbers on here because I don't think they're what they're apples to apples, they're like apples to oranges.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:02:30

Well, one of the things that I was I was predicting uh down the road is that e-bikes are gonna start to have less gears because if they're all going to 150 newton meters, they have so much torque that you can be in like half the gears, you know, like you can be in whatever gear you want, half of the cassette, and it doesn't matter. Like if you just turn the crank, you'll have plenty of power to get up the hill.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:02:56

Yeah, and so I mean the only downside is like we talked about these motors like high cadence, yeah.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:03:02

But that's that when you add torque, so the lower the cadence lower the torque, the higher the cadence needs to be. Right. And so uh, for instance, I want to say that SX Bosch is like 55 newton meters. Okay, and so it needs the 90 to get you to 600 watts of output. Gotcha. And if you do a 50, you know, uh cadence on that bike, it you're gonna be slow as a turtle because it doesn't have the torque to compensate, and the motor just won't have enough power. Uh you won't have the watts, you'll have 100 watts. And so I'm I made that up roughly. Yeah, yeah, I got you. Um whereas the Avinox is 150 newton meters, and so if you're in a slow gear, you know, like if you're in a in an in a speed gear, one of your smaller cogs in the back, and you come up on a hill, there's so much torque available, you can just boost the power on the bike instead of shifting, yeah, and it'll go up the hill, no problem. And so that's kind of weird, you know. So you don't you don't have to shift as much. And so knowing that, knowing all these companies are in this power war, I see Shram coming out with a seven-speed e-bike group that's got seven gears that uh don't have to be that big. I tell you, if Shram and Shimano don't figure this MGU thing out soon, Shram is uh, you know they're gonna be in trouble. Shram is just as far behind on e-bike stuff as Shimano. I would say more. Shram doesn't even have an e-bike motor. They do. They do. They do? Yeah. Oh, I didn't know they did. Yeah, it was made by bros, brose or whatever.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:04:37

Bros A.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:04:38

And they had some cool concepts because they had an auto function and they had some cool things that they were doing. They were integrating the the derailers and stuff. They were doing a lot of stuff before people, but nobody really adopted it. And the few companies that did, one of them went out of business and or is no longer doing e-bikes. And so it just they did not get the market share. You just said brose.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:05:00

I heard brose, rose, an R, like the the drink, right? And it just took me back to a Skrillic song on the Suicide Squad. Okay, movie soundtrack. Uh anyways, called Purple Lamborghini. I don't know why you said that my head went right to that song and I didn't hear anything you just said. I that's okay. It wasn't important anyway. Most most of this episode we've lost yeah, like this is the dorkiest episode we've done to date.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:05:32

I this is like what the whole um e-bike world is talking about right now, and I really wanted to put it out there. Most of our listeners are gonna be like, I don't care.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:05:41

We're gonna see. This will be interesting. This is the we've we talk about e-bikes occasionally. This is the first like e-bike specific episode we've done. Yeah. So it'll be inter really interesting to see how it performs. We're gonna do another one that I've got on my list. I think that you'll agree with. I haven't talked to you about it yet, but like it's uh you should add an e bike to your stable.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:05:58

Or or if you do, what should it be?

Host - Josh Anderson 1:06:00

I think it's both, but to me I wanna make the point of why you should have not it's not to me it's not or it's an and.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:06:07

Yeah.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:06:07

You should have an uh analog bikes and a and a uh uh e-bike and I wanna make the case for why 'cause it's cause that's what I do. And I love it. But um yeah, okay, so let's recap. MGUs

Final Takeaways And Listener Feedback Request

Host - Josh Anderson 1:06:18

are c are here. Yeah. Um you were right. Motor. You were right. Number one. You were right. Number one. Well, we'll see. I said they were gonna take over. They're here. We don't know if they're gonna take over or not. The hype feels like they're gonna take over, but they could suck. We'll see. There's a lot of momentum. There's a lot of momentum. Uh, two major things we think, uh gearbox-based MGUs and ECVT-based MGUs, five different companies Pinion, Ouru, uh, Gobao, Introdrive, and Avinox. Um, most interested about the Avinox, you know, they're kind of blowing uh the market apart right now. Um it's moves the weight to the center. Um that's gonna open up all kinds of interesting things with suspension. Yeah. Um maybe more effective battery power, maybe regenerative braking.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:07:04

I don't think they're gonna be as efficient. What do you think?

Host - Josh Anderson 1:07:07

Uh the I think they're gonna hypothesis they're gonna be more efficient, is that's what I'm reading. Really? Because you're always in the right gear versus pedaling in the wrong gear like you did that day and overdriving your battery, efficient from a battery usage perspective.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:07:24

I was just thinking they're gonna take more power and be a little heavier. I think they'll take less power. You think?

Host - Josh Anderson 1:07:30

Yeah.

Host - Dane Higgins 1:07:32

Now they have two motors instead of one. ECVTs do. Yeah. And then the pinions just got a lot of drag. Yeah, well yeah. Yeah. So I don't know. We'll see. Okay. Yeah, we'll see. So our the big thing that'll tell us is if the all of a sudden they start coming out with eight and nine hundred watt hour batteries. Which they are. So then they're not as efficient. Because if they were more efficient, they'd start shrinking. Because they're not gonna give you like why wouldn't they give us more range? Uh, because there's always a weight balance.

Host - Josh Anderson 1:08:01

Yeah, but if you told me like my Rocky is heavy. I know. That bike is so heavy. But if you told me I could put a 900-watt battery in it, I'd probably do it. You can. I told you you can get an extender. But I not not an extender, because that eats up my my my water bottle. Oh my god. And I don't like to I don't like to carry. It's an e-bike. You don't even need to drink. I do. I don't ride. I get an ex I get exercise on my e-bike. Yeah. I do. I do. I believe it. I drink. I drink. All right. Uh it and just so everyone think doesn't think that we're just freaking e-bikers. Tonight we're doing a ri night ride on a cross-country track. On our planted bikes. And we both have we're both riding big enduro bikes. Yeah. Pedal bikes, no motors. Yep. Um, we do both. Yeah. So um, all right. Uh yeah, they're coming, they're here. Yeah. Uh let us know. I think more than anything, like, are you interested in e-bike content? Yeah. Let us know. Um or should we stop it. Or should we stop it? And I think we're happy to do either. And there's some things that we can't that just cross over that we can't avoid. Yeah. But they're here. They're growing, they're a fast growing segment of the market. Yeah. Um, we all got them. We love them. They're fun as hell. Um, they're complicated, they're nuanced, there's weird things with trail access we gotta figure out. Yeah. Um certain, certain responsibility and ethics. And these are not emotos. No. These are not e-modos. Uh, anyways, uh, let us know. Appreciate y'all. You got any final thoughts, bro? That's it. Just go ride your bike. Punk rock.