Sir Chris Hoy, one of the most decorated track cyclists of all time, might not seem like an obvious candidate to back the burgeoning electric bike movement. Ultimately, the common opinion is that electric bicycles are not real bicycles.
But the six-time Olympic gold medalist has done exactly that. The company has invested in a new British startup that has developed a click-on device that makes it easier to convert pushbikes to electric bikes and back again with minimal fuss.
The company, Skarper, has raised £12.8 million ($16.3 million) since its founding in 2020, with Hoy contributing to the initial seed tranche. The Click-On e-bike system was originally targeted for launch in 2023, but first production only began last week for a few hundred people, with the remaining pre-orders scheduled for the coming months.
TechCrunch spoke with Hoy as we received our first official Skarper shipment (definitely an investor’s perk) about why this could be the next big thing in the world of e-bikes. Pedal power, as certainly would be the case for someone of Hoy’s stature.
“I’m not the e-bike advocate you might imagine, but I first tried one a few years ago and found success with it,” Hoy told TechCrunch. “When you realize that you’re still riding your bike, you realize that you’re still using your body, but there’s an ‘invisible hand’ pushing you. And in certain situations, you realize that riding a pedal-assisted bike is better than an assisted bike without pedals.”
The benefits of electric bicycles are well known. Commuters may not want to arrive at the office drenched in sweat, so providing them with the power assistance they need to get uphill is an attractive proposition. Additionally, there are no exhaust gas emissions compared to other powered transportation, so it has less impact on the environment. Electric bikes, on the other hand, can avoid heavy traffic by cutting through lines of cars and passing through parks and other spaces normally inaccessible to motorized vehicles.
And some people are unable to travel on a fully self-propelled bicycle due to their age or health conditions.
However, not everyone wants to buy a dedicated e-bike. Especially if you already have a bike. And this is where Skarper enters the fray.
‘It’s too good to be true’
Just before retiring from competitive cycling in 2013, Hoy actually teamed up with British retailer Evans to launch his own range of bicycles. With that project stalled, Hoy said he was already thinking about electric bikes before Skarper came along.
“I was a big fan of e-bikes and was thinking about building my own range,” Hoy said. “But I looked at this and thought, why would I want to build an e-bike when this is the solution I need?”
It was during a mid-pandemic Zoom chat with Skarper CEO Eon Brown and COO Uri Meirovich that Hoy first introduced the concept. He came up with the idea of adding a kicker: attaching a device to the bike’s rear disc brake, making it electric and ready to be removed.
“I was there from the beginning,” Hoy said. “At the time, I was given drawings and ideas and they seemed too good to be true.” “I thought about how on earth it would work, how it would handle the heat and vibration and generate enough power to propel the bike.”
This was one of Hoy’s big questions in the beginning. How does this work from a physical and structural standpoint? Standard bicycles are not built the same as motorcycles. And while most other e-bike conversion kits on the market involve cabling and wiring, they are often front-wheel drive as well, which completely changes the feel and balance of the bike.
Skarper is designed for disc brake bikes with 160mm disc rotors, but can be adapted to other types of bikes for those with a bit of technical know-how. The kit consists of a DiskDrive rotor with an integrated gearbox that replaces the bike’s existing disc brake rotor on the rear wheel. It also serves as a mounting system for the clip-on electric motor.
Anyone can fit a Skarper e-bike drive system themselves, but the company has partnered with a network of installers to do the work for free.
Electric bike conversion kits have been around for a few years, but Skarper’s argument is about convenience, not just clicking on and off, but causing minimal disruption to the bike itself. In fact, co-founder and COO Uri Meirovich emphasizes that Skarper is not “changing” or “converting” bikes.
“We’re here to improve it,” Meirovich told TechCrunch. “Traditional conversion kits permanently change your bike. They often compromise the original design and ride quality by changing important components such as the bike’s wheels, running wires throughout, or adding batteries to the handlebars or elsewhere, compromising the bike’s balance and appearance. .”
So in some ways this is about having two bikes in one. This means that anyone who likes road, mountain, hybrid or gravel bikes doesn’t have to compromise the integrity of the original design and quality.
“Like all great ideas, it’s pretty simple if disc brakes are already part of your bike. They already handle a ton of power, a ton of torque and a ton of heat,” Hoy continued. “So using the structural rigidity and integrity of the frame to drive the rear wheel is a good starting point. “From an engineering perspective, I think this is a beautiful solution.”
Once fitted, the Skarper device can be removed in seconds, but it can also be turned off to disable e-bike functions or activate “pause mode” by rotating the back pedal three times when the rider is not needed. Electrical assistance for a while. This may also save battery.
The Skarper system takes 2.5 hours to fully charge from empty and provides a range of up to 50 km (31 miles) and a top speed of 25 km/h (15 miles/h).
grand design
Skarper has approximately 22 employees, including more than a dozen engineers, spanning industrial, mechanical, electronics, software and testing disciplines. The company also worked closely with Red Bull’s Advanced Technologies team, which supports the Red Bull Formula One racing team.
However, Hoy himself was involved in the design process from the beginning.
“My opinions are from a cyclist’s perspective, that’s my specialty,” Hoy said. “It was about how it rode and how it felt. Does Skarper affect handling? What can you avoid in terms of size, weight or shape? I would be a test pilot of sorts. We will take the device, use it appropriately, test it and apply it to different scenarios and situations.”
But you can’t beat it out of its price range. At £1,500 ($1,900), the Skarper isn’t cheap by any means. But it’s not marketed as a budget vehicle for purchasing an e-bike, nor is it intended to be a device you’ll only use once by chance.
“Let’s say you have a £1,000 e-bike. The quality of the parts, brakes, gears, tyres, materials used in the frameset, saddle – everything is ‘budget’,” Hoy said. . “It’s the cheapest way we can make it to keep that price low. With a Skarper, this is basically the highest quality motor you can get and you associate it with pride and joy. And given the number of uses throughout the year, it would be very economically viable.”
There are also security issues. Expensive stand-alone e-bikes are an attractive proposition for thieves, and the trend is even giving rise to startups that help victims recover their stolen bikes. The Skarper lets you attach it to your $5,000 road bike, of course, but you can just as easily attach it to a pile of junk for a little fun, then remove it once you get to your destination.
“I imagine someone has an old, dirty bike that they’ve had for years, or a bike they just bought off eBay and wants to keep hidden outside their office,” Hoy said. “No one will try to steal it or even look twice. But if you clip it on, you can convert it into a really high-quality e-bike.”
Currently, Skarper only ships to UK customers, but Meirovich confirmed that orders will open for mainland Europe in mid-2025, with the US following. In particular, the model that will eventually be sold in the US will have a faster top speed than in the UK and EU, where the US sets a top speed limit of 20 mph for this type of vehicle.
“Skarper has received over 100 distribution requests from around the world, including large retailers in the United States and major players in most European markets,” said Meirovich. He also added that some modifications will be required to fulfill international orders. “Some changes will be required to comply with EU and US regulations, and we are in the process of obtaining these certifications.”
