#cycletech

The Copenhagen wheel

Its inventor, Michael Lin, came up with the concept of a battery that does not turn with the wheel, but instead stays immobile within its hub. The devil, as they say, was in the details: how to keep the electronics and the motor and the battery, cool and clean and dry?

With Butch Gaudy, designer of prestigious Swiss bike company MTB Cycletech, Michael Lin found a partner who was willing to focus on the details of turning an idea into a practical solution. The resulting bike is called the e-Jalopy GreenWheel, and impresses with its technical sophistication: it weighs less than 20 KG, has a Gates carbon-belt drive, a two-speed shifter integrated into the wheel, and looks just gorgeous.

A rep from MTB, displaying the e-Jalopy GreenWheel (prototype, with conventional chain drive)

The magical GreenWheel, straight outta Copenhagen

How does it drive? I took it for a spin in Friedrichshafen, and can report that it feels rather unusual, but actually very fun. You can feel that the center of gravity is way back towards the rear of the bike, but it is not a disturbing feeling -- it's more similar to how the rear-engined Porsche 911 feels both wrong and right for the first few miles. You get a sense of how you are riding something that is truly unique and special. More to the point, it works well: acceleration is quiet and linear, the bike feels meaty and high-quality, and you can't stop thinking how brilliant the whole idea is. They say the 911 is a totally wrong concept that was given, despite all odds, a high degree of perfection by obsessive-compulsive German engineers. (And it took a few decades for them to do so). So, is there a similarity between the GreenWheel and the 911? In a way, yes. Due to the difficulty of combining all that technology in a small package, the GreenWheel -- if it does make it to the market -- will probably cost well over €2,000.00. And I am only talking about the wheel. Not to mention: putting the battery inside the wheel means you can't take it with you to charge it. You better have a garage, or an extra-long charging cable. A wonderfully sophisticated package with an understated and extreme simplicity, that turns out to be more expensive than conventional technology: that sure rings a bell. Apples, anybody?