The British start-up, Skarper, has partnered with the Oracle Red Bull F1 team to create the world’s first electric drive system that can turn any bike into an eBike with a single click.
Backed by six-time Olympic Champion and Skarper founding investor Chris Hoy, the tech company has created a click-on, click-off portable drive system that attaches to a bike’s disc brake.
The partnership unfolded after Hoy was impressed by Oracle Red Bull Racing CEO Christian Horner with a demonstration of the prototype.
“While Skarper has an amazing engineering team, it’s hard to beat the technology that Red Bull has when it comes to knowledge of gears, bearings, and the longevity of these systems,” explains Skarper Co-founder and inventor Alastair Darwood.
“They’re dealing with insanely high-performance power transfer systems.”
The patent-protected disc brake was invented by Alastair and developed by Skarper’s engineering experts together with Red Bull Advanced Technologies. By engineering a gearbox into the space of a rear disc brake, Skarper’s DiskDrive is compatible with virtually any bike, making it a micromobility solution that’s akin to holding an e-bike in the palm of your hand.
One of the key challenges in developing the drive involved creating smaller yet more powerful gearing.
“It’s like taking a grandfather clock and shrinking it into a wristwatch,” said Skarper CEO Ean Brown.
A big benefit of the partnership for Skarper was that it gained access to Formula 1’s simulation capabilities to test the design of the DiskDrive. More than 40 iterations later, Skarper and Red Bull were able to master the precision engineering needed to confine the all-in-one unit into a space that occupies just 34 cm by 16 cm, while also reaching the desired gear capabilities.
Rigorous testing such as water ingress tests and force tests have been carried out to ensure the Skarper DiskDrive can last thousands of kilometers. Internally dubbed the “Destroyer” experiment, one approach is to try and break the device by simulating continuous cobblestone riding.
“We try to break the Skarper to see what could happen in real life and then we improve on this,” says Skarper Co-founder Uri Meirovich.
An example of this experiment is the cobblestone test where Skarper simulated the vibration that came from riding a bike on cobblestone and then increased the intensity by a further 30%. This enabled the team to test a bike with an attached Skarper unit to ensure that it survived over 1000 kilometers ridden at 30 km/h over cobblestones.
This thorough testing is what lets Skarper confidently offer a two-year warranty.
“We’ve created something that’s bulletproof,” adds Ean. “What gets sold stays sold.”
The unit contains a 250-watt rated motor and a 240Wh battery pack giving a range of up to 50km.
Since its founding in 2020, Skarper has raised more than £8 million including £4 million last year. With a predicted UK retail price of £1,395 including VAT, Skarper expects to deliver its first units to customers who paid a deposit already by the summer of 2024, with the goal of reaching full-scale high-volume production of the DiskDrive by the end of 2024.
Christian Horner, CEO of Oracle Red Bull Racing and Red Bull Advanced Technologies, adds, “this partnership with Skarper demonstrates how F1 expertise can help to improve everyday technology for the benefit of the public. The device is an incredibly clever piece of engineering and we have been able to make it smaller and more powerful thanks to our own talented engineers.”
Skarper is not stopping at just one version of the device. The company is currently in the process of developing a mountain bike variant, along with a new hub that enables the drive unit to run on a rim-brake bike.
Meanwhile, the original Skarper unit is now available for pre-order, with an official launch expected later in the year.
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