This is the Chita. It's an electric mountain bike that's coming soon to the crowdfunding site Indiegogo. "There are only 10,000 Cheetahs survived in the world", the Chita website says. "Their beauty inspired us to design a unique ebike to draw attention to the Cheetahs. Of course beauty does matter."
The resulting bike doesn't really look much like a cheetah but it is a striking-looking thing. The name is a bit of a play on words. Città is also the Italian word for city, and bike is designed as an 'urban mountain bike'. The company is based just outside Rome.
What's going on with that frame then? Well, it's a carbon fibre construction that helps to keep the overall weight of the bike down; Chita claim a 2kg weight for the frame but there's no mention of an overall weight on their website. The diamond-shaped battery sits in the main tiranlgle of the bike. Chita say it'll be a 650Wh unit which, if true, would make it about the largest-capacity electric bike battery you can currently get. It's removeable from the frame and can also be used to charge USB devices.
In terms of actual power delivery the bike uses a fairly standard rear hub motor system. Chita say they'll be using a 400W unit which would make it too powerful for the EU market (250W limit) and also the US market (350W), so it might be that they'll offer another drive option, or possibly that 400W is a peak rating.
The Chita gets some interesting connectivity tech. There'll be a smartphone app which will be able to talk to the bike's power system, and the bike also has an embedded GPS chipset which can send the bike's location via mobile networks. So if it gets stolen, you can track it.
The bike will be launching on the corwdfunding site Indiegogo. The stated launch date is 13 June but it doesn't seem to have made it to the start line yet. It's imminent though, so look out for it.
