There's been a bit a lull in new e-bikes launching on crowdfunding platforms over the dark winter months, but the sun's out now (albeit briefly) and with it the news that Danish startup Movea will be launching their new bike on indidgogo on 1 May, with a big discount available for early adopters.
"Today's city-dweller wants to look good, expects a comfortable, environmentally friendly, stress and sweat-free transport to work and, despite all this, he wants to have the opportunity to use his bike in his free time for sporting activities", says Movea. "Ordinary bicycles or e bikes severely restrict freedom of movement in the middle of an urban environment simply because of their size and bulky designs. Movea offers shapely, handy and solution-oriented design paired with high quality and the latest technology."
So what's Movea's solution? Well, it's a simple alloy-framed city bike with a choice of 20" or 24" wheels. There's two versions of the frame, the lower stepover build (pictured above) aimed by Movea at women, although we think it's probably the better looking and more practical choice for anyone it'll fit.
The bike was developed by Danish bike designer Lars Jensen in cooperation with Anders Hermansen, a celebrated product designer formerly of Bang & Olufsen. "Nowadays it is no longer just a matter of building a high-quality bicycle. With the changed living and working situation in the large cities, people have completely new demands on the ideal means of transport for their everyday life", says Jensen. "My vision is to reconcile exactly these requirements and to combine them in an environmentally friendly, beautiful designd and highly functional vehicle for the city. When developing the Movea e-bike, we literally started with a blank sheet of paper to incorporate all our design ideas, experiences and knowledge of the last two decades into a completely new bicycle line." That design process has culminated in a bike with a single gear and no mudguards, so if you live somewhere wet or hilly (or both, like us) then it probably isn't going to be your first choice.
The Movea uses the Zehus BIKE+ all-in-one hub motor which we've covered before on ebiketips. It's a 250W hub motor that also contains a 160Wh battery, and a Bluetooth-enabled control unit that can be configured using the Zehus app on your smartphone. As e-bike power systems go it's very inconspicuous and and also extremely light, only adding just over 3kg to the weight of the bike. The trade off is the limited range from the small battery, and it's not the most powerful system. The Zehus system can be configured to recharge the battery when you're coasting or riding along on the flat, so there's always juice in the battery when you need it. Zehus claim that it 'never needs charging', although we suspect that you'd have to have the energy recovery systems on a pretty high setting for that to be the case, even if you lived somewhere flat.
The Movea bike comes with a neat-looking CNC alloy rack which looks like it's more of a design statement than a genuinely useful way of carrying stuff around. Hopefully they'll use the mounting system built into the bike to also offer something a bit more suited for day-to-day carrying, like the basket the Orbea Katu comes with.
The Movea will retail for €2,799. If you're ready to dive in when the indiegogo campaign goes live then you can save yourself €1,200 and get the bike for €1,599. Head over to the Movea website and get yourself on their mailing list if you want to stay informed ahead of the launch.
