Quella’s gorgeous retro cafe racer e-bikes are for people who don’t want to ride an e-bike
I’m no cyclist, but I’ve always had a soft spot for retro-style cafe racer bikes with clean lines and a lack of unnecessary engineering. A lovely triangular frame, two narrow wheels, caliper brakes and a lovely paint job make the perfect bike for tootling around town. Years ago one company —— made an early hit on Kickstarter with its version of the old-school bike that, sadly, I never got to ride.
There’s a lack of gears, both to add a greater level of mechanical simplicity and also because that’s just how these bikes usually roll. And while it ships as a single-speed, it’s packing a flip-flop hub, so you can convert it into a fixie if you’re, you know, a fixie rider . Of more interest to me, however, is that if you pedal backwards when coasting, you can trigger the bike’s energy-recovery system to re-charge the battery.
This sense of low-stakes carries on through to the fact it’s really only designed for commutes on flat ground. The pedal assist will only push you to speeds of 15 miles per hour, and with 40Nm of torque and the lack of gearing, it probably won’t help you on a serious hill climb. But you can edit your speed profile with the companion app, letting you switch from low to high-power when you need that little bit more.
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