South Korea-based Kosmos is crowdfunding a seriously cool looking ebike that not only features a hubless front wheel, but is also foldable, and available to backers at less half its expected retail price.
I want to believe it's legit, but all those ingredients put together have me worried that it might indeed be too good to be true.
Let's start with the good: the retro design keeps things nice and simple, and the hubless wheel ups the minimalist factor a notch. That makes for a bike that will let people know you've got good taste, without drawing a ton of attention to itself.
Kosmos goes on to say this "first-of-its-kind hubless structure," sans hub and spokes, reduces weight and air resistance for a faster, smoother ride. The Kickstarter page also mentions a 'reduced center of gravity' – likely a typo, and is probably meant to read lower center of gravity – that affords you greater traction, easier turns and balance, better braking.
The 48.5-lb (22-kg) bike also folds in half in 10 seconds. Plus, it comes with a mid-drive gearbox that should make for smooth shifts, puncture-resistant tires, a V brake for the front wheel paired with a disc brake at the rear, and a handlebar-mounted display. It should cover 46 miles (74 km) on a full four-hour charge.
That all sounds great on paper (and on screen) – especially when you consider the fact that the hubless F5 model is expected to retail at US$3,500, but can be had for just $1,500 on Kickstarter. But Ebiketips' Alex Bowden noted that the math simply wasn't mathing there, and the campaign hasn't had any new takers beyond the 10 backers Bowden saw listed three weeks ago.
That could just be down to the ebike microbrand business being a difficult playing field. The major stress is that hubless bikes don't make a ton of sense. They swap a perfectly serviceable technology for a needlessly complex one in the name of aesthetics, and add difficulty in repairing it to the mix.
A startup called Reevo tried its hand at making a $2,200 avant garde hubless ebike back in 2020, and ended up delivering orders over a year past its Indiegogo deadline. It was massively panned in the review below by Berm Peak, where it appeared to not only be embarrassingly noisy, but also had deal-breaking issues like awfully weak braking and a tendency to kick into pedal assist when you were simply wheeling it along.
That's not to say that Kosmos will go and make exactly the same mistakes, but that it seems rather difficult to make a hubless ebike. And doing so while trying to keep costs down can prove all the more challenging, which makes it even harder to justify going down that road.
Also, I've owned a foldable bike before, and I agree that it can get small enough to stow away in the trunk of a car or somewhere in a compact apartment. As for hauling it around town to use public transport – well, this one is 48.5 lb (22 kg), and is not exactly going to be comfortable to carry through crowded subway stations. You could do it, but I'd wager you wouldn't want to do so regularly.
There's a lot to like about the idea behind this project, but executing it perfectly is going to be one hell of an uphill battle. I'm more than happy to be proven wrong, and I'd love to see what Kosmos manages to cook up. The company says it's been working on this concept since 2021, and has pictures documenting its development and production. I've also reached out to the company to learn more about this venture, and we'll follow up when we hear back.
Until then, check out these other cool ebikes we spotted recently, including one that juices up with your phone's USB-C cable, Acer's all-terrain fatbike, and this super-light carbon fiber masterpiece.
It should also be noted that all crowdfunding campaigns always carry an element of risk, but should all the dominoes fall in the right order, Kosmos reckons that shipping could start as early as July.
Source: Kickstarter
