Bicycles

Mondraker's Grommy "e-balancebike" is a motorcycle in all but name

Mondraker's Grommy "e-balancebike" is a motorcycle in all but name
Mondraker calls this an e-balancebike, but it's an electric motorcycle
Mondraker calls this an e-balancebike, but it's an electric motorcycle
View 5 Images
Mondraker calls this an e-balancebike, but it's an electric motorcycle
1/5
Mondraker calls this an e-balancebike, but it's an electric motorcycle
A 250-watt mid drive motor and a 60-minute battery
2/5
A 250-watt mid drive motor and a 60-minute battery
Burnouts bro!
3/5
Burnouts bro!
A top speed of 11 mph makes this thing damn quick for a 3-year-old
4/5
A top speed of 11 mph makes this thing damn quick for a 3-year-old
16-inch and 12-inch wheel versions
5/5
16-inch and 12-inch wheel versions
View gallery - 5 images

Ah, balance bikes. My two-year-old is hoofing around on one right now. An early introduction to cycling that can give a kid a bit of confidence on two wheels before introducing the complication of pedals. What that thing needs, says Spanish company Mondraker, is a dirty big electric motor. And thus, we meet the new Grommy e-balancebikes, which come in 12-inch wheel versions for 3-5 year olds and 16-inch versions for your 5-8s.

Both get a 250-watt brushless mid-drive motor, a 4-Ah battery good for 60-odd minutes of riding, a twist throttle, disc brakes and a set of footboards and chunky fat tires. There are three power modes, with the highest topping out at 17.7 km/h (11 mph), or a bit faster than you can sprint on most treadmills.

A top speed of 11 mph makes this thing damn quick for a 3-year-old
A top speed of 11 mph makes this thing damn quick for a 3-year-old

Let's call it what it is: a small, suspension-free motorcycle, and probably vastly illegal for your munchkins to tool around the neighborhood on. Let's also admit, if you rocked up to the park on one of these babies you might just be the coolest kid on the block, until people discover your personality or little Jimmy gets a particularly sick new Beyblade.

This might be the first "balance bike" after which jumping on a pedal-powered BMX you might feel like you've downgraded. And since these things will retail from a starting price of €749 (≈US$880), you might be right. Enjoy a very 80s video below.

New Mondraker Grommy. Charge your imagination

Source: Mondraker

View gallery - 5 images
6 comments
6 comments
paul314
I want to see the liability waiver for this one. Among other things, if you adjust for weight, that motor is equivalent to about 750-1500W for an adult. Lots of little kids are going to be flying through the air as soon as they turn the throttle.
zr2s10
The Stacyc e-balance bike has been available for a couple years. They just released an upgraded version, and 3rd parties sell adapters to use some of the more common drill batteries for extra run time.

Good to see another player in the game, which I would have hoped brought down cost. But it looks like these are just as, if not more, expensive.
DavidB
Oh, what I would’ve given for one of these as a kid!
Signguy
To ride a bike is too excercise; why would they want to go from power to using their legs to propel themselves?
Adrian Akau
The purpose here seems to be to boost future motorcycle sales. It is an awful lot of power with small diameter wheels and a light rider.
Gregg Eshelman
How I learned to ride a bicycle was to separate the actions of balancing and pedaling. I just could not put the two together, could not get balance figured out while having to pedal.

So one day I pushed my bike over to a nearby subdivision that had one dead end, curvy, slightly downhill street. After pushing up to the top end, I got on and pushed off, NOT PEDALING, so that gravity provided propulsion.

When I got to the bottom I had balance. Adding pedaling was easy because balance had "clicked" as an automatic process I no longer thought I had to try to actively manage.