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TECH NEWS
orbea gain ultegra.jpgOrbea’s Gain e-bike looks just like a normal road bike but packs 250w motor
Could Orbea’s Gain offer a glimpse of an e-bike future?
The Focus Project Y shocked many with a concept bike that was visually indistinguishable from a regular road bike, but the bold new Orbea Gain takes the deception to another level. The aim has been to conceal all the electric features inside a bike that resembles a regular bike. And by god have they achieved that: I had to do a double take when I first saw it.
“We’re at the doorstep of a new era,” reckons Orbea. That's a bold claim indeed. However, the company says it focused on designing an e-bike that enhances the ride, rather than dominates it. It’s for those people that want a better adventure or want some assistance on a commute, those people getting into cycling for the first time or after time away from the bike, or would-be cyclists daunted by the fitness barrier, of helping people switch from other forms of transport to a bicycle.
At the heart of the new Gain road bike is a 250wh battery in the downtube powering a 250w motor housed inside the rear hub manufactured by fellow Spanish firm ebikemotion. It's claimed to be good for a range of 75km, though external batteries can extend that to 250km. The motor delivers up to 40 Nm of torque and it’s been tuned to offer the best performance between 15 and 25kph.
Much of the focus of attention with the latest generation of e-bikes has been on bottom bracket-based power units like those from Bosch and Shimano. The ebikemotion X-35 system takes a different approach and houses the motor inside the rear hub. Not only does this offer better integration potential, as highlighted by how much the new Orbea Gain looks like a normal road bike, but also less weight as the motor, battery and associated gubbins weigh 3.5kg.
Claimed weight for the Orbea Gain, even with the aluminium frame and fork, is around 13kg, so lighter is definitely possible with a move to carbon fibre. The battery has all the necessary controls neatly integrated into it, with an on/off control button on the top tube also providing battery and assist level. There’s also a smartphone app providing control over the system along with ride tracking and route planning.
The motor is hidden in the rear hub with a magnetic cassette lock ring and sensor integrated into the dropout monitoring pedalling input and feeding in power assist as it’s needed. Moving the motor to the freehub allows a bike manufacturer to use any bottom bracket and crankset they want, but ebikemotion adds that this system offers lower friction, which could be useful when surpassing the 25kph speed limit that all e-bikes must adhere to by law. You can learn more about the motor system here
How much is the Gain?
Orbea is offering five Gain bikes, three road bikes and two adventure models.
The Gain D40 (€1,799) uses an aluminium frame with a Shimano Claris groupset and RS305 mechanical disc brakes with an 11-32t 8-speed cassette. https://www.orbea.com/gb-en/ebikes/gain-d40
Move up to the Gain D30 (€2,299) and you get an upgrade to a Shimano Tiagra 4700 drivetrain with RS405 hydraulic disc brakes and an FSA Omega Compact chainset.
The top-end Gain D10 (€2,999) is equipped with Shimano Ultegra R8000 parts with hydraulic disc brakes and an FSA Gossamer chainset.
Moving onto the adventure bikes, the Gain D20 (€2,899) is specced with a SRAM Rival 1x11 groupset with a FSA Omega Compact chainset and Schwalbe G-One Allround 40mm wide tyres.
The Gain D15 (€3,899) keeps the same SRAM Rival parts as the D20 but upgrades the crankset and cassette to SRAM Force and has upgraded contact points.
More info at www.orbea.com/ie-en/ebikes/brands-road
David worked on the road.cc tech team from 2012-2020. Previously he was editor of Bikemagic.com and before that staff writer at RCUK. He's a seasoned cyclist of all disciplines, from road to mountain biking, touring to cyclo-cross, he only wishes he had time to ride them all. He's mildly competitive, though he'll never admit it, and is a frequent road racer but is too lazy to do really well. He currently resides in the Cotswolds, and you can now find him over on his own YouTube channel David Arthur - Just Ride Bikes.
Latest Comments
- levestane 12 min 22 sec ago
Cutty Sark is still with us.
- Hirsute 1 hour 50 min ago
No driver involved https://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/24728452.car-crash-station-way-colch...
- chrisonabike 2 hours 15 min ago
On the last that's also a problem of success in many ways and I don't think is fixable by "more of the same". Roads attract motoring - better...
- hawkinspeter 2 hours 28 min ago
The kind of common sense that associates global financial crises and recession with a need to cut back on libraries and allow unlimited banker...
- chrisonabike 2 hours 30 min ago
There you go, you had a chance to correct your tacit support for the cultural revolution (and you've been silent on the burning of the Library of...
- hawkinspeter 3 hours 41 min ago
To be charitable to the police (though I wonder why I should), they're acting on a specific complaint raised by the motorist and so are doing their...
- chrisonabike 5 hours 1 min ago
They almost never get to experience them... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ngifg--1eW4
- stonojnr 5 hours 10 min ago
its tricky because there are arguably hundreds, maybe even thousands of "problem areas" on any sportive route, that potentially could result in the...
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51 comments
E-bikes are the new helmet-debate. Polarising for certain, but there's no right and there's no wrong. Actually, whatever your views are, you're right. And more bikes on the road - we're all winners.
Yes. And using both, especially together, makes sense !
When you young tykes get too old to do Alps dHuez on 34 - 28, then you'll think that these ebikes will look like a good option.
She will catch up with you at some point, everything will get harder and the hills won't be as easy (unless you're the 60+ ex pro who breezed past me on a French climb)
If it keeps me riding when I'm old, then I'm all for it.
My neighbour is 84, and he still goes out for a 60mile ride, despite having problems with his hip after fracturing it in a call from his bike.
I like riding up alpine climbs for the ride back down, I want to be able to do this when I'm old, especially on an ebike that looks like a normal bike. Bring it on
I thought 'vegetarian sausage' was a euphamism for erectile dysfunction.
I've got mixed feelings.
On the one hand, if they get more people into biking, then great. If I bought one for my wife, then she'd get out more and we could ride together, which would be a good thing. There'd be no danger of her using it for anything other than leisure rides, though, due to various practicalities.
On the other hand, I had some big, unfit chap sat on my wheel at the trail centre last time I went, which was bloody annoying and he was really too close for comfort. He went past at a break in the sections - happily, he was the only one that managed to get past me and make it stick.
50 mile+ sportives are going to get pretty rammed if they really take off and I'm not going to sponsor anyone using an e-bike, regardless of charity
There are plenty of knobheads riding sportives already. I can't see how adding e-bikes will make much difference TBH. Blame the rider, not the machine.
Why are you riding a trail centre like it's a race? I don't know why you didn't just let the faster rider get past. It doesn't matter whether he's Nino Schurter or a fat bloke on an e-bike, you were holding him up.
I would suggest "Great Cock and Seagull Race" (2012) but she was a "Golden Earth Girl" (1993).
Maybe we should let it be...
Why do vegetarian sausages exist?
Good question. I often wonder how you can still buy Linda McCartney sausages in the supermarket? She died 19 years ago and she wasn't a big woman...
To cater for those who have yet to smell a bacon sandwich.
Probably because we all prefer the aesthetics Davel...
I think the only objection I have is... Why does it have to be disguised?
The fact that it looks like a 'normal' pushbike, with hidden electrics, suggests they know their market is people pretending to be on a normal bike, when they're on an ebike.
Why?
I think it's more the fact that previous e-bikes were hideous.
I'm sure that put off a lot of people.
They were indeed.
The electrics are a bit too hidden, though, for me... a bit 'here you go, Strava warriors, nudge nudge wink wink'.
On the plus side, I really like the bike, it looks pretty smart and Orbea really seem to have thought about what someone needs on a bike like this, I didn't see if there were details about mudguards and rack mount points, I would assume there would be otherwise that seems like a bit of an oversight.
And nice to see that orange appears to be one of the colours of the new season bikes, hooray for not just black and red bikes (disclaimer, I ride a black and red bike)
I am not sure what I think about ebikes*. My starting point is "why do I ride a bike?" Obviously the answer can be different - sometimes it's for racing, sometimes it's to arse around with my mates (sometimes this is the same things as racing, just with a bit more arsing about), sometimes it's just because it gives me time to think (or not to think), sometimes it's to get from A to B. With the potential exception of the last of these (commuting), I can't see a circumstance where any of these experiences would be improved by adding a motor. I don't really get the theory that you should buy an ebike to keep up with your mates mostly because I tend to the view that if your "mates" drop you and then leave you to find your own way home they probably aren't really your mates. As to commuting, I tend to do either medium journey of 20km (to and from work) or short journeys (max 1km) around home running errands, visting friends, collecting children. A bit of pedal assist on the medium commutes might come in handy but if I still have to shower when I get to the other end (because its pedal assist) then I am not sure its worth it, esp because over 20km with a lot of traffic lights I can't see myself saving all that much time. And who wants to get to work faster anyway. And for shorter journeys of c.1km, not really worth it. So I don't think an ebike is for me at this stage in my life.
* Although I have a pretty firm view that they DON'T belong off road.
I have to say that using an e-bike for my job is great, but I definitely lost some fitness.
I did up a retro 80s racing bike at the beginning of the summer and have ridden it a lot. At first I struggled on some of the hlls because I'd been letting the motor take the strain. It took a few weeks to get back into the kind of shape where a 20 mile ride is nothing, never mind getting into proper long rides.
The e-bike is great for short commutes with the shopping thoough.
*sorry auto fill on your name...
Every locked internal combustion vehicle in a garage is win for me. Take bicycle, e-bicycle, public transport, walk do whatever you want. As long as city's air is clean, everybody will win
I think its great.
But
My next bike will be a eMTB to commute and to MTB. Kill all birds with one stone.
I can't wait for super plush ride to work.
Watch out !
The Mamils (Middle Age Man In Lycra) will become eonXLs (Electrified Old Narcicist In Xtrasupportive Lycra)
I'm sure Sir Chris Hoy will agree !
In the movie "wall-E", the inhabitants of a spaceship spend their days riding hoverscooters, while they sip giant sweetened drinks while looking at screens. All of them are obese and know nothing of the outside world.
This is the world we are headed for, and e-bikes, in my opinion, are hastening this future. They do this by tolerating, and promoting, weakness and frailty, instead of health, strength and independence. All this blather about how e-bikes will permit those who cannot cycle regularly to enjoy a bike are just a convienient excuse for these types to perpetuate their infirmities (and to sell more e-bikes).
Strength is the most basic human quality, and others derive from it - balance, power, speed. People that cannot ride a bike need to get stronger, and whatever infirmity they have that prevents them from riding a regular bike will be improved or eliminated, enabling them to ride normally.
Getting stronger involves a putting forth of effort, in the form of strength training. I guess this is not the place to go into detail about the methods of training, so I will just say that there is hardly a physical, or healthy attribute that cannot be improved through strength training. I think anyone able enough to ride a bike can engage in strength training.
A stronger populace would render e-bikes unnecessary, but as long as they exist, people will bypass methods to improve their physical condition, because they will always have a motor to fall back on, when their condition deteriorates even further, which it most certainly will. Soon the "bike" part of "e-bike" will be forgotten, and it will be all "e", just another powered vehicle to compete with on the roads and paths.
All those bike lanes and paths that are being built throughout the world for regular bikes? Soon they will be "E-bike highways and expressways", and regular cyclists will be shut out once again.
A weaker future lies ahead, which is why I have said, and will continue to say, that e-bikes suck.
If only someone would invent a device that could help people build up their cycling strength.
Maybe a bicycle with adjustable levels of assistance so you could gradually taper it down until you can ride unassisted?
E-bikes can actually help people get in to cycling and enjoy all the health benefits associated with it.
Also, not all conditions will respond to training, there are many people who will never be able to ride a bicycle unassisted, e-bikes will also allow them to enjoy our sport.
This, and the rest of your post, is pompous nonsense.
E-bikes will not make people fat or weak.
The decline in activity in general, including the abandonment of manual labour in many developed countries, has been accompanied by the mass production of cars, TVs etc, the rise in availability of very cheap, calorie-dense factory food, among other things. Even before the internet became the time-swallowing behemoth it is now many people lived quite sedentary lives.
You're both correct, from my sample group of one an e-(motor)bike user has said they've lost fitness/condition and rarely goes out on their non-motor bikes. On the other hand those who adopt e-(motor)bikes will see a rise in fitness although it's debatable how much that will be. In the long run engines & batteries will get better & much like the Yamaha Fizzy, the pedals will be for show and really it's an electric scooter
Say what you want about cycling on this site (it's subjective) but get your movie facts right: in Wall-E they did not use scooters, the humans sat in hoverchairs, there was no scooting. Blue is the new red.
You seem to be assuming that ebikes require no effort or level of power input from the rider? In comparison to driving (or sitting on your arse in front of the tv) even the highest levels of assistance require some pedalling input, they're not an electric scooter. So someone who has done no exercise in say the last decade, gets on one of these, starts riding to the shops on a sturday, maybe using it once or twice a week to get to work or go for a ride with the kids/spouse, they're going to be getting more exercise than they were, and that comes without the effect that a lot of people who try to take up casual riding experience, after a few rides they get over ambitious and have a ride they don't enjoy, which puts them off, should they be discouraged? or mocked for not being strong enough to keep pushing through like the apparent superhuman you are?
If everyone who owned a car owned an ebike and used it for all sub 10 mile journeys the obesity crisis would be massively reversed. some exercise is vastly better than no exercise, and surely it's better than driving to the gym to do your 20 minutes on the exercise bike and driving home?
As for those bothered by not knowing you're being overtaken by someone on an ebike, get over it, if you're that concerned about your performance go and join a race league, or organise your own. If you're that easily offended by someone overtaking you that you deem shouldn't be able to, then you really are worrying about the wrong thing, at least it's not another car going past you.
Of course you have not got to the stage in life when a medical/health issue gets in the way of doing something you have spent half your enjoying. For example cycling.
This is where an e-bike comes into its own . Don't knock it you ignorant kill joy !
All a bit too 'blood and soil' for my liking. Netizche almost certainly suffered from untreated syphilis, and is not to be taken seriously unless one is a perpetual public-school 6th-former and tosspot.
Anyway, there already exists a means to 'bypass methods to improve their physical condition' - it's called the motor car. So that ship has sailed long ago.
The absolutely critical issue, for me, is that these things be very strictly speed limited so they can't end up bullying active travel off the throughfares that are intended for it.
Other than that I don't care, nobody forces anyone to use them, people can develop infirmities no matter how much 'strength training' the undertake, these things take up a fraction of the space of those motor cars, and their finite battery-life is probably always going to limit their use anyway.
gimme, this can replace my recently bought folding E-bike for my commute, and it looks comfy enough to do the whole 10 miles, so i can ditch the bus half.
If it wasn't for awkward laws, a 250w E-bike can comfortably do 32KPH, which while it doesn't sound like much of an increase of the 25-26KPH limit, it makes a huge difference.
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